news

How DecoAlbum plans to be the best of many cute Japanese photo apps [Interview]

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.06

When I first met up with the folks behind DecoAlbum, I thought maybe it was just another photo app. Japanese startups have developed so many photo sharing apps, and most of them hope to hit the South East Asian market. So I was wondering if this space hasn’t already been saturated. However DecoAlbum was one of the standouts at the recent Echelon Tokyo satellite event, and it was also chosen to be included in the first batch of NTT Docomo’s incubation program. So what’s so special about DecoAlbum? We sought out the app’s developer, Prime Again, to find out more. We spoke with the company’s CEO Nobuhiro Abe and his right hand Maiko Kojima. Tell us about you and your team? Nobuhiro: We were teamed up in 2010 when we developed a cloud-based contact sharing app at Breakthrough Camp, a two-month app and business development camp for university students and aspiring entrepreneurs. Then we were incorporated in December of 2010, and subsequently developed the app with students from Waseda University and Digital Hollywood University. We’ve seen many similar photo sharing apps. What makes DecoAlbum different? Maiko: We’re a team of students, and that’s our target user base. That’s why we’ve…

When I first met up with the folks behind DecoAlbum, I thought maybe it was just another photo app. Japanese startups have developed so many photo sharing apps, and most of them hope to hit the South East Asian market. So I was wondering if this space hasn’t already been saturated.

However DecoAlbum was one of the standouts at the recent Echelon Tokyo satellite event, and it was also chosen to be included in the first batch of NTT Docomo’s incubation program.

So what’s so special about DecoAlbum? We sought out the app’s developer, Prime Again, to find out more. We spoke with the company’s CEO Nobuhiro Abe and his right hand Maiko Kojima.

Tell us about you and your team?

Nobuhiro: We were teamed up in 2010 when we developed a cloud-based contact sharing app at Breakthrough Camp, a two-month app and business development camp for university students and aspiring entrepreneurs. Then we were incorporated in December of 2010, and subsequently developed the app with students from Waseda University and Digital Hollywood University.

We’ve seen many similar photo sharing apps. What makes DecoAlbum different?

Maiko: We’re a team of students, and that’s our target user base. That’s why we’ve learned so much about what our users really want to have. When we’re observing our friends using photo apps, they typically use one app for photo collage and another for decoration. So before uploading photos to their walls or timelines, they typically use two photo apps at least. The number of apps capable of both collage and decoration is very few, maybe even zero, because it’s difficult to manage and optimize memory usage for handling photos on smartphones. But we made it.

DecoAlbum allows users to both create collages and decorate with a single app. In terms of differentiation, there is also a storage function. Our app is not only a photo decoration and collage app but features storage on its backend. […] You can create as many albums as you want, and share anything stored photos with your friends or family members via Facebook, Line, or other social media.

Do you have any metrics to share about how your app has performed so far?

Nobuhiro: The app was launched in late June of 2012, and we’ve seen more than 1.2 million downloads in 8 months.

Is your user base different from other photo sharing apps?

Maiko: Our user base ranges from junior high school girls to housewives, especially those who prefer cute or elegant fashions. We’ve been acquiring users from the Southeast Asian market as well, mainly from housewives in their 20s. Our app is now available in Japanese, English, Mandarin, Korean, and Thai.

So are you making any specific marketing efforts elsewhere in Asia?

Primeagain CEO Nobuhiro Abe — PrimeAgain CEO Nobuhiro Abe

Nobuhiro: We have never done any paid promotions. So we’re honored to have seen such positive results. The usual acquisition of our user base has been entirely word-of-month, and we will partner with other mobile app developers to take things a step further. One of our strength is providing cute stickers designed from our awesome designers, and that has been very popular with our users, and it can be also used when messaging in other apps. We’ll be providing our specially designed stickers to some partner mobile apps, including Korea’s Between, a mobile photo sharing app for couples. We’re in talks with some other developers about providing stickers, an arrangement we feel benefits both parties.

How will you monetize? Do you have any exit strategy?

Nobuhiro: We’re partnering with Foglio (a photo processing platform run by Fujifilm) and mobile photo-processing company Tolot so that our users can print their pictures [1]. We’re also in talks with Photobook Thailand to give our users a better experience in Southeast Asian regions. Regarding the exit, we have no concrete plan at this moment beyond increasing our user base. We recently fundraised 10 million yen (approximately $100,000) from East Ventures, which might be sufficient to survive for the time being. We don’t want to [target] acquisition by another party, but expect to go straight ahead to an IPO exit.

DecoAlbum is certainly a very powerful app in terms of functions. Combining photo collage and decoration is not an issue that we hear many people complaining about, but based on DecoAlbum’s download numbers it looks to be a surprisingly significant problem. Will DecoAlbum remain the only real solution in this space? Let’s wait and see.

primeagain_team — The DecoAlbum development team

Tolot recently fundraised 500 million yen from KDDI Open Innovation Fund. ↩

news

Feeding Asia’s growing games appetite: Gumi Asia CEO on expansion beyond Japan

Masaru Ikeda 2013.04.17

It was almost one year ago when Japanese social game developer Gumi established a presence in Singapore. That subsidiary, called Gumi Asia, was set up last April, with David Ng appointed as the CEO. Ng has previously worked with low-end router vendor Linksys and gaming giant Electronic Arts [1]. During a recent visit to Singapore, I had an opportunity to speak with Ng, who explained more about what the company has in store in the future, as well as some advice to businesses aspiring to expand in the Asia regions. Q: Can you tell us a little about your Singapore team? David: We have 75 people at our Singapore office alone. Every team in the office has 20 to 25 people, [each] with a single mission for developing a specific game title. That’s how our operations in Singapore can currently develop three game titles at the same time. In addition to Singapore, we have development teams in Taipei and Jakarta, and I’m administrating all 110 people working at the three different locations. I speak with each of the offices via teleconference once a week at least, and I actually visit the locations once a month at least. Q: Gumi is…

