After a long day at work on a hot summer day, perhaps you feel like grabbing a beer — but it can be hard to get a hold of friends at the last minute. Now there is an app that helps you find drinking buddies of the opposite sex in your neighborhood. It’s called Kanpai Match (Kanpai meaning ‘cheers’ in Japanese). Kanpai Match is presented as a Facebook app where users can enter information such as their initials, location, topics of interest, and profiles. The app then makes a recommendation everyday at 5pm, suggesting a possible drinking buddy in a nearby place. The app only recommends people of the opposite sex, so this may be more of a dating app than a casual drinking app. After seeing their suggested match of the day, users can push the ‘Let’s Drink’ button to confirm the meet. When a match is completed, the app can be used to send each other messages and discuss the details of the outing. The company behind Kanpai Match is SVC, a company that provides a series of networking apps. Its Tomokore app lets you to discover new friends on popular chat applications like Line, Skype, or KakaoTalk….
After a long day at work on a hot summer day, perhaps you feel like grabbing a beer — but it can be hard to get a hold of friends at the last minute. Now there is an app that helps you find drinking buddies of the opposite sex in your neighborhood. It’s called Kanpai Match (Kanpai meaning ‘cheers’ in Japanese).
Kanpai Match is presented as a Facebook app where users can enter information such as their initials, location, topics of interest, and profiles. The app then makes a recommendation everyday at 5pm, suggesting a possible drinking buddy in a nearby place. The app only recommends people of the opposite sex, so this may be more of a dating app than a casual drinking app.
After seeing their suggested match of the day, users can push the ‘Let’s Drink’ button to confirm the meet. When a match is completed, the app can be used to send each other messages and discuss the details of the outing.
The company behind Kanpai Match is SVC, a company that provides a series of networking apps. Its Tomokore app lets you to discover new friends on popular chat applications like Line, Skype, or KakaoTalk. Another one of its apps is Keijiban for Pazudora (‘Pazudora’ is a sort of Japanese portmanteau of Puzzle and Dragons) which is a dedicated bulletin board where users can find partners to assist them in the game.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based digital marketing startup Showcase Gig recently launched a suite of CRM (customer relationship management) solutions for small-sized stores. The service is called ‘O:der’ (apparently pronounced “order”), and is comprised of two iOS apps, one for consumers and another for merchants. The merchants app allows you to market your business by issuing virtual coupons, and collect payments from customers before they visit your store. The app gives you several CRM features such as authenticating customers at the storefront for rewards, or distributing promotional coupons to customers’ smartphones. This solution will help you market your business without a point of sales terminal. As of now, the service is running at Fiat Caffe in Aoyama, Tokyo on a testing basis. The Android version of the consumer app will go live in early September. The service will be provided on a freemium basis. If you wish to use additional options such as the virtual stamp feature (for consumers to collect reward points), you will be charged 5,000 yen per month. Coinciding with the release of the Android app, these merchants services will also be available in early September. The below video will give you an idea of…
Tokyo-based digital marketing startup Showcase Gig recently launched a suite of CRM (customer relationship management) solutions for small-sized stores. The service is called ‘O:der’ (apparently pronounced “order”), and is comprised of two iOS apps, one for consumers and another for merchants.
The merchants app allows you to market your business by issuing virtual coupons, and collect payments from customers before they visit your store. The app gives you several CRM features such as authenticating customers at the storefront for rewards, or distributing promotional coupons to customers’ smartphones. This solution will help you market your business without a point of sales terminal. As of now, the service is running at Fiat Caffe in Aoyama, Tokyo on a testing basis. The Android version of the consumer app will go live in early September.
The service will be provided on a freemium basis. If you wish to use additional options such as the virtual stamp feature (for consumers to collect reward points), you will be charged 5,000 yen per month. Coinciding with the release of the Android app, these merchants services will also be available in early September. The below video will give you an idea of how it will work.
For retailers serving customers in a limited space with few staffers, it would be difficult to set up a desktop PC for a CRM system. But this sort of app may be a better solution. I saw a demo of how it will work, and the app was very intuitive in its operation.
The startup’s CEO Takefumi Nitta is hoping to disrupt the CRM industry. In addition to online businesses, he has been involved in notable offline businesses too, producing Tokyo Girls Collection and mixiXmas [1]. Mr. Nitta explains:
There are many things that were not possible with feature phones several years ago, but we can do them with smartphones now. In my experience at mixiXmas, effective social marketing could motivate more than tens of thousands of users to act. For big merchants, that population may be small. But what’s about for small businesses? I intend to standardize these marketing processes and create a permanent consumer movement.
