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Japan finds a new way to work: In conversation with Crowdworks’ Koichiro Yoshida

crowdworks

Takeshi Hirano 2013.12.09

See the original article in Japanese Tokyo-based Crowdworks, the startup behind the crowdsourcing platform of the same name, announced on December 2nd that it has allocated new shares to a third party, raising 1.1 billion yen in total. The company also announced that it will start a partnership with CyberAgent and Digital Garage. Crowdworks previously allocated shares to third parties in December of 2011 and in October of 2012, raising 300 million yen from Itochu Technology Ventutes, DG Incubation, and Suneight Investment. The startup’s total number of corporate clients reached 18,000 in December of 2013, and the total budget for ordered work on the platform has surpassed 5 billion yen. More than 80,000 users have already registered on the service. In total, the young startup has raised more than 1.4 billion yen within just a year and a half. But will it really change how we do work? Or is this just the result of a bubble? We interviewed Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida, who told more about the potential of the new working style they propose, as well as what’s happening inside the growing startup. In this first part of our interview, he talked discussed fundraising: The Bridge: 1.1 billion…

See the original article in Japanese

Tokyo-based Crowdworks, the startup behind the crowdsourcing platform of the same name, announced on December 2nd that it has allocated new shares to a third party, raising 1.1 billion yen in total. The company also announced that it will start a partnership with CyberAgent and Digital Garage.

Crowdworks previously allocated shares to third parties in December of 2011 and in October of 2012, raising 300 million yen from Itochu Technology Ventutes, DG Incubation, and Suneight Investment. The startup’s total number of corporate clients reached 18,000 in December of 2013, and the total budget for ordered work on the platform has surpassed 5 billion yen. More than 80,000 users have already registered on the service.

In total, the young startup has raised more than 1.4 billion yen within just a year and a half. But will it really change how we do work? Or is this just the result of a bubble? We interviewed Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida, who told more about the potential of the new working style they propose, as well as what’s happening inside the growing startup.

In this first part of our interview, he talked discussed fundraising:

The Bridge: 1.1 billion yen is really a lot of money. But the business model is quite different from a game developer that requires many engineers or a coupon model that requires big marketing resources. To what end did you raise so much money?

Yoshida: First of all, in Japan, crowdsourcing is not really common to order work from individual workers yet. It’s going to take some time. When other competitors try to get into the market, we need to expand our share in this field. We also need to add talent and step up our marketing as well.

The Bridge: I see. Have you set any metrics to measure your success?

Yoshida: At first we were looking at the amount of work ordered. But recently we look more at the matching rate with the goal of increasing user satisfaction. […] Recruit is the biggest human resources company of the 21st century in Japan, and it has access to most Japanese workers’ resumes. We are sort of an online version of Recruit. We’d like to build a database of workers.

The Bridge: What will the future be like if you succeed in building such a database?

Yoshida: We will be able to create a matrix. While a worker gets paid 20,000 yen for some spreadsheet-related work, another worker might get paid 100,000 yen for some spreadsheet work. Then we discover that the difference lies in whether the worker can create a macros or not. With this kind of data, we can come up with a new service offering learning opportunities for workers. We can have an overview of workers’ skills, and that will help companies find the right workers with the required skill set.

Individual human resources will be accumulated on the platform. Each worker’s skillset will be open for viewing, and advanced matching between workers and work will be possible. If there is any specific skills lacking, learning opportunities can pick up the slack. The idea of optimizing human resources through technology is very attractive, but it also requires capital.

The Bridge: I see. With an expanding database of workers and understanding the state of domestic human resources, the company can gain value as a public service. Then crowdsourcing will require systems such as process control for each work order. Will you assign more developer resources to build those systems?

Yoshida: We are planning to develop a process control system. At the same time, we will explore the possibilities of partnering with other developers by making our API open. Our tie-up with KDDI Web Communications that we announced recently is an example of this. From the beginning, we aim to develop our service through a kind of open source model.

The Bridge: How large are you planning to expand the company?

Yoshida: Currently we have 20 to 30 members, and that includes part-time workers. We plan to make it 50. At the same time, we will choose talent carefully. We hire a new member only when all of 4 board members agree. I heard a lot of stories from experienced entrepreneurs who have lowered the standard of hiring when the companies were in the growth stage, and they later had a problem improving the team. So I’m trying to make this decision carefully.