It was almost one year ago when Japanese social game developer Gumi established a presence in Singapore. That subsidiary, called Gumi Asia, was set up last April, with David Ng appointed as the CEO. Ng has previously worked with low-end router vendor Linksys and gaming giant Electronic Arts [1]. During a recent visit to Singapore, I had an opportunity to speak with Ng, who explained more about what the company has in store in the future, as well as some advice to businesses aspiring to expand in the Asia regions.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your Singapore team?

David: We have 75 people at our Singapore office alone. Every team in the office has 20 to 25 people, [each] with a single mission for developing a specific game title. That’s how our operations in Singapore can currently develop three game titles at the same time.

In addition to Singapore, we have development teams in Taipei and Jakarta, and I’m administrating all 110 people working at the three different locations. I speak with each of the offices via teleconference once a week at least, and I actually visit the locations once a month at least.

Q: Gumi is currently focusing on the Asian market. Why not North America nor Europe?

David: We’re in the emerging market where the population of our potential users are rapidly increasing. In other parts of the world, to be honest, few people know about us. Our brand is becoming well-known in Asia, and that’s why we’re running our business right here now. I heard that some gaming titles cost six dollars to acquire a user, and that’s the number we definitely can’t accept. This is another reason why we’re focusing on Asia.

gumi_halloween — CEO David Ng and his colleagues at Gumi Asia’s Halloween Party
(from Gumi Asia’s Facebook page)

Q. Your business is not only about sales but also developing products all over Asia. What is the benefit of this development strategy?

David: Game developers are doing business differently than typical tech startups. Startups are pursuing the development of market-disrupting products or services to acquire users. But we as game developers need keep introducing new titles to attract people. Through this kind of sustained efforts, we’ll have a smash hit product some day in the future.

In order to develop as many titles as possible with a limited amount of the funds, we reduce the development cost for every development task. In Taiwan, a talent can be hired for almost a half the salary as in Singapore. In Indonesia, we can hire a designer with very high skills for only $500 a month. By mixing up skills from our employees at different locations, we can develop more high-quality game titles than our competitors. With the cost of developing a game at a typical Japanese game development company, we can develop three titles.

Q. At the end of last year, Konami also set up in Singapore. Is the regional market attracting many more gaming companies?

David: When they set up an office in Singapore, their president came to my office, and I enjoyed chatting with him. Gumi is still a very small and young company, but many executives from companies new to Singapore contact me for advice. The Singaporean government is offering great support for innovative businesses. For example, the PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) offers 400% tax deductions and 60% cash payout for the deployment of working facilities. It’s easier to ask someone for translation to Mandarin or English here. Also our country is well known for having the world’s lowest income tax system, which is 17% at most. We also got financial support from the government for covering the cost of setting up our local office. For Japanese startups aspiring to expand in the Asia region, I believe Singapore is the smart choice.

However, Japanese companies should not expect results in the short-term. No results can be made in the first three to six months. It may require at least three to five years to achieve something. Furthermore, they shouldn’t deploy a Japanese management style to local employees. This might cause negative results no matter where the region.

Q. You achieved a lot in your past business life, at Linksys and EA, and I expect you’re doing ok financially. Why did you choose to join startup where the future is less certain?

David:
I did a joint venture with Linksys CEO in 1998 after the Thailand economic crisis and built Linksys business in Asia. Linksys was sold to Cisco for $500 million in 2003, hence I was successful as an entrepreneur from early days. (This paragraph contained a mistake of fact. It’s been corrected.)

But when I met with Mr. Kunimitsu (Gumi Group’s CEO) and listened to his dreams and ideas, and where he’s heading, I wanted to get involved and work with him. This is not about making money. Unlike my previous business experiences, Gumi is a startup requiring us to create everything from scratch. I thought this must be very challenging and interesting.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

David: In the smartphone game industry, there will be a shift to native apps from web-based apps this year. For us, developing native apps based on our Japan-made apps is also one of our missions at the Singapore office. For upcoming gaming titles for smartphones, we’ll be developing all of them as native apps. Puzzle Trooper is a notable one, released on April 16th (available on Google Play, trailer below). We will also introduce another slot app by the end of this year which was mainly designed at our Indonesian office. So please stay tuned for that and more upcoming products.

As I talked with David Ng, I felt that he was not just the president of a Japanese subsidiary, but also that he has the perspective of an investor rather than that of an entrepreneur. And he’s ambitious enough to share a dream with the startup’s founder, and expects to make Gumi a top global company.