In the past, CRM solutions were intended for big merchants. But the high penetration of smartphones has drastically changed our environment. As some of our readers may know, here in Japan we have seen more and more Shopify-like commerce platforms such as Stores.jp or Base, typically helping small merchants run long-tail businesses online. Perhaps Showcase Gig can make its CRM solutions fit these same long-tail businesses.
Tokyo Girls Collection is one of the biggest fashion events in Japan. Meanwhile, mixiXmas is a seasonal promotional campaign hosted by Mixi. ↩
Japanese stock photography company Pixta has announced that it will be expanding its services via a new English website, pixtastock.com, to focus on serving the surrounding Asia market. The company claims to be Japan’s largest stock photography site, with over 5 million images to choose from, as well as 120,000 contributors, and 120,000 customers to date too. It’s pricing is relatively affordable, offering photos and illustrations starting at about $5, and video footage starting at about $20. I asked a company representative a little more about this new English service. She explained that while the service is targeting mostly business users, that they are hoping for smaller customers as well, including SMEs and individual creatives or designers. I’m told that the company also intends to work with promising photographers and creators around the Asia region: It is necessary for our business to make strong relationships with contributors, and the mission of our company to give the opportunities to people with talent – no matter where they are – by using the internet. Pixta originally started out way back in 2006 as a creative platform, and has been growing well ever since. Check out the chart below showing Pixta’s increases in…
Japanese stock photography company Pixta has announced that it will be expanding its services via a new English website, pixtastock.com, to focus on serving the surrounding Asia market.
The company claims to be Japan’s largest stock photography site, with over 5 million images to choose from, as well as 120,000 contributors, and 120,000 customers to date too. It’s pricing is relatively affordable, offering photos and illustrations starting at about $5, and video footage starting at about $20.
I asked a company representative a little more about this new English service. She explained that while the service is targeting mostly business users, that they are hoping for smaller customers as well, including SMEs and individual creatives or designers. I’m told that the company also intends to work with promising photographers and creators around the Asia region:
It is necessary for our business to make strong relationships with contributors, and the mission of our company to give the opportunities to people with talent – no matter where they are – by using the internet.
Pixta originally started out way back in 2006 as a creative platform, and has been growing well ever since. Check out the chart below showing Pixta’s increases in items sold/downloaded over the years to get a good idea of the company’s trajectory. It will be interesting to see if this growth can continue as they expand beyond Japan. Their positioning looks strong, since similar services like Getty Images might not feature as much localized photos and video for Asian countries as businesses in the region require. Pixta could fill that void.
Ameba Pigg is a virtual community operated by Japanese tech giant CyberAgent, perhaps most famous for its Ameba Blog platform. The virtual community was launched back in Feburary of 2009, and has over 15 million registered users to date. After creating an avatar on Ameba Pigg, users can play around in the virtual community and chat with friends. This community is especially popular among the younger generation, especially women. According to a study over on Game Business about a year ago, the breakdown of monthly active users was about 35% men and 65% women. Ameba Pigg’s users are so enthusiastic that recently a middle school girl was arrested for stealing virtual currency from friends’ accounts. These currencies are used to purchase items for user’s avatars, which is a major source of income for the company. Ameba Pigg has successfully pulled off what Second Life attempted to do. As a platform with over 15 million users, brands now seek to promote their business on the service, even politicians sometimes as well. Back in May, Japanese convenience store Lawson, launched an O2O advertisement campaign on the social game Pigg World. Lawson opened an official account on the site and delivered coupons that…
Ameba Pigg is a virtual community operated by Japanese tech giant CyberAgent, perhaps most famous for its Ameba Blog platform. The virtual community was launched back in Feburary of 2009, and has over 15 million registered users to date. After creating an avatar on Ameba Pigg, users can play around in the virtual community and chat with friends.
This community is especially popular among the younger generation, especially women. According to a study over on Game Business about a year ago, the breakdown of monthly active users was about 35% men and 65% women. Ameba Pigg’s users are so enthusiastic that recently a middle school girl was arrested for stealing virtual currency from friends’ accounts. These currencies are used to purchase items for user’s avatars, which is a major source of income for the company.
