Disrupting Japan

Disruption comes slowly to medicine.  And that's a good thing. Since the ethos of the profession is "First, do no harm", it makes sense that safety and efficacy are prioritized over rapid innovation. But innovation does happen, and the Japanese government is working to make sure it happens faster. Today we sit down with Taro Ueno of Susmed and talk about the challenges and tradeoffs in innovative medicine. We talk about why he left medical research for entrepreneurship, and how iPhone apps and blockchain are being used clinically in Japan. And in both cases, I assure you, it's not what you think. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why leave medical practice to start a startup Why Japan just can't fall asleep Why Japan over-prescribes sleeping pills and other drugs Why it's very hard to get apps approved as medical devices in Japan The reason so few medical apps have been approved in Japan The importance ofJapan's regulatory sandbox How blockchain is actually helpful in clinical trials What kinds of medical apps are we most likely to see first on mobile phones? Why so few apps have been approved and why that might be changing Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Susmed Connect with Taro on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs.  I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, you're going to learn about how to make money in blockchain. No, no, no, it's not like that, it's not what you think. Today, we're going to sit down with Taro Ueno of Susmed, and we'll talk about how Japan's new regulatory sandbox has enabled his startup to get approval for their blockchain-based platform for clinical trials. The platform prevents trial results from being changed after they've been recorded, which as Taro will explain, has been a real problem in Japan. Taro is also a medical doctor and a PhD, and he's developed an insomnia app that he is in the process of getting approved as a medical device. We talk about the challenges of getting mobile apps approved for clinical use in Japan, why this technology is so frustratingly slowed to come to market, and why people in Japan just can't seem to fall asleep. But you know, Taro tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Taro Ueno of Susmed, and thanks for sitting down with me today. Taro: Thank you. Tim: Now, Susmed is an app-based solution for insomnia and you also make a platform to improve clinical trials, but you can probably explain Susmed much better than I can, so tell me a bit about the company. Taro: Susmed stands for 'Sustainable Medicine.' This is our vision and we are developing digital therapeutics using smartphone apps, and we are now developing several apps for diseases like insomnia and cancer, and so on. Tim: Tell me a bit about your customers, so are these apps designed for doctors to use in a clinical setting? Are they designed for consumers to use on their own? Taro: Doctors prescribe this app for insomnia patients. This is alternative for treating patients Tim: Before we dive into everything that's going on with medical technology in Japan, I want to ask a little bit about you. You got your MD and then your PhD, what drove you to startup after that? I mean, you put a tremendous amount of work into becoming a doctor. Taro: Yeah, I agree. Yes, as you mentioned, I have a background of medical doctor and especially in psychiatry. I got PhD in basic research over sleep medicine. I have seen so many patients with overprescription with sleeping pills. That's why I try to develop DTx for insomnia patients. Tim: I mean, I find that fascinating, the ability to develop software for an app gave you greater ability to help people than practicing medicine or research? Taro: Our company is developing software as a medical device, and we are trying to get approval from a regulatory agency in Japan. Tim: You're still practicing medicine now, right?  Taro: Yes. Tim: You're using this device in your own practice? Taro: Now, we are running clinic trials, and so after getting approval, I hope I can use our app in clinical practice. Tim: So, how big a problem is insomnia or lack of sleep in Japan? Taro: The prevalence of insomnia is very high in Japan, about 18,000,000 people in Japan, and most of them are treated using sleeping pills, but no pharmacological treatment was recommended by guideline, but the treatment is labor-intensive. Tim: Without the pills, what is the other insomnia treatment? Taro: It's called cognitive behavioral therapy. Tim: Okay, and so that requires the doctor and the patient to work together and your app reproduces or reinforces that sort of interaction? Taro: Right. Tim: Japan, especially, but I guess everywhere really kind of has a bad attitude about sleep in general. It's almost like people are ashamed of themselves if they get enough