Disrupting Japan

The idea of computers capable of reading our emotions and responding to them is both fascinating and terrifying. Will this technology serve us or manipulate us? Well, the speculation is ending because the technology not only exists, but it is being rolled out commercially. Today I'd like you to meet Hazumu Yamazaki, co-founder of Empath. Empath is a web-based API that detects human emotion from audio data, and its initial use in call-centers has shown a significant increase in sales. But as Hazumu explains, the potential effects are much larger. It's an enlightening conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How emotion detection is being used in commerce How easy is it to emotionally manipulate us into buying something? The hardest thing to get right about corporate spinouts Why detecting emotions at scale will make money The true killer app for emotional recognition How startups can use pitch competitions & accelerators strategically How Japanese startup founders should act while overseas What Japanese founders can really learn from their overseas counterparts Links from the Founder Everything you wanted to know about Empath Friend Hazumu on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn Pitch training at Slush Tokyo Empath on Orange Blog Announcement for ICT 2019 Keynote  Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Siri and thanks for joining me. Today, I’d like to talk with you about – Hey, Siri, why are you doing the podcast intro? Hi Tim, I’ve noticed you’ve been very busy and seemed a little stressed, so I thought I would help out with this week’s podcast. I appreciate that, but I enjoy doing the podcasts, so I think I’ve got this. Okay, Tim. You know where to find me if you need me. Thanks, Siri. There is no doubt that computers, that artificial intelligence getting better at understanding our emotions, and when we think about the application for that emotional connection, we usually think of things we interact with directly, like personal assistance, like Siri. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to be its primary use, and it’s certainly not going to be the most profitable use of this technology. Today, I’d like to introduce you to Hazumu Yamazaki, the co-founder of Empath. Now, Empath is an AI system that can determine your emotional state by listening to how you speak, so Empath does not need to understand what you are saying, but by listening to how you speak, it can quite accurately determine whether you are feeling calm, anger, joy, or sorrow. The first commercial use of this technology has been in call centers and customer contact centers where it’s improved sales by as much as 20%, and yeah, this does open up some serious ethical issues over emotional manipulation that we are going to get into a bit during our conversation and get into a lot more in the comments at the end of this episode. But along the way, we will talk about how a modern version of build it and they will come might just be a viable marketing strategies. The key to making corporate spinouts worked in Japan, and a different way for Japanese startups to go global. But you know, Hazumu tells the story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey" ] Interview                                                                                 Tim: So, we are sitting here with Hazumu Yamazaki, the cofounder of Empath, so thanks for sitting down with me. Hazumu: Yeah, thank you for having me today. Tim: Now, Empath is a technology that detects emotion in human voice, but you can probably explain it a lot better than I can. Hazumu: Sure. So, we developed Empath which is an emotion AI that can identify emotion from your voice,

