THE BRIDGE

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Japan’s crowdsourcing platform provider CrowdWorks files for IPO

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The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) announced today that it has approved CrowdWorks, the Japanese company that provides crowdsourcing platform under the same name, for an IPO on the TSE Mothers Market. The company will be listed on 12 December. Since its launch in 2011, CrowdWorks has been providing a crowdsourcing plaform for engineers, writers, designers, and other freelance workers, as well as running collaborated businesses with established companies like Yahoo Japan and Japanese education company Benesse Corporation. The company saw 51 million yen ($446,000) in revenue with an ordinary loss of 158 million yen ($1.4 million) and a net loss of 159 million yen ($1.4 million), so they have been showing a loss since the launch. In our recent interview with CrowdWorks founder and CEO Koichiro Yoshida, he said that the annual transaction volume of crowdsourced jobs dealt with by the platform will reach over 2 billion yen ($17.4 million) this year. See also: Japanese startups find creativity at Crowdworks Can crowdsourcing startups change Japan’s employment landscape? In Japan, some seniors turn to crowdsourcing job platforms for work Japanese crowdsourcing platform ‘Crowdworks’ raises $10.7 million Japan finds a new way to work: In conversation with Crowdworks’ Koichiro Yoshida Japan and…

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CrowdWorks founder and CEO Koichiro Yoshida

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) announced today that it has approved CrowdWorks, the Japanese company that provides crowdsourcing platform under the same name, for an IPO on the TSE Mothers Market. The company will be listed on 12 December.

Since its launch in 2011, CrowdWorks has been providing a crowdsourcing plaform for engineers, writers, designers, and other freelance workers, as well as running collaborated businesses with established companies like Yahoo Japan and Japanese education company Benesse Corporation.

The company saw 51 million yen ($446,000) in revenue with an ordinary loss of 158 million yen ($1.4 million) and a net loss of 159 million yen ($1.4 million), so they have been showing a loss since the launch.

In our recent interview with CrowdWorks founder and CEO Koichiro Yoshida, he said that the annual transaction volume of crowdsourced jobs dealt with by the platform will reach over 2 billion yen ($17.4 million) this year.

See also:

crowdworks_signboard-mascot

Japan’s Crowdworks rolls out crowdsourcing platform for hardware manufacturers

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based crowdsourcing service provider Crowdworks announced yesterday that it has rolled out a platform focused on hardware manufacturing, which aims to give crowdsourced workers a variety of jobs ranging from hardware planning, designs, testing, to sales. The new platform is called MakersWorks. They plan to match hardware manufacturers and construction companies with product designers and CAD engineers using the platform. The company also intends to help companies start developing their products on a mass production basis after prototyping in partnership with 3D printing companies and electronic manufacturing services providers. Through this platform, they expect to transact deals worth several million US dollars a month. We understand that crowdsourcing platforms have to provide their workers with a kind of jobs which are well standardized but less dependent on individual skills. However, hardware manufacturing typically requires engineering expertise dedicated to every task. So it will be interesting to see how the company can enhance their crowdsourcing capability to fit the manufacturing industry.

makersworks_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based crowdsourcing service provider Crowdworks announced yesterday that it has rolled out a platform focused on hardware manufacturing, which aims to give crowdsourced workers a variety of jobs ranging from hardware planning, designs, testing, to sales. The new platform is called MakersWorks. They plan to match hardware manufacturers and construction companies with product designers and CAD engineers using the platform.

The company also intends to help companies start developing their products on a mass production basis after prototyping in partnership with 3D printing companies and electronic manufacturing services providers. Through this platform, they expect to transact deals worth several million US dollars a month.

We understand that crowdsourcing platforms have to provide their workers with a kind of jobs which are well standardized but less dependent on individual skills. However, hardware manufacturing typically requires engineering expertise dedicated to every task. So it will be interesting to see how the company can enhance their crowdsourcing capability to fit the manufacturing industry.