sleep, and everyone brags about how little sleep they have and how tired they are at work. Do you think there's a cultural component? Taro: Yes, some components, basically, biological but there's a cultural component; the prevalence of insomnia is high in Japan or Korea. I think there's a cultural component. I think Japanese are diligent and they tend to overwork. It can be cultural pressure. Tim: You seem pretty busy. How much sleep do you get a night? Taro: I usually have more than six hours. Tim: So, you usually get enough sleep? Taro: I think so. Tim: Well, actually, getting back to the app itself, I think it's great to treat insomnia without pills, but who would pay for this? Would this be something that the patient would pay for or is this something that eventually would be covered by the national health insurance? Taro: In Japan, medical treatment is covered by national insurance, so DTx should also be covered by national insurance. Tim: And, you've been running various clinical trials on this since 2016. Can you explain what's involved in bringing that to market? It seems like something that's well beyond what most startups can consider doing. Taro: To check the effectiveness and also safety of our app, we are running clinical trials. Because this app is a medical device, it must get approval from the regulatory agency, so we have discussed with the regulatory agency several times about what kind of clinical trial we should run. Usually, it takes several years to get approval to run clinical trial. Tim: So, the fact that these apps are running on iPhones or on Android phones, does that make it harder to get them approved as a medical device since you can't really completely control the hardware? Taro: Smartphone apps for medical devices are very new, so for regulatory agencies, it's hard to explain because we must update for new type of OS or smartphone. Tim: Does that mean that for example, when Apple or Google, or Samsung release a new OS or new hardware, do you have to get this approved again? Taro: No. Tim: Well, that makes things easier, I guess. Are there apps being used now as medical devices? Are there apps that have already been approved in Japan? Taro: Yes, there is one smartphone app approved by the regulator agency, it's for smoking cessation. Tim: Is that also cognitive behavioral therapy? It seems like it would be a good fit. Taro: I don't know exactly, but I think the device tries to change the behavior of the patient. Tim: Susmed and several other medical startups are really benefiting from Japan's regulatory sandbox. Can you tell me a little bit about what is the regulatory sandbox and who gets to play in the sandbox? Taro: Regulatory sandbox is a system for trial using the new technology to challenge regulation. Cabinet of Japan approved regulatory sandbox for each company. We have submitted our trial to cabinet office and we got approval to run the clinical trial using blockchain system. Tim: And what's the advantage of using the regulatory sandbox framework? Taro: Based on the result of regulatory sandbox, we can challenge regulation. Tim: Does it give you an exemption for certain regulations or is this a way that the government can look at new technology and maybe change regulations? Taro: For example, clinical trials have a regulation called GCP and pharmaceutical companies under medical device companies must run clinical trial based on this GCP rule. Based on the result of the regulatory sandbox, we can challenge the regulation, and the clinical trial was classically conducted by human resources. For example, data from clinical trial must be checked by human resources, but using blockchain technology, we can improve the quality of the data, so based on those results, the government approves the way of learning the clinical trial using new technology. Tim: Okay, well, actually, let's talk a little bit about this blockchain platform for clinical trials. So, as you mentioned, usually, all of the information is taken in, checked by people, documented by people, but your blockchain solution, you're saying, can eliminate a lot of the human oversight? Taro: Right. Based on our results, government has approved our way of learning clinical trial. Tim: And, what is the main advantage of using a blockchain-based system in clinical trials? Taro: Using blockchain technology, we can secure the consistency of the data without human resources. Tim: So, blockchain, of course, it doesn't mean that the data being put in is any more accurate than a regular database, but blockchain makes it very, very hard for anyone to change the data once it's been put in the database. Taro: Yes. Tim: Is this a problem in clinical research? Has data been changed in the past? Taro: Yes, there can be a conflict of interest between pharmaceutical companies and the result of clinical trials.

