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Japan’s U-Note wants to make sure you don’t miss out on important events

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Last Friday at the Infinity Ventures Summit LaunchPad event, Tokyo-based startup U-Note pitched a web solution for taking notes at public events. The company’s CEO, Yuto Koide, explained that they want to transfer event memos online. He says that while many people want to attend local events, they can’t possibly make it to every one – either due to time or money constraints. But U-Note provides user accounts of high profile events on its site, a valuable resource to those who cannot make it in person. In terms of the technology, the interface looks very much like Storify.com, allowing users to drag and drop rich media elements like Tweets, photos, videos, and more, in addition to text content. As for mobile note-taking, they have an Android app already released, and one for iPhone on the way. U-Note has nine categories of events on site, such as talks from celebrities, or startup events just like this one [1]. So far the platform is seeing good progress, and May saw 250% growth over the previous month, says Koide. As for monetization, they have editorial ads that they sell for 150,000 yen. They want the user to enjoy the contents, so the editorial…

unote
U-Note CEO Yuto Koide pitches at Infinity Ventures Summit

Last Friday at the Infinity Ventures Summit LaunchPad event, Tokyo-based startup U-Note pitched a web solution for taking notes at public events.

The company’s CEO, Yuto Koide, explained that they want to transfer event memos online. He says that while many people want to attend local events, they can’t possibly make it to every one – either due to time or money constraints. But U-Note provides user accounts of high profile events on its site, a valuable resource to those who cannot make it in person.

In terms of the technology, the interface looks very much like Storify.com, allowing users to drag and drop rich media elements like Tweets, photos, videos, and more, in addition to text content. As for mobile note-taking, they have an Android app already released, and one for iPhone on the way.

U-Note has nine categories of events on site, such as talks from celebrities, or startup events just like this one [1].

So far the platform is seeing good progress, and May saw 250% growth over the previous month, says Koide. As for monetization, they have editorial ads that they sell for 150,000 yen. They want the user to enjoy the contents, so the editorial ads aspire to be more interesting so that users are more receptive to them.

The content business is a tough one, but U-Note’s tool is certainly useful, capitalizing on Japan’s love of creating ‘matome’ or list posts. And assuming that people use it frequently enough. The U-Note page could prove a useful destination for event coverage.

U-Note publishing interface
U-Note publishing interface

  1. In fact, someone on U-Note actually put together a roundup of the startups competing at the LaunchPad event.  ↩

Japan’s LifeTimer is redefining the calendar app

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This is part of our coverage of the startup LaunchPad event from the Infinitity Ventures Summit in Sapporo, Japan. To read about other startups who pitched, you can read our other reports here. One of the most interesting startups to pitch at the IVS Launchpad event was Pickles Inc. Readers may recognize the Tokyo-based mobile app development studio as the team that developed the clever Stamp Messenger app for Facebook messaging which we recently featured. But the service the brought to Sapporo this week was drastically different, as CEO Minoru Tanaka presented LifeTimer, a sort of personal scheduling or calendaring app that makes you think about time a little differently. LifeTimer shows you your important life events as a countdown, thus conveying a sense of urgency, a kind of constant reminder that we might not have as much time as we think. The clock is after all ticking for us all, and LifeTimer is a good reminder of that. Upon first opening the app, you have the option of connecting to your Facebook account, thus importing many if the events that may be on your schedule. You are also asked for your birthday, and when I did so it resulted…

lifetimer-logo

This is part of our coverage of the startup LaunchPad event from the Infinitity Ventures Summit in Sapporo, Japan. To read about other startups who pitched, you can read our other reports here.


One of the most interesting startups to pitch at the IVS Launchpad event was Pickles Inc. Readers may recognize the Tokyo-based mobile app development studio as the team that developed the clever Stamp Messenger app for Facebook messaging which we recently featured. But the service the brought to Sapporo this week was drastically different, as CEO Minoru Tanaka presented LifeTimer, a sort of personal scheduling or calendaring app that makes you think about time a little differently.

LifeTimer shows you your important life events as a countdown, thus conveying a sense of urgency, a kind of constant reminder that we might not have as much time as we think. The clock is after all ticking for us all, and LifeTimer is a good reminder of that.