Linksys was subsequently acquired by Cisco Systems and Belkin. ↩

news

Twilio officially launches in Japan, CEO Jeff Lawson expects ‘enormous demand’

Rick Martin 2013.04.17

A year after initially announcing their partnership last year, Twilio and KDDI (TYO:9433) today launched Twilio for the Japanese market. The service allows developers to build voice/VoIP and SMS functionality into web programs and applications. And now as a result of this partnership, Japanese developers can go to twilio.kddi-web.com and sign up for it. Through the partnership with KDDI Web Communications, the website and documentation have been localized, and developers can pay in yen when they sign up for Twilio service. Leading up to today, there was a beta period of about four months where they had a number of Japanese customers using the Twilio for KWC product, who gave valuable feedback that helped them prepare for launch. We had a chance to speak with Twilio’s CEO Jeff Lawson at the launch event today, who told us a little more about this, their first foray into Asia: Obviously Japan is a complicated market to enter, especially for a startup, so we chose to work with a partner who knows the market very well. We expect there will be an enormous demand for Twilio here, based on the amount of software development, and the size of the economy. In addition to…

A year after initially announcing their partnership last year, Twilio and KDDI (TYO:9433) today launched Twilio for the Japanese market. The service allows developers to build voice/VoIP and SMS functionality into web programs and applications. And now as a result of this partnership, Japanese developers can go to twilio.kddi-web.com and sign up for it.

Through the partnership with KDDI Web Communications, the website and documentation have been localized, and developers can pay in yen when they sign up for Twilio service. Leading up to today, there was a beta period of about four months where they had a number of Japanese customers using the Twilio for KWC product, who gave valuable feedback that helped them prepare for launch.

We had a chance to speak with Twilio’s CEO Jeff Lawson at the launch event today, who told us a little more about this, their first foray into Asia:

Obviously Japan is a complicated market to enter, especially for a startup, so we chose to work with a partner who knows the market very well. We expect there will be an enormous demand for Twilio here, based on the amount of software development, and the size of the economy.

In addition to language localization, Twilio has established a Tokyo data center presence via Amazon Web Services.

Jeff describes the partnership with KWC as a “really good cultural match.” Interestingly, KDDI had initiated a similar project called Boundio, which was started as an API based on their observations of Twilio [1]. But as discussions between Twilio and KDDI progressed, the Japanese company decided that they should just offer Twilio rather than try to compete with it. Nonetheless, Jeff explains that the KWC’s initiative was something that really impressed him.

What we liked was that they were thinking ahead. They were movers. They made a product and got it out there, and for a carrier, that’s not easy to do since [carriers] are typically slow moving. KWC is a startup within KDDI, and we liked how their vision aligned with ours, how they feel about APIs and developers, and how they are building the ecosystem and community – really understanding what it takes to bring a product to market.

Twilio is built for software people, says Jeff. And that phrase, ‘software people’ was one that he used a lot at their Twilio Japan Summit today. APIs like Twilio, he says, are the scaffolding that software people use to build great customer experiences. And by doing so, small agile companies can challenge slower moving incumbants in billion dollar industries. Companies like Uber are using Twilio’s telephony solution to connect their passengers with the drivers of luxury cars. Another company, Babelverse, uses Twilio to enable their one-to-one language interpretation service.

Currently there are over 200,000 developers building on the Twilio platform. Back in 2010, that total stood at just 10,000, so their growth has been pretty spectacular. It will be interesting to see what kind of services spring up here in Japan atop the Twilio platform. It’s certainly encouraging to see more building blocks becoming available to Japanese developers.

Boundio will be retired now that KDDI is working with Twilio. ↩

news

Cinnamon pitching private photo sharing to the Southeast Asian market

Rick Martin 2013.04.04

At the Startup Asia conference today in Singapore, Cinnamon – a startup led by CEO Miku Hirano – pitched a new photo app called ‘Seconds.’ I recently had a chance to meet with Miku, who gave me a preview of the soon-to-be-released app. To be launched first on the Android platform, she says that she would like Seconds to replace your native camera app, with private photo sharing features targeting the Southeast Asia market to start. The app is is simple and easy to use. You just take a photo, and choose your desired album for upload. Photos added are immediately visible to members who have access to that album, and those members can also upload pictures as well. You can also create any number of albums, which differ depending on who has access – it could be your family, friends, or your significant other. With photos being automatically uploaded, you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures if you misplace your phone or have it stolen. Cinnamon plans to release the app first in Thailand, says Miku, a country known for its love of photo sharing. They’re targeting the huge population of Southeast Asia because private sharing is…

At the Startup Asia conference today in Singapore, Cinnamon – a startup led by CEO Miku Hirano – pitched a new photo app called ‘Seconds.’ I recently had a chance to meet with Miku, who gave me a preview of the soon-to-be-released app. To be launched first on the Android platform, she says that she would like Seconds to replace your native camera app, with private photo sharing features targeting the Southeast Asia market to start.

The app is is simple and easy to use. You just take a photo, and choose your desired album for upload. Photos added are immediately visible to members who have access to that album, and those members can also upload pictures as well.

miku-hirano-cinnamon — Cinnamon CEO Miku Hirano

You can also create any number of albums, which differ depending on who has access – it could be your family, friends, or your significant other. With photos being automatically uploaded, you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures if you misplace your phone or have it stolen.

Cinnamon plans to release the app first in Thailand, says Miku, a country known for its love of photo sharing. They’re targeting the huge population of Southeast Asia because private sharing is a little bit more popular in Asian regions. They hope that more mature mobile markets like Japan, China, and Korea will help make it profitable.

Cinnamon was founded in Singapore back in October, and received seed funding December from CyberAgent Ventures and other angel investors. Currently the company has a headcount of like 10 people including its president at Hajime Hotta.

There are many ways in which they hope they can monetize Seconds, likely with premium features or with ads. If they go for premium model would mean extra features like storage, filters, decoration, or Facebook sync.

