Ample, the Tokyo-based startup behind cosplay photo sharing platform of the same name, announced today that it has raised an undisclosed sum of funding from Japan’s online learning company Hitomedia and entrepreneur/investor Takafumi Horie.
Since its launch back in October of 2012, the platform has acquired more than 40,000 photos and over 210,000 likes on Facebook, and has users from about 60 countries worldwide. The company plans to use these funds to strengthen its team so it can better serve its users, and develop additional features such as a personalized interface.
For Hitomedia, this is the fourth tech startups investment in its history, following US-based social commerce platform Fancy, online English learning school Langrich, and mobile food recommendation app Teriyaki.
See the original article written in Japanese Cookpad, the Japanese online recipe platform, is largely recognized as a “user first” service. The Cookpad app recently surpassed 20 million downloads, and their latest data shows nearly 70% of access to the service comes from smartphones. This past February, the company built a mobile-first team. Among the company’s 70 engineers, about 10% joined the team. Aside from app development and operations, the company is pushing towards a mobile-first policy, encouraging web engineers to focus on mobile-related work. I spoke with Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi, who have just joined this mobile-first team. Both have experience developing Android apps, and both came to Cookpad less than a year ago. The development of the Android app started within the device division of the media department, which later turned into the mobile-first team. The project started in October of last year, and after half a year of development, the Android app officially launched this past March. The mobile version of Cookpad originally started as a website formatted for smartphones. At that time, even though the division had dozens of web engineers, it had only one Android engineer. To adapt to the increasing number of users…
Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi from the mobile-first team
Cookpad, the Japanese online recipe platform, is largely recognized as a “user first” service. The Cookpad app recently surpassed 20 million downloads, and their latest data shows nearly 70% of access to the service comes from smartphones.
This past February, the company built a mobile-first team. Among the company’s 70 engineers, about 10% joined the team. Aside from app development and operations, the company is pushing towards a mobile-first policy, encouraging web engineers to focus on mobile-related work.
I spoke with Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi, who have just joined this mobile-first team. Both have experience developing Android apps, and both came to Cookpad less than a year ago.
The development of the Android app started within the device division of the media department, which later turned into the mobile-first team. The project started in October of last year, and after half a year of development, the Android app officially launched this past March.
The mobile version of Cookpad originally started as a website formatted for smartphones. At that time, even though the division had dozens of web engineers, it had only one Android engineer. To adapt to the increasing number of users on smartphones, it was decided to offer Cookpad as a native app.
The team of four (three Android engineers and one designer) worked together to develop the Android app. They collaborated on the app’s UI and usability, using the engineer’s knowledge of things like OS guidelines. Based on the mockup created by the designer, they worked towards creating the best app they could.
Consistent UX/UI
The iOS app for Cookpad had been already released, so the team had to be careful that the Android app design would not be influenced too much by that. To ensure that the app was easy to use, the team continued releasing small, incremental updates. One such update, for example, had the menu icon located in the left-top corner. The team learned that some users don’t recognize that the icon can be tapped to display a menu, and so they they implemented a tutorial message a the initial log-in to address the issue.
Takiguchi: It took much time to figure out to what extent the usability and UI of our iOS and Android apps should be unified. Many people say there should be a consistent user experience for iOS and Android, and the UI should be designed differently. But that’s a very difficult thing to do.
Through these small improvements, eventually the amount of time users spent on the Android app increased 30% more than they had seen with the previous version, which looked more like the service’s web interface. Swifter movement through content inside the app and improved tab display (such as today’s recipe and top recipe) also contributed much to this success. Yagi explained that one of the most important things to keep in mind during this kind of development is to keep asking if a feature is really necessary, and if it is easy to use.
Results that get attention
Cookpad has an internal blog where members share ideas. Since last November the company has also organized a meeting called Potechi where engineers outside and inside the company get together to share technical tips. Potechi takes place every week within the company, and every month for the external meet. Each iOS or Android engineer is given five minutes to present their tips.
Yagi: Engineers at Cookpad are all highly motivated and have great technical skills. When we find a problem, we all do our best to solve it.