Crowdsourcing is a different animal in Japan than it is in North America where the concept was born. My Canadian coworker sometimes use ODesk, where crowdsourcing seems to function as more pure C2C. Whereas In Japan, you tend to pay the platform instead, which may instill more trust among clients.

Crowdsourcing can a convenient way for companies to contact workers. On the other hand, many people still see crowdsourcing as a platform for side jobs.

In the second part of our interview, Yoshida discusses how they plan to build a culture that can help expand crowdsourcing.

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CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Exploring e-commerce with Monoco, Rinkak, & Base

Mona Nomura 2013.12.08

This is part five of our CNet Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here. Search and recommendation are a tough nut to crack, especially when it comes to e-commerce. We are overloaded by information, and technology struggles to parse relevance that can match our needs. Users now expect sites and services to know what we want before we know we want it (see Amazon and Netflix recommendation algos, for instance). This is a problem that needs solving regardless of where you live, and it can be a huge opportunity for startups to address a real consumer need. Enter Monoco and Rinkak, looking to connect designers with consumers. Think of them as Japan’s answer to Etsy or Fab. Meanwhile Base is the local version of Squarespace, Shopify, and Strikingly. All three are doing interesting things in Japan’s e-commerce space these days, attempting to solve the same difficult issues that face e-commerce businesses abroad. Monoco Monoco is an e-commerce site focused on selling fashion and craft goods of limited quantities for limited times. The items are curated by buyers the around the globe, and since the site’s launch in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 87,000…

This is part five of our CNet Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here.

Search and recommendation are a tough nut to crack, especially when it comes to e-commerce. We are overloaded by information, and technology struggles to parse relevance that can match our needs. Users now expect sites and services to know what we want before we know we want it (see Amazon and Netflix recommendation algos, for instance). This is a problem that needs solving regardless of where you live, and it can be a huge opportunity for startups to address a real consumer need.

Enter Monoco and Rinkak, looking to connect designers with consumers. Think of them as Japan’s answer to Etsy or Fab. Meanwhile Base is the local version of Squarespace, Shopify, and Strikingly. All three are doing interesting things in Japan’s e-commerce space these days, attempting to solve the same difficult issues that face e-commerce businesses abroad.

Monoco

Monoco is an e-commerce site focused on selling fashion and craft goods of limited quantities for limited times. The items are curated by buyers the around the globe, and since the site’s launch in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 87,000 users, with more than 1100 designers worldwide.

Because of the quantity and time constraints, it could be easy to write off Monoco as just another flash sales site. But browsing through the site, I think this format makes sense.

When you first log-on, you are immediately greeted by professional grade, high quality images. The products are carefully chosen, often a unique spin on regular products like mugs, phone accessories, handbags, and clothing. It’s easy to lose yourself scrolling and scrolling as you browse the many product offerings.

On the product pages, prices are hidden unless you are a registered user. And this is a pretty clever way to subtly encourage user registration.

The limited sale period and quantity creates a sense of urgency for the user to purchase, and it cycles products to surface designers. It’s a different way to approach recommendation, increasing the site’s overall stickiness factor as users will check, and re-check the site to see new items.

In July, Monoco announced series A funding of an undisclosed amount.

Rinkak

Rinkak (the name means ‘outline of object’ in Japanese) is a 3D printing marketplace that is Japan’s answer to Shapeways. The site opened to the public in September.

They offer a platform for anyone with 3D data to sell their printed designs. Like Shapeways, they offer various materials like plastic, pottery and metals.

3D printing seems to finally be gaining traction beyond the scope of early tech adopters. Shapeways, founded in 2007, most recently closed a $30 million series C round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with a total of $47.3 million raised thus far. With a physical shop, distribution center in NYC, and an API to encourage 3D printing apps, they are clearly the 3D printing market place leader in the US startup space. Let’s wait and see what Rinkak will do similarly or differently. For more on Rinkak, check out our previous feature back in September.

Base

Often referred to as Japan’s Shopify, Base’s e-commerce site is the marketing platform for the founder’s true vision: a mobile payment solution platform. Base has raised a total of $4.73 million and has expanded its team from 12 to 20 people. The CEO states they have acquired 50,000 merchants in the past year, with a monthly growth of 10% when we last spoke with them.