Tomorrow is day two of Startup Asia, so it will be interesting to see how Cinnamon fares in the field of 20 Asian startups. I had the pleasure of being a part of the last Startup Asia event in Jakarta last year, where the winner of the startup event was Moso, the sole Japanese entry in the competition.

news

With over 4M downloads, crazy ‘Battle Cats’ game from Japan still has some surprises in store

SCORE 1,648

Rick Martin 2013.03.29

One of my very favorite mobile games over the past year has been Battle Cats (known in Japan as Nyanko) from Kyoto-based game developer Ponos. It’s a pretty simple tower defense title, but the unique cat heros and strange enemies give the game a very distinct, very weird character. Even though it only launched back in November, the title already has more than 4 million downloads, and that’s without the assistance of any of the major game platforms like GREE or Mobage [1]. I recently had a chance to speak with a Ponos representative about their very unusual game. I was surprised to discover that there was an i-mode version of Battle Cats before these latest smartphone titles for Android and iOS. And while the Japanese and English version have some differences, both were created to have the appearance of a movie parody. While the title can’t really be called a runaway hit, I find I keep coming back to it because I just have a hunch that there’s a lot of potential for more growth here. Our video demo of Battle Cats over on Youtube has a crazy amount of comments from overseas users, which has really surprised me….

One of my very favorite mobile games over the past year has been Battle Cats (known in Japan as Nyanko) from Kyoto-based game developer Ponos. It’s a pretty simple tower defense title, but the unique cat heros and strange enemies give the game a very distinct, very weird character. Even though it only launched back in November, the title already has more than 4 million downloads, and that’s without the assistance of any of the major game platforms like GREE or Mobage [1].

I recently had a chance to speak with a Ponos representative about their very unusual game. I was surprised to discover that there was an i-mode version of Battle Cats before these latest smartphone titles for Android and iOS. And while the Japanese and English version have some differences, both were created to have the appearance of a movie parody.

While the title can’t really be called a runaway hit, I find I keep coming back to it because I just have a hunch that there’s a lot of potential for more growth here. Our video demo of Battle Cats over on Youtube has a crazy amount of comments from overseas users, which has really surprised me. Most of it is simply players looking to share invite codes, but to me it is a pretty strong indication of an active overseas fan base. I asked the folks at Ponos if they have been surprised that players outside Japan are taking such a liking to Battle Cats:

Well, the truth is that there was hardly any marketing. So you could say it is pure organic growth. I didn’t think of Battle Cats as a hit outside of Japan before. I must say I’m surprised myself. We are currently examining how to appeal to a broader audience, outside of Asia, where people know less about Japan and might have trouble connecting with the various places, treasures and characters.

Profitable cats?

god-cat — God Cat iPhone wallpaper, anyone?

But is the game making any money? It has done well on the top grossing charts in Japan, and on Android it has been a top 50 grossing app in Taiwan and Singapore too. The company declined to disclose any details about its revenue for the game (players can buy cat food to purchase in-game items) but they say that Battle Cats is “doing fine” in terms of income.

What can we expect in the future for Battle Cats? I’m told that they are working on some new content, including new original characters and attacks. These are coming in one of the next updates.

Given the ‘kimo-kawaii’ nature of the game [2], I was also curious to know whether or not the company intended to get into merchandising, like many other popular mobile games these days. They affirm that this is indeed the case, and that they are speaking with a number of companies, looking forward to having a lineup of Battle Cats merch “in the near future.”

Finally I had to ask about the very difficult chapter 3, round 48 that both myself and a number of readers have been having difficulty with. The Ponos rep tells me:

I will answer this not as employee but from experience. As the campaigns get increasingly more difficult you need to efficiently use ranged attacks and shield characters in order to defeat the enemy.

While I haven’t spent too much time trying to beat this round recently, I noticed that there have been some double-chance ‘Treasure Festival’ events in the game recently (see below), where players can then make an effort to improve the power of their cat army. I think if you keep an eye out for such events, and follow the strategy above, then the round should be beatable.

I’m looking forward to seeing the new content when it’s published, and it will be interesting to see if new additions to the game can sustain Battle Cats’ recent success. Stay tuned!

I’d even consider putting Line in this class these days, given the dominance that we’re seeing from that platform recently. ↩
I recently learned this word. Thanks Emily and Serkan! ↩

news

Live-streaming app TwitCasting surpasses 2 million users, but founder is a little distressed

SCORE 1,673

Takeshi Hirano 2013.03.29

See the original story in Japanese. TwitCasting is an app that allows you to stream videos from iPhone or Android handsets. The service was launched early in 2010, and there have been good numbers in terms of user acquisition: reaching 250,000 users in 2010, 750,000 in 2011, and 1.75 million in 2012. On Thursday, we had a chance to speak with Yoski Akamatsu, the CEO of Moi Corp., the company behind the app. He explained more about the services sudden growth: I feel it rapidly shifted gears last November. Since the beginning of this year, we are acquiring almost 200,000 users a month. We may surpass 4 million users by the end of this year. […] The livecast channel has 200,000 to 300,000 visitors a day, and they usually stay for about 4 to 5 minutes on average. While I invented the service, I can’t really explain what has caused the recent rapid user growth. More than a half of our entire user base is people who are younger than 25 years old. He showed us a list of livecast programs, where thumbnail portrait of users livecasting can be seen for each one. As the CEO mentioned, they are pretty…

See the original story in Japanese.

TwitCasting is an app that allows you to stream videos from iPhone or Android handsets. The service was launched early in 2010, and there have been good numbers in terms of user acquisition: reaching 250,000 users in 2010, 750,000 in 2011, and 1.75 million in 2012. On Thursday, we had a chance to speak with Yoski Akamatsu, the CEO of Moi Corp., the company behind the app. He explained more about the services sudden growth:

I feel it rapidly shifted gears last November. Since the beginning of this year, we are acquiring almost 200,000 users a month. We may surpass 4 million users by the end of this year. […] The livecast channel has 200,000 to 300,000 visitors a day, and they usually stay for about 4 to 5 minutes on average. While I invented the service, I can’t really explain what has caused the recent rapid user growth. More than a half of our entire user base is people who are younger than 25 years old.

