news

How a small Japanese startup is helping Thailand’s biggest telco win new 3G subscribers

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.14

Thailand’s largest mobile operator, AIS, recently launched a new 3G service offering peak download speeds of up to 42Mbps in the country’s urban areas. To promote the service, the telco has been looking for new content to grab consumers’ attention. Quan, the Tokyo-based startup behind the Lounge messaging app, recently partnered with AIS, launching a new sticker app to help bring in new 3G service subscribers. I was curious to know if maybe this sticker app was a deviation from its regular business. A new direction perhaps? Is there any specific strategy behind it? In order to find out more to, we spoke with the startup’s CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno. When we last talked back in January of 2012, you were not focusing on Thailand nor were you doing any of this sticker app stuff. What happened since then? We first started marketing the app all around the Asia region, and we found it was especially popular with users in Thailand. The sticker function used to be part of the Lounge app, but we spun it off and launched it as an independent app. It’s called myStickerShop, and it has seen 500,000 downloads since first launching on Google Play. I fly…

Thailand’s largest mobile operator, AIS, recently launched a new 3G service offering peak download speeds of up to 42Mbps in the country’s urban areas. To promote the service, the telco has been looking for new content to grab consumers’ attention.

Quan, the Tokyo-based startup behind the Lounge messaging app, recently partnered with AIS, launching a new sticker app to help bring in new 3G service subscribers. I was curious to know if maybe this sticker app was a deviation from its regular business. A new direction perhaps? Is there any specific strategy behind it? In order to find out more to, we spoke with the startup’s CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno.

When we last talked back in January of 2012, you were not focusing on Thailand nor were you doing any of this sticker app stuff. What happened since then?

We first started marketing the app all around the Asia region, and we found it was especially popular with users in Thailand. The sticker function used to be part of the Lounge app, but we spun it off and launched it as an independent app. It’s called myStickerShop, and it has seen 500,000 downloads since first launching on Google Play.

I fly a lot to Thailand now, about once a month. And we’ve been discussing and exploring collaborative work [with AIS]. They knew myStickerShop has been a great success, and were interested in releasing it under the AIS brand as to attract potential subscribers to their new 3G service. So we decided to work on it with them using a revenue-share model [1].

There are many mobile carriers and MVNOs in Thailand. Why did you choose AIS? And why Thailand?

AIS is not only on top of the country’s mobile industry […] but it is also a Thai subsidiary of Singtel group. That group has many companies and subsidiaries all over Asia, which means it may help us market and expand our business in the future.

By providing our app to AIS on a white-label basis, they handle it as their own app and market it to users using their promotion channels – so we don’t need to [do so much afterwards].

As for why we’ve chosen Thailand, the country is less competitive and it’s easier to make business profitable than in places like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Furthermore, content goes viral among Thai consumers very rapidly. In terms of consumer mentality, it’s very similar to Japan, meaning when you see your friend with some attractive or interesting items, you also want to have them. This consumer mindset can yield better viral marketing results, and that’s especially good for app developers like us.

Are you interested in expanding to other Asian countries?

Not right now. From my perspective, if you have a Japanese-style fashion app and want to market it somewhere in Asia, you can easily jump into the Taiwanese market. For Japan-made ‘Kawaii’ (cute) apps, maybe the Thai market is best right now. The market seems receptive to common Japanese trends, and local people are very friendly even for Japanese startups.

Many sticker and messaging apps are competing in this space in Asia. How do you differentiate from competitors?

Other cute Japanese apps such as Snapeee or Decopic are trending in places like Taiwan or Hong Kong. What they have been doing is bringing Japanese style to local markets, where they have not made any localization efforts in terms of exporting the apps outside Japan.

I believe what’s most important is a combination of Japan-made designs and local designs. In our case with the AIS MyStickerShop, we actually provide them with our original stickers by our Japanese designers, but they also add some local Thai designs. That might work to create favorable good results.

Most popular sticker and message apps are Japan-made. Are any developers from other Asian countries on top of this space?

This is because of highly sophisticated designing in Japan’s mature design market. Our country is well known for creating manga or anime, creating a market where cartoonists or illustrators can make a living. Perhaps many people designing our stickers are also very well trained.

In addition to the Lounge messaging app and myStickerShop, are you working on any other projects now?

We’ve been bringing our app to the Thai market, and we also started helping Thai startups market their apps in the Japanese market in return. We recently partnered with Kiragames, a gaming startup in Thailand’s second largest city, Chiang Mai. We developed the Japanese version of their smash hit puzzle game Unblock.me. We’re also helping them market it in Japan, by getting itlisted on KDDI’s Smartpass or NTT Docomo’s Sugotoku — both are monthly subscription-based app purchasing programs. This is a good way to give Japanese consumers easier access to apps from foreign developers.

I was pretty impressed that Mr. Mizuno has been so active helping other Japanese or Thai startups work collaboratively in such a way. Quan received an undisclosed amount of investment from NetPrice.com and East Ventures in August of 2012.