Artificial Intelligence makes a lot of people nervous. That's understandable. Today we sit down with Ken Fujiwara of Hacarus to discuss why that is, and what this startup is doing to fix it. As in so many other fields, when comparing AI in Japan and the West, we find that the technology is fundamentally the same, but the social attitudes and business strategies are very different. Ken is a serial entrepreneur, but running an AI startup was never part of his original plan. He had bigger goals in mind, and we talk about how he plans to pivot back to them someday. We also discuss Kyoto's booming startup ecosystem and why one CEO has publically stated he wants to destroy it. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The problem with Deep Learning and how Hacarus is unique The importance of founder's hidden failures Why Ken left Sony to start a startup How to know when you need to pivot Why pivoting is hard in Japan The integrator business model and why it works in Japan Pivoting a startup to back to your dreams The importance of explainable AI Why you need to know about Kyoto startups Why one company wants to destroy Kyoto's startup ecosystem The reason you see so many interesting IoT startups coming out of Japan now Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Hacarus Follow them on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn Get in touch by email: inquiry@hacarus.com Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. As you can imagine, I get asked a lot about how the Japanese startup ecosystem is different from others and I love that question. The problem is that people usually aren't really happy with my answers. It seems that everyone wants to hear stories about anime or strange gadgets, or cool trends in gaming, and yeah, there's plenty of that in Japan too, but the things that are really unique and interesting like evocative machines and the integrator model, and the role enterprise has to play in supporting startups, those things take a lot of time to explain to anyone who doesn't already understand Japan, at least a little bit, but they're important.  Today, we sit down with Ken Fujiwara of Hacarus and we're going to look at how Hacarus is using the integrator model to jointly develop AI products with large enterprises. Ken also explains how he had to pivot Hacarus away from his original vision and how he might be able to pivot back to it in the future. We talk about the challenges of pivoting and staying true to your mission, cover a few very good reasons why people don't trust AI, and we talk about one CEO who has made it his mission to destroy a startup ecosystem. Oh, and near the end of the show, we have a really interesting discussion about the startup ecosystem in Kyoto. There really are some amazing things going on in Kansai, but you know, Ken tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Ken Fujiwara of Hacarus, and thanks for sitting down with me today. Ken: Thanks for having me. Tim: Hacarus is a collection of AI platforms that's targeted both at medical and industrial use but you can probably explain this a lot better than I can, so what exactly does Hacarus do? Ken: Alright, so Hacarus is basically AI startups and provide AI desk applications for medical, such as AI-enabled diagnosis solutions and for manufacturing industry, we provide digital inspection services, and one of the core differences of our company is that we don't use a mainstream AI technology called deep learning. We use something else. Tim: I've noticed that, so you've talked a lot about your ability to create AI models based on very small data sets. How does that work? I mean, what exactly are you guys doing, if you don't mind me asking what the "secret sauce" is. Ken: Sure, yeah, I don't mind talking about the "secret sauces." So, in machine learning, in general, the basic assumption is that you need a lot of data or what we call training data, and these days, people, they use technology called deep learning. How deep learning works is that basically, you feed it tons of data and it can abstract the futures from that data set and it can create the model. Our technology called the sparse modeling is quite different, so it can do the same thing but it's from small data sets. It's been a while in academia run, like, year 2000, we had the one person who incorporated that technology and commercialized it, so that's our core strength. Tim: Okay, I can see how being able to operate on smaller data sets really opens up a lot of broader commercial possibilities because a lot of people just don't have that much data. So, tell me about your customers. It seems like you're dealing with quite a few different applications. Ken: We focus on two industries, medical and manufacturing, and most of the time, as you said, they don't have access to a big amount of data. For applications like autonomous driving, there's an infinite amount of data because you let the car drive in the city. However, for applications like AI-based diagnosis for rare disease, basically, you don't have a lot of data. For certain diseases, there are only 100-plus unique data, that's it, that's all we're talking about. So, our customers are pharmaceutical companies who want to make AI-based diagnosis solutions using this small data set. For the manufacturing industry, most manufacturing companies, they do have a lot of data for non-defective products. However, it comes down to defective data, they don't have access to a lot of data, so 1/10,000 production units, there's only one defective, so again, if you want to do defect detection, you need a lot of defect data or non-okay images. Tim: So, Hacarus is not creating a specific product. It's mainly consulting and helping your clients use this sparse modeling to solve their problems? Ken: At the moment, yes, so the majority of our revenue is based on what we call contract work or consulting work. So, we come in and we listen to the particular problem that the customer has and we provide a tailor-made solution to that customer. We've been doing more than 100 projects that we are trying to productize our knowledge and package them as sort of a license, so that we can sell it to another customer. Tim: I think it's interesting looking at Hacarus over the last six years and actually, I want to talk about some of your really interesting pivots you've done, but before that, I want to talk a little bit about you. You founded Hacarus more than six years ago now in 2014, but before that, you've been involved with quite a few startups before, haven't you? Ken: Yeah, actually, Hacarus is my fourth startup, that's why I look