We've been talking about smart homes and smart cities for a long time. However, it turns out that we are not willing to pay very much for simple convenience, so the technology is coming into our homes bundled with different agendas. We've seen this happen with the success of Alexa and Google Home, and we are now seeing it here in Japan with Nature Remo. Today we sit down and talk with Haruumi Shiode, the founder and CEO of Nature, and we discuss not only what the future of home automation will look like, but who will be paying for it. It's an enlightening conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The real motivation behind smart home purchases How hardware entrepreneurship went mainstream The one way in which crowdfunding is still relevant Why Nature decided to launch English-first How to outsource hardware production without going bankrupt Nature's real business model for the future The importance of demand-response in Japan The growing significance of corporate alumni networks in Japan Why Kyoto might be Japan's next innovation center Links from the Founder Everything you wanted to know about Nature Remo Friend Haruumi on Facebook Follow him on Twitter @haruumi524 Read about Haruumi's transformational sailing journey. It's a pretty cool story. Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. Smart homes and smart speakers have not really changed our lives in the way that was predicted. I mean, it’s not that they have not sold well. Amazon has sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices and the technology is a really amazing, but voice assistance remain a novelty rather than a real step forward, and here in Japan, even with Japanese language support, the adoption rate has been low. I think a big part of that is the lack of conductivity, and by conductivity, I don’t mean the ability to connect to a computer or interact with other programs. I mean, smart speakers don’t connect us to each other in new ways. In the end, they are just an input device. They don’t provide something that we don’t already have in our lives. Well, today, I’d like you to meet Haruumi Shiode, the founder and CEO of Nature’s created a new smartphone device, the Nature Remo. Now, the Nature Remo provides some immediate utility: the ability to control your life and your air conditioner from your smart phones or based on rules that you set up, but the real reason that Nature is so interesting is what comes next. It’s a lot more than just turning your lights on and off; it’s a new way of connecting with each other and a new way for power companies to manage the power grid during times of peak load. But you know, Haruumi tells the story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey"  ] Interview Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Haruumi Shiode of Nature, so thanks for sitting down with me. Haruumi: Thanks for inviting me for this podcast. Tim: No, I’ve been looking forward to it. So, Nature makes the Nature Remo which is a really interesting device that you can probably explain a lot better than I can, so what is the Remo and how does it work? Haruumi: Nature Remo is basically a very small tiny device that can turn your AC or TV, or lighting through smart device. It communicates with those appliances through the infrared and they connect to Wi-Fi, so that you can control from your smart phone or smart speakers. Tim: Okay, so infrared means it’s sort of – it’s emulating the remote control for your TV or your air conditioning? Haruumi: Yes. Tim: Ah, okay, cool. So, if it’s infrared, and so if I wanted to outfit my apartment with these and control or my air-conditioning units and my TV, so would I need one Remo in each room? Haruumi: Yeah,

Learn about the importance of relationships and trust in selling services in Japan. Sriram shares his experience growing Infosys Japan from one to over 1,000 employees. Discover insights on building successful startup in Japan and navigating cultural nuances.

This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me. New listeners might not know that for about one year, Disrupting Japan was sponsored and was my primary source of income. So today, rather than diving deep into a specific aspect of startups in Japan, I thought I would share the history of Disrupting Japan itself, about my decision to go pro (and then go amateur), my visions of a podcast empire, and how it came crashing down. I'd like to tell you the story behind the stories. Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan. Straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’ve got a special show for you today. There will be no guests, no beer, no playful banter about making, marketing or monetization.  For the next 20 minutes, it’s just you and me. It’s been a while since I’ve done a solo show, and these solo shows tend to be some of the most popular. So today, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you some of my thoughts about podcasting and to tell you the story of Disrupting Japan itself.  Why I started it, how I grew the audience, how I turned the show into over $8,000 a month in income, and how I started to put together Japan’s first podcast advertising network. And, most importantly perhaps, why I walked away from all of that and returned Disrupting Japan to the non-commercial, sponsor free format we’ve all grown to know and love. Our talk today will explain why a number of more unusual things about Disrupting Japan are the way they are. And you know, Disrupting Japan has been growing even faster since we went commercial-free. Today we have over 10,000 listeners in 160 countries. Including one listener in Vatican City. Now, I have no way of knowing for sure who exactly that one listener is. I mean, sure, it could be anybody, but I like to think … I choose to believe that Disrupting Japan has listeners in very high places. But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, Japan is a very hard place to launch a podcast. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey" ] Podcast Nation Japan is not a podcasting nation. Most popular podcasts are recycled radio produced by major media companies. Good independent shows exist, but you need to look for them. I’ve built a few startups in Japan, and the podcast was supposed to be me just talking with my founder friends about startups and innovation in Japan; about what it’s like to be an innovator in a culture that prizes conformity. I christened the show Disrupting Japan, and launched to decidedly little fanfare in September 2014. The podcast totaled 42 downloads that month. I thought that was great. How Not to Grow a Podcast My audience rose steadily each month, and after six months I had about 400 listeners. At this point, I decided to invest in growing my show, but most of the common sense marketing and production approaches I tried either had no effect or actually backfired. I rented a studio to improve production quality, but it made my guests uncomfortable. Most simply could not relax in the unfamiliar environment and spent the whole interview looking at their mic rather than at me. I tried this with three different guests and didn’t get a single usable conversation. It’s obvious in retrospect, but few things make people more nervous than shoving a microphone in their face. So I gave up on the studio. I started going to their offices and using a pair of small lapel mics. The sound quality was lower, but after a few seconds, my guests forgot they were wearing these little microphones and we could talk like two human beings. Showing up with a couple of beers also helped my guests relax and made the recording less if an interview and more of a conversation. It turned out that sacrificing a bit of production quality and so-called “professionalism” for more personal, honest conversations was one of the best decisions I made.