Ameba Pigg has successfully pulled off what Second Life attempted to do. As a platform with over 15 million users, brands now seek to promote their business on the service, even politicians sometimes as well. Back in May, Japanese convenience store Lawson, launched an O2O advertisement campaign on the social game Pigg World. Lawson opened an official account on the site and delivered coupons that could be used at its stores, of which there are over 10,000 in Japan. The first coupon was a 30 yen discount from Lawson’s signiture sweets, Premium Rollcake.
CyberAgent also launched a special website on Ameba for the upper house election which will take place on July 21. Already 120 candidates in the election have opened blogs on Ameba, and over on Ameba Pigg, candidates have created their own avatars, and election patrolled around the virtual city of Shibuya to raise awareness of the election. On July 4th, candidates from different parties even gave speeches in the virtual city of Shibuya.
Ameba Pigg lauched its English version back in March of 2010 as Ameba Pico, and was largely accepted by users in Asian countries. The virtual community gained over three million users in six months, but the service closed down in December of last year.
CyberAgent is now aggressive in moving to mobile. The company now operates over 100 mobile apps in total, and many consumers are aware of it because of its TV commercials running in heavy rotation. It will be interesting to see whether the company will be as successful on mobile as much as they have been on PCs, and whether or not it can build the next Ameba Blog or Pigg in the age of mobile.
For more information on how Ameba Pigg works, check out one user’s video below.
See the original story in Japanese. The 3D printing business is pretty hot in Japan right now. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve heard lots of news in this space. Many co-working spaces providing 3D printing facilities were launched around the country, and Japanese movie rental service DMM recently launched an online 3D printing order service in partnership with local companies Nomad and TeamLab. As the market is still in the early stages, we still don’t know who will be the main players in this space. But recently I had have an opportunity to visit a company that has a very strong presence in the Japanese 3D printing industry. They are iJet corporation, based out of Yokohama. The company was founded back in May of 2009. And despite the fact that have yet to really make any marketing efforts, hundreds of notable Japanese companies are now included on its list of customers. I had a chance to hear from the company’s founder and president Masaru Kumehara about how the company plans to change the Japanese market. A small company with big potential If you haven’t yet heard of iJet, it is probably because they are cultivating marketing channels in…
The 3D printing business is pretty hot in Japan right now. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve heard lots of news in this space. Many co-working spaces providing 3D printing facilities were launched around the country, and Japanese movie rental service DMM recently launched an online 3D printing order service in partnership with local companies Nomad and TeamLab.
As the market is still in the early stages, we still don’t know who will be the main players in this space. But recently I had have an opportunity to visit a company that has a very strong presence in the Japanese 3D printing industry. They are iJet corporation, based out of Yokohama. The company was founded back in May of 2009. And despite the fact that have yet to really make any marketing efforts, hundreds of notable Japanese companies are now included on its list of customers.
I had a chance to hear from the company’s founder and president Masaru Kumehara about how the company plans to change the Japanese market.
A small company with big potential
If you haven’t yet heard of iJet, it is probably because they are cultivating marketing channels in partnership with retailing companies rather than actually marketing themselves. For example, 3D printing studios such as Aoyama 3D Salon, Omote 3D Shashin Kan, and Recs 3D in Hong Kong do not have their own 3D printing facility on site. But rather they outsource the printing process to iJet. Tokyo Otaku Mode is also preparing to launch an e-commerce channel pretty soon, where they will sell character figures manufactured by the company. Kumehara adds:
Have you ever watched Intel’s TV commercial? They use the tagline “Intel Inside”. That’s what we’re aiming at. Many makers produce personal computers, and they typically have Intel-made chips under the hood. They don’t brandish the name [overtly] but everyone knows that PC makers cannot produce computers without the chips. We want to be somewhat like Intel in the 3D printing business. ¶
iJet’s president Masaru Kumehara
In order to provide the entire 3D printing process as a service, studios must have three things: a 3D scanner, software for processing scanned data, and a 3D printer. But you will need even more than that. In contrast to 2D printing, you will be required to process scanned data to make it fit a 3D printing output, and you’ll also need some finishing touches afterwards. These processes cannot be automated, but rather it is totally artisanal. At the company, professionals called ‘modelers’ (who typically worked as clay-model sculptors or illustrators) are taking care of this difficult production process.
When I visited the company’s factory, they seemed busy finishing many client orders. The scene looked something like a team of animators working on a film, bringing very realistic sculptures into the world [1].
