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6 questions entrepreneurs should prepare for before first-time media interviews

Junya Mori 2013.11.05

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When I interview entrepreneurs, it’s not uncommon to hear people say: “This is my first media interview. I don’t know what to say." I think some might feel a little better by preparing for an interview beforehand. So with that in mind, here is a list of the questions that I usually ask entrepreneurs.

What made you start your business?
What is your product?
How does your product different from others?
How did you come up with this idea?
How do you think your product can change the world?
What is your short-term goal?

These are the minimum questions I ask entrepreneurs who have just started a business. Let me explain why:

What made you start your business?

What I’d like to know here is the personality of the entrepreneur. Sometimes I can hear some stories of how they started their business, or they might tell anecdotes about how they came up with the idea. Those stories can help me better understanding the person. This is one of the most important questions.

What is your product?

In some cases, the product comes first when it comes to telling a company’s story. Perhaps they founded the company to market the product, and that product is heavily intertwined with the business.
I make sure to collect some information about the product before an interview, and I try to elicit more stories from the entrepreneur. This is so I can understand the personality of the entrepreneur by seeing how passionately the person speaks.

As one of our writers mentioned in a past article, sometimes the personality of an entrepreneur has a big influence on the product.

How is your product different from others?

Based on my experiences interviewing entrepreneurs, there are rarely “brand new” products. When I hear about a product from an entrepreneur, a similar product comes to my mind in most cases.

I have to identify the originality of the product somehow, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out with this question. The answer will help me understand how well the entrepreneur knows the strengths and the originality of the product and how much he/she has researched the competition. And of course, I can understand the product better by asking this question.

How do you think your product will change the world?

This question is a minor question, one that not all reporters will ask. I ask it sometimes. Some entrepreneurs might give you an answer similar to why they started the business. But some go further, explaining what kind of impact on the world and the society their business can have. You can elicit more ambitious thoughts by asking this question.
I get excited when I hear big ambition from entrepreneurs, like Hironao Kunimitsu, the cofounder of Gumi. Entrepreneurs who have big goals and vision and are always attractive to me.

What is your short-term goal?

This is a more detailed question. I ask about a short-term goal they have set and what detailed action they plan is in place to help achieve it. By asking about both long-term and short-term goals, I can see the road map they have in mind.

They cannot disclose everything open to public. But understanding short-term goals and action plans will help me understand how much growth I can expect.

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Made-in-Japan cycling/running app challenges Nike+, Runkeeper

Takeshi Hirano 2013.11.04

See the original story in Japanese. According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are about 3 million fitness enthusiasts in Japan, accounting for 2% of the entire population. But at the same time, most of us (unfortunately) do not like exercise so much. Personal trainer apps like Nike+, Runkeeper, Road Bike all do various things to help you keep motivated. And yesterday a new Japan-made app, Lemonade, joined their ranks, launching at a cycling competition event in Japan’s Tohoku region. Tokyo-based Lemonade Lab introduced a beta version of its running and cycling app for both iOS and Android platforms. It lets users track cycling routes, log records, share them with friends, and keep fitness resolutions. The Lemonade app was unveiled at Tour de Tohoku, an event hosted by Yahoo Japan and other companies. The event is intended to support the area’s restoration, having been hit hardest by the earthquake back in March of 2011. To learn about how the app will work, I visited Ishinomaki City, where the start and end point of the competition was located. For participating cyclists, the event gives you a great view of local nature along the 160km course, and it…

See the original story in Japanese.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are about 3 million fitness enthusiasts in Japan, accounting for 2% of the entire population. But at the same time, most of us (unfortunately) do not like exercise so much.

Personal trainer apps like Nike+, Runkeeper, Road Bike all do various things to help you keep motivated. And yesterday a new Japan-made app, Lemonade, joined their ranks, launching at a cycling competition event in Japan’s Tohoku region.

Tokyo-based Lemonade Lab introduced a beta version of its running and cycling app for both iOS and Android platforms. It lets users track cycling routes, log records, share them with friends, and keep fitness resolutions.

The Lemonade app was unveiled at Tour de Tohoku, an event hosted by Yahoo Japan and other companies. The event is intended to support the area’s restoration, having been hit hardest by the earthquake back in March of 2011.

To learn about how the app will work, I visited Ishinomaki City, where the start and end point of the competition was located. For participating cyclists, the event gives you a great view of local nature along the 160km course, and it also lets you learn about what’s happening in the area.

The Lemonade team started its race at 8am, and I checked the app to see their progress. Typical apps of this kind are focused on logging features, with record sharing features provided supplementary. But that’s not the case with Lemonade. Its main screen is a timeline, which shows you what you friends are doing and where they are now.

The entrepreneurs behind the app

The Lemonade team at Tour de Tohoku 2013

The development of the Lemonade app was conducted by two high-profile entrepreneurs: Taizo Son and Kunihiko Kaji. They decided to develop this app since cycling was a common hobby for them both. They explain:

Conventional logging apps are well done, but they’re lacking something. You won’t have fun competing with a stranger using the app. Sports can be fun if you share your experience with someone. That’s why we decided to develop an app helping people run together.