Lancers CEO Yosuke Akiyoshi on obstacles facing crowdsourcing in Japan

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This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 See the original article in Japanese We conducted many interviews about consumer-to-consumer (C2C) businesses at the recent Infinity Ventures Summit. Today we have a conversation from that event that we had with Yosuke Akiyoshi, the CEO of Lancers, a leading startup in Japan’s crowdsourcing space. The Bridge: Here I’ve been interviewing many people from the C2C businesses. One of the hot topics among those people lately is Crowdworks’ recent fund raising. Akiyoshi: Looking back on the five years since we launched our crowdsourcing business, the space has really changed a lot. We target people with basic knowledge of the internet, and among those people, words such as ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘Lancers’ became better known. It took four years for the total number of users (workers who receive orders) to reach 100,000. The number rapidly grew to 200,000 this October, and 220,000 last month. It could surpass 300,000 early next year. But some users still feel they don’t fully understand the system. So, we need to better educate them. In that sense, the 1.1 billion yen (raised by Crowdworks) means a lot in developing the industry. The Bridge: You announced…

This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

See the original article in Japanese

We conducted many interviews about consumer-to-consumer (C2C) businesses at the recent Infinity Ventures Summit. Today we have a conversation from that event that we had with Yosuke Akiyoshi, the CEO of Lancers, a leading startup in Japan’s crowdsourcing space.

The Bridge: Here I’ve been interviewing many people from the C2C businesses. One of the hot topics among those people lately is Crowdworks’ recent fund raising.

Akiyoshi: Looking back on the five years since we launched our crowdsourcing business, the space has really changed a lot. We target people with basic knowledge of the internet, and among those people, words such as ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘Lancers’ became better known. It took four years for the total number of users (workers who receive orders) to reach 100,000. The number rapidly grew to 200,000 this October, and 220,000 last month. It could surpass 300,000 early next year. But some users still feel they don’t fully understand the system. So, we need to better educate them. In that sense, the 1.1 billion yen (raised by Crowdworks) means a lot in developing the industry.

The Bridge: You announced today that Lancers will have partnership with GMO Epsilon Inc.

Akiyoshi: GMO Epsilon offers payment services, and lots of work opportunities will arise due to the implementation of the service. Many of such work orders will be placed on Lancers.

The Bridge: The fast-growing aspects of crowdsourcing tend to get a lot of attention. But many services struggle to build a solid culture for C2C and B2C businesses. What kind of issues do you face?

Akiyoshi: Users are increasing, and I don’t see any problem with that. The problem lies on the side of the companies. Currently, there are a core group of companies who are accustomed to the system. But the goal is for any company to use the system. And there are issues that need to be overcome.

The Bridge: I see.

Akiyoshi: First, direction. When a company places an order, it needs to divide the work. But many companies get stuck at this point.

The Bridge: For example, for a web-design work order, work needs to be divided into coding, writing, and programming, with an order made for each. We plan to solve this issue by holding seminars for companies and dividing up the process control of the system. Also, product managers who can understand and handle the process are needed. We aim to implement more training to increase the amount of such product mangers. We need to enlighten companies.

The Bridge: When you enlighten companies, so to speak, which advantages of Lancers do you emphasize?

Akiyoshi: We tell them the overall advantages in speed, cost and resources.

The Bridge: What about users who receive orders? How do you educate them? I heard you often visit local areas.

Akiyoshi: I have already visited about 15 regions. I realized it is important to have face-to-face communication and to solve such issues. There are few jobs in local regions. Businesses in Tokyo take jobs from the local. There are few useful communities where you can find opportunities, unlike Tokyo.

The Bridge: How long do you think it will take for crowdsourcing to be accepted as a new kind of work style?

Akiyoshi: It depends on how we measure the success, although we have set a metric. Right now, there are about 200 workers who can make a living just from their Lancers work. We’d like to increase that figure to 10,000 by 2017. But it will take much longer to completely change people’s way of working.

The Bridge: It will certainly take a while. So what number or metric do you currently care about the most?

Akiyoshi: Focusing on improving the users’ experiences, we pay attention to the repeat customer rate. Of course we look at the number of the work orders and the member total at the same time.

The Bridge: Thank you for your time.


I got the impression that more workers understand the concept of crowdsourcing these days. But there are still lots of obstacles that get in the way of companies using crowdsourcing. It’s not only about speed and cost, but quality needs to be considered. And it requires more understanding from companies about how to use the system and handle the process control. That knowledge is not open enough, and it becomes an obstacle.

