This Japanese entrepreneur's secret to success?....Laziness

I talk to Yuki Inose, a serial entrepreneur with several businesses in Tokyo, Japan.  We discuss th evirtues of being lazy and building your business around these leanest of business practices.  Yuki practices modesty to the extreme but he does give us some insights into how he has created a successful chain of gyms, facial salons, a fashion label and a Tokyo members bar.  Yuki drives clients between his businesses.  Most interesting is how they move between a members bar and a gym that he runs in Tokyo.  In his latest venture he is building an online community. In Japan they are called Online Salons and it is big business with users paying $10 per month with memberships of up to 60 000 people.  That is a pretty good membership model for a virtual group.  In Yuki's version of this community  He teaches people how to be healthy, how to get fit and he is gaining traction in building this new following by engaging the community to understand what they need and build new products for them.

Japan has gone through a lot with the Tsunami, Fukushima, C-19 and as a result it has lost the Olympics.  A challenge given the $5 trillion investment and a distinct lack of innovation that is causing it to lose ground to China.  Having said that, modern Japanese culture is on the move and traditional command and control values are shifting .  The strength of the older generation is perhaps lost on the younger generations but they love to travel and they love to be free which is very outward looking compared to the Japanese of the past.

Yuki also cant stop talking about how cheap Japan is at the moment and I am keen to put it to the test.  I hope I will be able to report that he is right!

I hope you enjoy this episode and if you hear any noises in the background that is just the fire crackling!