Note that the customized AIS version of myStickerShop is only available using AIS handsets on the telco’s high-speed 3G service in Thailand. ↩

news

Beauty products portal @Cosme is an internet mainstay among Japanese women

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.01

There are a few major review portals in Japan that are loved by women — Cookpad (food recipes), Ozmall (beauty salons), and Tabelog (restaurants) come to mind. But when it comes to cosmetics and beauty products, @Cosme is the place to go. The review site opened way back in December of 1999 and since then it has accumulated over 10 million reviews [1]. According to Toyokeizai, the site is used by one in three women in their 20s and 30s, and over two million members write 10 million reviews monthly. Many Japanese women have an endless appetite for greater beauty, and to satisfy such women, many cosmetic brands launch new products more often than one would expect. Industry journal Syogyo announced that in the first half of year 2012, the number of newly released cosmetic products went up 3.3% compared to the same time previous year, with the number of items reaching 1849. The average price of new products was 4132 yen (or about $42). Product reviews at @Cosme are essential for these women to find best the suited products considering the number of products that are available. Users can check product reviews and rankings, ask questions about skincare and…

There are a few major review portals in Japan that are loved by women — Cookpad (food recipes), Ozmall (beauty salons), and Tabelog (restaurants) come to mind. But when it comes to cosmetics and beauty products, @Cosme is the place to go. The review site opened way back in December of 1999 and since then it has accumulated over 10 million reviews [1]. According to Toyokeizai, the site is used by one in three women in their 20s and 30s, and over two million members write 10 million reviews monthly.

Many Japanese women have an endless appetite for greater beauty, and to satisfy such women, many cosmetic brands launch new products more often than one would expect. Industry journal Syogyo announced that in the first half of year 2012, the number of newly released cosmetic products went up 3.3% compared to the same time previous year, with the number of items reaching 1849. The average price of new products was 4132 yen (or about $42).

Product reviews at @Cosme are essential for these women to find best the suited products considering the number of products that are available. Users can check product reviews and rankings, ask questions about skincare and makeup, and even find out where products are available offline. The site is free to browse, but by registering as a user, you can clip or bookmark your favorite brands, reviews, or reviewers, and also send messages to other @Cosme users about products. The site’s premium users pay a monthly membership fee of 294 yen (or about $3) which entitles them to receive special coupons and or points to win promotional products.

iStyle, the company behind @Cosme, went public on the Mothers market in March of last year. The site was initially founded to accumulate purchasing data across all cosmetics makers, but the company’s co-founder explained in a Toyokeizai interview that there is a limit to CRM as it only allows brands to collect information about existing purchasers. What brands really want is data about those who did not buy their products, which is essentially unreachable since that information belongs to competitors. @Cosme have successfully built a solution for this problem.

The core business of @Cosme is advertising, which accounts for roughly 25% of its profit, with ecommerce and retail stores just behind. @Cosme have opened six retail stores in popular locations such as Shinjuku and Ikebukuro to further engage consumers offline and online purchasing behaviors. Women can see the latest popular products on @Cosme, and visit the retails store to try them out and hopefully purchase them. @Cosme is very powerful in influencing purchasing decisions of beauty conscious consumers — so much so, in fact, that it is not uncommon to find products with things like “Chosen No.1 at @Cosme” on its package.

I myself do check out reviews on @Cosme when I’m deciding to try a new product. But I might not have anything in common with the reviewer in regard to skin type or preferred products. The site would be more fun and convincing if they tagged with products like Beautecam, allowing users to get connected with people having similar skin and beauty concerns.

As of August of last year. ↩

news

Japan’s Weathernews hopes to take the US market by storm

Rick Martin 2013.04.30

Japanese companies have been very good at monetizing the mobile space, most notably gaming companies. But there’s one sector that you would likely not expect would be easy to monetize, and that’s weather information. But a company in Japan called Weathernews has done pretty well for itself in this area. The company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange way back in 2003 (TSE:4825) and with offices in 27 major cities in 13 countries, it claims to be the world’s largest private weather service company. The company has done well with its Weathernews Touch smartphone application, as well as its web and feature phone services. Now it’s looking to make a global push of its Weathernews Touch app, with an English version coming in the next few months. I recently had a chance to speak with the company’s director Tomohiro Ishibashi and representative Ryosuke Ueyama to find out more about their services. Tomohiro explained that weather data by itself is freely available and they don’t believe they can make money from just data alone. What they intend to do is to make a weather communication community, something more personal and customized. They see this as a new market in the weather…

forecast-center-Chiba-Japan — Weathernews’ forecast center, Chiba, Japan

Japanese companies have been very good at monetizing the mobile space, most notably gaming companies. But there’s one sector that you would likely not expect would be easy to monetize, and that’s weather information. But a company in Japan called Weathernews has done pretty well for itself in this area. The company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange way back in 2003 (TSE:4825) and with offices in 27 major cities in 13 countries, it claims to be the world’s largest private weather service company.

The company has done well with its Weathernews Touch smartphone application, as well as its web and feature phone services. Now it’s looking to make a global push of its Weathernews Touch app, with an English version coming in the next few months. I recently had a chance to speak with the company’s director Tomohiro Ishibashi and representative Ryosuke Ueyama to find out more about their services.

