The highlight of day two of B Dash Camp Osaka was the startup pitch event, with a number of quality entrants from Japan and around Asia. The grand prize winner of the event was Kaizen Platform, whose CEO Kenji Sudo pitched their PlanBCD service. He was awarded a Microsoft Surface 2, a Sony Xperia Tablet Z, as well as return invite to the next B Dash Camp
The service is a little tricky to wrap your head around, but its primary function is to help developers improve the user interface of their web service. The front page of their site boasts “Growth Hackers are ready to optimize your site.”
But of course it can be costly for companies to hire growth hackers for such improvements, but PlanBCD proposes a crowdsourced solution and useful tools for short-term A/B testing. You will need to set a budget for your site improvement, and then add some javascript to your site’s headers. After that you wait for suggested improvements from growth hackers, and you can A/B test the ones you like best. The results can then be reviewed on a handy dashboard.
Sudo says that they will be looking to expand globally, with the goal of becoming a sort of Github for growth hackers. But they still need to look at reducing their tool’s cost.
Kaizen Platform Inc. just raised seed funding worth $800,000 from GREE Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, and CyberAgent Ventures back in August, with the intention of stepping up its system development and marketing. And it wouldn’t surprise us at all to see them attract more investment very soon.
You can check out their demo video below to learn more about PlanBCD, as well as some of the slides from the pitch (in Japanese).
This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. In the second morning session on day two of B Dash Camp Osaka, we heard a panel on the latest developments in smartphone advertising. Included in the talk on stage was Ganesan Velayathan, CEO, Fun & Cool Ventures, and Sid Bhatt, CEO of Aarki Inc. Joining the talk via Skype was Brian Wong, the co-founder of Kiip. 22-year-old Wong was an especially interesting (and charismatic) addition to this panel, since Kiip actually refuses to be called an ad company, instead preferring the moniker of ‘rewards company’. He says they are trying to redefine brand engagement, as well as connections that brands have with consumers: Kiip came from our observation that people were already engaged in ‘moments of happiness’. When people got a high score in a game, there’s an emotion. But that moment of happiness would often be abused by an ad. We wanted to instead acknowledge and reward these moments. Kiip is currently included in about 1500 apps. They started out in games but they are now in six verticals, including fitness, music, to-do, and food. Many of the ad dollars that come their way would…
Ganesan Velayathan, CEO, Fun & Cool Ventures Inc., Sid Bhatt, CEO of Aarki Inc
In the second morning session on day two of B Dash Camp Osaka, we heard a panel on the latest developments in smartphone advertising. Included in the talk on stage was Ganesan Velayathan, CEO, Fun & Cool Ventures, and Sid Bhatt, CEO of Aarki Inc. Joining the talk via Skype was Brian Wong, the co-founder of Kiip.
22-year-old Wong was an especially interesting (and charismatic) addition to this panel, since Kiip actually refuses to be called an ad company, instead preferring the moniker of ‘rewards company’. He says they are trying to redefine brand engagement, as well as connections that brands have with consumers:
Kiip came from our observation that people were already engaged in ‘moments of happiness’. When people got a high score in a game, there’s an emotion. But that moment of happiness would often be abused by an ad. We wanted to instead acknowledge and reward these moments.
Sid Bhatt, CEO of Aarki
Kiip is currently included in about 1500 apps. They started out in games but they are now in six verticals, including fitness, music, to-do, and food. Many of the ad dollars that come their way would normally be spent on video, he explains:
They want the relationship with users to be a reciprocal one, starting such relationships “with a gift rather than yelling.”
We are now one of Hulu’s top three acquisition partners in the US. […] The bottom line is simple: As long as you have something relevant with a timely aspect to it, people will convert at a higher rate [than traditional ads]
Kiip is currently working with Yahoo Japan as one of their premier partners. They are also working with Lawsons, SMCC, Dell, with many more companies to come later. Japan is an especially fitting environment for a service like Kiip, as Wong explains:
Japan has a great mobile literacy. You can tap your phone and buy something, but that still science fiction in the US. In Japan, that science fiction is a reality. And I felt our platform would be accelerated there.