Japan and the culture of crowdsourcing: Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida (2/2)

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See the original article in Japanese Crowdworks, the startup behind crowdsourcing platform of the same nae, recently announced that it has raised 1.1 billion yen (or about $11 million). In the second part of our interview with the CEO, Koichi Yoshida (the first part is here), he talked about what is needed to really establish crowdsourcing in Japan, as well as the pain that inevitably comes when startups grow rapidly. The Bridge: I’m sure there are lots of obstacles to establishing a C2C or B2C working style in Japan. What will be the key to expand this new kind of work in this country? Yoshida: I think the key lies in whether the individual worker can be independent or not. Crowdsourcing first emerged 10 years ago, a new working style based on the premise that individual workers could be work responsibly for businesses. But companies too need to have somewhat mature mindset. Previously they used to place an order for work without thinking twice. They had little problems with dealing with sales reps to place an order, but that method has become less profitable. Even for a company that has never used crowdsourcing, some are now expressing interest in it….

Photo 2013-11-27 12 58 53

See the original article in Japanese

Crowdworks, the startup behind crowdsourcing platform of the same nae, recently announced that it has raised 1.1 billion yen (or about $11 million). In the second part of our interview with the CEO, Koichi Yoshida (the first part is here), he talked about what is needed to really establish crowdsourcing in Japan, as well as the pain that inevitably comes when startups grow rapidly.

The Bridge: I’m sure there are lots of obstacles to establishing a C2C or B2C working style in Japan. What will be the key to expand this new kind of work in this country?

Yoshida: I think the key lies in whether the individual worker can be independent or not. Crowdsourcing first emerged 10 years ago, a new working style based on the premise that individual workers could be work responsibly for businesses. But companies too need to have somewhat mature mindset. Previously they used to place an order for work without thinking twice. They had little problems with dealing with sales reps to place an order, but that method has become less profitable. Even for a company that has never used crowdsourcing, some are now expressing interest in it.

The Bridge: You said that companies need to change their mindset. What about the workers? Does one need a specific mindset to do crowdsourced work?

Yoshida: Unlike working for a company, individual workers need to be more responsible for their own work. They need to complete it once they accept it. Some workers start at a rate of 5000 yen (about $50) for writing an article, and later the rate grows to 10,000 yen and then 20,000 yen. Those workers, who successfully build up experience, constantly receive requests for work estimates.

It will take some time until the mindset of individual workers changes dramatically. But the overall cost effectiveness could motivate companies to use crowdsourcing as “the fourth resource”, after hiring permanent workers, temporary workers, and outsourcing.

The Bridge: I think that this new working style won’t become really common unless it is accepted in more wide-ranging areas and across a wider demographic. You previously said you were willing to expand the service to smaller cities by building partnerships with local governments, such as Gifu prefecture and Minami-soma in Fukushima. Can you tell me more about this plan?

Yoshida: We will continue the partnership with local governments, focusing more on local workers. There are many workers bound to a certain region, so to speak. We will consider implementing a kind of safety net, such as offering insurance when workers are unemployed.

crowdworks

The Bridge: This is something we often forget, but there are still many people don’t use the internet, seniors in particular. We’ll need to serve this cluster better in order to establish a culture around crowdsourced work.

Yoshida: This is just a plan, but we are thinking to divide the market according to skills or needs. For example, we have work where a sign manufacturing company requests a worker to take pictures of broken signs. Such a task can be put in a category where no special skill is required.

The Bridge: I see. As long as the worker can use a digital camera, then he or she can do the work.

Yoshida: There are a wide variety of abilities among seniors. Some do just data entry and some design business cards with remarkable skill. If the smartphone becomes truly mainstream, more people will be online and that could spur demand for micro tasks such as data entry.

The Bridge: Still there will be people without an internet connection. Will it be possible that a third party business could use Crowdworks to matching senior workers and jobs?

Yoshida: Some workers actually delegate their work by hiring other workers. The overall concept is based on open source, so various ways to get the work done are possible.


I cannot go into too much detail here, but I talked with Yoshida-san about the difficulties that come with local expansion. I can personally relate to the local culture through my own past work experiences, and I know that it is not always so welcoming of new-comers.