Tomohiro explained that weather data by itself is freely available and they don’t believe they can make money from just data alone. What they intend to do is to make a weather communication community, something more personal and customized. They see this as a new market in the weather information space.

camera-weathernews — User photo submissions in your area give a great overview of the weather nearby

Typically online weather services depend on high traffic and companies monetize that traffic via advertising. WeatherNews doesn’t put ads on their site and with the exception of the occasional banner to promote or explain their services, and they hope to keep it that way. Weather is very connected to our daily lives, they say, and with such critical information they don’t believe they should use ads. Advertisers could want to influence the content and they think weather information should remain free.

So far they have about 20 million unique monthly users across PC and feature phones and most of those don’t pay. But about 5% of those are willing to pay, I’m told. Their smartphone apps have seen about 8 million unique downloads in total, with about 4 million apiece for iOS and Android. The company benefits from being on AU Smart Pass, which led to some good exposure.

The WeatherNews Touch application monetizes with premium services where customers can pay for more accurate or more detailed weather information. This could include some alerts, or the opportunity to communicate in a deeper way with other subscribers (free users cannot do this, I’m told). This does come with some problems however because while Android does allow for automatically renewed subscriptions, iOS doesn’t. So in Japan they sell tickets for seven-day or 30-day periods, and sometimes more.

Will global users pay?

But given that Japanese users are so accustomed to paying for mobile services, I’m curious as to whether global users will do the same so readily. Tomohiro says that before i-mode Japanese users didn’t pay for mobile services in this way, and people didn’t believe in such a market. He hopes that they can get US users to pay for weather information in a similar way, essentially creating a market in the same way that one was created in Japan.

The company is also doing well in China, and has a good relationship with the nation’s leading carrier China Mobile. They have obtained a license in China as a weather provider and has done some testing for the Android market. Their feature phone site in China is doing about as well as their site with NTT Docomo in Japan. While sites like these are branded for the carriers, all information comes from WeatherNews.

Weather services and applications often fall under our radar, and I say that as both a consumer and as someone who regularly writes about new internet services. But at the same time, I do have a couple of paid weather apps on my own mobile (Morning Rain and Solar), so I can’t really argue that there’s not a market for weather services. I expect Weathernews Touch will benefit from good visibility in any market, as long as there are dedicated ‘weather’ categories in app stores.

Stay tuned in the next few months to see how the company progresses.

news

Ticket Street: How Japan’s ticket-reselling site keeps up rapid growth

Takeshi Hirano 2013.04.19

See the original story in Japanese. Ticket Street is a Tokyo startup that provides a platform focused on the buying and selling of show tickets. Its monthly transaction value has surpassed 70 million yen (almost $700,000). The startup was originally launched by a freelance engineer and was subsequently incorporated in August of 2011. It has acquired over 100,000 members to date and has grown into to a C2C marketplace with more than 5,000 kinds of tickets available at all times. It fundraised 15 million yen (over $150,000) from Incubate Fund in 2012, and 60 million yen from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Mizuho Capital in March of this year. We spoke with the startup’s co-founder and chairman Kei Nishiyama, who explained five key points about finding a new market like this one as well as how to create a value proposition for users. Identify the enormous demand in C2C trading Nishiyama: In terms of the volume of C2C transactions, the biggest market opportunity can be seen in web-based community services. But in these niche markets, if you create a service that allows users to buy securely, without worry of possible fraud, it might be a great business chance. People have always…

See the original story in Japanese.

Ticket Street is a Tokyo startup that provides a platform focused on the buying and selling of show tickets. Its monthly transaction value has surpassed 70 million yen (almost $700,000). The startup was originally launched by a freelance engineer and was subsequently incorporated in August of 2011.

It has acquired over 100,000 members to date and has grown into to a C2C marketplace with more than 5,000 kinds of tickets available at all times. It fundraised 15 million yen (over $150,000) from Incubate Fund in 2012, and 60 million yen from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Mizuho Capital in March of this year.

We spoke with the startup’s co-founder and chairman Kei Nishiyama, who explained five key points about finding a new market like this one as well as how to create a value proposition for users.

Ticket Street's CEO Kei Nishiyama — Ticket Street’s Chairman Kei Nishiyama

Identify the enormous demand in C2C trading

Nishiyama: In terms of the volume of C2C transactions, the biggest market opportunity can be seen in web-based community services. But in these niche markets, if you create a service that allows users to buy securely, without worry of possible fraud, it might be a great business chance.

People have always wanted to resell unneeded concert tickets, and C2C deals frequently appear on auction or community sites. The success of our business depends on how much we can identify these needs and incorporate the solutions into our service.

Finding hidden demand

Nishiyama: In the Japanese entertainment or live show market, more than 70 million tickets are traded a year. Only 3% of the entire volume are considered to be second-hand sales. But a recent survey showed 6% of people would like to resell their unwanted tickets to someone else. So we can deduce that the other 3% are people are who are trading their tickets face to face.

By providing a safe platform that might fit the C2C market needs for an appropriate commission fee to users, we can create a very sound and widely proven ticket resale market.

The platform must provide security, safety, and rules

Nishiyama: Typical C2C platforms will not broker trades between a seller and a buyer. However, as a value proposition for their customers, Ticket Street gets in between the two sides as a middleman. For a ticket buyer, if you complete the payment but have not receive a ticket, we (Ticket Street) will try to get your money back from the seller.