Like Kiip, Aarki Inc has been getting pretty creative in how it engages consumers on mobile devices. CEO Sid Bhatt showed off some really fun demos, including a rich media ad for Landrover. That ad let the user move their phone around to display a 360-degree view of the inside of a Landrover. Time spent in such rich media ads can be over two minutes, says Sid, and this is what advertisers are really looking for these days.
The traditional format, the banner ad, is quickly becoming obsolete. People still use it but it is definitely not the future.
And then there’s the Asia problem
Sid explained a little about their platform, which allows the creation of complex ads with drag and drop widgets, doing so in a better, faster, cheaper way.
He says that they are considering an office in Japan, but they are still trying hard to understand the market. What we build in the US may not be applicable in Asia.
Ganesan expressed this very same point as well, saying that In addition to the challenges that come with innovating new advertising technology, operating in the Asia region brings a whole new set of obstacles:
In Asia each country has its own style. Agencies still control the market in Japan.[…] Southeast Asia has many languages, many cultures, and different dominant market players. So [the challenge is] how to navigate that, and the agencies, and deliver the best results.
Ganesan, who operates an Asia-focused market place where developers and advertisers can connect, explained the value of their service by pointing out how it lets users choose the app where they advertise, rather than use an algorithm to select.
Moderator Tak Miyata from Scrum Ventures shared some figures to clarify the importance of the innovations these panelists have developed. Mobile ad spend, he says, was only 1 percent of all ad spend in 2011, but by 2017 it will represent about 17 percent – surpassing traditional media.
So while there will certainly be a payoff for companies who can figure out how to best engage consumers on mobile, those who can solve that riddle in regions across Asia have an especially big reward in store.
This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. On day two of B Dash Camp in Osaka, we had a chance to hear from two big international companies with their eyes on big market opportunities on mobile, particularly here in Japan. Moderator Tomohiko Kuboto (marketing officer at GCA Savvian Corporation) spoke with Spotify’s Japan director Hannes Graah, and Videology’s APAC managing director, Kenneth Pao. Spotify has launched its streaming music service in 32 markets, with 24 million active users and 6 million paying subscribers. But the company has yet to launch in Japan, and Hannes tells me that they still don’t have any specific timeline for launch here. But they do have an office here with four employees, and hopefully they can lay the groundwork for the Spotify to enter. As Hannes explained, Japan represents a big opportunity, not just for them, but for the music industry too: The average spend of a CD buyer was about $50 or $60. But for a year of Spotify, that costs about $120 a year, which is double that. I would say that it is less about losing money, but more about growing the overall pie. During the…
Spotify Japan director Hannes Graah, Videology APAC managing director Kenneth Pao
On day two of B Dash Camp in Osaka, we had a chance to hear from two big international companies with their eyes on big market opportunities on mobile, particularly here in Japan. Moderator Tomohiko Kuboto (marketing officer at GCA Savvian Corporation) spoke with Spotify’s Japan director Hannes Graah, and Videology’s APAC managing director, Kenneth Pao.
Spotify has launched its streaming music service in 32 markets, with 24 million active users and 6 million paying subscribers. But the company has yet to launch in Japan, and Hannes tells me that they still don’t have any specific timeline for launch here. But they do have an office here with four employees, and hopefully they can lay the groundwork for the Spotify to enter. As Hannes explained, Japan represents a big opportunity, not just for them, but for the music industry too:
The average spend of a CD buyer was about $50 or $60. But for a year of Spotify, that costs about $120 a year, which is double that. I would say that it is less about losing money, but more about growing the overall pie.
During the Q&A session I could help but ask him how much of an obstacle music industry incumbents are for a company like Spotify. And while Hannes diplomatically declined to rank how much of a nuisance they are on a one-to-ten scale as I asked (perhaps I should have phrased my question differently?), he did underscore the excitement that comes with a big music market like Japan:
Every market has challenges, in many different ways. Japan is less of a challenge than it is an opportunity, because it is the second largest music market after the US. The music industry here has been looking for new solutions for a while now. In the last year we have seen some streaming services emerge from the local market and abroad, so its an exciting time to be here.
