Coinciding with this funding, Fumiaki Koizumi, who had been serving as a part-time director, was appointed as a full-time officer. In addition, Shinichi Takamiya, the chief strategy officer at Globis Capital Partners has joined the board of directors.
Since the service’s launch back in July, the Mercari app has surpassed one million listed items, growing at a pace of 10,000 items every day (as of last December). Their daily submissions recently grew to tens of thousand of items, and total transactions on the platform also reached several million of US dollars. The app has seen 1.5 million downloads to date.
Furthermore, the company is planning to launch a subsidiary in the US to begin its international business operations. Mercari co-founder Ryo Ishizuka, former senior architect at Rock You, will be appointed as a representative for the US company.
From the left: Director Fumiaki Koizumi and co-founder/CEO Shintaro Yamada
The company’s CEO Shintaro Yamada told us a little about who their typical users are, and how those users behave:
Ladies and kids apparel account for the majority of items traded in the app, comprising about 70%. Our typical users are housewives living in remote areas. They sell unnecessary items to earn spending money, and they often buy a new item with the app.
Many expensive items, like consumer electronics for example, are submitted these days, and he expects to make Mercari a more comprehensive flea market platform.
So how are other flea market apps and auction services doing these days in comparison? Yahoo Auction leads this space in Japan, transacting over $500 million a month. Yamada expects his Mercari to eventually account for about 40% of the entire online flea market industry in Japan.
If that’s the case, we can estimate the leading C2C platform in Japan can transact about $200 million a month. Mercari still has a small share but has the potential to beat its competitors. Yamada expects to acquire new users on smartphone rather than going after users that live in other existing buy-and-sell platforms. The company is currently a 40-person team, with about half of those dedicated to user support.
Of course, if the company only does business in Japan, the market ceiling would be hundreds of millions of dollars. Yamada and his team often visit the U.S., and it seems they’ve been preparing international expansion since their launch. They have already started hiring in San Francisco. According to Yamada, the company figures to launch a service from a scratch in the U.S., rather than making use of what they’ve learned and built in Japan.
The Wearable Tech Expo 2014 took place this week in Tokyo, where Recruit Technologies showcased its wearable device, Lily. By linking with your smartphone, the device notifies you when you receive a call or chat message from someone, when a friend is near by, or when you’ve accidentally left your smartphone behind somewhere. Wrist-type wearable devices can be generally categorized into two types. The Smartband type includes smart watches such as Pebble, Xperia Style, and Galaxy Gear. The Basicband type are typically activity monitors or sleep tracking devices like the Nike FuelBand or Up by Jawbone. Typical Smartband devices have many features, many of which you can access even on your smartphone. Basicband devices can transmit accumulated data to a smartphone, but have no feature to pass on notifications from your smartphone. By providing features only around notification, Lily aims to fit in a niche in where existing wrist-type wearable devices are not. Since the device is a prototype, the company has no immediate plan to sell it commercially. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that even non-hardware company like Recruit wants to get involved in recent the Internet-of-Things trend. From our make.thebridge.jp site (Japanese)
By linking with your smartphone, the device notifies you when you receive a call or chat message from someone, when a friend is near by, or when you’ve accidentally left your smartphone behind somewhere.
Wrist-type wearable devices can be generally categorized into two types. The Smartband type includes smart watches such as Pebble, Xperia Style, and Galaxy Gear. The Basicband type are typically activity monitors or sleep tracking devices like the Nike FuelBand or Up by Jawbone.
Typical Smartband devices have many features, many of which you can access even on your smartphone. Basicband devices can transmit accumulated data to a smartphone, but have no feature to pass on notifications from your smartphone.
By providing features only around notification, Lily aims to fit in a niche in where existing wrist-type wearable devices are not.
Since the device is a prototype, the company has no immediate plan to sell it commercially. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that even non-hardware company like Recruit wants to get involved in recent the Internet-of-Things trend.
As we head into the weekend, here’s a fun photo app from Higher Bridge Inc. called ‘Moe the World’. I’m not going to try to accurately explain what the Japanese term ‘moe’ means (Wikipedia does a better job than I would), but rather I encourage you to try out this photo decoration app, which in a nutshell enables virtual cosplay. The application, which initially launched back in December, received a new update this month with more manga eyes and wigs to add to the existing decorative elements. So if you’re in the mood for adding some fun to your cherry blossom party photos this season, do check out Moe the World over on the App Store.
As we head into the weekend, here’s a fun photo app from Higher Bridge Inc. called ‘Moe the World’. I’m not going to try to accurately explain what the Japanese term ‘moe’ means (Wikipedia does a better job than I would), but rather I encourage you to try out this photo decoration app, which in a nutshell enables virtual cosplay.
The application, which initially launched back in December, received a new update this month with more manga eyes and wigs to add to the existing decorative elements. So if you’re in the mood for adding some fun to your cherry blossom party photos this season, do check out Moe the World over on the App Store.