If you share your training results or check out where your friends are running using the app, it helps you make more friends through competitions. The team told me that they want users to enjoy their experience more before, during, and after events.

At major sport opportunities like the Tokyo Marathon, spectators along the course can also post photos using the app, giving them another way to enjoy the experience.

The app is still in beta with some wrinkles to iron out yet. But I really enjoyed watching how my friends were progressing along the road.

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Japanese collage app lets users mail New Year’s greeting cards

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.11.04

Back in September we wrote about Decopic’s impressive milestone of 30 million downloads. Community Factory, the maker of the photo sharing app, has lots of other great apps, including Decopic’s sister app Petapic. Petapic was launched back in December of 2012 and has been downloaded over six million times to date. Users of the app can create cute collages with their own photos, and can draw on photos or decorate them with over 90 stamps. The app provides more than 80 different templates for collages, so its easy for first-time users to make a good one. Starting in November, Petapic added a new feature where users can make their collage into a ‘Nengajo’ or Japanese New Year’s greeting cards. The nengajo postcards can then be mailed out for 128 yen (a little over a dollar). Although nengajo are traditionally postcards sent to homes, digital natives are more accustomed to simply sending text messages to friends. So this gesture will likely be seen as a thoughtful surprise. The new feature is available on Android for now, but an update will bring the feature to iOS sometime in mid-November. Community Factory launched yet another ‘kawaii’ app called CunPic on October 24th [1]….

Petapic was launched back in December of 2012 and has been downloaded over six million times to date. Users of the app can create cute collages with their own photos, and can draw on photos or decorate them with over 90 stamps. The app provides more than 80 different templates for collages, so its easy for first-time users to make a good one.

Starting in November, Petapic added a new feature where users can make their collage into a ‘Nengajo’ or Japanese New Year’s greeting cards. The nengajo postcards can then be mailed out for 128 yen (a little over a dollar). Although nengajo are traditionally postcards sent to homes, digital natives are more accustomed to simply sending text messages to friends. So this gesture will likely be seen as a thoughtful surprise. The new feature is available on Android for now, but an update will bring the feature to iOS sometime in mid-November.

Community Factory launched yet another ‘kawaii’ app called CunPic on October 24th [1]. Within three days of its release, the app ranked second on App Store among all free camera apps. CunPic differentiates itself from other cute apps with its skin-smoothening and whitening features, common to most purikura photo booths. It’s available on iOS for now, but expect an Android version soon.

If you’re in the market for a cute reminder app, Community Factory also makes Petatto Memo, which we featured back in October.

Editor’s note: Cunpic is such an unfortunate name… ↩

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Tokyo Office Tour: Nightley brings behavioral consumer data to geo-analytics

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.03

Tokyo-based Nightley develops location-based analytics technologies. The startup was launched back in 2011 by CEO Yutaka Ishikawa who previously worked with Japanese web service company NetAge [1]. Nightley recently developed social media analytics engine Trexa, and started providing social media analytics to GIS service providers as part of their service Nightley GIS Mesh Data. I recently visited the company’s office near Shibuya to hear more from Ishikawa about this initiative. As some of our readers may know, several Japanese system integration companies have partnered with Twitter as a data reseller, obtaining rights to collect data using the Twitter API. Similarly Japanese big data solution provider Hottolink also partnered with US company Gnip back in October to distributing Gnip’s analytics data in Japan [2]. NTT Docomo also recently started selling mobile spatial statistics based on the usage of its mobile subscribers. I asked Ishikawa how his company differentiate from these big players. He explained: Conventional players typically give you an accumulation of longitude and latitude values with tweets or posts. These values tell you where users are or were, but they don’t give you insights about which floor or what store in a shopping mall they are in, or what they…

Tokyo-based Nightley develops location-based analytics technologies. The startup was launched back in 2011 by CEO Yutaka Ishikawa who previously worked with Japanese web service company NetAge ^[1].

Nightley recently developed social media analytics engine Trexa, and started providing social media analytics to GIS service providers as part of their service Nightley GIS Mesh Data. I recently visited the company’s office near Shibuya to hear more from Ishikawa about this initiative.

As some of our readers may know, several Japanese system integration companies have partnered with Twitter as a data reseller, obtaining rights to collect data using the Twitter API. Similarly Japanese big data solution provider Hottolink also partnered with US company Gnip back in October to distributing Gnip’s analytics data in Japan ^[2]. NTT Docomo also recently started selling mobile spatial statistics based on the usage of its mobile subscribers.

nightley-gis-mesh-data — Nightley GIS Mesh Data (visualized sample)

I asked Ishikawa how his company differentiate from these big players. He explained:

Conventional players typically give you an accumulation of longitude and latitude values with tweets or posts. These values tell you where users are or were, but they don’t give you insights about which floor or what store in a shopping mall they are in, or what they are doing.

Our solution gives you more visibility around such attributes of users, and I believe this is our advantage, helpful in creating more efficient marketing efforts or planning store roll-outs.