Upon first opening the app, you have the option of connecting to your Facebook account, thus importing many if the events that may be on your schedule. You are also asked for your birthday, and when I did so it resulted in a countdown showing me when I’m going to turn forty! [1] I understand they are also looking at Google Calendar integration as well.

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You can input your working hours, when you wake up or go to sleep, as well as important birthdays or other custom events. Repeating events can be set to recur yearly, monthly, or daily.

In this way, says Tanaka, they hope to dissect your day so that you can have a better understanding of time, and improve your life as a result. So far users appear to be responding well, with very positive ratings and reviews. For monetization, so far the app depends on ads, but premium features or add-ons will also be part of its business.

The nine-person team is planning to produce a version of LifeTimer in English, so stay tunes for that. But for now, if you’d like to try the Japanese version of the app, it’s available for download over on Apple’ App Store or on Google Play.

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lifetimer


  1. Thankfully I still have over five years left, but it’s nice to have a constant reminder to tell me that I’m not as young as I used to be.  ↩

At Infinity Ventures Summit, Asian startups discuss taking on global markets

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This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. On day two of the Infinity Ventures Summit, we heard from three up-and-coming startups who related how they are taking on global markets. So far all of these companies have seen some success in global markets, but for all three that only came after lots of failure. The panelists included: John Lai Founder & CEO MixerBox Inc. Peter Yen, CEO, Pinkoi David Chen, CEO, Strikingly Moderator: Akio Tanaka, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Infinity Venture Partners The discussion started out with Peter, who explained that Taiwan-based Pinkoi has 65,000 unique products, 3,000 brands, and 8,000 designs. Most are from its home market of Taiwan (about 70%), but they are getting more from other countries. They plan to add more languages to their service to aid in their international growth. Interestingly, Peter had seven failed products before finally finding success with Pinkoi. And so far while their growth has been mostly organic, it has been very strong as you can see in the charts below. Pinkoi has 100,000 members, and saw $610,000 in total sales in…

asian-startups-ivs

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.


On day two of the Infinity Ventures Summit, we heard from three up-and-coming startups who related how they are taking on global markets. So far all of these companies have seen some success in global markets, but for all three that only came after lots of failure. The panelists included:

The discussion started out with Peter, who explained that Taiwan-based Pinkoi has 65,000 unique products, 3,000 brands, and 8,000 designs. Most are from its home market of Taiwan (about 70%), but they are getting more from other countries. They plan to add more languages to their service to aid in their international growth.

Interestingly, Peter had seven failed products before finally finding success with Pinkoi. And so far while their growth has been mostly organic, it has been very strong as you can see in the charts below. Pinkoi has 100,000 members, and saw $610,000 in total sales in 2012. As you may have guessed, Pinkoi targets female users. And such cute services certainly have a global appeal.

pinkoi-growth

John describes that his company had 10 failed products before Mixerbox. Japan is now its biggest user base, but it has been the number one music app in 13 countries. Their app tries to make it easy to create playlists and share them with friends, sort of like digitizing the mixed tape process.

You can also browse other people’s playlists and subscribe to those too. In the beginning he says there was lots of pressure to succeed, since he had left an established family business to branch out on his own. But he had faith that eventually he would hit the right product.

As for David, he relates starting out with Strikingly out of a messy room in San Francisco. They managed to run the startup in the early days on a meagre budget of $1,600 per month – and that included their rent. From those beginnings Strikingly emerged, a solution for creating simple mobile-first websites in a very easy way. David points to one of their users who is blind, but managed to create a website on the iPad using Strikingly.

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David Chen, Strikingly

They have 40% monthly growth in revenue in the last eight months, with users in 178 countries. Their biggest user base is the US, but the second biggest market is Japan, without any localization efforts until now. So far there have been over 40,000 websites created on the platform to date. David tells about how they were first rejected from the Y-Combinator incubator, but managed to get in the second time. But their initial failures, he says, have been famously well-documented in publications like Forbes and The New York Times.

The common thread among these three entrepreneurs is persistence in the face of failure. And like most startups that eventually find wide-spread success, that experience becomes an asset. For Japanese startups, this willingness to take risks and fail is a good lesson to learn from.

