Can Japan reboot its startup culture?

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130820-plugging-japans-start-up-gap

by rglovejoy • 13 years ago

62 57 13 years ago

kmf2• 13 years ago

I've been in love with Japan since I was a anime-obsessed kid, and visiting Tokyo in high school was the best travel experience I've ever had.

Yet at the same time, I've heard it said that the software landscape in Japan is pretty rough -- bureaucratic, aged, and inefficient. I've found that really upsetting, because Japan has, of course, a reputation for being a technological wonderland.

People living in Japan -- natives or otherwise -- is this true? I've had a dream of living in Tokyo as a web developer since the day I came back from Tokyo, and it seems like the only way to make this happen as a non-Japanese speaking (though very interested), non-CS major American is to come already successful, or not come at all.

patio113• 13 years ago

Your best bet would be getting hired by a foreign firm and then laterally transferred to their Tokyo office. Neither not speaking Japanese nor failing to possess a CS degree will make it impossible for you to do IT work at e.g. the Tokyo branches of large foreign investment banks.

If one goes strictly by the published requirements, it would not be straightforward to get you an engineering status of residence (so that you could be hired as an engineer by a Japanese company, as opposed to being transferred in from a foreign company), but there are ways around that. (For example, documenting that you have 10 years of paid experience in development would satisfy the degree requirement... that documentation will be expected with to-the-month resolution.) Candidly, if you do not speak Japanese, getting a professional job with a Japanese megacorp is likely to be quite difficult. (There are a very few prominent exceptions, such as Rakuten.)

There are some Japanese startups which hire foreigners who do not speak Japanese. Your best bet for getting hired at one is to know the decisionmakers personally (true of getting hired at any company anywhere, but of particular interest to you). One potential avenue for finessing this is to come to Tokyo on a visa-waiver for a few weeks of sightseeing, meet people like it is your job, and then get the ball rolling on employment. Fair warning: many startups are, like the US, not exactly organizationally optimized to support your visa/status of residence paperwork.

kmf2• 13 years ago

Wow, awesome information. As I haven't had to deal with citizenship, well, ever, it's interesting/enlightening to learn about the work that goes into obtaining it. I'm going to bookmark this one for future reference, thanks Patrick!

hudibras2• 13 years ago

Just to pile on: It's hard to overstate how large the language barrier is in Japan. For all intents and purposes, nobody speaks English and therefore you cannot speak, listen, write, or read anything during your interactions with the people around you.

I don't want to scare kmf off from coming here; you should, it's a wonderful country. Just need to manage your expectations...

eksith2• 13 years ago

It's sort of true. Part of the reason being that kids there have had the same stunting of growth that kids in the West have as well since the start of social media.

More often people equate "Internet", "Web" and "Mixi" (Their version of Facebook and of course Facebook is popular too). And it's hard to get a proper feel for what's really out there online and, more importantly, what areas are lacking.

That's not to say Japan has any shortage of innovation. They're very creative in innumerable ways. Sometimes the creativity shines through the bureaucracy (especially among the younger people). Culturally, they're still very dependent on the "group".

[Source: Two close friends living there]

Edit: Also note, it's a bit expensive to live there, so you need to support yourself with minimal luxuries (at least at first) as possible.

patio113• 13 years ago

it's a bit expensive to live there

This is heavily location-dependent and also dependent on lifestyle factors. Raising a family in Tokyo as rich expatriates (the lifestyle that e.g. Citibank managers adopt when "in country") would require an income pretty deep into the six figures (in dollars). However, 22 year old employees of Japanese megacorps take home salaries which are less than typical San Francisco rents and make them work.

The ramen profitable number [+] for me in Gifu prior to getting married was about $1,500 a month if I were cooking Japanese food and about $2,000 a month when I was eating my usual diet, which included lots of meals out (not too expensive here) and Western food (quite expensive). An example of the difference: I find it literally impossible to do a taco party for friends for under $60, where if we were having a typical Japanese dinner that could cost $10 to $20.