I believe that the key to making crowdsourcing mainstream in Japan lies in utilizing hidden resources like seniors or people in other locales. But in this interview, I had impression that Yoshida thinks promoting companies’ use of the service and fostering an overall understanding of the process is the first thing to do.

Inside a fast-growing startup.

The Bridge: What was the most difficult time during these three year at Crowdworks?

Yoshida: To be honest, now is the most difficulty time. We have carefully built a KPI management tool before we started the service. We were united to achieve our goals. But it is not so difficult to reach your goals when you have only one metric to meet. It gets harder when the number of KPIs increase to two or three. We work under pressure.

There is a sort of difference between the original members on the team and those who joined after a while. I have to decide whether I should narrow this mental gap, or focus on moving forward.

The Bridge: You are expected to be experienced leader for your team. What approach do you take when talking to them?

Yoshida: One thing I tell members is to work for users, as opposed to the stockholders. Based on my past experiences, I believe the company who serves users will win the market eventually.

The Bridge: So the team works for users, and you work for stock holders.

Yoshida: Haha.

The Bridge: Thank you for your time today.


So what do you think about the future of crowdsourcing in Japan? Crowdworks’ success is definitely not the result of a bubble – or at least, I’d like to believe so. The scale of their business is not so large compared with other businesses like game developers. But I got a strong impression that this service is going to take time to expand. Creating a new working style is sort of analogous to establishing a culture where new graduates can consider crowdsourcing as an option for their first job, as an alternative to being employed by a company.

Due to time constraints, we didn’t have a chance to discuss the company’s competitors, like Lancers. I think a united front with competitors is necessary to establish the necessary culture, but Crowdworks needs to win this competition in order to thrive in the industry. We hope to touch on that topic next time.

Japan finds a new way to work: In conversation with Crowdworks’ Koichiro Yoshida

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See the original article in Japanese Tokyo-based Crowdworks, the startup behind the crowdsourcing platform of the same name, announced on December 2nd that it has allocated new shares to a third party, raising 1.1 billion yen in total. The company also announced that it will start a partnership with CyberAgent and Digital Garage. Crowdworks previously allocated shares to third parties in December of 2011 and in October of 2012, raising 300 million yen from Itochu Technology Ventutes, DG Incubation, and Suneight Investment. The startup’s total number of corporate clients reached 18,000 in December of 2013, and the total budget for ordered work on the platform has surpassed 5 billion yen. More than 80,000 users have already registered on the service. In total, the young startup has raised more than 1.4 billion yen within just a year and a half. But will it really change how we do work? Or is this just the result of a bubble? We interviewed Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida, who told more about the potential of the new working style they propose, as well as what’s happening inside the growing startup. In this first part of our interview, he talked discussed fundraising: The Bridge: 1.1 billion…

crowdworks

See the original article in Japanese

Tokyo-based Crowdworks, the startup behind the crowdsourcing platform of the same name, announced on December 2nd that it has allocated new shares to a third party, raising 1.1 billion yen in total. The company also announced that it will start a partnership with CyberAgent and Digital Garage.

Crowdworks previously allocated shares to third parties in December of 2011 and in October of 2012, raising 300 million yen from Itochu Technology Ventutes, DG Incubation, and Suneight Investment. The startup’s total number of corporate clients reached 18,000 in December of 2013, and the total budget for ordered work on the platform has surpassed 5 billion yen. More than 80,000 users have already registered on the service.

In total, the young startup has raised more than 1.4 billion yen within just a year and a half. But will it really change how we do work? Or is this just the result of a bubble? We interviewed Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida, who told more about the potential of the new working style they propose, as well as what’s happening inside the growing startup.

In this first part of our interview, he talked discussed fundraising:

The Bridge: 1.1 billion yen is really a lot of money. But the business model is quite different from a game developer that requires many engineers or a coupon model that requires big marketing resources. To what end did you raise so much money?

Yoshida: First of all, in Japan, crowdsourcing is not really common to order work from individual workers yet. It’s going to take some time. When other competitors try to get into the market, we need to expand our share in this field. We also need to add talent and step up our marketing as well.

