We recently featured Tokyo-based startup Wantedly as one of the nominees in last week’s CNet Japan Startup Awards. The company has taken an innovative approach to helping people in their job search, providing a platform that leverages your social graph to ensure you find a better fitting job. The ideas is, that by being introduced to jobs by friends and mutual friends, you have a higher chance if finding a job that you’ll love.
So far the platform has over 60,000 users and 1800 clients, which is not bad considering that they are just a year and a half old. Their team is growing, and they like to point out that they have brought on new members using the Wantedly platform. In addition to their multi-talented CEO, Akiko Naka, some of folks that I spoke to seem to have ridiculously impressive pedigrees, many coming from places like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or Goldman Sachs [1].
Wantedly just recently moved into a new office on Meguro, and they were nice enough to allow me to bring my camera by and take some pictures. The office sits just adjacent to a beautiful park, giving the staff a pretty inspiring view, especially at this time of year with all the fall foliage still hanging around.
It will be interesting to see what kind of ideas they hatch from this new space. Given that there’s lots of English on their front page right now, I think we can expect Wantedly to make an overseas push in 2014 (or a push to neighboring Asian markets), although for the time being they aren’t saying much on that point. The team has more than a few fluent English speakers, so I think they’ll be far better prepared to go global than most other Japanese startups.
You can check out some of the photos below for a better idea of the layout of their new space, as well as a short video intro from the CEO [2].
Akiko herself is ex-Facebook. But overall she’s a pretty remarkable talent, who in addition to being a programmer, has also dabbled with making her own manga. As we talked in her office, one of her paintings was propped against the sofa. ↩
It was really cool of her to give this video a try in English. Not many Japanese startups have dared to do that so far in our series. ↩
Tokyo-based investment company Global Brain held its annual startup conference event in Tokyo this past Friday, the Global Brain Alliance Forum, or GBAF for short. Let’s have a quick rundown on the top three winners out of nine nominees at the startup competition session, before looking at the other talks that took place during the event. 1st place: Triibe (Singapore) Triibe is a customer feedback management tool for physical retail stores, developed by Singapore-based startup Ascriber. They have deployed the app at over 300 retail stores and restaurant chains, mainly in Singapore. After visiting a merchant, if you rate them in the app and then share to Facebook, you can receive 10% off when you visit them next time. For retailers, the platform gives you an analytics dashboard page when you can browse metrics from customers about their satisfaction and experience. One of their key features is a realtime alert system. When the platform receives negative feedback from a customer, your store manager can be notified via SMS or e-mail at once, which helps you address the needs of that customer as soon as possible. There are already more than a few competitors in the space, but Triibe is expecting…
Tokyo-based investment company Global Brain held its annual startup conference event in Tokyo this past Friday, the Global Brain Alliance Forum, or GBAF for short. Let’s have a quick rundown on the top three winners out of nine nominees at the startup competition session, before looking at the other talks that took place during the event.
Triibe is a customer feedback management tool for physical retail stores, developed by Singapore-based startup Ascriber. They have deployed the app at over 300 retail stores and restaurant chains, mainly in Singapore. After visiting a merchant, if you rate them in the app and then share to Facebook, you can receive 10% off when you visit them next time.
For retailers, the platform gives you an analytics dashboard page when you can browse metrics from customers about their satisfaction and experience. One of their key features is a realtime alert system. When the platform receives negative feedback from a customer, your store manager can be notified via SMS or e-mail at once, which helps you address the needs of that customer as soon as possible.
There are already more than a few competitors in the space, but Triibe is expecting to differentiate with several features and expanded operations in Japan and the rest of Asia.
Monaca is a cross-platform mobile application development platform offered by Japanese company Asial. It helps non-tech-savvy users to develop native apps using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.
When I previously met with the company’s CEO Masahiro Tanaka at ICT Spring in Luxembourg, he told me that this scene has been getting popular around the world since it requires no license or installation fee, and it allows computer vocational schools to give their students opportunities to easily develop an app.