It’s rapid growth shows Japanese small- to mid-sized merchants are looking for e-commerce solutions other than Rakuten and Amazon. 70% of Base’s user activity comes from smartphones — another clear indication that Japanese e-commerce behaviors are shifting.

You can check out the company’s brief promo video below.

Good luck to all three startups on Tuesday night at the CNet Japan Startup Awards.

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CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Travel startups Asoview and Trippiece

Mona Nomura 2013.12.08

This is part four of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here. In the past few years, there has been a surge of travel startups in the US. Trippiece and Asoview are looking to disrupt the archaic and monopolized industry in Japan. Trippiece is the most similar service to Gogobot in Japan. Gogobot, as many of you know, is the most visited travel startup in the US, beating out AirBnB and Hipmunk in uniques so far in 2013. Where Gogobot solely relies on social graphs for trip itineraries, Trippiece highlights all user-generated content and is planning to take it one step further than Gogobot by securing partnerships with major travel agencies [1]. Launched in March of 2011, the company has so far acquired more than 50,000 users. But the CEO admits they have a long way to go to meet milestones on their roadmap. They have a repeat user rate of 30% to 40%, and with over 60% of their overall users accessing their site through mobile, they are meeting the needs of Japanese travelers. Japanese internet user behavior is rapidly shifting and consumers are now more mobile than ever before with analysts predicting…

This is part four of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here.

In the past few years, there has been a surge of travel startups in the US. Trippiece and Asoview are looking to disrupt the archaic and monopolized industry in Japan.

Trippiece is the most similar service to Gogobot in Japan. Gogobot, as many of you know, is the most visited travel startup in the US, beating out AirBnB and Hipmunk in uniques so far in 2013.

Where Gogobot solely relies on social graphs for trip itineraries, Trippiece highlights all user-generated content and is planning to take it one step further than Gogobot by securing partnerships with major travel agencies [1].

Launched in March of 2011, the company has so far acquired more than 50,000 users. But the CEO admits they have a long way to go to meet milestones on their roadmap. They have a repeat user rate of 30% to 40%, and with over 60% of their overall users accessing their site through mobile, they are meeting the needs of Japanese travelers.

Japanese internet user behavior is rapidly shifting and consumers are now more mobile than ever before with analysts predicting that by 2014, 60.2% of users will switch to smartphones. That’s almost a 150% rate of change since 2011. Trippiece, whose users are mainly mobile, is ahead of the game.

Asoview resembles the early days of Zozi, an adventure experience site. Asoview has over 460 partnerships, securing its biggest one thus far in Yahoo Travel. They are looking to fill the niche of unconventional travel activities such as skydiving and ice climbing, or also more mellow experiences like swimming with dolphins. Regrettably, there is no available information on profitability or user base right now for Asoview that we can pass on, but we’ll update you if we learn more.

We wish both Trippiece and Asoview the best of luck at the Cnet Japan Startup Awards on Tuesday!

Includes JTB and other unnamed agencies. See CNet Japan, e27 for more information. ↩

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CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Mobile news services Gunosy and Smartnews

Mona Nomura 2013.12.08

This is part three of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here. News aggregation apps are a dime a dozen in the US. There’s Flipboard, Pulse, Circa, Prismatic, Zite, Summly, News360 and the list goes on. In Japan, there’s News Hub, @nifty, and now LINE News as well. Smart News (pictured below) resembles US-based Pulse, where content is segregated in tabs by category. The content comes pre-loaded but feeds can be added. After using Smart News, the experience of Pulse seems clumsy in comparison. The load times are also significantly faster on Smart News than on Pulse. I want to say Gunosy (pictured below) is the Flipboard of Japan but the only similarity is their popularity. Gunosy’s interface and content is structured like a newspaper, and there are tabs for the AM edition, PM edition and a location-based, real-time trend tab. Articles are separated in large, easy to read boxes with prominent call-to-action buttons. Like Prismatic, Gunosy curates content based on machine learning. It displays the kind of stories the user has liked, shared, or clipped in the past. What really sets Gunosy aside from all news aggregation services is its approach to ads….

This is part three of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here.

News aggregation apps are a dime a dozen in the US. There’s Flipboard, Pulse, Circa, Prismatic, Zite, Summly, News360 and the list goes on. In Japan, there’s News Hub, @nifty, and now LINE News as well.