He adds that piracy and non-monetized consumers represents a huge opportunity, and he looks forward to Japan moving into an era of more profitability.
Kenneth Pao, Videology
Similarly, Kenneth Pao explained that Japan represents a huge opportunity for Videology too. He began by explaining a little about their ad technology service, which he describes as the “the pipes under the house” which enables brands and advertisers to complete TV ad spending online. In short, says Ken, they put the right advertising in front of the right person.
Videology is active in 18 countries, and Ken hopes that Japan will be the 19th. They did 13.5 billion yen in revenue last year, with 40% of those revenues coming from TV budgets. They have raised 13.4 billion yen in venture funding, NEA, Catalyst Investors, Comcast, and they work with big name publishers like ABC, NBC, ESPN, ITV.
Kenneth explained that in the Japan, there is just 2 billion yen in online ad video spend, which compares to about 410 billion yen in the US. He noted the importance of using internet and mobile in addition to traditional media:
Many people see digital as a competitor of television. But that’s not necessarily the case. If we look at the London Olympics, we saw mobile and tablets actually complement TV. […]
There are an abundance of people on the internet and mobile, and advertisers are not reaching them. Other areas like print, radio, and TV are pretty much saturated.
He adds that if TV broadcasters don’t take advantage of this, there are many disrupters that will jump into that void. It will be interesting to see how Videology fares in particular as it increases its focus on Japan.
This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. The highlight of day one at B Dash Camp in Osaka was the final session featuring Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. It’s unusual for him to join an open event like this, so this was a bit of a treat, especially following the social gaming session that took place earlier in the afternoon. Iwata started out with some slides to remind us that Nintendo started out as a card game company way back in 1889. He outlined how the company transitioned to TV games and then to consoles as a game platform. Nintendo is an old company, but always one that wants to make something new, he emphasized. When we talk about Nintendo we cannot ignore (former president) Hiroshi Yamauchi who just recently passed away. He always said that if you have failure, you don’t need to be too concerned. You always have good things and bad, and this reflects the history of Nintendo [1]. Iwata, as you might expect with so many folks from the mobile industry in attendance, really focused on his company’s longevity, innovation, and legacy of surprising the world with something entirely new. If…
The highlight of day one at B Dash Camp in Osaka was the final session featuring Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. It’s unusual for him to join an open event like this, so this was a bit of a treat, especially following the social gaming session that took place earlier in the afternoon.
Iwata started out with some slides to remind us that Nintendo started out as a card game company way back in 1889. He outlined how the company transitioned to TV games and then to consoles as a game platform. Nintendo is an old company, but always one that wants to make something new, he emphasized.
When we talk about Nintendo we cannot ignore (former president) Hiroshi Yamauchi who just recently passed away. He always said that if you have failure, you don’t need to be too concerned. You always have good things and bad, and this reflects the history of Nintendo [1].
Iwata, as you might expect with so many folks from the mobile industry in attendance, really focused on his company’s longevity, innovation, and legacy of surprising the world with something entirely new.
If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out. Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge [the status quo] by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market.
Iwata left, Nobuo Sayama right
While fans are screaming out for the company to go the way of Sega and and produce games for our mobile devices, Nintendo has been a stubborn holdout. That was, of course, the elephant in the room during Iwata’s talk, with the final question of the Q&A session predictably asking if Nintendo would ever shake from its stance of refusing to produce games for hardware other than its own. Iwata’s response to that was predictably curt:
No one knows the future, but I don’t think that’s going to happen with Nintendo.
As our readers may recall from a few weeks back, I myself have been dreaming that someday soon Nintendo might make a Hail Mary pass by producing a DS Phone. From Iwata’s comments, that does not look to be a likely scenario – although he did leave the door open a crack to the possibility.
I confess, I’ve all but given up hope for the salvation of Nintendo. But at the same time, hearing Iwata describe his company as one that looks for something entirely new – well, that claim appeals to the nostalgic gamer in me, the one that has been three times captivated by the company’s innovations [2]. I’d love to think that the company could pull off a home run again, but the skeptic in me thinks Nintendo is no longer capable of such things.