Start Today, the company behind Japanese fashion commerce site Zozotown, began running television commercials for its fashion coordination app Wear (wear.jp) back on March 19th. And as we have so frequently seen here in Japan, that investment has – at least momentarily – paid off, as Wear has held the top overall iOS app position for the majority of this week. The Android version of Wear has also moved up the rankings significantly, reaching fourth position in the lifestyle category. The Wear commercials feature famous model Emi Suzuki (above), and if you’d like to check them out, you can find them all here.
Start Today, the company behind Japanese fashion commerce site Zozotown, began running television commercials for its fashion coordination app Wear (wear.jp) back on March 19th. And as we have so frequently seen here in Japan, that investment has – at least momentarily – paid off, as Wear has held the top overall iOS app position for the majority of this week. The Android version of Wear has also moved up the rankings significantly, reaching fourth position in the lifestyle category.
The Wear commercials feature famous model Emi Suzuki (above), and if you’d like to check them out, you can find them all here.
Last week I mentioned that Japanese internet company Hatena would be launching a mobile news app based around its Hatena Bookmarks service. Yesterday that app, dubbed Presso, was made available on the App Store, so I decided to take it for a spin. For those not familiar with Hatena Bookmarks, or ‘Hatebu’, the service began way back in 2005, offering the same sort of social bookmarking as Delicious (2003) but for the Japanese market. As I mentioned last week, the company has built a useful ‘hot entry’ portal based on most frequently bookmarked media from users, and this new mobile app brings that same valuable content on to mobile. What’s useful about Presso is that the available news categories are rather robust and customizable. So for example, if I’m interested in news about ‘mobile apps’, ‘business’, and ‘cameras and photography’, I can simply select those to create a very personalized news service for myself. There are more diverse topics included as well, such as ‘Government/Economics’, ‘Manga/Anima’ [1], ‘Lifehacks’, ‘Travel’, and ‘Blogs/Journals’ (see below). You can even add your own tags on your own, which is perhaps the most useful function. As I expected, Hatena’s new app puts more focus on…
Last week I mentioned that Japanese internet company Hatena would be launching a mobile news app based around its Hatena Bookmarks service. Yesterday that app, dubbed Presso, was made available on the App Store, so I decided to take it for a spin.
For those not familiar with Hatena Bookmarks, or ‘Hatebu’, the service began way back in 2005, offering the same sort of social bookmarking as Delicious (2003) but for the Japanese market. As I mentioned last week, the company has built a useful ‘hot entry’ portal based on most frequently bookmarked media from users, and this new mobile app brings that same valuable content on to mobile.
What’s useful about Presso is that the available news categories are rather robust and customizable. So for example, if I’m interested in news about ‘mobile apps’, ‘business’, and ‘cameras and photography’, I can simply select those to create a very personalized news service for myself. There are more diverse topics included as well, such as ‘Government/Economics’, ‘Manga/Anima’ [1], ‘Lifehacks’, ‘Travel’, and ‘Blogs/Journals’ (see below). You can even add your own tags on your own, which is perhaps the most useful function.
As I expected, Hatena’s new app puts more focus on photos as most modern news applications do. And I while I really like the way you can swipe right or left to go to the next news category, Presso occasionally feels slow when loading those categories. I had hoped that Presso would apply its the same minimalist reformatting on article pages that we find in apps like Instapaper and Pocket, but it doesn’t – which I think is a mistake. Similarly, I think they’ve wasted an opportunity in the video category by not pulling in videos for consumption within Presso.
One interesting feature is the optional four push notification times (8am, 12pm, 6pm, and 11pm, as you can see above), which are ostensibly intended to coincide with the times that Japanese users read news most. But overall I think Presso doesn’t bring anything to the news app space that we haven’t seen before. However, because you can bookmark articles to Hatena Bookmarks as you read them, that will feed much needed activity back into its bookmarks service, perhaps winning back many Hatena users that the company may have lost as smartphone popularity has grown.
So in this sense, I think Hatena has built this app more with its own interests in mind instead of those of its users. This might have been an exciting app two or three years ago, but in the age of startup news challengers like Gunosy and SmartNews here in Japan, I think local consumers expect a little more.
Despite the downslide of the leading social bookmarking service Delicious, online bookmarking has enjoyed something of a resurgence recently through the very geeky Pinboard. That is essentially a clone of what Delicious was when it was good, now serving a rather niche market by charging an initial one-time sign-up fee of $10, and optional caching service for $25 per year.
It would be interesting to see Hatena explore that kind of business model, but I have a feeling they never will. Nevertheless, for hardcore Hatebu fans out there, Presso is a welcome present.
Perhaps a good resource for Japanese learners interested in manga. ↩
Docomo Ventures, the investment arm of Japan’s leading mobile telecom, held a demo event this week, where they showcased six startups from the second batch of their incubation program. Recipe suggestion app ‘Me:new’ won the top award and was the audience favorite at the event. Here’s a quick rundown about on how these startups have cultivated their ideas over the past several months. Me:new Me:new won a trip to Silicon Valley, as well as arranged appointments with investors there. The demo was presented by founder and CEO Nobuyuki Miyake and by certified dietitian Keiko Hori who supervises recipes. Busy families often need to think carefully about what they cook. Me:new (a name likely derived from the word ‘menu’) proposes what you should cook for the next seven days, thus saving you time. Depending on what you choose to cook, the app will tell you what you need to buy at the supermarket so that you can easily see what you need to pick up in one trip, rather than make multiple trips as you might without such planning. The company plans to acquire 8 million users in the next three years. It will take a monthly subscription fee paid by…
Docomo Ventures, the investment arm of Japan’s leading mobile telecom, held a demo event this week, where they showcased six startups from the second batch of their incubation program. Recipe suggestion app ‘Me:new’ won the top award and was the audience favorite at the event. Here’s a quick rundown about on how these startups have cultivated their ideas over the past several months.