To secure the delivery of tickets, we’re requesting sellers to use registered mail and enter a tracking number that allows buyers to easily check shipping status. These optional services cost a lot but help our sales. It’s proving that our customers prefer a sense of security when buying.

Analyze market trends

Nishiyama: In early 2000s, the entertainment industry tolerated a loss in the concert business, primarily because it was an important part of promotional activities in selling CD albums. But everything has changed during the last five years.

Today, there’s no good news even in the ring tone business. So the concert business is forced to monetize more. For example, if we look at Lady Gaga, after she had a live performance, it subsequently aired on a pay tv channel to make more money. We must not miss recent changes in market trends like this.

A world enhanced by second-hand business

Nishiyama: Some people think a C2C platform for the second-hand business could not penetrate the mainstream. However, it’s encouraging that an e-commerce giant like eBay can provide ticket reselling services through StubHub, a company they previously acquired.

When you have a chance to buy a ticket for a concert, for example, taking place six months from now, you may hesitate to buy because you could have to work overtime or have a critical appointment on that day. But with an easy-to-access second-hand platform, you won’t hesitate to buy, because if you need to cancel your ticket, you can sell it to someone else with ease. By adding such options for consumers, they won’t think twice about buying the tickets in the first place.

Mr. Nishiyama started his career as an entrepreneur while in university, and he has been working in the startup community for more than ten years.

In Japan, there has been a lot of buzz lately around C2C businesses, including notable startups like Base, Stores.jp, or flea-market smartphone app Fril. This is not only about merchandising either, but also we’ve seen many many C2C startups selling intangible things, like private coaching service Cyta.jp.

Up-and-coming mobile payments startup Coiney is exploring business opportunities in C2C payment needs. Most likely the increasingly high penetration of smartphone devices and developments payment methods are helping such businesses grow further and faster.

news

Meet Japan’s seed accelerators and VC firms [MAP]

SCORE 2,708

Takuya Tsuchiya 2013.04.18

In our coverage of the startup space, we frequently mention Japanese seed accelerators and venture capital firms. We thought it might be useful for you the reader if we presented them all here as one handy reference. We’ll continue to update this page when necessary, so please bookmark it or tell your friends about it if you think it’s useful. In addition to the list below, we’ve also mapped most of them above. Accelerators are marked red, and VCs are appropriately green! If you’d like to further explore prominent Japanese tech companies and startups, feel free to check out our database as well. We encourage you to add your own company and service profiles too. Japanese Seed Accelerators Open Network Lab Open Network Lab is a seed acceleration program based in Tokyo, similar to Y Combinator and TechStars, established by Netprice.com, Digital Garage, and Kakaku.com. [More info] MOVIDA JAPAN A seed accelerator by Taizo Son, the younger brother of Masayoshi Son of Softbank. Their ultimate goal is to build an eco-system in Japan and Asia that allows startups to grow. [More info] Samurai Incubate Samurai Incubate Inc was founded in 2008 to support early-stage startups in the areas of management,…

In our coverage of the startup space, we frequently mention Japanese seed accelerators and venture capital firms. We thought it might be useful for you the reader if we presented them all here as one handy reference. We’ll continue to update this page when necessary, so please bookmark it or tell your friends about it if you think it’s useful. In addition to the list below, we’ve also mapped most of them above. Accelerators are marked red, and VCs are appropriately green!

If you’d like to further explore prominent Japanese tech companies and startups, feel free to check out our database as well. We encourage you to add your own company and service profiles too.

Japanese Seed Accelerators

Open Network Lab

Open Network Lab is a seed acceleration program based in Tokyo, similar to Y Combinator and TechStars, established by Netprice.com, Digital Garage, and Kakaku.com.

[More info]

MOVIDA JAPAN

A seed accelerator by Taizo Son, the younger brother of Masayoshi Son of Softbank. Their ultimate goal is to build an eco-system in Japan and Asia that allows startups to grow.

[More info]

Samurai Incubate

Samurai Incubate Inc was founded in 2008 to support early-stage startups in the areas of management, marketing, sales, human resources, and finance. The company invests in start-up ventures, and they also hold advisory posts and serve as external directors of some venture companies.

[More info]

KDDI Mugen Labo

A tech startup incubator founded in May of 2011 by Japan’s second largest Telco, KDDI.

[More info]

Docomo Innovation Village

An NTT Docomo incubator that focus on startups and venture companies primarily in Japan that possess business models, services or technologies related to mobility, and have the potential to be developed as new or upgraded offerings by NTT Docomo.

[More info]

Early Stage VC Firms

ANRI

An independent venture capital based in Japan. The fund size is about 500 million yen and their typical investment size is between 10 million and 30 million yen.

[More info]

CyberAgent Ventures

CyberAgent Ventures is a venture capital firm headquartered in Tokyo. It has a presence in South Korea, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India, and invests in startups in those countries.

[More info]

VOYAGE VENTURES

VOYAGE GROUP’s VC, investing in internet technology startups. They are active in Japan, Vitenam, and Indonesia, helping student entrepreneurs, and providing office space and mentoring services.

[More info]

KLab Ventures

A Japanese joint venture capital that was founded by KLab and SBI Investments. It invests in early stage internet-focused startups.

[More info]

insprout

A Japanese venture capital company that runs several kinds of business: venture incubation, investment, and corporate venturing support.