The Bridge: I see. Have you set any metrics to measure your success?

Yoshida: At first we were looking at the amount of work ordered. But recently we look more at the matching rate with the goal of increasing user satisfaction. […] Recruit is the biggest human resources company of the 21st century in Japan, and it has access to most Japanese workers’ resumes. We are sort of an online version of Recruit. We’d like to build a database of workers.

The Bridge: What will the future be like if you succeed in building such a database?

Yoshida: We will be able to create a matrix. While a worker gets paid 20,000 yen for some spreadsheet-related work, another worker might get paid 100,000 yen for some spreadsheet work. Then we discover that the difference lies in whether the worker can create a macros or not. With this kind of data, we can come up with a new service offering learning opportunities for workers. We can have an overview of workers’ skills, and that will help companies find the right workers with the required skill set.

Individual human resources will be accumulated on the platform. Each worker’s skillset will be open for viewing, and advanced matching between workers and work will be possible. If there is any specific skills lacking, learning opportunities can pick up the slack. The idea of optimizing human resources through technology is very attractive, but it also requires capital.

crowdworks

The Bridge: I see. With an expanding database of workers and understanding the state of domestic human resources, the company can gain value as a public service. Then crowdsourcing will require systems such as process control for each work order. Will you assign more developer resources to build those systems?

Yoshida: We are planning to develop a process control system. At the same time, we will explore the possibilities of partnering with other developers by making our API open. Our tie-up with KDDI Web Communications that we announced recently is an example of this. From the beginning, we aim to develop our service through a kind of open source model.

The Bridge: How large are you planning to expand the company?

Yoshida: Currently we have 20 to 30 members, and that includes part-time workers. We plan to make it 50. At the same time, we will choose talent carefully. We hire a new member only when all of 4 board members agree. I heard a lot of stories from experienced entrepreneurs who have lowered the standard of hiring when the companies were in the growth stage, and they later had a problem improving the team. So I’m trying to make this decision carefully.


Crowdsourcing is a different animal in Japan than it is in North America where the concept was born. My Canadian coworker sometimes use ODesk, where crowdsourcing seems to function as more pure C2C. Whereas In Japan, you tend to pay the platform instead, which may instill more trust among clients.

Crowdsourcing can a convenient way for companies to contact workers. On the other hand, many people still see crowdsourcing as a platform for side jobs.

In the second part of our interview, Yoshida discusses how they plan to build a culture that can help expand crowdsourcing.

Japanese crowdsourcing platform ‘Crowdworks’ raises $10.7 million

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Tokyo-based Crowdworks, the startup behind the crowdsourcing platform of the same name, announced today it has raised 1.1 biillion yen ($10.7 million) from CyberAgent, DG Incubation, and Dentsu Digital Fund [1]. These investors will reportedly aid the company in its global business expansion and help diversify its services. Prior to this funding, the company raised 300 million yen (about $3 million) from Itochu Technology Ventutes, DG Incubation, and Suneight Investment. Since its initial launch in late 2011, the company has facilitated crowdsourced tasks from over 18,000 companies, worth a total of over 5 billion yen ($48.8 million). It has acquired 80,000 crowdsourced workers on its platform. Through partnerships with the aforementioned investors, the company will start running a logo contest campaign that lets users propose designs for celebrities blogs on Ameba, CyberAgent’s blogging platform. In addition, Crowdworks will establish a presence in San Francisco at DG717, a brand new co-working space operated by Digital Garage. We had previously interviewed (in Japanese) Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida, where he told us how he plans to evolve the business. Please stay tuned for an English translation of that article. DG Incubation is the investment arm of Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage. Dentsu Digital…

crowdworks_signboard-mascot

Tokyo-based Crowdworks, the startup behind the crowdsourcing platform of the same name, announced today it has raised 1.1 biillion yen ($10.7 million) from CyberAgent, DG Incubation, and Dentsu Digital Fund [1]. These investors will reportedly aid the company in its global business expansion and help diversify its services. Prior to this funding, the company raised 300 million yen (about $3 million) from Itochu Technology Ventutes, DG Incubation, and Suneight Investment.