Will traditional print shops shift to 3D printing?
iJet can receive orders for all 3D printing tasks: scanning, data processing, printing and finishing. They also support the installation and operation of 3D scanners for their partner studios. For customers, when you order 3D printing at a studio, your original sculpture will be scanned at their storefronts, and that scanned 3D data will be transmitted to iJet, who takes care of the data processing, printing, finishing, and even delivery.
For 3D printing manufacturers, if you buy a printing device from major makers in the US (such as 3D systems or Strata) it will cost around 15 million yen ($150,000). But in order to make your business profitable after paying for the printer, you will need to receive many printing orders from customers. So Kumehara has a plan to partner with print shop chains in order to better meet consumer needs.
Print shop chains have been differentiating their businesses by providing in-shop photo-processing machines to serve customers better. But of course, with the rise of digital cameras and more advanced consumer printers, they’ve been forced to completely shift their business model. At these shops, 3D printing services may be provided as an additional service, making it more accessible to the every day consumers.
New opportunities in the entertainment industry
The rise of 3D printing is causing a drastic change in the Japanese manufacturing industry. In conventional manufacturing, mold making typically requires several months and cost a lot. But in some cases, iJet can deliver a 3D printed sculpture in as little as a few weeks after receiving an order.
If you create a human figure modeled from a real man, you can add texture so that it looks just like him. Because of its realistic detail and the short delivery time, the company been receiving non-stop orders from the music and animation industries for 3D printed figures. For the entertainment business, you don’t even need to order a large quantity, so customers can easily create and sell something by starting on a limited testing basis. And then based on the the market response, you can shift to mass-production.
The video below is a TV commercial from a Japanese plastic surgery clinic. At the end, you can see many performers wear masks. These were all made by iJet.
Can 3D printing be one of Japan’s core businesses
As some of our readers may know, the Japan Expo exhibition took place in Paris last week. We’re told that it was a big success, even better than previous events. But it’s a reminder that content development is one of Japan’s strong points. As I watched the folks at the iJet factory finishing their 3D sculptures, it reminded me that this will be another sort of animation industry for the country.
Prior to founding this company, Kumehara ran a digital printing company in Yokohama. But the 2011 earthquake severely impacted his business, eventually leading him to shift to 3D printing. As the time progresses, more players will jump into this space and gradually an ecosystem will form. .
iJet looks poised to lead the 3D printing business in Japan. It will be interesting to see how if their meteoric growth can continue.
The company secured funding from investors back in February, but no details about the amount have been disclosed yet.
For me this was a very impressive moment, and I wish I could share pictures or videos. But since most of the projects were related to popular characters or celebrities, it could result in possible rights issues if I do so. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Terra Motors is a Tokyo-based startup manufacturing mid-range and high-end electric bikes for Asian markets. The startup held a press briefing yesterday and unveiled a brand new model called the A4000i. The new model’s big feature is connectivity with iPhones. When you set your handset on the bike’s handlebar, it will keep you updated with real-time metrics during driving, such as fuel efficiency, tracking routes, and power consumption. With this new function, the startup aims to help courier companies become more efficient in their delivery work. Their strategy is to give consumers in Asia a high-end offering, so the new bike only supports iPhone, as opposed to other smartphone devices. Its price will be around 450,000 yen (about $4,500) in Japan, and will be about the same in other Asian countries. This means the bike will not be cheap for consumers in the region, so the startup hopes that their competitive edge can be in branding rather than pricing. For the company’s mid- to long-term vision, it plans to use data collected from users to develop a new service in partnership with big data solution companies. They’re still preparing a navigation feature as well….
Terra Motors is a Tokyo-based startup manufacturing mid-range and high-end electric bikes for Asian markets. The startup held a press briefing yesterday and unveiled a brand new model called the A4000i.
The new model’s big feature is connectivity with iPhones. When you set your handset on the bike’s handlebar, it will keep you updated with real-time metrics during driving, such as fuel efficiency, tracking routes, and power consumption. With this new function, the startup aims to help courier companies become more efficient in their delivery work.
Metric monitoring interface (under development)
Their strategy is to give consumers in Asia a high-end offering, so the new bike only supports iPhone, as opposed to other smartphone devices. Its price will be around 450,000 yen (about $4,500) in Japan, and will be about the same in other Asian countries. This means the bike will not be cheap for consumers in the region, so the startup hopes that their competitive edge can be in branding rather than pricing.