Japanese startup CocoPPa lets you collaboratively create the cutest iPhone homescreen

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This is part of our coverage of the startup LaunchPad event from the Infinitity Ventures Summit in Sapporo, Japan. To read about other startups who pitched, you can read our other reports here. Accounting startup CFO won the Infinity Ventures Launchpad event with Freee, its financial service for small business. But it was followed in second place by CocoPPa, a very clever service that lets you customize you iPhone icons and homescreen. While there are many services out there that let you do such customizations to your mobile, where CocoPPa is unique is that it offers a platform where users around the world can share and collaborate on these kind of designs. So for example, if a person in Japan creates a cute icon, someone on the other side of the world could create a wallpaper to match. This collaborative process is, I think, what sets it apart from other customization services. While you could make a design in practically any style you wish, it looks like many of the creations that users are submitting fall into the kawaii category. And as we have seen in the past, such Japan-made apps that offer cute services like this have great appeal…

CocoPPa
CocoPPa pitches at Infinity Ventures Summit

This is part of our coverage of the startup LaunchPad event from the Infinitity Ventures Summit in Sapporo, Japan. To read about other startups who pitched, you can read our other reports here.


Accounting startup CFO won the Infinity Ventures Launchpad event with Freee, its financial service for small business. But it was followed in second place by CocoPPa, a very clever service that lets you customize you iPhone icons and homescreen. While there are many services out there that let you do such customizations to your mobile, where CocoPPa is unique is that it offers a platform where users around the world can share and collaborate on these kind of designs.

So for example, if a person in Japan creates a cute icon, someone on the other side of the world could create a wallpaper to match. This collaborative process is, I think, what sets it apart from other customization services.

While you could make a design in practically any style you wish, it looks like many of the creations that users are submitting fall into the kawaii category. And as we have seen in the past, such Japan-made apps that offer cute services like this have great appeal with overseas users.

The service was originally launched last July, and since then they have seen over 7.5 million downloads, with half of those coming from the US. They have 1.35 million monthly active users, and are seeing impressive growth. The word-of-mouth buzz around CocoPPa is good, with users sharing their screen designs on social platforms like Pinterest and Instagram (for example, see screens from Pinterest user lindsayw72 below).

iphone-screen-2 iphone-screen-1

Back in April they released a web version, and and Android version of the service will be coming soon too. As for monetization, currently the startup depends on ad revenue, but they will be looking to other options as well in the future.

For more information, you can check out CocoPPa’s promo video below.

How digital fabrication is changing our world, and Japan

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This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. On day two of the Infinity Ventures Summit there was a conversation discussing digital fabrication, featuring a distinguished lineup of panelists from here in Japan (pictured left to right above): Kinya Tagawa, CEO, takram design engineering Hiroya Tanaka, Associate Professor of Keio University & Founder of Fablab Japan. Shigeru Kobayashi, Associate Professor, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences Nobuyuki ‘Nobi’ Hayashi, IT Journalist/Consultant Mr. Tagawa started off with some background information noting that the innovation cycle in manufacturing used to be very slow. But just as digital innovations have changed most industries, we’re finally also starting to see it seep into manufacturing. Tagawa noted the importance of Make Magazine and its contribution to growing the culture in this space. Manufacturing was once limited to professionals, but now it appeals to a far wider group. The emergence of the ‘maker’ overlaps the previously separate spheres of innovator, producer, and consumer. Kobayashi followed up with an explanation of how 3D printing is making it easy for people to experience things like data processing, scanning, and…

digital-fabrication

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.


On day two of the Infinity Ventures Summit there was a conversation discussing digital fabrication, featuring a distinguished lineup of panelists from here in Japan (pictured left to right above):

  • Kinya Tagawa, CEO, takram design engineering
  • Hiroya Tanaka, Associate Professor of Keio University & Founder of Fablab Japan.
  • Shigeru Kobayashi, Associate Professor, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences
  • Nobuyuki ‘Nobi’ Hayashi, IT Journalist/Consultant

Mr. Tagawa started off with some background information noting that the innovation cycle in manufacturing used to be very slow. But just as digital innovations have changed most industries, we’re finally also starting to see it seep into manufacturing. Tagawa noted the importance of Make Magazine and its contribution to growing the culture in this space. Manufacturing was once limited to professionals, but now it appeals to a far wider group. The emergence of the ‘maker’ overlaps the previously separate spheres of innovator, producer, and consumer.

nail-clippers
Hisashi Imai’s nail clippers design (thingiverse)

Kobayashi followed up with an explanation of how 3D printing is making it easy for people to experience things like data processing, scanning, and fabrication. His organization holds workshops that teach these processes, and he notes that new digital fabrication tools like laser cutters make it a very accessible activity. He emphasized that traditional fabrication can co-exist in a sort of hybrid state with new methods like these. Kobayashi cited one example of a very simple but innovative design was Hisashi Imai cleverly designed nail clippers that allows people who may have limited mobility in one limb to use a nail clippers easily. Other designers can take such a design, and adjust the parameters to their own requirements.