Whoscall is a spam call-block and caller-detection app for the iOS and Android platforms. They have accumulated over 600 million profiles of telephone numbers and callers in their database, and can show you a caller’s name when you get an incoming call.
Earlier this month, Gogolook, the startup behind the app, reportedly secured an disclosed sum of funding from Korean search engine company Naver. I had a chance to talk with the company’s CEO Jeff Kuo, but he was unwilling to talk much about it. My guess is that he wants to prevent the perception that the investment would narrow their partnership opportunities with other companies, despite the fact that they are opened to partnering with any company, in addition to the Korean search engine.
Prior to these funds, the company raised $500,000 from angel investors, and an undisclosed sum from Trinity Venture Capital. In this space, we have already seen several competitors like Number Guru and TrueCaller.
Panel: Techstars on US trends and Asian opportunities
In a session introducing trends in recent US incubation, Global Brain’s Katsuyuki Hasegawa moderated a panel with Techstars president David Brown and managing partner Mark Solon.
The incubator launched way back in 2002 in Boulder, Colorado. Mark says their long-term efforts helped the city emerge as the nation’s fourth startup city, following Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston.
According to Solon, they are partnering with many established companies to provide mentorships for their incubatees, including US-based telco Sprint, UK-based Barclays, and sporting goods company Nike. Many companies like these know they need to encourage more open innovation, and many will no longer depend so much on their internal business and engineering development efforts.
David explained that they want to expand their presence in Asia, but they have still no local accelerator from Japan participating in their global alliance network. So far, it’s only JFDI Asia in Singapore. I asked him if they’re interested in partnering with any Japanese incubator as part of the network. He replied by noting that the network has certain criteria to approve new members. But he says they are pleased to collaboratively work with local accelerators and incubators in Japan and the rest of the world.
What’s new with Global Brain?
In the opening remarks of the event, Global Brain’s founder and CEO Yasuhiko Yurimoto said:
I have big news to share with you today. Our company will be reborn to serve startups and entrepreneurs much better.
The details of that teaser would emerge later as he moderated a panel discussion with Shigeyuki Tsuchida, INCJ’s [1] strategic investment group chief Shigeyuki Tsuchida, and lawyer Masakazu Masujima, announcing that his company would remove a redemption clause in the term sheets of startups in which they invest, strengthening his team so it could finish due diligence in as little as one or two weeks.
If you are an entrepreneur who has experienced the fundraising process, you know how this clause can be a headache to your business. Typical VC firms can take more than a couple of months to determine their valuation of your company. So the roll out will be welcomed by potential investees. He also revealed the company will publicly disclose term sheet templates, and he hopes to encourage other investment firms can eliminate constraints so that entrepreneurs can more easily find fundraising opportunities.
For those who are not familiar, INCJ is Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, the country’s state-run initiative for investing innovative activities and companies. The governmental company recently announced it has invested 10 billion yen ($97 million) in a startup-focused fund managed by Global Brain. ↩
Japan has a number of restaurant-focused apps and services, including recent CNet Japan Startup Award winner Retty. But another restaurant recommendation app that’s gearing up to challenge in this space is Quchy, produced by Tokyo-based Endymion, a Samurai Incubate startup. The founder is Loren Fykes, who decided to create this service to make it easier for people all over the world to keep track of restaurants they like or ones recommended by friends. Quchy, which has been operating in public beta since October 2013 [1], proposes a social, card-collection approach to restaurant curation and recommendation, where you can save your favorite restaurants or remember places you’d like to go, or you can explore restaurants saved by your friends, sorting by proximity to your current location if you wish. One of Quchy’s more interesting functions is the ability to arrange cards into decks. Assuming that enough users make use of this function, it could potentially give Quchy’s mobile restaurant curation the same sort of appeal as the many articles we typically find online for top five or top ten lists of, for example, sushi restaurants in Tokyo. Currently decks cannot be shared externally in the same way that cards can (i.e….