Since its initial launch in late 2011, the company has facilitated crowdsourced tasks from over 18,000 companies, worth a total of over 5 billion yen ($48.8 million). It has acquired 80,000 crowdsourced workers on its platform.

Through partnerships with the aforementioned investors, the company will start running a logo contest campaign that lets users propose designs for celebrities blogs on Ameba, CyberAgent’s blogging platform. In addition, Crowdworks will establish a presence in San Francisco at DG717, a brand new co-working space operated by Digital Garage.

We had previously interviewed (in Japanese) Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshida, where he told us how he plans to evolve the business. Please stay tuned for an English translation of that article.


  1. DG Incubation is the investment arm of Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage. Dentsu Digital Fund is an initiative of Japanese ad agency Dentsu.

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

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

old man japan

Some of our readers may recall when we previously shared an interesting report from Japanese crowdsourcing website Crowdworks. The report indicated that seniors in Japan are turning to crowdsourced platforms for work. This shift will only accelerate as the country’s population grows older. The findings in that report pushed the crowdsourcing platform to make its next move, launching a crowdsourcing business in collaboration with a major TV station TV Tokyo, targeting seniors specifically [1].

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

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

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

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

Crowdworks-TVTokyo


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

Project Design Lab: Helping Tohoku’s reconstruction by crowdsourcing design

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Two years have passed since the Tohoku earthquake hit Japan, and the region is still in the middle of reconstruction efforts. And just as in many other parts of Japan, there are many traditional crafts that have been nurtured there over hundreds of years. In order to support this kind of remarkable craftsmanship, as well as the region’s economy and reputation, a new website called Product Design Lab has just launched. A number of players are behind the initiative: Yahoo’s Tohoku reconstruction online mall, major crowdsourcing website Crowdworks, Daikokuya Business Consulting, and Yahoo Crowdsourcing. The four business aim to supplement the lack of design resources in the Tohoku region, marrying old craftsmanship with new consumer-generated ideas. Here is how a typical project will proceed. The details of the product will be decided based on a survey conducted on Yahoo Crowdsourcing, and product design will then be developed on CrowdWorks. After a vote on Yahoo Crowdsourcing, the item will be manufactured, and the final product can be bought at Yahoo’s Tohoku reconstruction online mall. At the time of launch, two companies from Tohoku will participate in the new initiative: a leather bag manufacturing company called Astro Tech in Miyagi prefecture, and…

Product-Design-Lab

Two years have passed since the Tohoku earthquake hit Japan, and the region is still in the middle of reconstruction efforts. And just as in many other parts of Japan, there are many traditional crafts that have been nurtured there over hundreds of years. In order to support this kind of remarkable craftsmanship, as well as the region’s economy and reputation, a new website called Product Design Lab has just launched.

A number of players are behind the initiative: Yahoo’s Tohoku reconstruction online mall, major crowdsourcing website Crowdworks, Daikokuya Business Consulting, and Yahoo Crowdsourcing. The four business aim to supplement the lack of design resources in the Tohoku region, marrying old craftsmanship with new consumer-generated ideas.

Here is how a typical project will proceed. The details of the product will be decided based on a survey conducted on Yahoo Crowdsourcing, and product design will then be developed on CrowdWorks. After a vote on Yahoo Crowdsourcing, the item will be manufactured, and the final product can be bought at Yahoo’s Tohoku reconstruction online mall.

At the time of launch, two companies from Tohoku will participate in the new initiative: a leather bag manufacturing company called Astro Tech in Miyagi prefecture, and the Kesenuma Dream Project which manufactures hand moisturizing cream that uses camellia oil from the region. Using Product Design Lab, Astro Tech will come up with an entirely new bag, and the Kesenuma Dream Project will design a new package for its popular hand moisturizer.

To see what kind of crowdsourcing projects might become available in the future on the site, take a look at Yahoo’s Tohoku Reconstruction online mall or check out the Fukko Department.