Tanaka pointed out that there lots of fab labs around the world, now over 200 in total. He projects that in the future stationary stores could be places where you create your own stationary. Similarly, clothing shops could be a place where you implement your own designs. He adds that services that connects all the people and workshops doing great work in this space would be valued.

Nobi gave some fun examples of great makers like Osaka University’s Hiroshi Ishiguro, who has created some things that you’ve likely seen before, including the now famous android clone of himself. There’s also Maki Sugimoto who creates 3D scans of organs, and then can use those items to practice surgeries. Organs have a wet feeling to touch, so he is even trying to use 3D printers to reproduce this.

This is a space where I expect Japan is going to progress rapidly, given some of the creative things that we have already seen in these early stages. There are lots of mad scientists in this country, says Nobi, and they getting more involved in fab labs, helping Japan stand out in this space.

Maki Sugimoto
Maki Sugimoto, photo via WSJ

Accounting startup Freee walks ways the winner from Infinity Ventures’ Launchpad competition

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This is part of our coverage of the startup LaunchPad event from the Infinitity Ventures Summit in Sapporo, Japan. Back in March we featured cloud-based accounting solution Freee, which was just emerging from stealth mode at the time. The service was developed by Tokyo-based startup CFO, and was pitch at the Infinity Ventures Summit Launchpad competition by CEO Daisuke Sasaki. While the company isn’t going to win any awards for the names of their company or service, they did walk away proudly with the top prize from this startup competition in Sapporo. Freee offers n accounting solution for small and mid-size businesses who may not have so much accounting knowledge. It allows you to view your transaction statements on site, conveniently categorize and visualized. If you need to create invoices there is a function for that as well, with the capability to change status to ‘paid’ or ‘unpaid’ accordingly. It’s especially useful for self-employed people when they have to file their taxt reports. Sasaki says that Freee helps you do your taxes as much as 50 times faster, which is certainly a big plus. Regrettably, Japan is a little bit slow adopting cloud services, so the startup will have some…

freee
Freee wins Launchpad event – CEO Daisuke Sasaki

This is part of our coverage of the startup LaunchPad event from the Infinitity Ventures Summit in Sapporo, Japan.


Back in March we featured cloud-based accounting solution Freee, which was just emerging from stealth mode at the time. The service was developed by Tokyo-based startup CFO, and was pitch at the Infinity Ventures Summit Launchpad competition by CEO Daisuke Sasaki. While the company isn’t going to win any awards for the names of their company or service, they did walk away proudly with the top prize from this startup competition in Sapporo.

Freee offers n accounting solution for small and mid-size businesses who may not have so much accounting knowledge. It allows you to view your transaction statements on site, conveniently categorize and visualized.

freee-logo

If you need to create invoices there is a function for that as well, with the capability to change status to ‘paid’ or ‘unpaid’ accordingly. It’s especially useful for self-employed people when they have to file their taxt reports. Sasaki says that Freee helps you do your taxes as much as 50 times faster, which is certainly a big plus.

Regrettably, Japan is a little bit slow adopting cloud services, so the startup will have some work to do in terms of bringing users on board. So among the users they have already won over, Sasaki figures that over 3300 accounting hours have already been saved.