For the company’s mid- to long-term vision, it plans to use data collected from users to develop a new service in partnership with big data solution companies. They’re still preparing a navigation feature as well.
Terra Motors has developed a prototype for the new model, and plans to start mass production this winter. They expect to sell more than 100,000 bikes by the end of 2015, and they’re currently inviting potential retailers and distributors from around Asia to get in touch.
Terra Motors was founded back in April of 2010, and it received investment worth of 221 million yen (or about $2 million) back in 2011. The investors include Mizuho Capital and several angel investors such as ex-Sony and ex-Google Japan CEOs.
The startup’s CEO Toru Tokushige spoke of his aspiration to be Asia’s answer to Tesla Motors in the region’s electric markets. But he’ll have a big challenge ahead.
Terra Motors’ CEO Toru Tokushige at press briefing on Thursday
See the original story in Japanese. Nulab is a startup based in Japan’s western city of Fukuoka, which has developed web-based collaborative tools for use with remote workers. You may be familiar with their diagram sharing tool Cacoo or their task tracking and management tool Backlog. In terms of business management style, Nulab does things a little differently than typical startups. Their method is incrementally progressive, similar to what typical SMEs do. They don’t show off so much, but their services are pretty great, and Cacoo in particular has a wide following around the world. We recently had a chance to hear from the startup’s CEO, Masanori Hashimoto, who told us a little more about their progress to date. Developing Backlog The startup’s primary revenue early on came from developing mobile and web apps for its clients. That’s how Backlog was invented. Hashimoto: We launched back in 2004 and started our business doing software development for clients. So we were working on web productions for our clients in Fukuoka, system developments for securities companies, or even consulting work. In such processes, we had no system for tracking bugs and managing fixes. So we developed our own. That was the beginning…
From the left, Nulab’s co-founders and board members: Shinsuke Tabata (managing director), Toshitaka Agata (managing director), and Masanori Hashimoto (CEO)
Nulab is a startup based in Japan’s western city of Fukuoka, which has developed web-based collaborative tools for use with remote workers. You may be familiar with their diagram sharing tool Cacoo or their task tracking and management tool Backlog.
In terms of business management style, Nulab does things a little differently than typical startups. Their method is incrementally progressive, similar to what typical SMEs do. They don’t show off so much, but their services are pretty great, and Cacoo in particular has a wide following around the world. We recently had a chance to hear from the startup’s CEO, Masanori Hashimoto, who told us a little more about their progress to date.
Developing Backlog
The startup’s primary revenue early on came from developing mobile and web apps for its clients. That’s how Backlog was invented.
Hashimoto: We launched back in 2004 and started our business doing software development for clients. So we were working on web productions for our clients in Fukuoka, system developments for securities companies, or even consulting work. In such processes, we had no system for tracking bugs and managing fixes. So we developed our own. That was the beginning of the Backlog app.
Using some open source code and libraries, we could finally introduce the commercial version of the tool after a couple of testing versions. That was in 2006, and at that time the tool was available for free. We didn’t care about charging to our users. (laugh) After that we picked up a lots of new users without any intentional promotion activities.
Subsequently, they released a premium version that was priced at around 8,000 yen (about $80) a month, but that didn’t quite work out. They needed to find another way to make it work.
Hashimoto: We had been developing the app from an engineer’s perspective. We hoped the tool could help software engineers design system architecture or interfaces for their work. But then we changed things and made some improvements for designers or website producers, and the premium version started showing good numbers.
As a result, the tool became widely recognized as a task management tool, not only in the Fukuoka tech community but all across the country.
The emergence of Cacoo
Following up on the Backlog app, the startup introduced Cacoo back in 2010, enabling users to collaborate on diagrams with other remote users, and even chat within the app. Cacoo would go on to become a smash hit.
Cacoo is now integrated with AdFlow, a banner ad production assisting tool.
Hashimoto: We released the Cacoo app back in 2010. During development work, we previously used wikis for sharing technical information among our developers. But we wanted to edit a diagram or an image in the Wiki easily. And that’s why we started developing the diagram editing and sharing tool.
But for them, it was a very long road to releasing both Cacoo and Backlog. By taking time away from their primary work to develop the Cacoo app, they needed two years to develop the app and get it published.