He showed us a list of livecast programs, where thumbnail portrait of users livecasting can be seen for each one. As the CEO mentioned, they are pretty young – probably high school students, junior high school students, and teenagers. When we opened one program, it was explaining about how to put on make-up. Viewers then would leave comments on the video via Twitter.

[The sudden influx of] younger users might be caused by Atsushi Tamura, a comedian known for using the Twitcasting app on his TV show. Users visit our service with the expectation of making new friends online. They’re using it as a chat app.

The service is getting so popular so that has been featured in some magazines for teenagers, but it seems the CEO can’t keep up with this unforeseen popularity.

Compared to other similar services like Ustream or the live channels of Nico Nico Douga, the service pursues quality user communication. Instead of video quality, they are focusing on gaining real time capabilities like live radio programming, aligning the direction for the user community by adopting a real name-based membership system. But now that the younger generation shares a big portion of the user base, he has to intensify monitoring of video posts to ensure there’s no illegal activity involving minors.

TwitCasting was launched as a part of Yoski’s other startup, Sidefeed. It was spun-off in February of 2012 and incorporated as a new startup called Moi Corp.

They intend to monetize with advertising and paid-subscriptions, and currently revenue is roughly split between these two streams. The paid subscription from the Android app is showing good growth too.

The startup is now in talks with big companies exploring possible business partnerships.

news

Japan’s Designclue wants to build Asia’s largest logo crowdsourcing market

Masaru Ikeda 2013.02.21

See also this story in Japanese. Designclue is a service that lets you crowdsource logo creation to freelance designers regardless of their location or nationality. It’s run by the Tokyo-based startup called Purple Cow, which recently announced it had fundraised 14.7 million yen (approximately $157,000) in a seed round from Incubate Fund and East Ventures. We had a chance to interview all the three members of the startup, Kensuke Shibata, the CEO; Kyohei Teshima, the chief global officer; and Akira Kudo, the web developer. What exactly motivated you guys to launch this service? Shibata: I was studying in high school in Canada, and our CGO Kyohei Teshima was studying in the UK. As both he and I were outside Japan, we saw a variety of services for outsourcing tasks to emerging countries. We didn’t really call it ‘crowdsourcing’ in the past, but it was an [early] form of today’s crowdsouricing concepts. Kyohei and I met each other while working at DeNA as interns. We were so inspired by the concept of The World is Flat, the best-selling book by Thomas Friedman, and started working together exploring an innovative project that might disrupt the global market. With the idea of building…

From left: Kyohei Teshima (CGO), Keisuke Shibata (CEO), and Akira Kudo (web developer) — Kyohei Teshima (CGO), Kensuke Shibata (CEO), and Akira Kudo (web developer)

See also this story in Japanese.

Designclue is a service that lets you crowdsource logo creation to freelance designers regardless of their location or nationality. It’s run by the Tokyo-based startup called Purple Cow, which recently announced it had fundraised 14.7 million yen (approximately $157,000) in a seed round from Incubate Fund and East Ventures. We had a chance to interview all the three members of the startup, Kensuke Shibata, the CEO; Kyohei Teshima, the chief global officer; and Akira Kudo, the web developer.

What exactly motivated you guys to launch this service?

Shibata: I was studying in high school in Canada, and our CGO Kyohei Teshima was studying in the UK. As both he and I were outside Japan, we saw a variety of services for outsourcing tasks to emerging countries. We didn’t really call it ‘crowdsourcing’ in the past, but it was an [early] form of today’s crowdsouricing concepts.

Kyohei and I met each other while working at DeNA as interns. We were so inspired by the concept of The World is Flat, the best-selling book by Thomas Friedman, and started working together exploring an innovative project that might disrupt the global market. With the idea of building up a global project-sharing platform without considering language barriers and cultural gaps, we won a grand prize award plus 3 million yen ($32,000) at an entrepreneur contest from Skylight Consulting. That’s where my colleague Akira Kudo joined the team too.

When thinking about what was the easiest category of crowdsource-able tasks [unlikely to be impeded by] language barriers, we concluded we should focus on a platform specializing in logo design. Since we started working on it, we’re haven’t been interested in business in a specific country but rather one that works in the global market. [1]

Can you tell us how the system works?

When you order logo design here in Japan, it will usually not be very cheap due to high labor costs in the country. And it can also be very hard for most Japanese people to order such work from overseas because of the language barrier. Our service allows users to easily place orders from independent foreign designers.

The website has multilingual interfaces to easily facilitate this. We’ve developed a non-verbal interface that allows users to let the designers know what kind of tastes you like or what kind of additional changes you want by just choosing selective designations or pointing [things] out over the artwork on screen. Users can receive many design proposals at affordable rates from registered designers in emerging markets.

How do you monetize this?

We charge our user almost 20% of the ordering fee as our commission (this can vary according to some order criteria) when the design artwork is delivered to the user. When a user submits the order, we’ll charge our fee including the commission. And after that user then selects one of the design proposals, Designclue will pay the designer. So, Designclue plays a sort of escrow role in terms of money flow. All payments on the platform are processed via PayPal.

What kinds of business are using the service the most?

About 50% of all orders on the platform came from Japanese startups, followed by large-sized IT enterprises which accounted for 30% of orders.