How can Japan Innovate? CEOs from Rakuten, Line, and more discuss [Live blog]

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This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. The final session of day one at the Infinity Ventures Summit featured some of the biggest names from Japan’s internet space, including Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, Line Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa, GMO Internet’s CEO Masatoshi Kumagai, as well as Fuji Television’s senior executive managing director Chihiro Kameyama. The panel was moderated by Nikkei Inc’s senior writer Waichi Sekiguchi. The session was in Japanese, and the remarks below are selected from the simultaneous translation. 18:07 – Rakuten’s Mikitani joked at the begining, saying he’s not so comfortable speaking in Japanese. He started by pointed to the Japan Association of New Economy (you may recall we covered the JANE summit a month back). He notes that in order to bring change, there is a sort of ‘galapagos wall’ that must be overcome. 18:11 – Mikitani says that entrepreneurs who visited Japan from Silicon Valley at that event noted that Japan is on the verge of a renaissance (Phil Libin in particular felt this way). He says that in June they are going to hold an sort…

innovate-japan

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.


The final session of day one at the Infinity Ventures Summit featured some of the biggest names from Japan’s internet space, including Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, Line Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa, GMO Internet’s CEO Masatoshi Kumagai, as well as Fuji Television’s senior executive managing director Chihiro Kameyama. The panel was moderated by Nikkei Inc’s senior writer Waichi Sekiguchi. The session was in Japanese, and the remarks below are selected from the simultaneous translation.

hiroshi-mikitani-rakuten
Rakuten’s CEO Hiroshi Mikitani

18:07 – Rakuten’s Mikitani joked at the begining, saying he’s not so comfortable speaking in Japanese. He started by pointed to the Japan Association of New Economy (you may recall we covered the JANE summit a month back). He notes that in order to bring change, there is a sort of ‘galapagos wall’ that must be overcome.

18:11 – Mikitani says that entrepreneurs who visited Japan from Silicon Valley at that event noted that Japan is on the verge of a renaissance (Phil Libin in particular felt this way). He says that in June they are going to hold an sort of Abenomics convention, and encouraged everyone to join JANE. They hope to have strong communication with the government about how to help Japan progress economically.

18:15 – What challenges are Japan facing right now? Kumagai says that the tax rate is as high as four times higher in Japan, which puts them at a disadvantage in comparison to global competitors.

18:19 – Fuji’s Kameyama explains that Japan’s mass media is currently at a disadvantage in the face of things like internet video.

18:27 – Kameyama speaks on the role of mass media in the age of internet opportunity. He says that where goals overlap between companies, it’s of course best to work together with a common understanding. We have to research what these startup internet companies are doing and see [how to proceed].

GMO Internet’s CEO Masatoshi Kumagai, Fuji Television’s senior executive managing director Chihiro Kameyama
GMO Internet’s CEO Masatoshi Kumagai, Fuji Television’s senior executive managing director Chihiro Kameyama

18:30 – Keidanren (the Japan business federation which he famously left) acted as if it was the voice of the economic world. And that’s what people thought. But it became apparent that this is not necessarily the opinion of the business set.

18:33 – Mikitani speaks about lobbying the government to work on remote education, but encountering resistance because education in person was the norm. He says also that in pharmaceuticals, you can’t buy over the net, and abolishing this in-person regulation was something that was important.

18:35 – Morikawa says that society is always changing, and there are many cycles, including financial ones. In Japanese history, change was usually due to external pressures. But now we are creating an engine for change. But this is a culture that is difficult to change. It’s something like a revolution, and JANE is trying to do that in the internet space. [On partnering with Docomo] We need to compete globally, not really within Japan, trying to work together to create something new.

18:48 – Media used to be one way communication, but that has all changed. Now the individual has become more important.

18:50 – I think the internet will become like electricity. I think the many devices we use will simply be referred to by the size of their screens. I’m excited about wearable computers like Google Glass. I want one. I think in five to ten years, it might even be contact lenses. But the biggest content in that environment is communication, and social media will be the biggest part of that. I think the mass media should focus on that to, because in terms of speed, I don’t think you can compete with that.

18:53 – Mikitani talks about shopping as entertainment and communication. He says that his own shopping experience in the past in local markets, he really enjoyed speaking with the shop owners. In the states, even financial transations are becoming more like a social media activity. I think every activity in your life is becoming more social.

Line Corporation's CEO Akira Morikawa
Line Corporation’s CEO Akira Morikawa

18:56 – Morikawa: In Japan, the fact that people use trains a lot, gives people a chance to use mobile and play mobile games. In other countries where they have to drive, they don’t have that luxury. So I think in terms of mobile [this is an edge] and that’s the area we should focus on.

