When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time making things from old cardboard boxes. Impenetrable headquarters for my toy figures, with complex slides and zip-lines strung about — this was pretty commonplace [1]. But in today smartphone age, I can’t help but wonder if this sort of creative playtime is as common as before. Thankfully, one Japanese company is making an effort to encourage such activity, and they are – somewhat ironically – using mobile devices to do so.
Tokyo-based publisher Regia Inc. has created an iPad app called Cartoon Box, with intent to distribute their instructional booklets on creating fun things with discarded cardboard boxes. The app itself is nothing special, but I’m glad to see that the company is getting its content out there on mobile, given that kids take to such devices so readily.
While the iPad application itself is free to download, some of the instructional booklets are paid. One of the available booklets can be downloaded for free, including instructions on how to make a wagon, and (incredibly) a tyrannosaurus.
Cartoon Box was recently featured on the popular weekend television show King’s Brunch. Typically that show gives a huge boost to apps here in Japan, and I expect that this was the case here as well [2].
If you’d like to try the iPad app, you can get it over on the App Store. Instructions are in both English and Japanese.
My biggest cardboard box creation was an Optimus Prime Halloween costume that could actually transform into a truck. ↩
I’ve reached out to Regia to find out how they’re progressing, and will update if I hear anything. ↩
Japan’s Line Corporation, which previously stated that its goal for this year was to hit 300 million users, has just announced that it has met that target as of today. And perhaps even more ambitiously, the company says it wants to hit 500 million by the end of 2014. Check out the chart of Line’s user growth to date in their chart below. That 500 million total would put it up among the world’s social big boys, but still trailing Facebook which has over a billion users. China’s WeChat is its primary Asia rival, but that service (in my view) may not have the global appeal that Line has. Line’s most recent sales figures (for July to September 2013) were up 48% on the previous quarter, with 60% of its sales coming from games, and 20% coming from its stamps business.
Japan’s Line Corporation, which previously stated that its goal for this year was to hit 300 million users, has just announced that it has met that target as of today. And perhaps even more ambitiously, the company says it wants to hit 500 million by the end of 2014.
Check out the chart of Line’s user growth to date in their chart below.
That 500 million total would put it up among the world’s social big boys, but still trailing Facebook which has over a billion users. China’s WeChat is its primary Asia rival, but that service (in my view) may not have the global appeal that Line has.
Line’s most recent sales figures (for July to September 2013) were up 48% on the previous quarter, with 60% of its sales coming from games, and 20% coming from its stamps business.
Shopping for everyday items online is becoming a norm for many Japanese people. According to a survey conducted by a Japanese internet marketing company Ceres, roughly 84% of respondents have used online shopping services. Whether you’re a successful online shopper or not largely depends on your capability to search and find the product that you’re looking for. Is it the best among all similar products? For Japanese users, Searchist may some assurance if you’re uncertain. Searchist is a simple and sleek iOS search app, made exclusively for Amazon products, sorting them by sales ranking. The app focuses on Amazon’s books, games, videos, and music, but it also comes with a feature that lets you see the best-selling products in any category. The app only shows top 10 of any product category, which is probably more than enough for most people to choose from. According to the survey above, Amazon is popular among teenagers, whereas Rakuten is more popular among all other age groups. Similarly research by Gain found that 90% of seniors have used Rakuten, with Amazon ranking second at about 55%. With the Japan’s aging population, it would be neat to see a similar sort of product like Searchist…
Shopping for everyday items online is becoming a norm for many Japanese people. According to a survey conducted by a Japanese internet marketing company Ceres, roughly 84% of respondents have used online shopping services.
Whether you’re a successful online shopper or not largely depends on your capability to search and find the product that you’re looking for. Is it the best among all similar products? For Japanese users, Searchist may some assurance if you’re uncertain.
Searchist is a simple and sleek iOS search app, made exclusively for Amazon products, sorting them by sales ranking. The app focuses on Amazon’s books, games, videos, and music, but it also comes with a feature that lets you see the best-selling products in any category. The app only shows top 10 of any product category, which is probably more than enough for most people to choose from.