Japan has a number of restaurant-focused apps and services, including recent CNet Japan Startup Award winner Retty. But another restaurant recommendation app that’s gearing up to challenge in this space is Quchy, produced by Tokyo-based Endymion, a Samurai Incubate startup. The founder is Loren Fykes, who decided to create this service to make it easier for people all over the world to keep track of restaurants they like or ones recommended by friends.
Quchy, which has been operating in public beta since October 2013 [1], proposes a social, card-collection approach to restaurant curation and recommendation, where you can save your favorite restaurants or remember places you’d like to go, or you can explore restaurants saved by your friends, sorting by proximity to your current location if you wish.
One of Quchy’s more interesting functions is the ability to arrange cards into decks. Assuming that enough users make use of this function, it could potentially give Quchy’s mobile restaurant curation the same sort of appeal as the many articles we typically find online for top five or top ten lists of, for example, sushi restaurants in Tokyo. Currently decks cannot be shared externally in the same way that cards can (i.e. via a web link shared to mail, message, or other social services), but I’m told the startup “will likely add this as part of the web app first”.
While I’m not a huge foodie myself, I can see the value in collecting and sharing restaurant information. It’s especially handy for travelers to be able to browse what’s available when they are in a new area. But at the same time, restaurant information available for reference on the web than ever before (think Google Maps, Facebook, Yelp, FourSquare) so I’m not sure Quchy has the same sort of value right now that it would have had a few years ago [2]. In terms of curation and recommendation, it does solve a problem, yes. Is it a big problem? For me, no. But that may differ for people who eat out more than I do [3].
On the restaurant side however, Quchy will later provide the ability to use a dashboard to grow and reward their loyal fan base. I’m told that the dashboard portion of the service will launch on February 1st, and it should be interesting to see how that feature is received. The startup has established a partnership with benefits platform community KUDOS First Benefit to help “will leverage its lifestyle benefit partners and build out premium communities” around the world. In the long term, Quchy aspires to have 3 million users and 10,000 lifestyle partner shops in three years.
Similarly, I think the connoisseur list feature looks very promising. Currently there’s just ‘Mr. Quchy’ on the app, but Quchy has some tie-ups with industry professionals who will become connoiseurs, thanks to its partnership with KUDOS. That initiative could result in some really fun curated collections.
If you’d like to check out the app for yourself, you can download it for free over on the App Store.
And then there’s Gournavi and Tabelog in Japan, or Dianping in China, if you want to look at other languages. ↩
It certainly would come in handy when friends come from out of town. But as international as my own online social circle is pretty international, this situation only arises once or twice a year for me. I do like to pop open Quchy and save interesting restaurants when I see them. As a relatively busy person, those instances are not so often, but I can see many of my friends on the service have been far more active. ↩
Hitting number one in Japan and China this week was a game called Dokuro, a fun puzzle scroller from mobile game giant GungHo Online Entertainment. Already a popular title on PlayStation Vita, the game just hit the top overall spot on the Android here in Japan after being released last week. On iOS, it was also the country’s top app for a few days this week [1]. Interestingly, it also became China’s iOS top app/game on December 7th, a position it still holds now as I write this. For those not familiar with the title, it stylistically has the same sort of whitewashed macabre cartoon art as The Nightmare before Christmas, with a similar skull-headed hero. The story has our rescuing the princess from the Dark Lord’s castle, after he kidnapped and locked her in a dungeon. This boney, but sympathetic, henchman guard decides to escort the princess through elaborate stages, employing a number of tools and strategies to bring her safely past treacherous obstacles and traps. The princess is far from the model of an independent woman, walking mindlessly forward like a lemming, depending on you to clear the path. The hero can move boxes, pull levers and push…
Hitting number one in Japan and China this week was a game called Dokuro, a fun puzzle scroller from mobile game giant GungHo Online Entertainment. Already a popular title on PlayStation Vita, the game just hit the top overall spot on the Android here in Japan after being released last week. On iOS, it was also the country’s top app for a few days this week [1].