Smart News (pictured below) resembles US-based Pulse, where content is segregated in tabs by category. The content comes pre-loaded but feeds can be added. After using Smart News, the experience of Pulse seems clumsy in comparison. The load times are also significantly faster on Smart News than on Pulse.

I want to say Gunosy (pictured below) is the Flipboard of Japan but the only similarity is their popularity. Gunosy’s interface and content is structured like a newspaper, and there are tabs for the AM edition, PM edition and a location-based, real-time trend tab.

Articles are separated in large, easy to read boxes with prominent call-to-action buttons. Like Prismatic, Gunosy curates content based on machine learning. It displays the kind of stories the user has liked, shared, or clipped in the past.

What really sets Gunosy aside from all news aggregation services is its approach to ads. The service separates ad types into three categories: business, fashion, health/beauty, and then behaviorally targets based on user habits. The sign-up and onboarding process for potential advertisers is automated and simple. They are one of, if not the global leader in this category 1.

Regarding both these news services, I’m really happy to see such a high calibre of product comings out of Japan.

Gunosy’s ad service launched in November. We recently spoke with new Gunosy team member Shinji Kimura, who elaborated more on this aspect of their business. ↩

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CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Retty’s mobile advantage

Mona Nomura 2013.12.07

This is part two of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here. Retty is a Japan-based restaurant recommendation site based on your Facebook social graph. It’s often compared with Tabelog, the Yelp of Japan, which has 25.77M desktop users and 22.97M users on mobile. But like Yelp, Tabelog has an outdated interface. Users are immediately overloaded with information from strangers. A lot of hunting and pecking is required to reach even the contact information of certain establishments, which is unfortunate. And yet it is also understandable for a site that has been around for so many years. In contrast, Retty’s strength lies with its mobile app and clean PC interface. Familiar faces greet you there because it is Facebook reliant. Tabelog may have millions of users but their text-based app is catered towards feature phone users. Smartphone users will find the gesture-based search and discovery of Retty far easier to use. Retty also maps of saved restaurants for a simple, visual search (see below). It can be easy to underestimate the power of mobile and how easily it can disrupt. So even if Retty only has a fraction of Tabelog’s users, it could ride…

This is part two of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here.

Retty is a Japan-based restaurant recommendation site based on your Facebook social graph. It’s often compared with Tabelog, the Yelp of Japan, which has 25.77M desktop users and 22.97M users on mobile. But like Yelp, Tabelog has an outdated interface. Users are immediately overloaded with information from strangers. A lot of hunting and pecking is required to reach even the contact information of certain establishments, which is unfortunate. And yet it is also understandable for a site that has been around for so many years.

In contrast, Retty’s strength lies with its mobile app and clean PC interface. Familiar faces greet you there because it is Facebook reliant.

Tabelog may have millions of users but their text-based app is catered towards feature phone users. Smartphone users will find the gesture-based search and discovery of Retty far easier to use. Retty also maps of saved restaurants for a simple, visual search (see below).

It can be easy to underestimate the power of mobile and how easily it can disrupt. So even if Retty only has a fraction of Tabelog’s users, it could ride atop Japan’s astounding smartphone market growth to grow exponentially [1].

Retty is also experimenting with content marketing, most recently collaborating with a local service Tokyo Calendar, to publish a special magazine-like guidebook (similar to US-based Zagat). Retty tapped into their top users, including notable food bloggers, models, and business women to recommend bars and restaurants perfect for date spots. Obviously this is a pretty great marketing campaign to bring in new male users.

Retty also recently closed a $3.2 million series B round, having raised a total of $4.4M so far. With all this progress, I wouldn’t write them off just because they don’t have Tabelog’s user base. At least, not yet.