8 entrepreneurs who quit to go their own way

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Read the original article in Japanese There are two common paths that people take to success: either you climb the ladder in a company, or you start your own company and scale it. And while it’s easy for employees to envision success in large companies, but can be harder to imagine a way to find success with your own startup. Two venture capital companies have put forth a solution to the latter problem with a new one day program called Spinout. Aspiring entrepreneurs make a business plan in a day, and them pitch a demo investors at the end [1]. On the program webpage you can see messages from eight entrepreneurs who decided to quit their corporate jobs to begin their own startup. I’d like to introduce those voices here since they are all inspirational. CEO of Nanapi, Kensuke Furukawa, formerly of Recruit Nanapi is a lifestyle how-to website. Furukawa started the company at the age of 28 and now he is 32 years old. I just thought I wanted to become a person who could start a company and scale it up. And I couldn’t do that while I was in a larger company, so I just quit to…

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Photo: Michelle Makar Parker

Read the original article in Japanese

There are two common paths that people take to success: either you climb the ladder in a company, or you start your own company and scale it. And while it’s easy for employees to envision success in large companies, but can be harder to imagine a way to find success with your own startup.

Two venture capital companies have put forth a solution to the latter problem with a new one day program called Spinout. Aspiring entrepreneurs make a business plan in a day, and them pitch a demo investors at the end [1]. On the program webpage you can see messages from eight entrepreneurs who decided to quit their corporate jobs to begin their own startup. I’d like to introduce those voices here since they are all inspirational.

CEO of Nanapi, Kensuke Furukawa, formerly of Recruit


kensuke-furukawaNanapi is a lifestyle how-to website. Furukawa started the company at the age of 28 and now he is 32 years old.

I just thought I wanted to become a person who could start a company and scale it up. And I couldn’t do that while I was in a larger company, so I just quit to start my own.

Founder and COO of OhMyGlasses, Ikuma Mutobe, formerly of Softbank and UBS Securities


ikuma-mutobeOhMyGlasses is an online glasses retailer. He started the company at the age of 26 and now he is 30 years old.

The biggest reason why I started my own company is I believed that I could run an online shop for glasses. You know you only have one shot in your life so I thought starting up my own company would give me the best chance.

CEO of Wantedly, Akiko Naka, formerly of Goldman Sachs and Facebook


akiko-nakaWantedly is a social recruiting website where users can find potential employees using Facebook. She started the company at the age of 26 and is now 28 years old.

I really like my life filled with unpredictable things. And I thought starting up my own company would certainly make my life interesting, so I just did it. It really can be unpredictable at times, but it’s also very exciting. You never know if you are going to fail or succeed, but looking at it long term I know it will be really fun. If you want to start something but are a little hesitant, just take action and you will see some results. You have to move if you want to make your world fun.

CEO of CFO, Daisuke Sasaki, formerly of Google


daisuke-sasakiCFO develops a personal accounting service. Sasaki started the company at the age of 31 and he is now 32 years old.

While I was doing marketing projects for SMBs, I figured out there are really few Japanese people who actually start their own businesses. It was a big problem for Japan, I thought. I figured it would be good if I could start my own business – and so I did. Working at Google was really fun but I started my own company to make things a little more fun.

CEO of Vasily, Yuki Kanayama, formerly of Yahoo Japan


yuki-kanayamaVasily is the developer of a fashion coordination app called iQon. He started the company at the age of 30 and is now 34 years old.

Entering into Yahoo Japan was an important step towards setting up my own company. I thought that to prepare for my own venture, it was crucial to learn more about enterprises, their resources and how they work.

CEO of CrowdWorks, Koichiro Yoshida, formerly of Pioneer and Reed Exhibitions Japan


koichiro-yoshidaCrowdWorks is one of the largest crowdsourcing sites in Japan. Yoshida started the company at the age of 37 and is now 38 years old.

The poem “The Road Not Taken” [provides a good lesson]. […] I felt that I didn’t want to take a path that someone already traveled. And taking the path that nobody has taken looked very exciting to me. Didn’t you think life had infinite possibilities when you were a student? When you become an adult, if you still want your life to have such infinite possibility, you have to create it via your own actions.

CEO of Bizreach, Swimmy Minami, former of Morgan Stanley


swimmy-minamiBizreach is a job recruiting site where you can search for executives. Swimmy started the company at the age of 32 and is now 37 years old [2].

I actually didn’t think I wanted to start my own company until I quit my previous job. When I was looking for a new job I didn’t understand what was going on in the internet space even though the ‘age of Internet innovation’ was happening [all around me].