19:05 – Mikitani: The Japanese market is shrinking, and you have to go compete in the international market. But because Japan’s system is so closed, many talented engineers leave Japan. In the US there are 200,000 or 300,000 engineers. We are lacking in volume, and could bring engineers from overseas. But then there are visa issues to handle.

19:13 – Morikawa encourages Fuji’s Kameyama to create a drama where engineers or engineers get admiration. The audience applauds.


FIN

Reps from GREE, DeNA, and Gumi discuss how to win in global gaming

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This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. The late afternoon session of the Infinity Ventures Summit featured a panel on mobile gaming, highlighting the efforts of Japanese game companies to win over the global market. Panelists included GREE International’s SVP Eiji Araki, DeNA’s chief platform strategy officer Junichi Akagawa, and Gumi’s president and CEO Hironao Kunimitsu. The discussion was moderated by Taisei Tanaka, the CEO of Geisha Tokyo Entertainment. Araki-san explained that the US and Japan are very different markets, noting that they have had successes and failures in the US. He cited Modern War, Crime City, and Zombie Jombie as a couple of their success stories. He noted that at GREE International (in San Francisco), they work differently than they do in Japan. In the US, they have a very systemized approach across pre-production, production, beta, and general availability phases. And after every stage, there is a check point to reflect on if the game has potential to be a top 5 title. If they aren’t happy with a progress, they may cancel the game mid-way. DeNA’s Akagawa explained that…

ivs-gaming

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.


The late afternoon session of the Infinity Ventures Summit featured a panel on mobile gaming, highlighting the efforts of Japanese game companies to win over the global market. Panelists included GREE International’s SVP Eiji Araki, DeNA’s chief platform strategy officer Junichi Akagawa, and Gumi’s president and CEO Hironao Kunimitsu. The discussion was moderated by Taisei Tanaka, the CEO of Geisha Tokyo Entertainment.

GREE SVP Eiji Araki
GREE SVP Eiji Araki

Araki-san explained that the US and Japan are very different markets, noting that they have had successes and failures in the US. He cited Modern War, Crime City, and Zombie Jombie as a couple of their success stories. He noted that at GREE International (in San Francisco), they work differently than they do in Japan. In the US, they have a very systemized approach across pre-production, production, beta, and general availability phases. And after every stage, there is a check point to reflect on if the game has potential to be a top 5 title. If they aren’t happy with a progress, they may cancel the game mid-way.

DeNA’s Akagawa explained that the biggest challenges for his company in expanding abroad is ensuring that there is a consistency of management principles as well as a synchronization of corporate philosophies across regions. Building trust and communication across different cultures is difficult, and without trust you can’t really do anything. If a game doesn’t meet it’s goal, does the fault lie with the US or Japan office? This is when good communication comes into play. He notes with a laugh that ‘nom-unication’ (a Japanese portmanteau to describe communication through drinking parties together) is a word they throw around a lot.

Solving the puzzle

In terms of developing a successful game, Akagawa made the comparison to baseball, noting that if you want a hit you need to swing many times. But interestingly, Japan’s most popular mobile game, GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragon’s is somewhat of an exception to this rule.

Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu
Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu

Kunimitsu questioned whether or not the money GungHo is making with P&D can be sustained. Akagawa expressed confidence that it can continue at least for a while longer. But it was also noted that many investors overseas don’t know about GungHo, and once they learn about them, there might be some investment coming – resulting in another boost for the company.

But to continue the baseball analogy, if you are swinging and not hitting, then you need to adjust your swing. Akagawa noted that in each market, a publisher needs to figure out what is most likely to resonate in that particular area:

If you want to develop globally, in order to have a game in the top ranking, you need to localize to make sure your game is accepted. At the same time some games are not accepted by the mass public, but if you have core users you can still succeed.

But of course, then there are games that are popular the world over like Angry Birds. But Araki noted that trying to develop such a wide-appealing game can be a gamble. GREE uses a lot of data trying to figure out what will work. Gumi’s Kunimitsu-san pointed to another problem, saying that “content is a zero sum game” and even if your game is popular, but another is more popular – then you still lose.

DeNA's Junichi Akagawa
DeNA’s Junichi Akagawa

Akagawa closed out the session by saying that DeNA has a now or never approach, and that they have to move fast. This is a sentiment that we heard before among some of the country’s more successful internet companies (most notably, Line).