From April to September of 2013, 68.5% of users switched from a feature phone to a smart phone, according to research from Mobile Marketing Data Lab. Analysts also predict that by 2014, 60.2% of users will switch switch to smartphones — almost a 150% rate of change since 2011 (see eMarketer citing a July Hakuhodo survey). ↩

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Candy Crush Saga is the top iPhone game in Japan thanks to TV commercial

Rick Martin 2013.12.06

The undisputed king of puzzle games here in Japan is, of course, Puzzle & Dragons. Hitting the Apple App Store back in February of 2012, it has gone on to become Japan’s most popular and profitable mobile game [1]. But a new global challenger has just thrown its hat in the ring. That company is King.com Ltd, and the game is – of course – Candy Crush Saga. Currently Candy Crush Saga is the number one overall app on the Japanese App Store, thanks to a new TV commercial promoting the game in the country. It’s really interesting to see a foreign game dive into the Japanese market so emphatically like this. Serkan Toto notes over on his blog that King is the first foreign mobile game maker to do so. Recently we have seen games like Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Hay Day enter the market with some success, but that came via a different approach, tying up with Puzzle & Dragons on a cross promotion. Incidentally, heavy rotation on TV commercials really helped P&D achieve the success that it did here in Japan. Other titles have gone on to do the same, including Colopl’s hit Quiz RPG a…

The undisputed king of puzzle games here in Japan is, of course, Puzzle & Dragons. Hitting the Apple App Store back in February of 2012, it has gone on to become Japan’s most popular and profitable mobile game [1]. But a new global challenger has just thrown its hat in the ring. That company is King.com Ltd, and the game is – of course – Candy Crush Saga.

Currently Candy Crush Saga is the number one overall app on the Japanese App Store, thanks to a new TV commercial promoting the game in the country. It’s really interesting to see a foreign game dive into the Japanese market so emphatically like this. Serkan Toto notes over on his blog that King is the first foreign mobile game maker to do so. Recently we have seen games like Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Hay Day enter the market with some success, but that came via a different approach, tying up with Puzzle & Dragons on a cross promotion.

Incidentally, heavy rotation on TV commercials really helped P&D achieve the success that it did here in Japan. Other titles have gone on to do the same, including Colopl’s hit Quiz RPG a few months back.

If you’d like to check out the Japanese commercial for Candy Crush, you can view it below. And if you haven’t tried the game yet, you can download it for free over on the App Store or on Google Play.

I’m personally a huge fan of *P&D, as I’ve previously explained. ↩

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Japanese classifieds site Jmty.jp looks for light at the end of the tunnel

Takeshi Hirano 2013.12.06

This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 See the original story in Japanese. One of the trending sectors on the Japanese internet these days is the C2C (consumer to consumer) market. This includes small-sized e-commerce platforms, flea market apps, and crowdsourcing platforms too. But in Japan, the market is not easy to grow without significant effort. In contrast with the US, many C2C players in Japan may be poorly perceived in the eyes of Japanese users, where consumers are more likely to buy from a publicly recognized company. At the venue of Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Kyoto, we saw many of the key players in the C2C sector. I had a chance to speak with Takahiro Kato, the CEO of Jmty.jp (pronounced as Jimoty). The company provides local classifieds and forums for local communities, including listings for jobs and second-hand items. The company was launched back in 2011 and raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), and additional funding of 150 million yen (about $1.5 million) from KDDI, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and IVP back in 2012. It also raised money from Fuji Startup Ventures last August. The story so…

This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

See the original story in Japanese.

One of the trending sectors on the Japanese internet these days is the C2C (consumer to consumer) market. This includes small-sized e-commerce platforms, flea market apps, and crowdsourcing platforms too. But in Japan, the market is not easy to grow without significant effort. In contrast with the US, many C2C players in Japan may be poorly perceived in the eyes of Japanese users, where consumers are more likely to buy from a publicly recognized company.

At the venue of Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Kyoto, we saw many of the key players in the C2C sector. I had a chance to speak with Takahiro Kato, the CEO of Jmty.jp (pronounced as Jimoty). The company provides local classifieds and forums for local communities, including listings for jobs and second-hand items.

The company was launched back in 2011 and raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), and additional funding of 150 million yen (about $1.5 million) from KDDI, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and IVP back in 2012. It also raised money from Fuji Startup Ventures last August.

The story so far

The Bridge: What has happened with Jmty in the last three years?

Kato: We surpassed 1.4 million monthly visitors and 11 million monthly page views back in November. And we surpassed 1 million monthly visitors back in September.

The Bridge: So you mean your users have been rapidly increasing in the last few months?

Kato: Our service was recently featured on Mezamashi TV, a popular morning TV show. I know typically most TV appearances give only a momentary boost but not a sustained increase. However this recent feature brought us many long-standing active users.

The Bridge: Is there any improvement in user activity?