Shifting focus
Each of the three board members plays a different role. Hashimoto was in charge of managing the client software development, but since these two web services started showing good numbers, he decided to shutdown that department.
Hashimoto: Our director Tabata takes care of the Backlog app, and Agata takes care of the Cacoo app. Since these services are growing now, we shutdown my department. It used to be the primary revenue stream for the company but I think it there is less potential in the future.
We have expected to execute this pivot earlier, but it was impossible to do it so rapidly. We spent three years to shifting our resources from development work to intensifying these new web services.
The startup has also introduced an SDK, which allows third-party developers to work on system integration with the Cacoo app.
I asked Hashimoto if he’s interested in trying for an IPO. He explained:
If your company is listed on a stock exchange, it’s no longer a private company, and should serve people almost like public works. If you expect to make your business into something like that, it’s worth trying to IPO. […] Our next goal is to make this a world-class company.
With the lofty aspiration of further global expansion, Nulab launched a subsidiary in Singapore back in March of 2012. It will be interesting to see if they can use that outpost to find further opportunities around Asia and beyond.
See the original Japanese version of this article If you’re a web startup, chances are you probably have a competitor or two. Maybe more. Here in Japan we are seeing rivals emerge in a number of service categories. Thankfully, with each struggling to stand out from the other, it means that users are most likely to benefit, at least in the short term. I will talk about the major players across six startup categories that have been getting attention here in Japan. Round 1: Stores.jp vs BASE (E-commerce platforms) ¶ I almost wanted to write about just this competition by itself, since both services have experienced rapid growth and the quality of their services is increasing by the day. This is a great example of how intense competition brings better quality product. See STORES.jp in our database See BASE in our database Base: The Japanese freemium e-commerce platform that’s following Shopify’s lead How Stores.jp is helping small businesses in Japan come online Round 2: iQON vs Origami vs MONOCO vs Fril (Smartphone x Fashion) ¶ iQON is media, Origami is commerce, Monoco is a concierge service, and Fril is C2C. Those startups all differ slightly but they share two common…
If you’re a web startup, chances are you probably have a competitor or two. Maybe more. Here in Japan we are seeing rivals emerge in a number of service categories. Thankfully, with each struggling to stand out from the other, it means that users are most likely to benefit, at least in the short term.
I will talk about the major players across six startup categories that have been getting attention here in Japan.
Round 1: Stores.jp vs BASE (E-commerce platforms) ¶
I almost wanted to write about just this competition by itself, since both services have experienced rapid growth and the quality of their services is increasing by the day. This is a great example of how intense competition brings better quality product.
Round 2: iQON vs Origami vs MONOCO vs Fril (Smartphone x Fashion) ¶
iQON is media, Origami is commerce, Monoco is a concierge service, and Fril is C2C. Those startups all differ slightly but they share two common threads: ‘fashion’ and ‘smartphones’. All have maintained high levels of investor interest. And it is said that this field is about to face a host of new entrants, resulting in even more hype around this space.
The platform concept of these two services differs slightly. However, I feel both have the potential to change the concept of the way people work here in Japan, and that’s what differentiates them from other worker-client matching services.
Competition this category is a little more fierce as the players are not all startups. But when I interviewed Coiney I felt that their strategy is not to compete head on with these other payment giants. Check out interview (in Japanese) for more details.
Round 5: Campfire vs Readyfor vs Countdown (Crowdfunding) ¶
Campfire has gotten a lot of attention so far, but it hasn’t yet resulted in the same kind of impact that we have seen with big overseas players. The first out of the gate in this crowdfunding space was Readyfor, which has differentiated by focusing on social contributions, donations, and NPOs. A critical success factor will be its ability to generate news media exposure.
Round 6: SmartNews vs Gunosy vs Vingow (News technology) ¶
This field is pretty interesting because the competition depends on technology much more so than in the previously mentioned categories. SmartNews shows its users almost all the same news information, which is different from the other two players. The concept of personalized news is common to Gunosy and Vingow. But Vingow offers users updated information in real-time, different from Gunosy which updates information in batches. Many users might use both services, depending on the occasion.
I confess, I also wanted to include C2C platforms in this article (such as ticket selling, for example), but I’ll come back to that another time.
Besides those listed above, Japan also has an abundance of camera applications and casual games, but many lack monetization plans and solid business models – so they are less news-worthy in my book. Most of the services listed above have established business models and firm financials, and of course that is a big attraction for investors.