[+] Edit: This is really important: while $1,500 is indeed ramen profitable, if you attempt to use that level of income in support of getting or renewing an engineering status of residence, it is highly likely you will be ramen deported. The examining clerks have wide discretion in how they define "enough" income but "at least as much as a Japanese person" or "3 million yen" are much more common than "ramen profitable" in sustained applications.

pwim• 13 years ago

If you don't have a CS degree, it is harder to get a job here, because visas are tied to your career path, and for an engineering visa, you need a related degree or ten years of professional experience.

It is possible though to do development on a visa other than the engineering visa, as I've written about here: http://www.tokyodev.com/2013/01/12/japan-visa-programming-jo...

jpatokal2• 13 years ago

Quoting reddit:

In Japan you can look forward to low salaries, long hours, no advancement opportunities and working with trailing edge technology. Whats not to like?

And unfortunately that's only slightly hyperbolic. Full discussion below, and do bear in mind that it's a) an atypically good offer for Japan, and b) much of the audience is young English teachers on shoestring salaries.

http://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/zftls/found_a_softwar...

minikomi• 13 years ago

As a web dev in Japan who can speak Japanese & is barely scraping by.. I agree, 670k JPY / month + 2 semi-annual bonuses is very high end wage.

alwaysinshade• 13 years ago

the software landscape in Japan is pretty rough -- bureaucratic, aged, and inefficient

Quite true. Where they excel is physical processes (hardware and people). Within an hour of being there it's evident: monorail quickly ferries you from tarmac to customs (easy), then fingerprint scanner connected to PC running Windows XP craps itself 10 times before success (annoying). Your luggage is neatly arranged on the conveyor by staff so that it's upright, identifiable and simple to pick up (easy). Go to bathroom and grin as the urinal flushes itself, then wash hands with delightful auto soap dispenser and auto basin then quickly egress to the airport subway (great!). Discover onboard wi-fi only accessible using unintelligible pre-paid system (nuts...I need to check my email). Oh well, I'll be at the hotel soon. Check in and bang your head against the wall as they advise one part of their system has the correct check-in/check-out dates, while another critical system has different dates. Lovely clerk talks with manager to find a work-around to a double-booked room. Finally get in hotel room and whip out Macbook Air...Ethernet access only. Off to the local Softbank store to get a dongle. Plug it in - 100/100mbit internet connection (Lovely!).

You're in a state of flux between delight and bewilderment.

acchow• 13 years ago

This was a delightful read, but I don't believe accurate. I'm writing this from tokyo at the moment (on vacation) and I haven't experienced any software hiccups.

The fingerprint reader at customs worked fine.

WiFi on the high speed train from Narita worked wonderfully. I signed up on the browser redirection, registered for the 1-day free offer for Visa cardholders, they correctly allowed me access to the CA so the connection was secure and their certificate signed. It was generally quite smooth.

Google Maps' detail in Tokyo is unbelievable. "Ginza line towards Shibuya station. Walk for 2m. Take the stairway down to the 1st floor. Walk for 25m" I am not making this up.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

I've befriended many Japanese open source hackers in the past year or so (through my own OSS contributions to a project started by a guy originally from Japan - details in links in profile), and I've asked them about the best places to work in the web space.

My conclusion is that the following are the only companies that you should consider if you are in a position to choose (i.e. via your skill): Cookpad, LINE (formerly NHN Japan, formerly Livedoor), DeNA, GREE. That's basically it.

I've seen quite a few non-Japanese Cookpad engineers on Twitter, and heard from @miyagawa that they actually have an "international team" as well (and at least some of these non Japanese engineers seem to live in Tokyo). IIRC they are hiring, so maybe shoot him a msg on Twitter? (his english is one of the best I've seen from someone originally from Japan)

sirmarksalot• 13 years ago

I heard a saying that everyone lives on eight streets at any one point in there life. No matter where you go, if you live there long enough, you'll settle in and find a routine that you're used to.