Me:new
From the left: NTT Docomo CEO Kaoru Kato, Me:new’s Nobuyuki Miyake
Me:new won a trip to Silicon Valley, as well as arranged appointments with investors there. The demo was presented by founder and CEO Nobuyuki Miyake and by certified dietitian Keiko Hori who supervises recipes.
Busy families often need to think carefully about what they cook. Me:new (a name likely derived from the word ‘menu’) proposes what you should cook for the next seven days, thus saving you time. Depending on what you choose to cook, the app will tell you what you need to buy at the supermarket so that you can easily see what you need to pick up in one trip, rather than make multiple trips as you might without such planning.
The company plans to acquire 8 million users in the next three years. It will take a monthly subscription fee paid by premium users, projected to be 5% of its user base. For additional revenue streams, they will consider an online meal ordering service, advertising, and partnership with online healthcare services.
Me:new’s Nobuyuki Miyake and Keiko Hori
ATLS (by ForEst)
ForEst took the so-called ‘best stretch award’, also winning a trip to Silicon Valley and appointments with investors.
Presented by Takumi Goto, ForEst aims to be the Amazon of online learning. In the same way that Amazon suggests recommendations when you visit their site based on what you have bought in the past, ForEst will build an online learning platform for students that can propose what and how to learn by measuring how much they have understood a certain topic.
They have partnered with educational publishers who have allowed the use of their materials on the platform. Based on accumulated data, it helps you overcome difficult problems and better prepare for tests or entrance exams.
ForEst’s Takumi Goto
Egao no Hon (books for smiles)
Egao’s Shohei Ota
Some of our readers may recall we told you that Tokyo-based startup Egao has been developing an online photobook album app. Based on the presentation by Shohei Ota, it appears they have adjusted their game plan since then, now focusing on providing an online platform to help children buy event photos taken by photographers at their schools.
Here in Japan parents typically need to visit their child’s school to select from photos posted on in the school’s corridor. According to a survey, a photographer often needs to put 8,000 photos on a wall in this way (after an event, for example), and a parent will pick about 9 or 10. This process is obviously very time-intensive.
Egao’s online platform uses facial recognition technology to helps you find photos that show your child from a collection of images. Photographers benefit because they no longer need to print out so many photos to put on the wall. The company has partnered with some local photo studios and photographers around the country, and their platform lets you create a photo book from the photos you’ve selected. You can even order specific prints upon request if you choose.
Dank1 (Dankichi)
Presented by Taiki Yojima, Dank1 is a video coaching app that lets you learn from professional athletes. Many sport fans would love to be coached by professionals, but that would be especially hard for anyone living in remote areas of Japan.
The business will start by providing coaching in baseball (specifically pitching and hitting), but they plan to expand to other sports like golf later on.
Dank1’s Taiki Yojima
Pozica by Wizpra
In the retail business here in Japan, many part-timers are hired only to quit after as little time as three months. Often this is not because they don’t like the work or pay, but instead it is often due to miscommunication with other part-time employees. As a result, this kind of turnover puts pressure on store owners.
Inspired by internal communication tools like McDonald’s Web Smile, Wizpra has developed a communication platform called Pozica which helps managers better engage with their part-timers through increased communication opportunities. The idea was presented by Yoshimitsu Imanishi, and their potential clients include beauty salons and restaurants, business that often make use of part-time employees. The company plans to eventually expand this business globally as well.
Wizpra’s Yoshimitsu Imanishi
WonderBee
WonderBee is a gadget-focused social network platform where users can exchange their insights and comments about hardware. When you are buying consumer electronics, it can be hard to identify specific user benefits through the manufacturer’s website. So the best way for you to find out is by asking people who already own that device.
The platform has a community classified according to products, so you can easily speak to someone who owns the device you are thinking to buy. On the community page there’s a ‘buy button’ that takes you to an online store-front, which helps drive traffic to manufacturers pages as well.
The company expects to build revenue streams through affiliate marketing, banner ads, and through its own online e-commerce channel. They hope to acquire more than 3.2 million users in the next three years.
WonderBee’s Hayato Sudo
Coinciding with this Demo Day event, Docomo Ventures announced it has just started receiving applications for the next batch of the incubation program, which is due May 8th, 2014. Selected startups will receive with assistance in partnering with NTT group companies, and Sony Mobile Communications has been added as a program partner.
The maximum amount of seed investment startups are likely to obtain has been increased to 5 million yen ($50,000), up from the 2 million yen ($20,000) for past batches.
Takeshi Hirano
Junya Mori
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