If you’d like to suggest some other hot startup categories or rivalry, please let me know in the comments.
See the original story in Japanese. The anime business consists of many fundamental tasks, such as rough drawing, storyboard writing, and painting. Even for digitalized anime productions, these tasks still exist. It’s not the most efficient process, and can result in a harsh work environment for many who are employed in the industry. But now there’s a startup that may change all that. It’s called Mugenup. In our recent interview with its CEO Ryota Ichioka, he told us the company has acquired several thousands of crowdsourced workers, and with rapid growth thus far, it could hit 20,000 by the end of this year. The emergence of vertical crowdsourcing sites Japan’s crowdsourcing market is pretty hot right now. Crowdworks is showing good numbers, and Lancers recently completed a big funding round. We asked Ichioka to share some figures on their business, and while he couldn’t go into specifics, he says they are generating revenue in the tens of thousands of dollars every month. This is despite the fact that the startup is less than one year old. In contrast with general-purposed crowdsourcing sites like Crowdworks or Lancers, Mugenup is far more niche with its focus on anime. It functions as an…
The anime business consists of many fundamental tasks, such as rough drawing, storyboard writing, and painting. Even for digitalized anime productions, these tasks still exist. It’s not the most efficient process, and can result in a harsh work environment for many who are employed in the industry. But now there’s a startup that may change all that. It’s called Mugenup.
In our recent interview with its CEO Ryota Ichioka, he told us the company has acquired several thousands of crowdsourced workers, and with rapid growth thus far, it could hit 20,000 by the end of this year.
The emergence of vertical crowdsourcing sites
Japan’s crowdsourcing market is pretty hot right now. Crowdworks is showing good numbers, and Lancers recently completed a big funding round. We asked Ichioka to share some figures on their business, and while he couldn’t go into specifics, he says they are generating revenue in the tens of thousands of dollars every month. This is despite the fact that the startup is less than one year old.
Some artwork on the Mugenup website
In contrast with general-purposed crowdsourcing sites like Crowdworks or Lancers, Mugenup is far more niche with its focus on anime. It functions as an intermediary between clients and crowdsourced workers, helping both parties match up with the other much easier than they could before.
Until March of 2012, the startup was developing social gaming apps. But unfortunately that plan didn’t work so well. So they shifted their target client slightly to focus more on mobile game developers.
Most of the projects they’ve dealt with have been single-picture illustrations, but it’s gradually changing to character designs or 2D drawings for Unity, a gaming app integration environment for smartphone.
Things are tough for mobile game studios recently, and most would like to avoid to increase their amount of full-time workers, which means they have to rely on freelance animators or outsourced illustrators. But while most gaming studios typically have in-house programmers, they usually have just a few animators or artists. Ichioka adds:
In addition to individual workers, about 50 studios are registered on our service to receive crowdsourced orders from us, they typically create content for pachinko machines or animated films, but they usually work on our crowdsourced projects during their downtime. In terms of making the most of that downtime, our business model is sort of similar to Raksul, a discount printing startup that makes use of printing factories during their downtime.
Mugenup is a 30-person team for now, and about 20 of those are professional art directors, all comfortable providing directions to crowdsourced animators or illustrators.
For many crowdsourcing sites, what’s the most important is how to create an environment where clients and crowdsourced workers can efficiently work on projects together. At Mugenup, directors use a chat system to communicate with crowdsourced workers, monitor the production process, and give workers revision requests if needed. Surprisingly, production management processes are standardized and workers’ skill sets are well managed.
Their retention rate for such crowdsourced workers is as much as 60%, which indicates they are highly motivated. Mugenup plans extend its business beyond Japan and to start receiving orders from publishing companies or cartoonists later on.
Some project tasks are difficult to split among different crowdsourced workers. Such tasks include rough sketches or storyboard writing, which are typically an important step to determine the overall character design. To get past this obstacle, the startup asks clients to pick their favorite crowdsourced animators before placing an order, one who fits their taste exactly.
Mugenup has each client fill out a checklist, recording why they have chosen a certain animator. This process helps when placing future orders, because if a client complains that an outcome is not what they expected, they are asked to update form to give better results that can more accurately fit their preference. This process takes some time, but it definitely helps business proceed more efficiently overall. Ichioka further adds:
We believe possible to make our business more scalable, and we’ll be extending our offerings to include three-dimensional or characters in motion as well. […] In this internet era, we are aspiring to build up a new business that leverages fine Japanese craftsmanship.