The promise of renewable energy has always been alluring. Now that the technology has caught up to the promise, record amounts of wind and solar are coming onto the grid both in Japan and throughout the world.  But so far startups, especially Japanese startups, have been playing a very limited role in this transformation. But that's starting to change. Today we sit down with Ken Isono, founder and CEO of Shizen Energy, and we talk about what it takes to succeed as an energy startup in Japan, and since Shizen Energy is rapidly expanding globally, what it takes to succeed as a startup in the global energy markets. We talk about which renewables are working in Japan and which are not, what the real bottlenecks are, and more important, how we can fix them. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why startups struggle in the energy market How solar plants get built in Japan How to find wind projects worth building The importance of going local in a global market Why the Japanese value land rights so highly A deep dive into solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal energy in Japan How Japanese communities are funding local renewable energy Why so many of Japan's startups come from Fukuoka How Japan can transform into a free-energy economy Links from the Founder Everything you wanted to know about Shizen Energy Shizen Energy on Facebook Shizen Energy retail green energy Friend Ken on Facebook Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. It’s surprising at first, for all of the potential disruption in the energy industry, for all of the potential profits that can be made by doing things better and more efficiently in the energy industry, we don’t see that many energy startups, and as it turns out, there are good reasons for this. Generating and storing electricity at scale require skills that can’t be supplanted by new technology and innovation. Furthermore, most energy projects are long-term, low-risk medium return projects that are just not attractive to venture capital. These projects require a different kind of financing. One notable exception, however, is Japan’s Shizen Energy who is bringing a lot of renewable energy onto the grid in Japan and around the world as well, and they’re doing it as a startup. In just a minute, we’ll sit down with Ken Isono, Shizen Energy’s founder and CEO. He’ll explain how his little startup has worked with local governments and fought the incumbents to bring enough renewable energy onto the grid that Shizen Energy is not so little anymore. We’ll talk about that growth, of course, and we also take a deep dive into the current state and the future prospects of the most important renewable energy technologies in Japan. But you know, Ken tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey"  ] Interview  Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Ken Isono of Shizen Energy, and thanks for sitting down with me. Ken: Thanks for the chance to speak. Tim: Now, Shizen Energy, you guys are a vertically integrated renewable energy company. You guys do generation, your financing, and the retail side as well. Ken: Yeah. Tim: That’s a lot for a startup to do. Ken: We started with solar but the three co-founders used to work in wind power generation company together for five years. Tim: What made you guys decide to leave that company and start your own project? Ken: So, actually, Shizen Energy, we found this company 2011, June, so three months after Fukushima accident. Before that, there was no demand from the market, from policy in renewables, but we knew that it’s going to change. Tim: At first you were focused on large scale solar projects? Was it just the financing,