The first month of living in Japan is bliss. You're learning a new language, playing with really cool public infrastructure, solving problems you didn't imagine you'd run into (is there a three-pronged outlet anywhere in this apartment?!), and seeing things that you'd consider "exotic" on a daily basis.

Once the novelty wears off, you start to understand that you don't quite fit into this culture quite as well as you thought you did. It turns out that growing up in America does infuse you with certain values, and they're not as universal as you think. When people say such-and-such is "part of the culture," that means that on an individual level, that thing is part of people's value system.

Going home before everyone else, for example, isn't just awkward; it's wrong. It's unfair that some of your coworkers have to stay late and some get to go home. What would your mother think? Why are you complaining that you can't use an ATM after 10pm? Why would you ever want to do that? Is it because you're irresponsible and bad at planning? Or are you just using it to stay out all night drinking?

Right now you might think you're alright with the working hours because, hey, Japan! But when your version of "Japan" is your apartment, your desk, the bar after work, and your train commute that you've cut down by 15 minutes due to your supreme knowledge of entrance positioning, you will wonder what happened to those dreams of castles, temples and teahouses. You could plan a trip somewhere, but you'd have to take a day off work when everyone's so busy, and that would be wrong.

smagch• 13 years ago

I heard that a startup which I don't know hired Chinese when I was working in a startup in Tokyo. I also found some non-Japanese speaking people were working in OpenSource cafe. http://www.osscafe.net/en/

I'm going to give you some links that would be useful.

Tokyo based Seed Accelerator: http://onlab.jp/

Social Hiring platform: https://www.wantedly.com/

Japanese AngelList-like service: http://creww.me/

jolks2• 13 years ago

Another famous one: http://www.samurai-incubate.asia/english/

Kenzo99• 13 years ago

I came to Japan a little over ten years ago with a non-CS degree, an English teaching job, and a desire to do web development here. It took me two years of learning the language and building my portfolio of pro-bono/super cheap sites, but after that I started scoring freelance gigs. I would do anything: servers, design, programming, translation, whatever would pay to get me out of teaching. As time went by I could focus more on what I'm good at, server admin and programming. I've worked for foreign firms, Japanese firms, Japanese firms founded by foreigners in Japan and I've set up two of my own companies here. It absolutely can be done.

That said, you will run into bureaucratic nightmares. I could go on for pages about firms that won't allow developers FTP access, ones that won't allow you to set up WordPress (they're not an official vendor), firms that want people to sign up for their email newsletter, but by phone because they think the Internet is scary and they don't want personal information put into their website, and other stuff that to this day I still sort of don't believe.

But you'll learn how to be patient, get through those situations, and build either a client base or find a job somewhere that makes sense. Because there are great clients and good companies to work for here. It takes time, but if you learn the language and have solutions to problems people have and can show some examples of those solutions in a portfolio, you'll start finding work. Webdevs are a dime a dozen, but good webdevs who can seamlessly work in English and Japanese will always have work here.

sgdesign• 13 years ago

One thing the article doesn't really talk about is that Japanese companies are very active in investing in (or sometimes outright buying) foreign startups (for example, Recruit buying Indeed).

I think this shows that some Japanese businesses are at least conscious of the problems depicted in the article, and are trying to learn from Silicon Valley.

adregan4• 13 years ago

In Japan, established companies are king. Nintendo claims to be 100 years old. My buddy's company sells semiconductors, and they also claim to be 100 years old. Of course these companies aren't truly 100 years old, but it means a lot to work an older company. There's a lot of pride in it. Not to mention, banks want to deal with older companies and so do landlords (the article says some are looking for 2 years of profit).

I've certainly dealt with the pushback that comes with suggesting new ideas in Japan. I've heard "efficiency" derided as a foreigner idea, specifically "you Americans always want to change things to make them more efficient" in regards to no longer grading 1000s of multiple choice entrance exams by hand.