He hopes that his company can go public in a few years. And given his success so far, it will certainly be a company to watch in the future.
Mugenup was launched in June of 2011, received a seed funding from Incubate Fund in December of 2011, subsequently fundraised 100 million yen (approximately $1 milllion) from Nissay Capital.
This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan. Japanese price comparison site Kakaku.com is a pretty essential tool for shoppers in Japan, whether you do your shopping online or offline. While sites like Rakuten or Amazon Japan are among the most likely online retail destinations, along with countless other lesser known e-commerce options. But in order to find out where the cheapest option is, Kakaku is your spot. From a business perspective, Kakaku.com essentially offers both price comparison listing (for which it charges a fee) and free product listing/aggregation. But from a consumer perspective, what I find to be Kakaku’s best feature is its categorized product ranking. While this is a somewhat common features among product-centered sites these days, Kakaku executes it well, essentially removing any of the worry you might have that you’ll buy the wrong product. If it’s the top product or an editor’s choice than it’s pretty safe bet that you’ve made a good selection [1]. Kakaku has a decent mobile site too, so I find myself checking on prices even while in stores sometimes. The company does offer…
This is part of our ‘Japanese internet in-depth’ series (RSS). Stay tuned for more features that aim to explain what makes the internet unique in Japan.
Japanese price comparison site Kakaku.com is a pretty essential tool for shoppers in Japan, whether you do your shopping online or offline. While sites like Rakuten or Amazon Japan are among the most likely online retail destinations, along with countless other lesser known e-commerce options. But in order to find out where the cheapest option is, Kakaku is your spot. From a business perspective, Kakaku.com essentially offers both price comparison listing (for which it charges a fee) and free product listing/aggregation.
But from a consumer perspective, what I find to be Kakaku’s best feature is its categorized product ranking. While this is a somewhat common features among product-centered sites these days, Kakaku executes it well, essentially removing any of the worry you might have that you’ll buy the wrong product. If it’s the top product or an editor’s choice than it’s pretty safe bet that you’ve made a good selection [1]. Kakaku has a decent mobile site too, so I find myself checking on prices even while in stores sometimes. The company does offer a bar code search app, although I have yet to give that a try.
The other useful feature of Kakaku is that it shows you recent price fluctuations via a line chart that shows both lowest and average price over time. So if you have a big purchase planned this is something you might keep your eye on, to make sure you’re buying at the right time. There are even some apps out there that will send you an alert when the price falls below a certain threshold.
Another major use of Kakaku is its kuchikomi user reviews. This is where users provide feedback about various products, giving you a little more insight into products you’d like to buy. To get a better idea about Kakaku’s web interface, check out this video overview that I made a little while back [2].
The company has a pretty extensive repertoire of Facebook pages which really help if you’d like to stay up to date on new products in a certain category. For example, I like to keep an eye on new cameras that hit the market, and Kakaku’s camera page is great for this.
Kakaku also has a number of interesting subsidiaries that you might be familiar with, including food-focused site Tabelog, Japanese movie information site eiga.com as well as travel-focused price comparison site 4travel.jp.
Interestingly Kakaku has been looking to offer its price comparison service in foreign markets, with sites already established and operating in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines under the PricePrice.com umbrella. It will be interesting to see which markets the company looks to next.
Also relevant in the price comparison space is Aucfan which helps consumers find the best available prices on online auction sites.
For example, I just bought a bathroom scales yesterday. What do I know about which is the best bathroom scales? Absolutely nothing. But by going with the top ranked scales on Kakaku I know I got decent value. ↩
While this video is a little dated by now, it still serves as a good illustration since the website hasn’t changed too much. ↩
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Takeshi Hirano
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
iJet can receive orders for all 3D printing tasks: scanning, data processing, printing and finishing. They also support the installation and operation of 3D scanners for their partner studios. For customers, when you order 3D printing at a studio, your original sculpture will be scanned at their storefronts, and that scanned 3D data will be transmitted to iJet, who takes care of the data processing, printing, finishing, and even delivery.
The rise of 3D printing is causing a drastic change in the Japanese manufacturing industry. In conventional manufacturing, mold making typically requires several months and cost a lot. But in some cases, iJet can deliver a 3D printed sculpture in as little as a few weeks after receiving an order.
As some of our readers may know, the 
Junya Mori