According to the survey above, Amazon is popular among teenagers, whereas Rakuten is more popular among all other age groups. Similarly research by Gain found that 90% of seniors have used Rakuten, with Amazon ranking second at about 55%.
With the Japan’s aging population, it would be neat to see a similar sort of product like Searchist that focuses on Rakuten. But for now, perhaps it’s the (mobile-savvy) younger generation’s affinity for Amazon that has resulted in demand for an app like this.
See the original article in Japanese Toyro, a startup which operates an online insurance products platform called Insnext, announced that it has raised funds from CyberAgent Ventures, a figure in the tens of millions yen. Toyro is a startup founded by former members from Zynga Japan. They have formerly launched comap, a curation service based on location information. Their mission was to fill people’s information gap in some way, and after researching many industries, they found that a particularly severe information gap in the life insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The CEO, Kazuhisa Sase utilized his network in the financial industry that he built while working for Opt, an e-marketing company. Subsequently this launched a new life insurance service. Toyro had been running the service without having raised any funds. They were approach by CyberAgent Ventures only 15 minutes after their first service location curation service “comap” was launched. And they got along right away. Subsequently, and as mentioned above, Toyro would go on to raise tens of millions of yen from CyberAgent Ventures as they launch this new service, Insnext. In Japan, life insurance is considered as a kind of service where customers feel they are talked into buying. But…
Toyro, a startup which operates an online insurance products platform called Insnext, announced that it has raised funds from CyberAgent Ventures, a figure in the tens of millions yen.
Toyro is a startup founded by former members from Zynga Japan. They have formerly launched comap, a curation service based on location information. Their mission was to fill people’s information gap in some way, and after researching many industries, they found that a particularly severe information gap in the life insurance and pharmaceutical industry.
The CEO, Kazuhisa Sase utilized his network in the financial industry that he built while working for Opt, an e-marketing company. Subsequently this launched a new life insurance service.
Toyro had been running the service without having raised any funds. They were approach by CyberAgent Ventures only 15 minutes after their first service location curation service “comap” was launched. And they got along right away. Subsequently, and as mentioned above, Toyro would go on to raise tens of millions of yen from CyberAgent Ventures as they launch this new service, Insnext.
In Japan, life insurance is considered as a kind of service where customers feel they are talked into buying. But Toyro believes that it is important for customers to compare different insurance products on their own and choose the best one to fit their own life plan. Insnext is a service reflecting that vision.
One of the more interesting functions provided on Insnext is a life simulator. Users enter their annual earnings, their amount of savings, and how many children they have. Then a projected chart of their future savings and some financial advice will appear, as well as their expected lifetime earnings and expenses. In addition, insurance services needed to prepare for potential risks will also be displayed. And on the next page, users can compare different kinds of life insurances.
Typically when an insurance sales representative suggest a product to customers, they start with laying out on an ideal life plan with the customer. Therefore, Insnext focuses on their life simulator as a way to lead users to the best choice.
Regarding their monetization plans, Sase, the CEO of Toyro, tells us;
In the insurance industry, you need a license to sell services/products. We are currently studying to attain this license. Insurance products are hard to sell without having face-to-face communication with a customer. […] We plan to help users narrow down their choices, so we can then collect customers on Insnext, and proceed with final contracts in partnerships with real insurance agencies.
I think more insurance companies will intensify their online platforms, so it could become normal for people to look for insurance on the internet. In order to stay ahead of this trend, we will start our insurance agent business in 2014. In April we aim to start working using agency agreements with a few insurance companies.
Focus on users
Existing insurance companies have a tendency to focus on selling the most profitable products possible. But Toyro aims to focus on users and operate their service according to their mission.
Someday, I’d like hear our customers to say “I started thinking about my life plan seriously because of Insnext."
By building a user-focused service as part of its new system, Insnext aims to earn a place in the insurance industry where it can hopefully thrive.