[More info]

EastVentures

East Ventures is an early stage venture capital for consumer web and mobile startups. The company invests in Singapore, Jakarta, and Tokyo.

[More info]

ITOCHU Technology Ventures

ITOCHU Technology Ventures (ITV), based in Tokyo, is the venture capital arm of ITOCHU Corporation.

[More info]

Globis Capital Partners

Globis Capital Partners (GCP) is one of Japan’s leading venture capital firms. Globis boasts a unique combination of local presence and Western experience.

[More info]

Global Brain

Global Brain (GB) is an early stage venture capital firm based in Tokyo, expanding its investment activities in the US and Asia.

[More info]

CYBRiDGE Ventures

CYBRiDGE group’s venture capital arm. It typically invests 100 million to 150 million yen in early stage startups in Japan.

[More info]

Femto Startup

A Japanese venture capital that typically invests 200 to 300 million yen in internet business related startups.

[More info]

GREE Ventures

The venture capital arm of Japanese social gaming giant GREE.

[More info]

Incubate Fund

Incubate Fund is the largest and best known seed to early stage focused venture capital fund in Japan.

[More info]

B Dash Ventures

B Dash Ventures does seed to late stage tech investments in Japan, Asia, and the US.

[More info]

KDDI Open Innovation Fund

KDDI Corporation’s corporate venture capital fund that supports promising startup companies.

[More info]

docomo Innovation Fund

A fund of Japan’s largest mobile carrier, NTT Docomo.

[More info]

Infinity Venture Partners

Infinity Venture Partners Incubator Fund is a $5 million venture fund focusing on seed and early stage investments in the digital media sector.

[More info]

YJ Capital

Yahoo Japan’s corporate venture capital fund. Founded in 2012, the fund manages 10 billion yen and invests in startups in Japan.

[More info]

Fuji Startup Ventures

Fuji TV’s venture capital arm.

[More info]

news

UI Scope teams up with DeployGate to create a one-stop app testing solution

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.04.09

See the original story in Japanese. We frequently hear words like ‘usability’ or ’user experience”, but still very few developers have conducted user tests for their apps. So says Daisuke Hiraishi, the CEO of InnoBeta Inc., the up-and-coming startup behind the crowdsourced app testing service UIScope. Innnobeta announced today that it would be partnering with DeployGate, a smartphone app test platform run by Japanese social network operator Mixi. As we mentioned in our previous feature interview, DeployGate has acquired users from over 93 countries and been used for testing more than 4,000 apps worldwide. With this integration with DeployGate, Innobeta provides a one-stop service to be known by the name of ‘DeployGate Scope.’ It allows developers to provide crowdsourced usability testing not only for live apps but also for prototypes still under development. UI Scope was launched last October, and its team consists of three full-time workers, a freelance designer, and an engineer (who is attending grad school). The CEO Hiraishi used the bulletin board service WishScope to invite potential co-workers, including his CTO Takakiyo Aritaka. They’ve had been running a design-oriented app service, but faced many issues in the process of user testing. That experience made them…

See the original story in Japanese.

We frequently hear words like ‘usability’ or ’user experience”, but still very few developers have conducted user tests for their apps.

So says Daisuke Hiraishi, the CEO of InnoBeta Inc., the up-and-coming startup behind the crowdsourced app testing service UIScope. Innnobeta announced today that it would be partnering with DeployGate, a smartphone app test platform run by Japanese social network operator Mixi. As we mentioned in our previous feature interview, DeployGate has acquired users from over 93 countries and been used for testing more than 4,000 apps worldwide.

With this integration with DeployGate, Innobeta provides a one-stop service to be known by the name of ‘DeployGate Scope.’ It allows developers to provide crowdsourced usability testing not only for live apps but also for prototypes still under development.

UI Scope was launched last October, and its team consists of three full-time workers, a freelance designer, and an engineer (who is attending grad school). The CEO Hiraishi used the bulletin board service WishScope to invite potential co-workers, including his CTO Takakiyo Aritaka. They’ve had been running a design-oriented app service, but faced many issues in the process of user testing. That experience made them realize that many app developers were likely facing the same problem. And this led to them to eventually launch the crowdsourced usability testing service, making use of a pool of testers to provide feedback to developers and designers.

Similar services exist, but there’s no testing service specifically focused on testing for smartphone apps. The majority of the startup’s clients are big Japanese companies such as Recruit or NEC Biglobe, but users from startups also on the rise.

Since launch last October, the service was used for 200 projects by 40 companies. 70% of developers have the service to get feedback on upgrades for their apps, and the rest are for testing initial releases.

In terms of specifying the layer of testers you want to ask, you may choose them according to age, gender. You can also select testers by other criteria, such as people who have tried out a specific service, or even someone who has recently traveled to a certain place. On average, every case takes about one week and with 10 testers. According to ~~global measurement company Nielsen~~ Jakob Nielsen, a test conducted with 10 five people is enough to find and identify 80% of all problems [1].