Takiguchi: Our CEO often says that each member has to keep a career goal in our mind when we work. He says we should create results that will attract headhunters’ attention.
Cookpad currently look for mobile engineers. To work on the mobile-first team, the most important thing is to have strong passion for app development rather than technical skills and experiences.
Yagi: We look to see if the candidate codes at home or outside the work place. We look for someone who looks like they cannot help but code at any occasion.
The value of female engineers
At present, all members of mobile-first team are men. Even in the company as a whole, female engineers amount to only 10% of the total. Engineers are expected to see things from the user’s perspective in order to find the best usability and UI by working with designers. Therefore, they hope they can add a force of female engineers as well.
Yagi: We interview users and hear their opinion. But when we reflect on app design, we might need to filter out perspectives that come from the male point of view. I believe that if the engineer is a woman, then it can effect the app design a lot. So we really hope female engineers can join our team.
It is not going to far to say that a major service like Cookpad could set the standard for app usability and UI. If you are passionate about creating apps, you might want to join their Potechi meeting. The next one takes place on May 14th.
If you’re starting to tire of seeing Line’s characters all over the place here in Japan, I have some bad news for you. Line is teaming up with fashion retailer Uniqlo to offer Line Character branded t-shirts as part of the new Uniqlo t-shirt (UT) line-up [1]. In my view, Uniqlo lends some much-needed credibility to Line’s characters, putting them alongside far more established brands like Hello Kitty and Disney. The shirts are on sale now for the very affordable price of 943 yen (or just over $9). Check out Uniqlo’s promo video for the new 2014 line-up below, including the new Line t-shirts about halfway through. (It’s an unlisted video, so if this embed suddenly stops working, you know why!) Via news.ameba.jp As far as I can tell, this is just for Uniqlo stores in Japan. I can’t find the Line t-shirts on the Uniqlo USA website. ↩
If you’re starting to tire of seeing Line’s characters all over the place here in Japan, I have some bad news for you. Line is teaming up with fashion retailer Uniqlo to offer Line Character branded t-shirts as part of the new Uniqlo t-shirt (UT) line-up [1].
In my view, Uniqlo lends some much-needed credibility to Line’s characters, putting them alongside far more established brands like Hello Kitty and Disney. The shirts are on sale now for the very affordable price of 943 yen (or just over $9).
Check out Uniqlo’s promo video for the new 2014 line-up below, including the new Line t-shirts about halfway through. (It’s an unlisted video, so if this embed suddenly stops working, you know why!)
With its new 4.2.0 Android update today, Japanese messaging app Line rolled out something that it’s calling ‘Sticons’. The company says that these can be used like emoticons inline in text messages, and also as the sort of larger stickers that current users of the service are already familiar with. You can read more about this new feature over on the Line blog.
With its new 4.2.0 Android update today, Japanese messaging app Line rolled out something that it’s calling ‘Sticons’. The company says that these can be used like emoticons inline in text messages, and also as the sort of larger stickers that current users of the service are already familiar with.
The RealReal is an online luxury fashion consignment store that lets users buy and sell items. The marketplace was initially launched back in 2011 in the US, and they established a Japanese version last year coinciding with investment from Infinity Venture Partners. The RealReal Japan, Inc. announced yesterday that it has appointed Kiyotaka Fujii as its new CEO. He is known for having served as the CEO for the Japanese subsidiaries of many international firms such as SAP, Louis Vuitton, and Booz Allen Hamilton. He is currently working as the Japan head for London-based taxi startup Hailo. In this space, Active Sonar (backed by B Dash Ventures) launched an online consignment store called Reclo earlier this month. So this sector could represent a hot new trend in Japanese e-commerce, following the recent rush of flea market apps like Mercari and Fril.
The RealReal is an online luxury fashion consignment store that lets users buy and sell items. The marketplace was initially launched back in 2011 in the US, and they established a Japanese version last year coinciding with investment from Infinity Venture Partners.