See the original article in Japanese The partnership between investors and entrepreneurs is an interesting one. In the seed money round, investors not only invest funds, but they cooperate with entrepreneurs on many aspects of the business. But what’s actually going during the very early funding round? We spoke with an investor and an entrepreneur to find out more about this. Kentaro Sakaibara is the CEO of Samurai Incubate, a pioneer among independent incubators in Japan. Naoki Yamada is the CEO of Anydoor, the startup behind crowdsourced translation service Conyac, a portfolio startup of Samurai Incubate. In the previous article, they talked about how they cooperated on the Conyac translation service early on. This conversation is the third and final part, where Sakakibara talked about his long term goals. History of Anydoor Feburary 2009: Naoki Yamada and Tomohiro Onuma founded Anydoor. May 2009: Conyac, crowdsourced translation service, was launched. March 2010: Yamada met Sakakibara, and became one of the first portfolios of Samurai Incubate. December 2011: Anydoor fundraised from United. February 2013: Conyac for Business was launched. October 2013: Anydorr fundraised from three VCs. Yamada: How do you support young startups recently? Sakakibara: For the first half a year after…
The partnership between investors and entrepreneurs is an interesting one. In the seed money round, investors not only invest funds, but they cooperate with entrepreneurs on many aspects of the business. But what’s actually going during the very early funding round? We spoke with an investor and an entrepreneur to find out more about this. Kentaro Sakaibara is the CEO of Samurai Incubate, a pioneer among independent incubators in Japan. Naoki Yamada is the CEO of Anydoor, the startup behind crowdsourced translation service Conyac, a portfolio startup of Samurai Incubate.
In the previous article, they talked about how they cooperated on the Conyac translation service early on. This conversation is the third and final part, where Sakakibara talked about his long term goals.
History of Anydoor
Feburary 2009: Naoki Yamada and Tomohiro Onuma founded Anydoor. May 2009: Conyac, crowdsourced translation service, was launched. March 2010: Yamada met Sakakibara, and became one of the first portfolios of Samurai Incubate. December 2011: Anydoor fundraised from United. February 2013: Conyac for Business was launched. October 2013: Anydorr fundraised from three VCs.
Yamada: How do you support young startups recently?
Sakakibara: For the first half a year after investment, I use more schemes when I give advice, more than before. Hands-on for half a year, and then changing the meetings to twice a week… things like that.
Yamada: It’s more formulated rather than working together through trial and error.
Sakakibara: Right.
Yamada: Do you still have the Excel spreadsheet we used before?
Sakakibara: Yes, the form has changed though.
Yamada: Wow, I miss that. I struggled with filling out the tables, but I think that sheet helped me a lot in finding the next investor. The template made it easier for me to pitch in front of investors.
Sakakibara: Actually, some don’t like the sheet. They feel like they’re being controlled.
Yamada: Will you continue to support startups this way? Will you look at startups in Japan from a broader point of view?
Sakakibara: I think both perspectives are important. Some startups, incubators and CVCs were founded because of our influence. But I personally feel I shouldn’t be in Japan; I should create successful startups overseas.
Yamada: Are you going overseas? I remember when we were in the US, you’d been saying you want to try there.
Sakakibara: I’d rather go to Israel than the US, actually. I’d like to move on from Kobayashi-san to take a chance in Silicon Valley, and make connections on my own with investors in the Middle East and create a chance for startups in Japan to get investment from them.
Yamada: What is your final goal?
Sakakibara: The Nobel Peace Prize.
Yamada: You are very consistent about that. At our first meeting at Tully’s Coffee, you mentioned that. I thought you might be a crazy…
Sakakibara: Really? Did I say that then?
Yamada: And you mentioned Eiichi Shibusawa half a year later [1].
Sakakibara: Actually when I looked up business people related to the Nobel Peace Prize, I found information about Eiichi Shibusawa. He founded 521 companies, so I thought I would create 522 companies by the year 2020. You know, if I become a successful incubator in developing countries and contribute to making those countries richer, then it would be possible to win the prize.