It will be interesting to see how quick all three of these gaming companies can move in the near future, in their efforts to win over global gamers.

Dave McClure and Shinya Akamine talk ‘Tales from Silicon Valley’

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This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo Japan, we heard from 500 Startups founding partner Dave McClure as well as Shinya Akamine from Core Ventures Group on a panel entitled ‘Tales from Silicon Valley VCs’. The moderator was venture capitalist Gen Isayama. Dave started out talking about incremental innovations, noting that people tend to put Silicon Valley up on a pedestal, and they want to copy the sexiest hardest things, when many of those thing are destined for failure. I’m not saying there won’t be a Japanese Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg – there already are some of those (he mentions Rakuten’s Mikitani and others) but copying 99% of an existing model, and innovating the other 1% may be much easier. ¶ Dave mentions a table top ordering device that 500 Startups invested in. He cites ordering in a restaurant as a big problem, one that people experience everyday. A device that helps you get the waiter’s attention is a great problem to solve, says Dave. “This is not creating…

dave mcclure
500 Startups’ Dave McClure

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.


On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo Japan, we heard from 500 Startups founding partner Dave McClure as well as Shinya Akamine from Core Ventures Group on a panel entitled ‘Tales from Silicon Valley VCs’. The moderator was venture capitalist Gen Isayama.

Dave started out talking about incremental innovations, noting that people tend to put Silicon Valley up on a pedestal, and they want to copy the sexiest hardest things, when many of those thing are destined for failure.

I’m not saying there won’t be a Japanese Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg – there already are some of those (he mentions Rakuten’s Mikitani and others) but copying 99% of an existing model, and innovating the other 1% may be much easier.

Dave mentions a table top ordering device that 500 Startups invested in. He cites ordering in a restaurant as a big problem, one that people experience everyday. A device that helps you get the waiter’s attention is a great problem to solve, says Dave. “This is not creating rocketships, it’s a very simple thing – but it’s a huge market” He explains that not many startups are attacking this area, and this is particularly true in Japan. “Doing real innovation is incredibly hard, he explains, “but incorporating existing ones and improving them are much easier.”

Everybody eats. Restaurants don’t have customer lists. Retention marketing is the easiest thing, and most restaurants don’t do that. It could be made so much better.

It’s worth mentioning that 500 Startups has invested in about 30 food companies already.

He points to internet marketing as a huge innovation, noting that while there’s lots of amazing tech out there, the greatest opportunity in the time that we live in is the fact that everyone is online. And most businesses are not reaching them.

For most existing companies, their business model works. There is an opportunity to attack their weak points of poor internet marketing and high overhead. You can find some big dumb business that makes money but kind of sucks. You can copy that model, reduce overhead, and improve marketing.

Dave’s slides, which he describes as ‘intentionally bad’ so you’ll remember them, are below . (We don’t think they’re that bad!)

Founder vs Product

Shinya followed Dave’s presention with a little about Core Ventures Group. He noted that the first focus of his fund is seed stage investment, and they also look at people who are developing advanced technologies. They also look at B2B companies, ones that sell products to other companies.

He explains says that many of the founders that he gets behind, he knows them before they leave their company to launch a new startup. He points to Feed.fm as an example of a company with a great founder.

The variable that has the most impact is the quality of the founders. Because I’m a seed investor, I really try to identify great founders, work with them and try to unleash their powers. Of course many VCs try to do this, and it’s not unique to just me.

Dave followed Shinya by noting that 500 Startups doesn’t always know if a founder is amazing, and it might take them six months or so to figure it out. He explains that product is something that his company looks at a little bit more:

We screen based on product. To me the product is the mirror of the soul of that team. The three things we look at are engineering, design, and marketing. Those are the three things that get a team off the ground. We need to see that those things are there somewhere.

Shinya says he is excited that many entrepreneurs in Japan are becoming world class entrepreneurs, and they are actually teaching the VCs. He gives the examples of Gengo and Peatix as world class entrepreneurs, who would be at the top of any startup ecosystem in the world. In addition to attracting world class investors, they are bringing in Japanese investors.

Dave agrees that such local role models are great for the ecosystems. And success stories like Rakuten, GREE, and DeNA are going to inspire more entrepreneurs to take risks.