Interestingly, it also became China’s iOS top app/game on December 7th, a position it still holds now as I write this.
For those not familiar with the title, it stylistically has the same sort of whitewashed macabre cartoon art as The Nightmare before Christmas, with a similar skull-headed hero. The story has our rescuing the princess from the Dark Lord’s castle, after he kidnapped and locked her in a dungeon.
This boney, but sympathetic, henchman guard decides to escort the princess through elaborate stages, employing a number of tools and strategies to bring her safely past treacherous obstacles and traps. The princess is far from the model of an independent woman, walking mindlessly forward like a lemming, depending on you to clear the path. The hero can move boxes, pull levers and push buttons to toggle gates, and even drink a potion to temporarily transform into a swashbuckling prince.
I’ve been playing the game for a few days now, and it seems to stay fresh as you go along with lots of new tactics and tools as the game progresses. The stages are short enough that you can pick up the game and try a new stage at any time during your day, sort of the same kind of mini challenge as Angry Birds in a way. So it will be interesting to see if Japan’s legion of on-train smartphone gamers latch on to this one or not.
Dokuro has some merchandising potential as well, with many of the early reviews here in Japan commenting on how cute the characters are. The game isn’t dependent in language in any way, so it’s a pretty accessible title that anyone can enjoy.
If you’d like to try out Dokuro, you can pick it up for 100 yen over on the App Store or for 105 yen on Google Play.
Until at Dragon Quest VIII knocked it out of the top spot today. ↩
Occasionally the folks from Palo Alto-based Cooliris swing through Tokyo as part of efforts to promote their photo sharing service in Asia. Our readers may recall that we spoke with them back in March, when they were making good progress in China with an early partnerships with social service Renren. So I was curious to see how Cooliris has progressed since then, both in China and Japan, and in surrounding Asian regions. CEO Soujanya Bhumkar tells me that China has seen particularly solid growth, with a 30% increase in downloads in the last quarter making the Middle Kingdom their number two install base after the US. They’ve made significant localization efforts in China, now with Sina Weibo on board as a connected service. Users can browse Weibo photos using the slick Cooliris interface, diving deep to explore pictures from various users, as well as those from people they follow or are followed by. Tencent Weibo and Baidu Yun are now also supported Cooliris services, having been added over the past year. Interestingly, India has been a new growth market for them thanks to increased smartphone adoption there, now suddenly a top ten country for Cooliris. Japan, which previously was Cooliris’s…
Occasionally the folks from Palo Alto-based Cooliris swing through Tokyo as part of efforts to promote their photo sharing service in Asia. Our readers may recall that we spoke with them back in March, when they were making good progress in China with an early partnerships with social service Renren. So I was curious to see how Cooliris has progressed since then, both in China and Japan, and in surrounding Asian regions.
CEO Soujanya Bhumkar tells me that China has seen particularly solid growth, with a 30% increase in downloads in the last quarter making the Middle Kingdom their number two install base after the US. They’ve made significant localization efforts in China, now with Sina Weibo on board as a connected service. Users can browse Weibo photos using the slick Cooliris interface, diving deep to explore pictures from various users, as well as those from people they follow or are followed by. Tencent Weibo and Baidu Yun are now also supported Cooliris services, having been added over the past year.
Interestingly, India has been a new growth market for them thanks to increased smartphone adoption there, now suddenly a top ten country for Cooliris.
Japan, which previously was Cooliris’s second biggest market, still remains one of their top five markets. But with the latest update of the Cooliris iOS app, Japanese localization has been added. I understand that the company isn’t going to be making significant marketing efforts, but the localization at least makes it more accessible here. They’ll continue to try to serve Japanese users in later versions.