It's a great time to be a programmer in Japan. Everyone is hiring and there simply is not enough talent available. But why is that? The truth is that until about 10 years ago, programming was considered kind of a blue-collar, low-skill job. It was OK to start your career as a programmer, but if you had not moved into management by the time you were 30, clearly you weren't that bright. The startup boom has changed that, and developer salaries (and respect) has improved significantly. But the education system has not caught up, and far too few people know how to code. Today we sit down with Masa Kato, founder of Progate, and discuss how Japan got herself into this situation, and what Progate is doing to fix it. The problems run deeper than expected. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why Japanese elementary students are learning Javascript The problem with computer science in Japan Why Japanese universities resist change - even when they know they need it The flaw in most online programming courses Can online education ever really be global? Why B2B edTech companies have trouble in B2B markets How English skills are holding back Japanese startups Links from the Founder Everything you wanted to know about Progate Friend Masa on Facebook Follow him on Twitter @cmasad43 Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. You know, I spend a lot of time talking with startup founders in Japan. I also spend a fair amount of time talking with policymakers and academics, and even executives of large companies who want to support startups in Japan. Two of the most concerns I hear revolve around the lack of qualified developers in Japan and how the Japanese education system doesn’t really prepare students for a world that demands that they innovate. Well, today, we’ll be tackling both of these issues head-on. In a few minutes, I’d like you to meet Masa Kato, the CEO of Progate. Progate is an online platform that is teaching young people to code, and yeah, yeah, there are a lot of startups doing that, but these guys are onto something. As Masa will explain, he actually started Progate when he was majoring in computer science at the University of Tokyo, and he didn’t start Progate as a side project, he started it because even though he was majoring in computer science, he wasn’t learning how to program in his computer science classes. Now, all of this will make much more sense when Masa explains it to you, but this foundation might be why Progate has seen so much success so quickly. Progate is now being used in high schools and elementary schools all over Japan, and they have expanded into overseas markets as well, but things didn’t work out exactly as they plan and they had to change their business model to survive. But you know, Masa tells that story much better than I can. So, let’s get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Masa Kato who wants to teach the world to code. So, thanks for sitting down with me. Masa: Thanks for having me. Tim: Masa, you are the founder and CEO of Progate. I explained it a bit in the introduction, but why don’t you tell us a bit about what Progate is? Masa: So, basically, we are a company that teaches programming and we teach it online. The content we teach is mainly web-related, so it’s about teaching people how to make websites, make web services. Tim: So, HTML, CSS, this kind of – Masa: JavaScript and Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and all that, yeah, and we started this company five years ago. Tim: Okay, so is Progate, is it an app, is it a video? Masa: So, we do have an app as well, but we started off as a web service, and instead of using videos,

Corporate accounting is not usually the first thing the comes to mind when you think of disruptive technology, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. Daisuke Sasaki of Freee, however, is changing the way sales are made in Japan from the bottom up.

A few years ago, shiny new startups were using their marketing dollars to tell the world that chatbots were going to change everything. Those marketing dollars have now been spent and most of those startups are no more. But for the past few years, one company has been quietly making chatbots useful, and they are now starting to make some noise. Today we sit down with Akemi Tsunagawa, founder of Bespoke and creator of the Bebot chatbot. In several important ways, Bespoke is one of the most successful chatbot companies in the world, and you'll be hearing a lot about them in the years to come. Today, however, Akemi explains how she and the team managed to succeed where so many better-funded companies failed, and she gives some great advice about how to get consumers to try out new technologies. We also talk about why you should absolutely never build your business around Facebook or WeChat. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why most travel websites are doomed to failure Founding a technical startup without technical co-founders How to get people to tell chatbot what they really think Where chatbots excel and where they should not try Things you should never use a chatbot for Why you should not build a chatbot on Facebook or WeChat Why Japanese don't want to use chatbots Bespoke's plans to go global How to speed up decision making inside Japanese companies Links from the Founder Everything you wanted to know about Bespoke Friend Akemi on Facebook Connect with her on LinkedIn Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I think the peak of the chat bot hype cycle came in 2017. If we cast our minds back into the midst of that distant age, perhaps we can recall that chatbots were going to change the way we work, the way we shop, the way we bank, the way we talk to our customers, and even the way we find love and raise our children. Yeah, that didn’t happen, and startup founders, start of investors, and start of media all moved on to focus on some newer, shinier object – blockchain, probably. But, you know something, sometimes, all that media type and investor attention can actually make it really hard to build something worthwhile. A lot of times, the best ideas and the best use of technology come from trying to solve a simple problem without investors telling you you need to be a unicorn or a journalist demanding to know exactly how you plan on changing the world by the end of the year, and so it is with chat bots. Today, we’re going to sit down with Akemi Tsunagawa, the founder and CEO of Bespoke, the creator of the Bebot chatbot. Now, Akemi will tell you exactly how Bebot works in just a second, but to really appreciate what that important story Bespoke is, you need to understand that outside of marketing and some trivial customer support apps, you’ve got to realize, there is almost no chatbot success stories. Bebot is one of the very few chatbots in the entire world that provides enough genuine utility that people not only willingly interact with it but start to rely on it. Bespoke’s business model does not rely on novelty or cost-cutting, no. Bespoke is solving an actual problem. This is a great example of how the needs of one industry can push technology forward for other sectors, and Akemi and I also talk about why she didn’t even realize they were running a chatbot company at first. She gives some great advice on how to get consumers to try out, not just chatbots but any new technology, and we chat about why you should never – and I mean never -- build your business around Facebook or WeChat. But you know, Akemi tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right into the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey"  ] Interview