The testing process is an interesting one. Participating testers will receive a webcam for free from UI Scope. Testers are requested to record their testing task, speaking their impressions as they proceed step-by-step. By collecting those recorded videos, you can understand how testers thought and felt, why they pressed a certain button, or why they abandoned a screen on the app. These videos will then be passed on to clients. Pricing is 3,000 yen for testing, and clients will pay 15,000 yen on average, typically asking for around 5 testers. Analysis reports are also available as an additional option.

Strict requirements for testers

More than 4,000 people have signed up for the service to be testers. The startup is devising ways to get more applicants, although they have a very strict filtering process for those who want to be qualified testers. Potential testers receive two to three dummy tests a week, and only are few of them who yield good results and display a certain literacy level will finally qualify. After that they can can receive 500 yen compensation every time they finish a testing task. When compensation reaches 2,000 yen, it will be transferred to your bank account.

Housewives were invited to be testers through the startup’s ‘invite your friend’ campaign, and many students have signed up through an introduction from the startup’s partner companies. UI Scope has also partnered with Mamion, a chain operating PC training courses for the elderly, thus succeeding in acquiring some older testers as well. This broad variety of testers helps the startup to receive many testing orders from a wide range of companies.

For future problems they want to solve, Mr. Hiraishi further explains:

We need to some time to educate developers on the necessity of the usability testing. That’s why we’re organizing events like the “Smartphone Design Conference”. For usability testing, it usually requires 10 to 15 minutes for a testing case. Conducting the case with 10 testers, that means 100 minutes at least. We want to improve the service so that it allows users to see each [step] of the testing task. We look into providing more specifications about our testers, so that our clients will be able to conduct more targeted tests.

For now, most testings are conducted at home, but the startup is planning to develop an environment where people can do tests outside their home (useful for testing GPS-enabled apps, for example) and real-time testing (for testing social network apps). For developers who would like to try out the service, UI Scope is giving a 50% discount until the end of this month.

The company previously raised 5 million yen (about $53,800) from Movida Japan, and has acquired 120 developers and 2500 testers during the last six months. The video below will give you a better idea of how the service works.

Thanks to @david_z on Twitter for the error report! Much appreciated. ↩

news

From Japan to Silicon Valley: AnyPerk’s startup journey has been longer than most

Rick Martin 2013.03.29

Up-and-coming startup Anyperk recently announced that it has raised $1.4 million in funding. And with plans to hire sales, engineering, and marketing staff, it aspires to succeed in a space that has been tough to some other companies. Companies sign up with AnyPerk so their employees can benefit from a number of discounts and deals from partner vendors, such as 15% savings on your AT&T billing, for example. I recently caught up with one of the AnyPerk founders Taro Fukuyama to learn more about the company’s path up until now, as well as where they go from here. I first encountered Taro when he was heading up Mieple back in 2011, an idea for a sort of social communication service. That summer saw him and his team head to the US, meeting with over 100 investors while living in their car parked in a Taco Bell parking lot! Takeshi Homma, an exec for a Japanese company working in San Francisco, explains his surprise at the team’s very lean approach in those early days: My friends and I hosted the welcome dinner in Chinatown for their team and another start-up who just came to Silicon Valley. […] After the dinner, I…

Up-and-coming startup Anyperk recently announced that it has raised $1.4 million in funding. And with plans to hire sales, engineering, and marketing staff, it aspires to succeed in a space that has been tough to some other companies. Companies sign up with AnyPerk so their employees can benefit from a number of discounts and deals from partner vendors, such as 15% savings on your AT&T billing, for example.

I recently caught up with one of the AnyPerk founders Taro Fukuyama to learn more about the company’s path up until now, as well as where they go from here.

I first encountered Taro when he was heading up Mieple back in 2011, an idea for a sort of social communication service. That summer saw him and his team head to the US, meeting with over 100 investors while living in their car parked in a Taco Bell parking lot! Takeshi Homma, an exec for a Japanese company working in San Francisco, explains his surprise at the team’s very lean approach in those early days:

My friends and I hosted the welcome dinner in Chinatown for their team and another start-up who just came to Silicon Valley. […] After the dinner, I asked them where they were going to stay. They said nothing has been decided. “What?” I said. “We don’t have a place to stay tonight,” they said. Long story short, they survived as super lean start-up. I’m sure that Taco Bell wasn’t a good place to stay for a week. I’m very impressed with their incredible vitality and I believe that it is one of the most important [qualities] for a start-up. I’m sure they will survive for a long time.

Taro tells me that eventually the team prepared an application and got into the Y Combinator incubator with the idea of Mieple, the first Japanese company to enter the program. That incubation program started in January of 2012, and on the third day, they decided to stop working on Mieple, and in the weeks that followed they came up with the idea of AnyPerk, inspired by companies who had executed similar ideas back in Japan.

In terms of customer acquisition, the company initially struggled with a chicken and egg problem. They needed customers in order to acquire perk vendors, and vendors in order to acquire customers. To work around this they offered discounts to Y Combinator founders to kickstart their initial client acquisition.

Currently AnyPerk charges companies $5 per employee per month, and has made significant progress by bringing in 2,500 customers, including high profile ones such as Pinterest, Quora, Pandora, and Cushman & Wakefield. Among the more notable of its 300 vendors to date are Six Flags, Zipcar, Hertz, Travelocity, AT&T, T-Mobile, HP, and Dell.