Considering that Cooliris now supports integration with so many social services, the missing puzzle piece for the company here in Japan is obviously Line. The team couldn’t tell me too much on this point, but obviously users here would definitely like to see such an integration. So Line users should keep their fingers crossed, and stay tuned [1].
The Cooliris app has a few other significant changes recently, as Soujanya and his VP of business development Sebastian Blum (he’s the guy in the video above) inform me that the app’s group function is now the number one driver of user acquisition and user retention. Groups could be as small as just two people sharing photos privately, or it could be many more. Groups can be based around certain activities like weddings, vacations, with discussion happening on Cooliris even before that event takes place.
As I was speaking with Soujanya, I happened to have Yammer open on my Mac, as that’s one of the collaborative tools that we use here at The Bridge. He pointed out to me that while there are many corporate collaborative tools like this, there are few collaborate options for consumers. People’s photo experience is typically fragmented across multiple service and multiple friends, and Cooliris gives people a chance to bring them together in one place.
In total they have seen over 3 billion photos brought into the Cooliris app, and over 1 billion photo engagements [2]. And for those who share photos in many different online places, it will continue to be a useful service. Whether it can pick up some more steam in photo-crazy Japan remains to be seen, but this new localization is an encouraging first step.
I confess, I used Cooliris for a while this year, but eventually drifted away from it. My mobile photo use is primarily restricted to Notabli, a family-focused photo app. I use Flickr as storage for pictures taken with my DSLR, but the majority of them are private. But I can see the potential of Cooliris for people more social than myself. ↩
I understand that an engagement is when you tap on a photo and view it in higher resolution. ↩
Youtube recently unveiled its Youtube Rewind 2013, a look back at some of the most viewed videos and YouTubers on the site. In Japan, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu nabbed a bunch of top spots (first, third and fourth place) among all music videos. Looking at the top ten Youtube channels overall in Japan, we can see huge entertainment entities like the agency Avex and idol supergroup AKB48. But surprisingly the fifth spot is occupied by the only individual performer to make the list, Hikakin TV. He is a 24-year-old human beatbox performer who has been active on YouTube since 2006. His channel now has over 2.3 million subscribers with a whopping 400 million total views. Although he initially began performing just his human beatbox routine and techniques (which you can check out in the video below), Hikakin now broadcasts a variety of short performances on four different channels. One YouTube channel is dedicated a live report of himself playing games called HikakinGames. Considering that the majority of his fans are young digital natives who also play games, this sort of content makes sense. His online popularity eventually led to appearances on TV and other media. His published book, entitled My Job…
Youtube recently unveiled its Youtube Rewind 2013, a look back at some of the most viewed videos and YouTubers on the site. In Japan, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu nabbed a bunch of top spots (first, third and fourth place) among all music videos.
Looking at the top ten Youtube channels overall in Japan, we can see huge entertainment entities like the agency Avex and idol supergroup AKB48. But surprisingly the fifth spot is occupied by the only individual performer to make the list, Hikakin TV. He is a 24-year-old human beatbox performer who has been active on YouTube since 2006.
His channel now has over 2.3 million subscribers with a whopping 400 million total views. Although he initially began performing just his human beatbox routine and techniques (which you can check out in the video below), Hikakin now broadcasts a variety of short performances on four different channels.
One YouTube channel is dedicated a live report of himself playing games called HikakinGames. Considering that the majority of his fans are young digital natives who also play games, this sort of content makes sense.
His online popularity eventually led to appearances on TV and other media. His published book, entitled My Job is Youtube, came out back in July. Hikakin has also released an Android app,HikakinBeat, which lets anyone become a creative and platful DJ.
His is the story of a salaryman turned into an online star. Hikakin is definitely a digital pioneer, whose online popularity gave him the chance to expand to traditional media.
Here he is making Super Mario beatbox sounds in the video below.