How geographically varied are the designers?

About 30% of registered designers comes from Indonesia, followed by the Philippines, the US, India, Serbia, and the UK (in descending order). There was even a South African freelance designer who could make a living for three months as long as he accomplished a single task.

It seems that in Indonesia the locals are aggressively developing their skills to make a living. Many people are using [similar services] like 99designs.com and are used to submitting their artwork ideas as side jobs. 99designs is an English language site and helps them work with Western countries. But for the Indonesian designers, we are a way to enlarge their business opportunities to non-English-speaking countries, including Japan.

Can you share any interesting metrics about your service so far?

123 design proposals are delivered for an order on average, and 95% of all the order requests are completed with users satisfied with the outcome. We have 800 designers in 60 countries, and more than 85% of all the designers came from outside Japan. We’ve handled more than 100 transactions during the last six months since the site launch.

What do you foresee for Designclue in the future?

We think we’ll be moving towards the realization of a project sharing platform, where users can easily split their tasks to small pieces and outsource to freelancers.

Designclue was chosen as one of the finalists for the SF Japan Night event that will take place in San Francisco in early March.

They’re currently hiring Ruby developers, preferably English speakers. If you are interested in joining them and being a part of a platform that may disrupt the global market, please feel free to contact them.

After this point, all three pitch in to answer various questions. ↩

news

Why Angry Birds prefer not to be early birds in Japan

SCORE 1,231

Rick Martin 2013.02.19

See the Japanese version of this article It has been a while since I last spoke to the folks from Rovio, the Finnish company behind the wildly popular Angry Birds mobile game. But I recently had a chance to catch up with a few members of their flock in Tokyo, as the company gears up to open a new office in the Japanese capital, likely this spring. And while it might make for a more dramatic story to say that the company is making a furious push for Japan, that’s not the case. In fact quite the opposite. They are taking it slow, and that’s how they want it. I would argue that Rovio’s Angry Birds has achieved the kind of pop culture icon status not really seen since the days when Mario Bros revolutionized gaming. But the company realizes that if it wants to permeate uber-cute Japan, which has a culture of firmly established brand icons like Hello Kitty, Anpanman, and yes, Nintendo’s Mario Bros, they need a long term game plan. Peter Vesterbacka, ‘Mighty Eagle’ [1] at Rovio explains: We want to figure out how to build a proper presence that lasts – not just for the next…

Right to left: Peter Vesterbacka, Antti Sonninen, Henri Holm

See the Japanese version of this article

It has been a while since I last spoke to the folks from Rovio, the Finnish company behind the wildly popular Angry Birds mobile game. But I recently had a chance to catch up with a few members of their flock in Tokyo, as the company gears up to open a new office in the Japanese capital, likely this spring. And while it might make for a more dramatic story to say that the company is making a furious push for Japan, that’s not the case. In fact quite the opposite. They are taking it slow, and that’s how they want it.

I would argue that Rovio’s Angry Birds has achieved the kind of pop culture icon status not really seen since the days when Mario Bros revolutionized gaming. But the company realizes that if it wants to permeate uber-cute Japan, which has a culture of firmly established brand icons like Hello Kitty, Anpanman, and yes, Nintendo’s Mario Bros, they need a long term game plan. Peter Vesterbacka, ‘Mighty Eagle’ [1] at Rovio explains:

We want to figure out how to build a proper presence that lasts – not just for the next year or two. We want to be a leading entertainment brand, one that’s more Japanese than many of the Japanese [brands].

Learning locally ¶

But at the same time, they recognize that the business models in Japan leave much room for innovation and disruption. And while the company has been active on the ground in Japan making deals with local partners, they still haven’t really made a significant marketing push in the country. I asked if they’d ever consider television ads in Japan, as that’s a common tactic among the major internet companies here – but Peter says they would likely do something else. Rovio always takes a somewhat different approach in its marketing, he notes, and that’s likely to be the case in Japan as well. Of their existing merchandising partnership with Sanrio, the makers of Hello Kitty, he explains:

It’s always important to have the best possible local partners, because we can learn a lot from them. This was the same reason we wanted to work with LucasArts on Star Wars [2].

I’m told that the downloads that Rovio is seeing from Japan still have a long way to catch up with neighboring Korea, as smartphone penetration still has much room to grow in Japan. This is another reason why playing the long game in the country might be a wise idea, because a all-out marketing push at this time could indeed be premature.

But in the interests of giving locals an idea of what Rovio and Angry Birds are all about, they recently published a sort of Japanese language primer about what Angry Birds is all about (pictured right). Antti Sonninen, Rovio’s country director in Japan, points out that the site launched just a few weeks back. This is actually a common tactic for digital companies bringing a new digital product into Japan. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – all have done similar things. They hope to answer many of the basic questions about Angry Birds here, including profiles of the different birds, as well as an explantion of in-game items.

Global migration patterns ¶

Meanwhile in nearby China the Angry Birds brand has truly taken flight. I’m told that in a recent survey of 1,000 people that about 94% were familiar with the Angry Birds brand. The company has never been too upset about the IP infringements that usually accompany expansion into China, because it’s only a precipitate of passion for their product. Without going into too many details about their upcoming plans in the country, Peter says with a smile that “there’s a lot going on in China.”

Currently the company has a headcount of about 550 people, with 90 percent of those in Finland. But from what I can tell, the team is very adept at spreading their message, focusing their energies in the right places at the right time. Peter was recently in Russia where Rovio hopes to open activity parks in the next year, as well as push their new Angry Birds branded cola.