And I don't want to get political, but while I can understand how Abe's economic policies might help pump life into the startup scene, I don't see how the hyper conservative social atmosphere he has charged since taking office will help. I don't mean to be too cynical, but when I read that Abe wants to encourage Japanese startups, I read that he wants to encourage startups of Japanese people not startups in Japan (evidenced perhaps by all of the articles on this subject that mention Masayoshi Son go out of their way to tell you that he is Zainichi Korean, even though he's a Japanese citizen and his family has been in Japan for generations).

whatusername• 13 years ago

I always thought Nintendo's corporate history was pretty legit? Start with cards, move to games/entertainment, move to video games. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo

jpatokal2• 13 years ago

Sure, but the point is that you don't hear Silicon Valley companies boasting about the length of their history.

a_bonobo• 13 years ago

The history of these old companies is usually legit - see Wikipedia's List of oldest companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

Sadly Kongo Gumi, the Nr. 1, was swallowed by another company.

adregan4• 13 years ago

I mean they also ran taxi services and love hotels. But I guess other than the taxi service, everything really was about entertainment.

Often though, a younger company just assumes the "body" of the older one. It helps with getting loans from the bank, etc.

xxpor• 13 years ago

I've certainly dealt with the pushback that comes with suggesting new ideas in Japan. I've heard "efficiency" derided as a foreigner idea, specifically "you Americans always want to change things to make them more efficient" in regards to no longer grading 1000s of multiple choice entrance exams by hand.

Wait, what? Isn't this the county famous for Kaizen and the Toyota method?

adregan4• 13 years ago

All of the new hiring took place around that time just so there would be more people to grade.

A lot of inward facing companies in Japan foster an atmosphere of "you aren't working unless it really feels like you're working." But no one cares if you sleep at your desk, so it's not all bad.

verisimilidude• 13 years ago

Oddly enough, among the four tech start-up founders I met in Japan, ALL of them were Korean-Japanese. They all shared a similar story:

* Their fathers and grandfathers were forced to become entrepreneurs because they were scorned (in various ways) by traditional Japanese businesses due to their heritage.

* These parents found success in sometimes seedy areas of the Japanese economy, such as casinos, love hotels, etc. In other words, businesses that "proper" Japanese did not want to be caught running.

* The parents converted these successes into more respectable businesses, like restaurants, etc.

* All of this entrepreneurial knowledge and spirit (and eventually capital) got passed down to the kids, over the generations.

Likewise, many of the other entrepreneurs I met were foreigners, from places like Ghana, Bangladesh, etc. It's just anecdotal, but interesting food for thought nonetheless.

adregan4• 13 years ago

Time and time again, immigrants often have that great entrepreneurial spirit (here in Japan and abroad). I'm certainly being overly sensitive, but I just think it's interesting that this article pointed out that the 2nd or 3rd wealthiest Japanese citizen is Korean in light of the anti-Korean citizens sentiment bubbling in Japan this past year.

PhantomGremlin• 13 years ago

Fascinating article. My only quibble is when it mentioned "tiny South Korea". That population is 50 million, while Japan's is 127 million. So, yes, Korea is smaller, but hardly "tiny" in comparison.

And "tiny" probably doesn't refer to land area either. Much of Japan is rural or uninhabitable. In both countries the amount of habitable non-farmland is relatively "tiny". Quite unlike the USA.

graeme• 13 years ago

Thanks for for pointing that out. I had fallen for the smaller land mass = much smaller population fallacy.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

iirc Korea has a very small number for domestic consumption compared to Japan (which is an issue when your exports are bound to struggle with the now rising strength of the Won)

WhoIsSatoshi• 13 years ago

Japan is in dire conditions. Society has, just as it did in Europe, corrupted the way of living of people into a "comfortable" reality. Except Japanese are way better at it than Europeans. So they "trapped" themselves in this comfy reality, which really is a slow-mo zone. Because the population is declining and the new generation is struggling to grasp the situation (and what must be done) they are in for a world of pain. They will be a weak nation very soon, and I bet a certain old friend in the east will consider "helping" them...