Everything about employment in Japan is changing. Lifetime employment is gone.  Skilled workers are discovering that they have job mobility and large Japanese companies are increasingly confused by the fact that many new graduates don't want to work for them. Wantedly has been one of the companies that has changed the way corporate recruiting works in Japan, and today we sit down and talk with the founder and CEO Akiko Naka. We first talked with Akiko a few years ago when Wantedly was starting to gain traction, but since then Wantedly has grown, IPOed and become of the most highly valued public companies in Japan. We talk about her journey, of course, but we also dive into how the nature of work is changing in Japan, the best way to promote yourself and your company in Japan, and the one terrible piece of advice that women founders need to stop listening to. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why Japanese companies can’t hire creative employees How to deal with startup copycats The advantages and dangers of diversification The secret to making change happen in Japan  How to brag about yourself in Japan The best advice for companies wanting to expand outside Japan Unconventional advice for women entrepreneurs Why Japanese millennials really are different Links from the Founder Everything you wanted to know about Wantedly Checkout Akiko's blog Friend her on Facebook Follow Akiko on Twitter @acanocic Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we’re going to sit down with an old friend. Well, I mean, actually, she still a very young friend, but we’ve known her for years, so she’s – anyway, she’s Akiko: Today, we will be sitting down and catching up with Akiko Naka, CEO and founder of Wantedly. Of course, we will talk about Wantedly’s amazing growth and the IPO that has happened since the last time Akiko came on the show, but there is a much more important story here, and before we get to that, I should let you know at other than a brief overview of Wantedly’s business model, this show is all new content and conversations. If you want to understand the crazy ideas and questionable positions that led to Akiko creating Wantedly, and believe me, that’s a story you want to hear, I urge you to listen to the original episode at disruptingJapan.com/show008. I’ll have a link up at the site as well. But today, ah, today, we will be talking about the best way to sell genuinely new product to large Japanese companies, some practical advice for anyone trying to take their company into overseas markets, including into Japan, and why the most common advice given to aspiring female founders is actually terrible, terrible advice, but you know, Akiko tells that story much better than I, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Akiko Naka, the fearless founder of Wantedly, so thanks for sitting down with me again. Akiko Naka: Thank you so much for coming. Tim: You know, it’s really great to have you back on again. So much has changed since we sat down over three years ago. Akiko: Yeah, I can’t believe it has been three years already. Tim: Well, listen, we have a lot to catch up on, but for my listeners who did not follow my advice during the intro and go back and listen to our old interview, why don’t you explain what Wantedly does. Akiko: Wantedly is a platform where we match users and companies based on vision and values, not only salary and benefits. When we compare our platform with traditional media, traditional job matching platform, traditional ones values more salary and benefits, but our platform focus on why the company do what they do, so more value and culture of each company. So, that way, we believe users and company can meet people casually,

Uber and Airbnb represent a new very kind of startup, one that could not have existed twenty years ago, and the very thing that make these companies so transformative in the United States ensures they will never succeed in Japan. You see...