The RealReal Japan, Inc. announced yesterday that it has appointed Kiyotaka Fujii as its new CEO. He is known for having served as the CEO for the Japanese subsidiaries of many international firms such as SAP, Louis Vuitton, and Booz Allen Hamilton. He is currently working as the Japan head for London-based taxi startup Hailo.
In this space, Active Sonar (backed by B Dash Ventures) launched an online consignment store called Reclo earlier this month. So this sector could represent a hot new trend in Japanese e-commerce, following the recent rush of flea market apps like Mercari and Fril.
This is a part of our coverage of the Japan New Economy Summit 2014. You can follow our updates on Twitter as well at @thebridge_e. On day two of the New Economy Summit here in Tokyo last week, we heard a panel about how venture capitalists can help entrepreneurs both here in Japan and abroad. Moderated by Daisuke Iwase, the president and COO of Lifenet Life Insurance Company, the session included: George Kellerman, managing partner and fire chief at 500 Startups Akio Tanaka, partner at Infinity Ventures LLP David Lee, co-founder and managing partner at SV Angel SV Angel’s David Lee kicked off the session by making a brief introduction to his firm. Since its launch back in 2009, SV Angel have been investing in tech notable startups including Twitter, Pinterest, Square, Dropbox, and Airbnb in their early stages. Akio Tanaka introduced Infinity Venture Partners’ recent activities in nurturing the start ecosystem in China. He gave us a look at the Chinese answer to Angellist, 36kr (one of their portfolio startups), as well as their recently established startup hub in Beijing, TechTemple. To accelerate the startup ecosystem in Japan, he emphasized that large companies should play a key role. In…
From the left: David Lee (SV Angel), Akio Tanaka (Infinity Venture Partners), George Kellerman (500startups)
On day two of the New Economy Summit here in Tokyo last week, we heard a panel about how venture capitalists can help entrepreneurs both here in Japan and abroad. Moderated by Daisuke Iwase, the president and COO of Lifenet Life Insurance Company, the session included:
George Kellerman, managing partner and fire chief at 500 Startups
Akio Tanaka, partner at Infinity Ventures LLP
David Lee, co-founder and managing partner at SV Angel
SV Angel’s David Lee
SV Angel’s David Lee kicked off the session by making a brief introduction to his firm. Since its launch back in 2009, SV Angel have been investing in tech notable startups including Twitter, Pinterest, Square, Dropbox, and Airbnb in their early stages.
Infinity Venture Partners’ Akio Tanaka
Akio Tanaka introduced Infinity Venture Partners’ recent activities in nurturing the start ecosystem in China. He gave us a look at the Chinese answer to Angellist, 36kr (one of their portfolio startups), as well as their recently established startup hub in Beijing, TechTemple.
To accelerate the startup ecosystem in Japan, he emphasized that large companies should play a key role. In the US, such companies have been helping startups by circulating capital and human resources around the ecosystem. Even in China, larger organizations such as Baidu and Tencent are investing in tech startups more and more rather than buying them out or copying their business models.
500startups’ George Kellerman
500 Startups’ George Kellerman says that his firm has invested in more than 700 companies in the last four years. Noting that established companies in Japan reserve as much as 150 trillion yen (about $1.5 trillion) as their retained earnings, he insisted that they have to put at least 0.1% of it towards accelerating the startup ecosystem. That could either be by acquiring startups, forming funds, or investing in existing investment funds. Another important effort needed for the ecosystem can be made by inviting more women to the workplace, he says.
Addressing a question about how investors can help entrepreneurs, Lee said that one of the most important roles for investors is to serve as a mentor and role model:
In addition to providing money, investors need to help entrepreneurs hire good people, and advise with their business development and overall business operations, since younger entrepreneurs typically don’t have management experience.
Kellerman added:
A lot of VC people have operating background from the tech industry. My founder Dave McClure previously worked with PayPal as head of engineering, and I also worked with Yahoo and Dell. For investors, money is the easy part. That’s a commodity. Investors have to pass on their knowledge of operational experience to startups.
Masaru Ikeda
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