Yamada: Quite a simple plan.
The Bridge: How do you spend your free time?
Yamada: When I used to spend weekends in Samurai House, I asked Sakakibara-san what he does. I remember he said that he watched DVDs, and I thought he was sort of introverted. We went to a rental video shop together, and I recommended him all the good DVDs for half an hour. But every time he replied he’d already watched them.
Yamada: The rental fee was very low, like 50 yen for each. He watched them all and had nothing left to watch.
Sakakibara: Haha. Right.
Yamada: I’m sure you will miss those days 10 years later. You will look back at the old days from Israel. Don’t you have a partner?
Sakakibara: No. Startups are my girlfriend.
Yamada: Ahhhh….
The Bridge: You got married, Yamada-san. Right?
Yamada: We started our relationship when I was 18 years old. We went to the US together. Quite a long relationship. A bit complicated though.
Sakakibara: Onuma-san told me that this subject is taboo.
Yamada: The funny thing is when we got investment from Sakakibara-san, Onuma’s marriage was then fixed. And when the next investment was settled, I got married. After our recent capital increase, the marriage of our CTO was fixed.
Our readers may remember a feature that we did on Japan’s Weathernews (TSE:4825) back in April. The company has made a major business in the area of weather information, and now has offices in 27 cites across 13 countries. Recently the company has been working to develop a sort of ‘polar routing’ service, to help marine traffic navigate icy Arctic waters. To date, they have relied on data from government satellites, but in order to get their service going they need a dedicated satellite. To that end, Japanese startup Axelspace has been enlisted to help with the project, as a company offering micro-satellites whom Weathernews deemed preferable to outsourcing to the government or a large manufacturer. They’ve produced an ultra-compact satellite that is 27 cubic centimeters, and weighs just 10kg. Dubbed the WNISAT–1, the tiny satellite launched today from Yasny Cosmodrome in Russia, piggybacking on top of a Dnepr–1 rocket [1]. According to the Axelspace blog this evening the launch was successful, and the satellite’s signal was successfully received. It is expected to pass over Japan at 20:40 tonight. The device will make 15 orbits of the earth every day, equipped with optical and infrared cameras, which it will use…
Image: Weathernews
Our readers may remember a feature that we did on Japan’s Weathernews (TSE:4825) back in April. The company has made a major business in the area of weather information, and now has offices in 27 cites across 13 countries.
Recently the company has been working to develop a sort of ‘polar routing’ service, to help marine traffic navigate icy Arctic waters. To date, they have relied on data from government satellites, but in order to get their service going they need a dedicated satellite.
To that end, Japanese startup Axelspace has been enlisted to help with the project, as a company offering micro-satellites whom Weathernews deemed preferable to outsourcing to the government or a large manufacturer. They’ve produced an ultra-compact satellite that is 27 cubic centimeters, and weighs just 10kg. Dubbed the WNISAT–1, the tiny satellite launched today from Yasny Cosmodrome in Russia, piggybacking on top of a Dnepr–1 rocket [1]. According to the Axelspace blog this evening the launch was successful, and the satellite’s signal was successfully received. It is expected to pass over Japan at 20:40 tonight.
Ground control at WN headquarters
The device will make 15 orbits of the earth every day, equipped with optical and infrared cameras, which it will use to take shots covering 500km² of the Arctic Seas ice. These images will be sent back to Weathernews’ own Global Ice Center where they will be analyzed and put to use as part of their polar routing system. It’s expected that the WNISAT–1 will have a lifespan of one to three years.
As a provider of micro-satellites, Axelspace is an interesting company. They’re capable of producing these tiny satellites at a fraction of the cost, also using just a fraction of the development time necessary with conventional satellites. They design their satellites specifically to their customer’s needs as well, which is another competitive advantage.
Amazingly, this is not the only startup to venture into space recently. Back in October we’ve also seen San Francisco-based startup Elysium Space roll out its space burial service here in Japan, following its initial US-launch in August.
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Junya Mori
Takeshi Hirano