Kato: 20% or 30% of the items presented on our website are unwanted articles that users want to give away for free. When you post a message about this kind of item, you will usually get a comment from other users within 24 hours.

The Bridge: Craigslist is a very similar business to yours. Do you know how large their business is in the US?

Kato: It is said that they still have 60 million monthly visitors with 2 billion monthly page views. That’s really huge.

C2C is different in Japan

A classified platform needs to diversify its business to scale. And I thought acquiring 1.4 monthly visitors in three years was not such a big number. I asked him further about the potential of opportunities in the Japanese C2C market.

The Bridge: Compared to Craigslist, your business is still quite small. Is your growth slower than you expected?

Kato: Craiglist needed five years to surpass 10 million monthly visitors. I know several similar cases in China too. So this speed of growth is within our expectations.

The Bridge: Do you want to see a steeper increase? I think completely open C2C platforms face many obstacles in the Japanese market. For example, many users expect the operators of these platforms to assure the quality of the items they will buy on the platform.

Kato: It’s a fact that we get inquiries from some users asking how we will be responsible for a possible defective purchase. That’s why we added a notice all across our website that we will take no responsibility for any possible defects from trades between users.

The Bridge: So you need to educate users more?

Kato: By adding many notices, it encourages users to police themselves in a way. If you set up a hotline to receiving reports of defective items, many users will kindly tell us who the offending users are.

The platform was launched by Hirofumi Ono, the co-founder partner of Infinity Venture Partners. I asked him where in Jmty’s business he might find some potential to scale up.

The Bridge: When you launched Jmty.jp back in 2011, there was a big rise in classified platforms in mainland China. 58.com (NYSE:WUBA) had recently IPOed. Did these happenings have any impact on your decision to launch?

Ono: When we launched it, we thought it had lots of potential. We saw China’s 58.com and Baixing.com were rapidly growing. We actually asked Baixing.com about the key is to their success.

The Bridge: Did you get some useful advice from them?

Ono: They say it takes a long time to grow. Many C2C services in China have been running since 2005. We were also aware that we divided our topics into too many segments. Jmty.jp has many segments by region as well as by category, and that was intended to result in more accurate message postings.

But a classifieds site has to give users a simple way to interact since all users are not always so savvy. We believe that our service requires simplicity rather than pursuing an experience where topics are focused on special/niche purposes.

The light ahead

There is still a the long way to go in terms of growth for Jmty. And at the end of the interview, I asked Kato how they might emerge from this seemingly endless tunnel.

The Bridge: Will you keep making efforts to increas content topics?

Kato: We will continue to focus on diversifying content that may better suit our users. Regarding posts about jobs or second-hand items, these can be curated a minimal effort.

The Bridge: Can you share any figure on how many trades and transactions you’re facilitating?

Kato: A six-digit number has been already posted, and we’re receiving about 700 new posts every day.

The Bridge: Your service targets average people, so you will need to promote it using mass media, right?

Kato: We received investments from Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Fuji TV. So we’re planning to do something using television.

The Bridge: I know you will need a long time to achieve your goal, but how do you plan to sustain your business long term? Is there any funding plan?

Kato: We are a six-person team, and currently looking for the next funding opportunity. We hope to get funding from a business entity, rather than a pure investment firm, and partner with them to grow our business together.

The Bridge: Thank you for the time and your great insights!

The key to succeed with a service like this likely depends on how they can increase number the user-generated submissions. We’ll keep our eyes on their progress, so stay with us!

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CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Mobile C2C flea market apps – Fril and Mercari

Yiling Ding 2013.12.06

This is part one of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here. Several C2C flea market apps have been popping up in Japan recently, including Mainichi Frima, Stulio, and CNet Japan Startup Award nominees Fril and Mercari [1]. Unlike traditional desktop-focused C2C platforms such as Yahoo Auctions, these newer marketplaces are adopting a mobile-first approach. Both Fril and Mercari have a mobile-only strategy. Sellers can complete the entire selling process seamlessly on the app – from photographing their item using their smartphone camera, to posting the listing, to receiving notifications when their item has been sold. A listing can be created in just a few minutes, and is free to create. Both apps charge a 10% commission upon purchase, and a fixed-rate transaction fee. Payment is handled by their system. By providing a payment infrastructure, Fril and Mercari grant buyers the convenience of paying through convenience stores, ATM transactions, or credit cards. Selling is also simplified into the easy processes of listing, shipping, and receiving payment. Compared to traditional platforms, the user experience is easier and comparatively frictionless. The differences Despite similarities in functionality, Fril and Mercari diverge in a few ways as well….