As for their target market, they intend to focus on the US for now. I asked Taro if he had plans to bring AnyPerk back to Japan, but he explains given the three or four companies doing similar business there already, they plan to focus on the US first. Other countries could come later.

It remains to be seen whether or not AnyPerk can excel in this space, as a similar service, BetterWorks, gave up on a similar business just last year. But the company does have some tenacious founders whom investors apparently have much faith in, so it will be interesting to see how much further AnyPerk can develop this business idea.

Photo: City Data

news

Japan increasingly turning to Facebook to reach potential tourists

Rick Martin 2013.03.24

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well. The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week. It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form. Reaching beyond Japan’s borders Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential…

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well.

The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week.

It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form.

Reaching beyond Japan’s borders

Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential tourists, posting photos from around Japan, and conducting quizzes. The company boasts cheaper tours than its competitors, and its Facebook presence (now with about 21,000 fans) is a place potential tour participants can comment and have discussions.

As for Japan’s official tourism arm, the JNTO, it has also been pretty active in reaching out on the social network. The organization operates a number of regional pages targeting a variety of countries, including the USA (153,000 fans), Singapore (141,000), and Thailand (92,000).

Of course, the efforts of these companies to promote Japan abroad via Facebook pales in comparison to startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which has racked up more than 11 million Facebook fans with its page about Japanese otaku subculture [2]. Likewise, another young startup under the KDDI Mugen Labo incubator program, Kawaii Museum JPN, is doing something similar, and currently has more than 3 million Facebook fans.

In addition to capitalizing on the power of Facebook, companies and organizations are using the afore-mentioned Line chat app to reach audiences and customers. This past week we featured the apparel brand Lip Service which has been using Line to connect with customers via smartphones, and the end result was a 50% boost in in sales over the previous week. Even the Prime Minister’s Office has a Line account, promising to push updates to citizens who want to stay in the loop using their smartphones [3].

I say ‘perhaps’ because many would say that recently the social network of choise is Line, although as a chat app many others would say it isn’t strictly a social network. ↩
To learn more about Tokyo Otaku Mode, see our feature on the young up-and-coming startup from last month. ↩
And as of this week, the Prime Minister’s Office also has its own smartphone apps! ↩

news

Catching up with the CoolIris team in Tokyo

Rick Martin 2013.03.13

If you spend a lot of time on popular social networks, it can be tough to wrap your head around exactly what CoolIris is. The Palo Alto company has produced a number of photo solutions over the years, most recently its CoolIris app which aspires to bring all your photos together in one place. It’s not photo sharing in the sense that we’ve become accustomed to, but rather a meta viewing/sharing layer on top of the photo services we already use. I caught up with representatives of the company, including CEO Soujanya Bhumkar, at our Tokyo office this week to learn more about what they are up to these days. Currently the company boasts Japan as its second largest install base, next to the US, so its not surprising that they would pay a visit here every once in a while [1]. When we spoke with Soujanya, he highlighted not only the app’s capabilities of bringing together your photos from places like Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, and your camera roll, but also the important function of being able to share photos selectively. In a time when people are turning to closed social networks like Path [2], this adds value on top…

L to R: VP Business Development Sebasian Blum, Sr Software Engineer Venkat Krishnaraj, CEO Soujanya Bhumkar

If you spend a lot of time on popular social networks, it can be tough to wrap your head around exactly what CoolIris is. The Palo Alto company has produced a number of photo solutions over the years, most recently its CoolIris app which aspires to bring all your photos together in one place. It’s not photo sharing in the sense that we’ve become accustomed to, but rather a meta viewing/sharing layer on top of the photo services we already use. I caught up with representatives of the company, including CEO Soujanya Bhumkar, at our Tokyo office this week to learn more about what they are up to these days. Currently the company boasts Japan as its second largest install base, next to the US, so its not surprising that they would pay a visit here every once in a while [1].

When we spoke with Soujanya, he highlighted not only the app’s capabilities of bringing together your photos from places like Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, and your camera roll, but also the important function of being able to share photos selectively. In a time when people are turning to closed social networks like Path [2], this adds value on top of the slick 3D photo wall view that CoolIris already is best known for (pictured right).

So if you wish to send pictures from your various sources to someone by email, you can do so without the need for attachments as the collection is sent to the recipient (or a group of recipients) via a browser link. Interestingly, if more photos are added, you’ll see it in real time, and you can also see a real time chat discussion in the browser too.

On the business side of things, it’s interesting to see CoolIris’s business model develop a B2B element, with prominent regional partners that includes Renren in China and Yandex in Russia. Many of its partners promote CoolIris heavily, allowing it to quickly expand its user base around the world.

Next in Line?

Naturally, we were curious if they might be eyeing some specific partners here in Japan. And while they couldn’t specify any company in particular, we think NHN Japan’s Line appears to be a natural fit (especially given the popularity of Line Camera). Soujanya tells me that Korea is the next stop on their trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see KakaoTalk as a stop on their tour too.

As for the future of the CoolIris app, the team tells us that video is something that could be on the horizon, as well as possible integrations with Vine. They are also considering in-app purchases for some premium features and services.

Soujanya asserts that ‘Pixels are the new decibels’ and that they hope to empower their users to be able to show off their best pictures with family and friends without worrying about complex privacy settings.

