Disrupting Japan
Tim Romero
Disrupting Japan gives you candid, in-depth insights from the startup founders, VCs, and leaders who are reshaping Japan.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 10, 2014 • 37min
Breaking Open Japan’s Closed Business Culture – Tadashi Tanimoto – Realcom
Tadashi Tanimoto is a man with a big successes behind him and a big dream ahead of him. The IPO of Realcom was just a milestone in a longer journey to change the way people work together and share information. Now, I realize, that sounds like a typical committee-written and board-approved mission statement from any number of enterprise software companies. But as you get to know Tadashi, you begin to understand that he not only means it, but lives it.
Oct 27, 2014 • 37min
Founding a Startup as a Foreigner in Japan – Jason Winder – MakeLeaps
Jason came to Japan from Australia to study martial arts, and his company MakeLeaps is now kicking ass in online invoicing. Jason bootstrapped MakeLeaps himself and he and his partner, Paul Oswald grew the company organically, acquired two of their domestic competitors, and recently became the first Japanese company to receive funding from an AngelList syndicate.
Oct 13, 2014 • 29min
What Japan’s Startup Ecosystem Needs to Grow – Ikuo Hiraishi
The startup ecosystems in America and Europe are built around people like Ikuo, but men like him are still quite rare in Japan. After founding a series of successful (and a few less than successful) startups, Ikuo moved to the other side of the table and begin investing and mentoring.
Sep 29, 2014 • 29min
Why Japan Needs to Change Its Communication Strategy
It was a unique combination of Naoki's adventure driving through the US, his ongoing frustration in working for a large Japanese firm, and his love of an anime character from his childhood that inspired him to start his own venture and to try to change the way we communicate with each other via translation. Conyac is a collaborative translation platform with an innovative approach to ensuring product quality and customer satisfaction.
Sep 16, 2014 • 29min
Exporting Japan’s Business Card Culture – Chika Terada – Sansan
Business cards are far more important in Asia than they are in the West. Business cards command the same level of respect and deference as the person they belong to. Here in Japan, there are many times when a business conversation cannot get underway until all cards have been exchanged and everyone knows exactly ...
Sep 2, 2014 • 12min
Japan’s Coming Startup Boom
Far too many people, including many of the Japanese themselves, consider Japanese society as inflexible and unable to change. This is simply wrong.
In this kickoff episode we look at what was behind the two disruptive, transformative really, changes that Japanese society has been through in the past, and examine the groundwork that is being laid for the coming startup boom. We nail down ...