And yet, Iwata still kept talking.
And it did not sound ridiculous:
It’s often called the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, looking for something that no one else is working on. When we created the DS, people said it was strange to have a dual display, and people said elderly people don’t play games. But they did. Opening the first door is when things are most interesting.
He went on to speak of the challenge they faced in pushing Pokemon abroad:
Will America accept cute monsters? No, they said. Some people even recommended to make Pikachu more muscular. If we followed their advice Pokemon would never have been the success that it was. Brain Training software (Brain Age) became a hit in Japan, and I proposed that we sell it globally. And even as I said that as the president, no one listened.
But actually, Brain Training did better in Europe than anywhere else, and Iwata rolled out a handy chart to show as much.
He went on to praise his company, explaining how motivated Nintendo staffers are. “It’s easy for our employees to see the benefits of the work they do”, he explained, “and when employees are excited, well, that’s the best possible state for a company.”
It’s all too easy to bash Nintendo for its stubbornness in the face of the smartphone revolution. I’ve done it, and I’ll probably continue to do it. But I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t also rooting for the company to pull off that last second miracle that turns the gaming industry on its head.
The giant is now the underdog, and I’m really not sure why, but I’m still rooting for them to do well.
Do note that quotes in this article are taken from live translation during the event, and that Iwata’s talk was in Japanese. So it’s possible that quotes may not be entirely accurate or verbatim, but I think they are generally solid. ↩
When I say three times, I’m referring to the Nintendo Entertainment System, Gameboy, and the Nintendo DS. I didn’t buy a Wii, so I missed that train. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013. On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, the first session featured a discussion, moderated by Hiroyuki Watanabe of B Dash Ventures, with two representatives of leading Japanese leading internet companies: Yusuke Asakura, CEO of Mixi; and Taichi Murakami, CEO of Livesense Mixi has revised its fiscal year performance forecast ending March of 2014, down from 13.5 billion yen ($139 million) to 8 billion ($82.4 million), forcing their executives into a hard spot. Meanwhile Livesense, while not well recognized by many outside Japan, but is performing well. We’re forecasting an operating profit worth 1.5 billion yen ($15.5 million). Currently we are exploring the launch of a new monetization model like a buzz marketing site. The both companies need to think about their future business strategy in their respective business environments. Coinciding with a new acquisition just announced today (they’ll acquire speed-dating organizer Confianza to launch a match-making business), Mixi’s Asakura spoke about his company’s future potential for in-house service development and M&A. Our readers may recall that to date Mixi has launched mobile testing environment DeployGate, photobook service Nohana,…
From the left: B Dash Ventures’ Hiroyuki Watanabe, Livesense’s Taichi Murakami, Mixi’s Yusuke Asakura
On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, the first session featured a discussion, moderated by Hiroyuki Watanabe of B Dash Ventures, with two representatives of leading Japanese leading internet companies: Yusuke Asakura, CEO of Mixi; and Taichi Murakami, CEO of Livesense
Mixi has revised its fiscal year performance forecast ending March of 2014, down from 13.5 billion yen ($139 million) to 8 billion ($82.4 million), forcing their executives into a hard spot. Meanwhile Livesense, while not well recognized by many outside Japan, but is performing well.
We’re forecasting an operating profit worth 1.5 billion yen ($15.5 million). Currently we are exploring the launch of a new monetization model like a buzz marketing site.
The both companies need to think about their future business strategy in their respective business environments. Coinciding with a new acquisition just announced today (they’ll acquire speed-dating organizer Confianza to launch a match-making business), Mixi’s Asakura spoke about his company’s future potential for in-house service development and M&A. Our readers may recall that to date Mixi has launched mobile testing environment DeployGate, photobook service Nohana, a business research service, and a match-making business.
Watanabe asked how such new businesses can be synergized with their conventional businesses. Asakura replied:
We don’t need to pursue immediate synergy with our services. By making the most of the knowledge we have, we will keep acquiring new services and development ones in house. For example, the match-making business will be treated as separate from our main business.