When Ishikawa launched the company a few years ago, he was selling location analytics data a direct sales basis. But he subsequently learned there are business opportunities only among a very niche segment of marketing people in Japan. So he changed their sales strategy to intensify partnering efforts with big GIS players or enterprise system integrators ^[3].

They already have clients in need of geographical data plentiful with various organic attributes. I thought partnering with them would be much easier. They also have geographical analytics solutions, but it’s not very organic. I realized the complementary potential of working with GIS companies.

He expects the solution to be used not only for O2O solutions but also by people and companies working on more accurate area targeting.

The company is looking for funding opportunities and more engineers to help develop further growth. If you are interested in being a part of the team, don’t hesitate to contact them via this page.

NetAge was originally launched back in 1999 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Kiyoshi Nishikawa. The company was subsequently rebranded to ngi group, and became United which is well-known for mobile app CocoPPa. Apart from the company, Nishikawa launched a new incubation company called NetAge again a couple of years ago.↩
Hottolink is a subsidiary of Internet marketing agency Opt (TSE:2389). The former recently unveiled it was approved to be listed on the TSE Mothers market, a stock market for emerging companies. The IPO is scheduled to take place on December 9th.↩
Nightley recently partnered with Japanese system integration company Fujitsu for co-developing the lattter’s location data cloud service Spatiowl, and area marketing solution provider Giken Shoji International.↩

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Startup partners with TV station to give Japanese seniors work after retirement

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.11.01

Some of our readers may recall when we previously shared an interesting report from Japanese crowdsourcing website Crowdworks. The report indicated that seniors in Japan are turning to crowdsourced platforms for work. This shift will only accelerate as the country’s population grows older. The findings in that report pushed the crowdsourcing platform to make its next move, launching a crowdsourcing business in collaboration with a major TV station TV Tokyo, targeting seniors specifically [1]. Since the older segment of the population are typically dependent on television as a means of obtaining information, this partnership between the young startup and an established TV station makes perfect sense. The two companies will make efforts to encourage more seniors engage in crowdsourced work, and they plan to launch skill certifications to enhance the movement. The official launch of the platform is set for November 4th, when TV Tokyo will broadcast a show titled Work After Retirement. Crowdworks was first launched back in April of 2012, and has over 16,000 companies using its crowdsourced workforce to date. This initiative aims for 100,000 registered users by end of September next year, as well as one billion yen worth of work for this particular segment. In…

Since the older segment of the population are typically dependent on television as a means of obtaining information, this partnership between the young startup and an established TV station makes perfect sense.

The two companies will make efforts to encourage more seniors engage in crowdsourced work, and they plan to launch skill certifications to enhance the movement. The official launch of the platform is set for November 4th, when TV Tokyo will broadcast a show titled Work After Retirement.

Crowdworks was first launched back in April of 2012, and has over 16,000 companies using its crowdsourced workforce to date.

This initiative aims for 100,000 registered users by end of September next year, as well as one billion yen worth of work for this particular segment.

In this case, people over the age of 50. ↩

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Now with over 1M downloads, Japanese news app Gunosy launches ad network

gunosy

Takeshi Hirano 2013.11.01

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Gunosy, the startup behind the news curation app of the same name, announced today it will launch a performance-based ad service next week, which it will call Gunosy Ads. The new service allows advertisers to distribute ads to clusters of users according to their interests. The company has also just revealed that their app surpassed 1 million downloads last month. The Gunosy Ads service started distributing ads on a test basis last month, and the diagrams below were measured in the period. The CTR (click through rate) and CVR (conversion rate) figures are surprisingly high. CVR is mostly just above 10% on average, and you typically won’t see such a high number on other ad networks. By going ahead with the launch, it shows that Gunosy sees potential in this new advertising stream. In addition, Shinji Kimura, a pioneer in the Japanese ad-tech sector, has joined their team. He founded ad-tech startup Adlantis back in 2007, subsequently selling it off to Gree for 1.6 billion yen (approximately $16 million) back in 2011. We had a chance to hear more from Kimura about the company’s future strategy, and we hope to share that very…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Gunosy, the startup behind the news curation app of the same name, announced today it will launch a performance-based ad service next week, which it will call Gunosy Ads. The new service allows advertisers to distribute ads to clusters of users according to their interests.

The company has also just revealed that their app surpassed 1 million downloads last month.

The Gunosy Ads service started distributing ads on a test basis last month, and the diagrams below were measured in the period. The CTR (click through rate) and CVR (conversion rate) figures are surprisingly high. CVR is mostly just above 10% on average, and you typically won’t see such a high number on other ad networks. By going ahead with the launch, it shows that Gunosy sees potential in this new advertising stream.

In addition, Shinji Kimura, a pioneer in the Japanese ad-tech sector, has joined their team. He founded ad-tech startup Adlantis back in 2007, subsequently selling it off to Gree for 1.6 billion yen (approximately $16 million) back in 2011.

We had a chance to hear more from Kimura about the company’s future strategy, and we hope to share that very soon. So stay tuned!