Let’s stay tuned and see where they go from here!

Asia as a whole accounts for 30% of its user base. And I understand that China is the number two country in terms of growth rate, which is a good indication that adding Renren integration was a good idea. ↩
I’m not a Path user, but I do use Notabli for baby pictures. ↩

news

Online support software provider Zendesk makes its presence in Japan official

Rick Martin 2013.03.13

See also this story in Japanese. Online customer support platform Zendesk has officially established a presence here in Japan, celebrating the launch of its KK in Tokyo yesterday evening. I had a chance to catch up with the company’s CEO Mikkel Svane the day before the event, and asked him a little about how Zendesk plans to approach the Japanese market. So far the company has about 100 customers here in Japan (having made its services available in Japanese last year) out of a total of 3,000 in the Asia Pacific. The majority of customers in the region are from Australia and New Zealand, because the company’s initial traction has been in English speaking markets, but recently opportunities are presenting themselves in other countries too, as Mikkel explains: There are [new] markets that we see recently with some traction, and Japan is one of these. It’s a big, homogenous, scalable market. We have been fortunate to work with some early partners with whom we have a mutual respect. […] I think it’s important to bridge the cultures and that’s very much in the DNA of Zendesk — we have a crazy mix of nationalities. We will be patient, we have…

See also this story in Japanese.

Online customer support platform Zendesk has officially established a presence here in Japan, celebrating the launch of its KK in Tokyo yesterday evening. I had a chance to catch up with the company’s CEO Mikkel Svane the day before the event, and asked him a little about how Zendesk plans to approach the Japanese market.

So far the company has about 100 customers here in Japan (having made its services available in Japanese last year) out of a total of 3,000 in the Asia Pacific. The majority of customers in the region are from Australia and New Zealand, because the company’s initial traction has been in English speaking markets, but recently opportunities are presenting themselves in other countries too, as Mikkel explains:

There are [new] markets that we see recently with some traction, and Japan is one of these. It’s a big, homogenous, scalable market. We have been fortunate to work with some early partners with whom we have a mutual respect. […] I think it’s important to bridge the cultures and that’s very much in the DNA of Zendesk — we have a crazy mix of nationalities. We will be patient, we have a lot to learn — but we are committed long term.

He admits that for the Zendesk team coming to Japan, there’s certainly more than a little mystery surrounding the market here. Like many Western companies aspiring to get into Asia markets, finding the right local staff and local partners will be key:

I think we’ll rely a lot on the people that we hire to see what version of the Zendesk product and culture will work here. We will work with early adopter companies and gain a foothold there, and that is how we plan to embrace the Japanese market. I feel very confident about that.

Educating and informing

As many of you may know, Zendesk made headlines in late February when a hacker broke into its system and downloaded email addresses. And while the company was pretty transparent about what transpired, I was curious whether or not this affected their pursuit of new customers, especially here in Japan. Mikkel explains that for customers who are in the buying process, there are some who would like to know more about what happened, and some existing customers have questions as well. They have been explaining how that vulnerability was exploited, and relating the measures that they are taking to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I’m told that Zendesk signed a big client just last week, certainly a good sign that companies still have faith in them.

In order to help further educate potential customers about their services, Zendesk has been holding the same sort of ‘bootcamps’ which it has held in other regions. Here in Japan, their first bootcamps were conducted with translators, but the most recent one in February was conducted entirely in Japanese in cooperation with a local partner.

Interestingly, Mikkel and his team observe that working with smaller businesses here in Japan is pretty much the same as working with small businesses elsewhere. The company has worked with startup incubators around Asia, and they hope to do the same in Japan as well. They already work with Open Network Lab, and I expect there will be more to come later as well.

Company Profiles

When we last talked back in January of 2012, you were not focusing on Thailand nor were you doing any of this sticker app stuff. What happened since then?

There are many mobile carriers and MVNOs in Thailand. Why did you choose AIS? And why Thailand?

Are you interested in expanding to other Asian countries?

Many sticker and messaging apps are competing in this space in Asia. How do you differentiate from competitors?

Most popular sticker and message apps are Japan-made. Are any developers from other Asian countries on top of this space?

In addition to the Lounge messaging app and myStickerShop, are you working on any other projects now?

Related news

Related news

Will global users pay?

Related news

Identify the enormous demand in C2C trading

Finding hidden demand

The platform must provide security, safety, and rules

Analyze market trends

A world enhanced by second-hand business

Related news

Japanese Seed Accelerators

Open Network Lab

MOVIDA JAPAN

Samurai Incubate

KDDI Mugen Labo

Docomo Innovation Village

Early Stage VC Firms

ANRI

CyberAgent Ventures

VOYAGE VENTURES

KLab Ventures

insprout

EastVentures

ITOCHU Technology Ventures

Globis Capital Partners

Global Brain

CYBRiDGE Ventures

Femto Startup

GREE Ventures

Incubate Fund

B Dash Ventures

KDDI Open Innovation Fund

docomo Innovation Fund

Infinity Venture Partners

YJ Capital

Fuji Startup Ventures

Related news

Strict requirements for testers

Related news

Related news

Reaching beyond Japan’s borders

Related news

Next in Line?

Related news

Educating and informing

Related news

Recent Articles

Trends