I thought I could start a company that could solve problems and inefficiencies around me. Having a business that can impact society is great. If you can be a self-starter guy, you can do whatever you want and it doesn’t really matter whether you are an entrepreneur or employee.

CEO of UzaBase, Ryosuke Niino, formerly of Mitsui and UBS Securities


ryosuke-niinoUzaBase offers a software solution called ‘Speeda’. It is an information platform for corporate and industrial analysis tailored towards knowledge workers. He started the company at the age of 30 and he is now 35 years old.

I don’t want to live a life where I later regret that I didn’t try something. I was really nervous too, because family was the biggest concern as I could totally ruin their lives. But it was really exciting to create an awesome job and there was no other way that could instill such excitement in me.

If there are two ways and you can’t decided which to go, take the harder way. This is now one of our company’s core principals.


  1. The event will be held on July 28th, so if you’d like to apply you can do so here. It is somewhat similar to Incubate Camp, a two day business plan camp held by Japanese VC, Incubate Fund.  ↩
  2. Back in March we also featured Swimmy’s company LUXA, which at the time had raised 500 million yen, or about $5 million.  ↩

In Japan, some seniors turn to crowdsourcing job platforms for work

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See the original story in Japanese. How many years can a human adult keep working? The concept of a lifetime employment system or retirement at 60 is no longer what it used to be in Japan. So finding work on online marketplaces is fast becoming an option for many older citizens in the country. Japanese crowdsoucing marketplace Crowdworks released an interesting report on Monday, showing how seniors (specifically workers over 50) use the crowdsourced platform for work. Some people are using it to make a living, and others do it to find a sense of fulfillment. We’d like to share some portions of the report and explore how a platform like Crowdworks can provide alternative working options. Please note that this report is based on 129 responses from 2,649 users aged over 50, just a fraction of Crowdworks 40,000 users. For convenience, currencies in this post are converted at a rate of 100 yen for one US dollar. More than 30% of the users over 50 earn $2,000 monthly from projects on CrowdWorks 73% receive $100 a month, and 34% earn more than $2,000 a month. 12% earn an annual income worth $50,000. Crowdsourcing gives people more ways to work…

japan-seniors

See the original story in Japanese.

How many years can a human adult keep working? The concept of a lifetime employment system or retirement at 60 is no longer what it used to be in Japan. So finding work on online marketplaces is fast becoming an option for many older citizens in the country.

Japanese crowdsoucing marketplace Crowdworks released an interesting report on Monday, showing how seniors (specifically workers over 50) use the crowdsourced platform for work. Some people are using it to make a living, and others do it to find a sense of fulfillment. We’d like to share some portions of the report and explore how a platform like Crowdworks can provide alternative working options.

Please note that this report is based on 129 responses from 2,649 users aged over 50, just a fraction of Crowdworks 40,000 users. For convenience, currencies in this post are converted at a rate of 100 yen for one US dollar.

More than 30% of the users over 50 earn $2,000 monthly from projects on CrowdWorks

73% receive $100 a month, and 34% earn more than $2,000 a month. 12% earn an annual income worth $50,000.

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Crowdsourcing gives people more ways to work

It’s really interesting to see how users integrate crowdsourcing work into their lifestyle. The report shows us that almost half of the users are working on crowdsourced projects as freelancers, and the rest are working on projects as a supplement to their primary jobs.

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More than a few people in Tokyo are keen to settle in countryside some day, but if they move, there are less opportunities to meet new people on business than urban areas.

The report shows that 70% of users are using the platform outside the Tokyo region. This is made possible by the high penetration of broadband internet in the country. Some users explained that the platform gives them a chance to find work, competing with the younger generation in urban areas.

In my view, crowdsourcing must be more accepted in Japanese society, and as quickly as possible. We’ve heard from Crowdworks’ CEO Koichiro Yoshita that many local governments are looking to the potential of crowdsourcing as a means of generating a new revenue stream for the elderly. I expect this kind of civic movement could be led by more assertively by governmental entities.

For the elderly generation, they can be reliable workers offering much experience. And for them, such platforms are a great opportunity to find a more enjoyable lifestyle, or to explore interesting work options.

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