This is part one of our CNET Japan Startup Awards nominee rundown. The rest can be found here.

Several C2C flea market apps have been popping up in Japan recently, including Mainichi Frima, Stulio, and CNet Japan Startup Award nominees Fril and Mercari [1]. Unlike traditional desktop-focused C2C platforms such as Yahoo Auctions, these newer marketplaces are adopting a mobile-first approach.

Both Fril and Mercari have a mobile-only strategy. Sellers can complete the entire selling process seamlessly on the app – from photographing their item using their smartphone camera, to posting the listing, to receiving notifications when their item has been sold.

A listing can be created in just a few minutes, and is free to create. Both apps charge a 10% commission upon purchase, and a fixed-rate transaction fee. Payment is handled by their system.

By providing a payment infrastructure, Fril and Mercari grant buyers the convenience of paying through convenience stores, ATM transactions, or credit cards. Selling is also simplified into the easy processes of listing, shipping, and receiving payment. Compared to traditional platforms, the user experience is easier and comparatively frictionless.

The differences

Despite similarities in functionality, Fril and Mercari diverge in a few ways as well. Fril (pictured right) is primarily targeted towards females in their teens and 20s, and specifically focuses on ladies’ fashion. Mercari (pictured below), on the other hand, offers a range of product categories from ladies’ and men’s fashion to electronic appliances.

Fril’s more specific target allows it to adopt a stronger visual style, with a very girly color palette. It also provides functions that work well with its fashion focus – such as searching by brand names, shop page customization, and following other users.

Mercari, instead of focusing on fashion, differentiates itself with a strong emphasis on buyer and seller security. It uses an escrow payment system, where the payment is held by Mercari and is not transferred to the seller until both parties have reviewed each other.

China’s largest e-commerce platform, Taobao, uses a similar system, and that has been effective in offsetting the issue of low trust in a C2C transaction.

The competition

CyberAgent’s Mainichi Frima and Singapore-based Carousell are two flea market platform apps that are also mobile-only. A common feature of Mainichi Frima, Carousell, and Fril is the “follow” function. Mainichi Frima also allows users to create customized shop pages.

Where Fril and Mercari stand out, however, is that they handle the entire payment process. Both Mainichi Frima and Carousell leave it up to the buyers and sellers to figure out payments themselves. Carousell encourages face-to-face exchanges with a location function that allows buyers to search by the seller’s proximity.

The advantage of Mainichi Frima and Carousell’s model is that they allow for robust negotiations between buyers and sellers. In this sense, they provide a more accurate online representation of the offline flea market experience. However, if users are looking for a simple, frictionless experience, they will find Fril and Mercari much easier to use.

The CNet Japan Startup Awards are coming up on December 10th. ↩

news

Japanese deli delivery service begins closed beta for corporate users

Junya Mori 2013.12.06

See the original article in Japanese How many business people care about the nutritional balance of their diet? For busy professionals, maintaining a balanced diet can be especially tough to manage during work days. Chisan is a delicatessen delivery company in Japan. It has operated a deli delivery service called Okan, targeting single businessmen who live alone [1]. The company started a new service on November 25 called ‘Office Okan’, delivering additive-free Japanese deli to offices. It is currently accepting corporate users applications for its closed beta version. Okan is a service that regularly delivers Japanese deli to a registered addresses. Since the B2C service was launched on March 26 this year, approximately 200 users have subscribed to the service. The new service, Office Okan, caters to corporate users. With Office Okan, corporate customers will receive Japanese deli once a month, since the deli lasts about a month. The package contains 15 kinds of Japanese home-style deli, including “simmered mackerel in miso” and “simmered meat and potatoes”. Brown rice, which lasts about a month, is also available as an additional order. These can be refrigerated, and users can prepare the meal in about minutes. The company’s CEO, Keita Swaki, says…

See the original article in Japanese

How many business people care about the nutritional balance of their diet? For busy professionals, maintaining a balanced diet can be especially tough to manage during work days.