Livesense’s Murakami unveiled they have four different business development efforts: internal service development, investment in startups, M&A, and partnerships. When pressed by the moderator, he confessed that he had hoped to invest in private lesson marketplace Cyta.jp, recently acquired by Japanese recipe site Cookpad. This prompted a big laugh from the audience.
Since Livesense has been developing a database business from the scratch, it helps them build up knowledge on how to better develop a new business. He said this will also work even in a business that is entirely different from their own existing businesses.
This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. On day one of B Dash Camp Osaka, we heard from a stacked panel from the world of social gaming, including Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu, inBlue CEO Tomohiro Ootomi, Mobcast director and general manager Takeshi Sato. The moderator was DeNA chief game strategy officer Kenji Kobayashi. Any panel including Gumi’s jovial CEO Kunimitsu-san is naturally going to be an easy-going one. But despite the lighthearted tone, the discussion kept coming back to the many problems that exist for Japanese game developers these days. Kobayashi said that games in the app space are obviously growing at a great pace [1], with titles like Puzzle & Dragons, Candy Crush, and Clash of Clans doing incredibly well. Even console makers are trying to replicate their success, says Kobayashi. But he also pointed out the many games that go unfound on the app store, and that that the environment can be quite harsh if you don’t have a runaway hit. Kunimitsu compared the gaming sector to a gold rush, and pointed out that if you dig relentlessly for gold, you will probably die. If you want to do well in gaming,…
This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013.
On day one of B Dash Camp Osaka, we heard from a stacked panel from the world of social gaming, including Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu, inBlue CEO Tomohiro Ootomi, Mobcast director and general manager Takeshi Sato. The moderator was DeNA chief game strategy officer Kenji Kobayashi.
Any panel including Gumi’s jovial CEO Kunimitsu-san is naturally going to be an easy-going one. But despite the lighthearted tone, the discussion kept coming back to the many problems that exist for Japanese game developers these days.
Gumi CEO Kunimitsu
Kobayashi said that games in the app space are obviously growing at a great pace [1], with titles like Puzzle & Dragons, Candy Crush, and Clash of Clans doing incredibly well. Even console makers are trying to replicate their success, says Kobayashi. But he also pointed out the many games that go unfound on the app store, and that that the environment can be quite harsh if you don’t have a runaway hit.
Kunimitsu compared the gaming sector to a gold rush, and pointed out that if you dig relentlessly for gold, you will probably die. If you want to do well in gaming, it’s hard work.
“I wouldn’t recommend it for my kids,” he explained. Globalizing is much more complex, he adds:
I think many developers create and app, put it in English, press ‘launch’ (so to speak) and expect it to do well. But it’s necessary to localize. When the competition was not intense, or the market was not mature, it was not so bad. But now localization/regionization is important.
Kunimitsu-san said that his own company, Gumi, has launched and expanded globally. They struggled initially, but their games in Singapore are doing particularly well right now.
Sato from Mobcast mentioned that the problems facing game creators today can potentially distract them from their goal if they aren’t careful:
For game creators that need to deal with so many issues, I don’t think this is really their main role, or what they should be focusing their efforts on.
Sato also spoke a little about the challenge of finding new game creators:
But it is very hard to motivate creators, but our CEO (Koki Yabu) has a good feel for this. I think we should stick with good creators and encourage (and nurture) them, rather than search out new ones.
InBlue’s Ootomi also agreed that the challenges facing game developers are indeed a problem. But he also pointed out the opportunity that exists for supporting services that solve problems:
I founded the company alone, and we used external services like Github, or some GMO services, or Mixi’s DeployGate (which is very convenient). We think there’s much room for these kind of services to enter.
Kunimitsu ended the panel on a high note, saying the he hopes that if we meet again next year that they can speak on some more positive things. You never know who will have a winning idea, he concluded.
inBlue CEO Tomohiro Ootomi
In comparison to browser games which are relatively stable in Japan, not growing nearly as much. ↩
Rick Martin
Takeshi Hirano