Looking at other top mobile games in comparison, there aren’t many that can even come close to what Angry Birds has done in terms of building such a recognizable and iconic brand. It will be interesting to see if this long term strategy works for Rovio, not just in Japan but across the globe.

If I recall correctly, I believe this is the actual title on his name card. Fun stuff. ↩
Published in conjunction with LucasArts, developed by Rovio and Disney Mobile. ↩

news

Translation start-up Conyac plans presence in San Francisco, now offers services for businesses

Masaru Ikeda 2013.02.18

Conyac is a Tokyo-based startup that focuses on providing cost-effective translation services, leveraging crowdsourced expertise. It recently added a new service to its repertoire called Conyac for Business, and the company also announced its first overseas expansion to San Francisco. In addition to those developments, we also learned that Una Aruna Softic has joined the team to help their international marketing efforts in San Francisco. She previously worked with EverConnect.me, a social media account aggregation service that was shut down last September. We spoke with Una as well as Conyac’s CEO Naoki Yamada, about their plans to grow this translation business. Tell us about this new business service, and why you are expanding your offerings in this way. It’s called Conyac for Business, and it is designed better suit business translation needs. We started our service in May of 2009, aiming at giving individual users a way to break language barriers at affordable rates. [But] now we’re receiving more translation requests from corporate users, and that’s why we created the new service, to better serve those users. How is it different from your existing service? Our regular service provides translation services for casual communication purposes, such contacting a sales representative…

Conyac is a Tokyo-based startup that focuses on providing cost-effective translation services, leveraging crowdsourced expertise. It recently added a new service to its repertoire called Conyac for Business, and the company also announced its first overseas expansion to San Francisco. In addition to those developments, we also learned that Una Aruna Softic has joined the team to help their international marketing efforts in San Francisco. She previously worked with EverConnect.me, a social media account aggregation service that was shut down last September. We spoke with Una as well as Conyac’s CEO Naoki Yamada, about their plans to grow this translation business.

Conyac's Una Softic (left) and CEO Naoki Yamada (right) — Conyac’s Una Softic (left) and CEO Naoki Yamada (right)

Tell us about this new business service, and why you are expanding your offerings in this way.

It’s called Conyac for Business, and it is designed better suit business translation needs. We started our service in May of 2009, aiming at giving individual users a way to break language barriers at affordable rates. [But] now we’re receiving more translation requests from corporate users, and that’s why we created the new service, to better serve those users.

How is it different from your existing service?

Our regular service provides translation services for casual communication purposes, such contacting a sales representative at an e-commerce site abroad when ordering. For the purpose of encouraging our (crowdsourced) translators to make a translation request very quickly, the maximum length in each ‘request unit’ was limited to [a maximum of] 720 characters. However, for the business service, the limit is extended up to 50,000 characters so that our users need not to split sentences into pieces when placing a translation order, meaning it may fit even for business documents as well.

Of course, in terms of satisfying clients with the translation quality, we also established a new qualification process to choose highly skilled translators for business needs. The business service can accept original documents for translation requests not only as text files but also in some different business document file formats such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, and Keynote Files. This feature would be really helpful for our business users, because they no longer need to replace texts in their original documents with translation results.

So why do this now?

We found there’s a need for much work coming from the social gaming industry. Social gaming developers are now intensifying their international expansion. And in terms of localizing their gaming apps with foreign languages, they have a tremendous need for translation because the release cycles of new apps and updates are very, very short. We believe our service fit them well, and that’s why we also added to our sales headcount in order to cultivate more corporate clients from the industry.

Does the recent change of your major shareholders have anything to do with this new business strategy?

Yes. So far, we have fundraised a total of approximately 40 million yen ($431,000) from Samurai Incubate, United (previously known as ngi group), and Skylight Consulting. The shares previously held by our first investor Samurai Incubate were handed over to angel investor Anri Samata, because he has many connections with our potential clients, so that he could help us.

You’re launching a new office in San Francisco. What’s the main purpose of that office?

Yes, my new colleague Una will be in charge of that, and we will be setting up a new office (or a desk) at a co-working space in San Francisco. We’ve not yet decided the location or the date of its launch, but will announce that very shortly. Basically, the main role of our SF office is to intensify our marketing efforts and gain a presence in the global startup community. Through the new office, we expect to get more new clients from the West coast who are in need of translation as well.

Do you have any plan to set up other overseas offices after San Francisco?

Yes. We’re now exploring the potential of setting up a new office in Singapore, where a number of Japanese and Asian gaming/tech startups have their offices.

The competition in the translation space is getting more intense these days. A Conyac competitor, 500Starups-backed Gengo is considered to be slightly ahead when it comes to serving businesses, as they have developed many tools and interfaces for business translation needs. In the Asian region, other startups in the translation space include OneSky and Translation Market – both from Hong Kong.

news

How Japan’s SnapDish app catered to foreign foodies

Junya Mori 2013.02.06

Many mobile applications from Japan aspire to reach a global audience. The food photo and recipe-sharing mobile app SnapDish is an example of such app. And so far, it has fared well. Up until now it has been available in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and Korean. But it recently announced the addition of seven more: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Indonesian, and Thai. Snapdish now potentially supports three billion people speaking those eleven languages around the world. The app, which lets cooking enthusiasts edit and share food photos, was launched in May 2011. To date it has cataloged more than 1.7 million pictures, with more than 10 million Yummies (similar to a Facebook’s Like function). SnapDish is getting more and more popular, mainly among people who cook at home. They are able to connect with a wide range of people and chat about cooking through photos and recipes. We recently spoke to a SnapDish representative in charge of language support. His comments follow below. SnapDish on going global SnapDish representative: When developing and designing the app, which we launched in May of 2011, we had overseas users in mind from the very beginning and we planned…

Many mobile applications from Japan aspire to reach a global audience. The food photo and recipe-sharing mobile app SnapDish is an example of such app. And so far, it has fared well.