Chisan is a delicatessen delivery company in Japan. It has operated a deli delivery service called Okan, targeting single businessmen who live alone [1]. The company started a new service on November 25 called ‘Office Okan’, delivering additive-free Japanese deli to offices. It is currently accepting corporate users applications for its closed beta version.

Okan is a service that regularly delivers Japanese deli to a registered addresses. Since the B2C service was launched on March 26 this year, approximately 200 users have subscribed to the service. The new service, Office Okan, caters to corporate users.

With Office Okan, corporate customers will receive Japanese deli once a month, since the deli lasts about a month. The package contains 15 kinds of Japanese home-style deli, including “simmered mackerel in miso” and “simmered meat and potatoes”. Brown rice, which lasts about a month, is also available as an additional order. These can be refrigerated, and users can prepare the meal in about minutes.

The company’s CEO, Keita Swaki, says the service can replace lunch, dinner, and even in-between snacks with healthy Japanese deli. Chisan aims to provide opportunities to ensure a well-balanced diet, giving business people an easy way to manage it.

We use the word ‘deli’ as a loose translation here, as the foods included can include meat, fish, beans, vegetables, and more. You can browse the kinds of foods on the Okan.jp site. ↩

news

San Francisco-based Kamcord wants Asia to record and share more mobile gaming videos

Rick Martin 2013.12.05

While this week’s Infinity Ventures Summit in Kyoto was largely a domestic affair, there were a number of out-of-towners in attendance looking to kickstart their operations in Japan. One of these was San Francisco-based Kamcord, a startup that hopes to capitalize on mobile gamers’s social tendencies. The young startup offers an SDK that enables game developers to put a ‘movie’ button in game, and when it is pressed, they can then share video clips/replays of their game play. These can be shared directly to Kamcord where they can be viewed by other gamers, or they can be shared to places like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or even email [1] And so yesterday at IVS, co-founder Adi Rathnam was in attendance in Kyoto, speaking to potential game company partners here in Japan that might make use of their screen capture service, which is already built into 160 mobile games to date. Their closest competitor right now is Finland’s Applifier, which is similar in that it also provides recording and sharing of game content, but focused more on cross-promotional ads through video. Here on The Bridge we often share screen capture movies of games and apps we like, but the process is not…

The young startup offers an SDK that enables game developers to put a ‘movie’ button in game, and when it is pressed, they can then share video clips/replays of their game play. These can be shared directly to Kamcord where they can be viewed by other gamers, or they can be shared to places like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or even email [1]

And so yesterday at IVS, co-founder Adi Rathnam was in attendance in Kyoto, speaking to potential game company partners here in Japan that might make use of their screen capture service, which is already built into 160 mobile games to date. Their closest competitor right now is Finland’s Applifier, which is similar in that it also provides recording and sharing of game content, but focused more on cross-promotional ads through video.

Here on The Bridge we often share screen capture movies of games and apps we like, but the process is not a simple one, requiring specialized software and some patience as well. Having Kamcord built into the game itself certainly makes the process accessible enough for the average gamer, removing the normal obstacles from the video sharing process.

Logically, it makes sense for Kamcord to target the most developed mobile nations in Asia, including Japan and Korea. But perhaps the most interesting market for Kamcord, I think, is China. With Tencent as their major investor, WeChat is a natural and logical partner, says Adi. But China’s affinity for sharing user generated game videos on popular video streaming platforms like Youku would likely mean an easy victory for Kamcord. They will have to bring some local games into their repertoire though of course. Adi elaborates:

Expanding to China, Japan, and Korea is a top priority for us. Our plan to do so involves localizing our product into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean and letting users share content to the messaging apps that are so popular in Asia. Line, Kakao, and WeChat are doing an awesome job growing their user base and driving downloads to games, and we’d love to work with these companies to create a rich experience for users.

As for monetization, Kamcord is still focused on building its community for the time being, but I understand they’ll look at a variety of options from driving installs to advertising.

I’d be surprised if game developers and publishers here in Japan don’t recognize the potential that exists in having enthusiastic fans help market their games using videos. It may require some forward thinking on their part, and a little more trust in user-generated content, but I expect we’ll see many of them jump on the Kamcord bandwagon soon.

I understand the video files are not very big, often around 5 or 10 megabytes. ↩

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The competition

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