ballard• 13 years ago

There might not be as many startups in Japan, but I can attest there are 100% Japanese startups that hustle hard as anyone in the valley, aren't afraid to fail in front of friends/family/cofounders and are generally all-'round badasses. They are there.

http://whill.jp/ <-- awesome

Gepsens• 13 years ago

Replace Japan with Europe, same shit.

jason_tko6• 13 years ago

As a founder of a Japan based startup catering to businesses in Japan (MakeLeaps) and also as a co-organiser of the Hacker News Tokyo Meetups with my co-founder Paul, I found this article to be full of defeatism, inaccurate and generally disappointing.

A few points:

“this is accompanied by a very envious, critical and vocal audience. They underline every possible reason that the product will fail and keep doing so indefatigably. They attack the innovator on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc; and they keep doing so until the innovator raises a white flag.”

What.

There's always haters and detractors. That's part of doing anything in life, and start-ups are no exception.

Once, a Japanese guy spent 10 minutes trying to explain that our startup's failure was guaranteed because Japanese people would never upload their company stamp (a necessary function of official Japanese business documents) to a web service. Even after I told him we already have a bunch of users who are doing this, he was steadfast, so I simply crossed him off the list of people to spend time on. Problem solved.

One of the very first things we learned when selling to businesses in Japan is that social proof is a critical factor. So our focus changed to getting even a single business using our software, and then trying to feature them and promote them as much as we could.

It's pretty damn hard for people to say your product is failing when you can show you have a lot of people using it.

The more we did this, the more businesses we could get, and we continued to repeat this process until last month when we finally crossed 10,000 signed up companies in Japan.

Getting to here took years of work. This is part of a startup. Understanding your problem space and challenges, and then adapting your product and marketing message accordingly.

"Japanese businessmen tend not to trust the younger generation."

Oh yeah? Try doing a startup and being in the younger generation, AND being foreigners.

You have to build and earn trust over time. You're not handed a trust card as soon as you open a new business.

"If you look at successful Japanese start-ups, they are mostly run by CEOs who have applied the ‘foreign connection’ in some way"

This is frustratingly inaccurate, and belies a total lack of exposure and understanding of the Japanese startup scene. There are plenty of very successful startups that are based in Japan, and focused on Japan, that have zero foreign elements.

"In some cases, like Mr Son, he has managed to combine all five factors."

Commentating on the Japanese startup scene using the CEO of Softbank as an example, Softbank being a company founded in 1981 with a market cap of 43 billion dollars, makes no sense at all.

"There’s lots of venture capitalists here but they are only interested in games and new media"

Wrong. We get weekly un-solicited contacts from Japanese VCs asking for meetings with us.

This is a result of us hustling very hard over a long period of time, and working very hard to establish our credibility and stability.

The Japanese startup scene definitely has areas where it can improve, but they're at best papered over in this article.

kfk• 13 years ago

Kudos guys. I have been following MakeLeaps for the past year and half and it's impressive to see how fast and wisely you have been building up the product. What I really like is that you understand the business needs very well, which is not such a common trait here were too many are trying to "disrupt" industries they barely know or understand.

I always wanted to ask: are you guys looking at expanding in other areas? Like out of Japan and/or offering invoices entry services?

po• 13 years ago

Thanks! Its always great to hear that kind of thing. :-)

I think I can speak for Jason when I say that we're always looking to expand our offering but we want to do it smartly and in a customer-driven way. You can certainly use our service to make english-language documents but for us a big part of 'localization' is really sweating the details and understanding customer needs. So far, that has meant a focused product for Japanese businesses. The Japanese business consumer is somewhat conservative in adopting new process and has high expectations for services so it's important for us to do things right.

But yeah, like most startups we're always working on new things... :-)

jason_tko6• 13 years ago

Many thanks - really appreciate the kind words.