Up until now it has been available in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and Korean. But it recently announced the addition of seven more: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Indonesian, and Thai. Snapdish now potentially supports three billion people speaking those eleven languages around the world.

The app, which lets cooking enthusiasts edit and share food photos, was launched in May 2011. To date it has cataloged more than 1.7 million pictures, with more than 10 million Yummies (similar to a Facebook’s Like function).

SnapDish is getting more and more popular, mainly among people who cook at home. They are able to connect with a wide range of people and chat about cooking through photos and recipes. We recently spoke to a SnapDish representative in charge of language support. His comments follow below.

SnapDish on going global

SnapDish representative: When developing and designing the app, which we launched in May of 2011, we had overseas users in mind from the very beginning and we planned to launch its English and Japanese versions at the same time. So with the intention of having an English user interface, instead of simply translating the context literally, we designed the app so it would be easy to use for both Japanese and non-Japanese users.

We also paid close attention to whether or not English expressions in the app sound fun for English users. For example, there is a button called Mogu Mogu in the Japanese version. This works like Facebook’s Like button and users can click it when they like other users’ photos. But in the English version, this button is instead labeled Yummy. Whereas Mogu mogu translates more literally into English as nom nom or chomp chomp, but since such expressions are not as friendly or appealing in English, SnapDish chose the more natural-sounding Yummy. We are taking equal care to use natural expressions as we expand into other languages.

As a result, the application has been regularly downloaded overseas since its initial release. The app gained many users, particularly in Southeast Asia and Chinese-speaking regions, and we quickly learned that it’s not only Japanese foodies, but also folks in other Asian countries like the combination of food and photos.

Even after launching apps, we figure out users’ needs and try to meet those them. For example, genres that can be tagged on pictures are customized to each countries’ food culture. Since the application was developed from the very beginning with foreign users in mind, many users overseas regularly report that they didn’t realize that the application was Japanese. American users often assume that it was developed in an English-speaking country. Such feedback confirms that even foreign users can use the application seamlessly.

Building the business

SnapDish representative: Last year, we expanded our service further by partnering with large foreign companies such as China’s Renren.com and Korea’s SK Planet. Thanks to these partnerships we realized that there are many people who think the SnapDish app can meet the needs of Asian consumers, and that our service can add value.

Also, we actively applied for overseas startup pitch events last year and participated in Singapore’s Echelon in June, Taiwan’s IDEAS Show in July, and GMIC-SV which was held in San Jose, USA, in October. At those events, we not only made presentations but also set up our booth in venues, so we were able to talk with existing overseas users and build our network. We were even interviewed by foreign media companies, so it was very beneficial from a promotional standpoint as well.

We were well-received especially in Asia, and we had a chance to pitch at Echelon as one of the top 10 startups selected from six Asian countries. We asked an event organizer about the reason why we were selected, and we were told that we differentiated our app from other food photo apps with a home-cooking feature, and that it was great that we had developed a monetization plan.

What’s next for SnapDish?

SnapDish rep: While still paying attention to details in the app, we are looking to provide promotional and communication features that fit in with each local market. For example, we are planning to launch our gift campaign, which is only available in Japan at the moment, to foreign markets.

We continue to put our priority on Asia for our international business. Of course, it doesn’t mean that other regions such as Europe are not important. In Asia, we have already established a substantial user base and are forming a community there. We are already well-grounded in the Asian market, so we would like to solidify that market position.

We also want to continue to take part in pitch events abroad, and at the same time, just like we promoted our service in Asia last year, we are looking for a chance to do the same in Europe as well.

If you want to download SnapDish, you can get it here for iOS and Android.

(Photo: e27)

Interviews

Tell us about you and your team?

We’ve seen many similar photo sharing apps. What makes DecoAlbum different?

Do you have any metrics to share about how your app has performed so far?

Is your user base different from other photo sharing apps?

So are you making any specific marketing efforts elsewhere in Asia?

How will you monetize? Do you have any exit strategy?

Related news

Q: Can you tell us a little about your Singapore team?

Q: Gumi is currently focusing on the Asian market. Why not North America nor Europe?

Q. Your business is not only about sales but also developing products all over Asia. What is the benefit of this development strategy?

Q. At the end of last year, Konami also set up in Singapore. Is the regional market attracting many more gaming companies?

Q. You achieved a lot in your past business life, at Linksys and EA, and I expect you’re doing ok financially. Why did you choose to join startup where the future is less certain?

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

Related news

Related news

Related news

Profitable cats?

Related news

Related news

What exactly motivated you guys to launch this service?

Can you tell us how the system works?

How do you monetize this?

What kinds of business are using the service the most?

How geographically varied are the designers?

Can you share any interesting metrics about your service so far?

What do you foresee for Designclue in the future?

Related news

Learning locally ¶

Global migration patterns ¶

Related news

Tell us about this new business service, and why you are expanding your offerings in this way.

How is it different from your existing service?

So why do this now?

Does the recent change of your major shareholders have anything to do with this new business strategy?

You’re launching a new office in San Francisco. What’s the main purpose of that office?

Do you have any plan to set up other overseas offices after San Francisco?

Related news

SnapDish on going global

Building the business

What’s next for SnapDish?

Related news

Recent Articles

Trends