I agree with Paul. We're pretty ambitious on the spaces we want to go after, and we have a lot of room to grow inside Japan first. As Paul mentions, Japanese businesses have very high expectations for service quality, so we want to nail each new feature we put out.

After Japan, we're keen to go after Asia, and then the world. <strokes black cat>

ranebo• 13 years ago

Regarding startup life in Tokyo, these are the guys to listen to (jason_tko and po). They are actually here and doing it and really hustle hard for it. Their success is truly deserved.

Also Jason briefly mentioned the HN Tokyo meetups they also organise. There is one next month ( http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp/events/5489?utm_campaign=event_... ) on the 11th. If you are in any way tech inclined and in the area, it is a great event with lots of cool people.

jason_tko6• 13 years ago

Thanks mate, appreciate it. Hope you can make it to the next HN Tokyo event too!!

rramsden• 13 years ago

Can you forward some of those VC's to us. We're building something pretty awesome here in Tokyo // inkr.com

jason_tko6• 13 years ago

Come to the HN Tokyo meetups we organise. We often get VCs dropping by.

Here are the details for the next one:

http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp/events/5489

atgm• 13 years ago

One of the very first things we learned when selling to businesses in Japan is that social proof is a critical factor. So our focus changed to getting even a single business using our software, and then trying to feature them and promote them as much as we could.

This is probably one of the most important cultural leaps for foreigners to make in Japan in general -- social proof can and often will override other qualifications.

We've done some marketing on the product I've been working on, but the majority of our marketing is focused on getting big, recognizable names to use our product so we can use them as a social springboard for other companies. Once we got one or two big names, lots of other people who were on the edge started falling in line immediately.

chaostheory• 13 years ago

Until their culture changes drastically I'm going to say No, for the following reasons:

- It is too risk averse. Making big mistakes, especially with your career, is looked down upon and it makes you a social pariah.

- Japan is too brand name obsessed and it's not limited to products either. It extends to your career, as to what company you work for and what schools you graduated from. i.e. You need to work for already successful companies. It also doesn't look too kindly on drop outs or anyone different either, who are probably the very people building successful start ups.

- While the younger generation is better, Japan still has a xenophobic society. Most foreigners unless they are of Japanese descent still can't get citizenship. Foreigners bring a lot of innovation and different ideas to the start up sector that Japan misses out on it. The US isn't perfect on this matter either, but compared to Japan it's way better.

In Japan's defense, most of the EU suffer similar problems.

rwmj• 13 years ago

For the benefit of UK license payers(!) can someone copy that article so we can see it?

graup• 13 years ago

Related, although not adding too much new: "Wake up Japan!" says Dave McClure https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5274049 http://fumijp.blogspot.jp/2013/02/wake-up-japan-says-dave-mc...

jolks2• 13 years ago

Samurai Incubate is like Y Combinator of Japan. Today Samurai Incubate manages ¥543 million (about $5.7 million) of investment capital spread across four funds. Sixty start-ups have received funding to date, each typically in the range of ¥4 million – ¥5 million (roughly $40k – $50k). -http://beaconreports.net/entrepreneurship-in-the-samurai-tra...

mathattack• 13 years ago

Excel actually isn't that bad for managing projects. Does saying that make me old, or a skeptic?

Digging deeper into this... I would like to see some data on where grads go. Having spent time in Japan, my intuition was a disproportionate amount of top grads from top schools want to work at old (40+ years) large companies, relative to a similar number in the US. The ones who do go elsewhere wind up at small family businesses. I would like to see data on this.

The larger issue is there isn't as developed a concept of "VC and Angels toss a bunch of small piles of money at juniors and hope one or two grow into a big pile." I suspect the data behind this is much easier to find.

Perhaps much of the push can come from outsiders? Foreigners well versed in the local customer, with foreign money? The large companies tend to be more reluctant to hire international workers anyway.

It's not easy, but Japan is a glorious country with a fascinating culture. It's worth the effort.

Can Japan reboot its startup culture?

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