so old right now, so yeah, so before this, I've launched three tech startups. This is not the first time doing a startup thing in my life. Tim: It's your fourth real startup, but you've also had a lot of other projects you've worked on that never quite got traction, right? Ken: Yeah. I mean, like, my win rate is almost like 10%, so only one win out of 10 failures, that's my success rate. Tim: No, see, I don't think people really appreciate that, so I've started four companies as well, but the thing is, I've also had probably 12 other projects that never quite got to financing and full-time employees, and I don't know, I think people overlook the importance of having those. Ken: Yeah, I mean, there's a known saying that failure is a good teacher to success without failure. You don't get success. Tim: Yeah, I mean, that's the only way you learn. Ken: Yeah, of course. Tim: So, what led you to start founding companies? Because before, you were at Sony and apparently thriving as a productive member of society, so why leave to start a startup? Ken: To be honest, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur in my life. I was a computer geek when I was a teenager, but luckily, my father was a computer engineer as well, and basically, I was trained by him, so by the time I became 18 years old, I was pretty good at writing code or programming, so I decided not to join Japanese university, and instead, I went to the United States and I stayed in the US from 1995 until 1999. That was the dotcom bubble and everyone's talking about starting their own company, like the next Google or next Yahoo, or next ~ Tim: What city were you in? Ken: In Los Angeles. You understand the crazy atmosphere back then, and none of my classmates were actually trying to get a job at a big corporation, I was the only exception. I felt sane because I was the only person getting a nice job at a big corporation like Sony and I was considered a complete failure from their perspective. Tim: I mean, but after you get into Sony, Sony is a great company to work for. Was it just sort of missing that college atmosphere and made you decide now, I want to go back and start a company after all? Ken: Yeah, so I knew that I was going to launch my own startup in 20s but I had no idea how to run a company, just like everyone else, so I joined a big corporation with the only purpose to learn how to run a company, so yeah, so I stayed there for three years how a big company is operated. Tim: Then went out on your own. Ken: Yeah, exactly. Tim: Your first couple of startups were B2B software, they didn't have anything to do with AI, so what drew you to AI? Ken: Let me say, AI in the early 2000s wasn't usable. Before deep learning, there were two prior waves but they didn't work successfully, so deep learning is a successful application of AI into the industry. Tim: It's interesting you say that because I mean, you were kind of hinting at this before but there's very little in AI that's genuinely new in terms of the algorithms and the research, right?

Today we are going to look at a different kind of innovation. It's not technology. It's not patentable, and I'm not sure it's scalable. But it is important. It turns out that the story behind a Japanese viral video can teach us a lot about the future of work. It's an example of Japanese innovation at it's best I think you'll enjoy it. Links The Seven-Minute Miracle video 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 have a special story for you today.  No guests. No playful banter. Today it’s just you and me and a story about Japanese innovation at its very best. And it’s also the real story behind a famous video about Japan that you’ve probably seen a dozen times on the internet and on western news shows. But like so many stories about Japan, the media gets this one wrong; or at least get it incomplete. They leave out the part of the story that actually teaches us something important about Japan. But there is something pretty amazing going on once you dig into it, and so that’s what we are going to do. The story I’m talking about is the so-called “seven-minute miracle” of the Shinkansen cleaning crew. If you live in Japan, you’ve probably witnessed this personally, and I’ll put a link to the video in the show notes for any listeners who have not already watched it.   The Seven Minute Miracle The Shinkansen is both an engineering and an operational marvel. There are times when JR East is running trains three minutes behind each other at 320 kilometers per hour. To make this work requires an insane commitment to schedule. A departure is only considered to be on-time if happens within fifteen seconds of its scheduled time; no earlier, no later than 15 seconds. And most trains arrive within six seconds of their scheduled time.  Part of making this work means that at Tokyo station, each train has only a 12-minute turnaround-time. It takes about five minutes to get the current passengers off and the new passengers on, which leaves seven minutes for cleaning.  In those seven minutes, a crew of 22 people clean 1,000 seats, wipes down all the tray tables, exchanges seat and headrest covers, turns the seats 180-degrees to face the new direction, cleans the floors and bathrooms, empties all the wastebaskets, collects any forgotten articles from under the seats or in the overhead racks to turn into the lost and found, adjusts the window blinds, and generally makes sure everything on the train is neat and tidy. In seven minutes. And the cleaners do it all with an efficiency and grace that seems more like the mastery of a craft than the execution of a duty. When they are done, usually with time to spare, they assemble on the platform at the front of the train and bow in unison to the passengers who are about to board.  Sometimes the passengers even clap.  And a few minutes later, a new train arrives, and this is repeated for each of the 120 to 170 Shinkansen trains that depart Tokyo every single day.  It’s amazing to watch, and a few years ago CNN picked up the story, and the whole world was, quite rightly. impressed. However, the CNN story focused on how Japanese employees are so efficient and take pride in their work. And that’s not quite true. I mean, these employees clearly are, and Japanese workers certainly can be dedicated and efficient, but anyone who tells you that Japanese employees are just naturally dutiful and efficient has clearly never had to manage Japanese staff.  In fact, even in this celebrated case, it was not always so. This is a relatively recent development, and looking at the innovations that began in 2005 can also tell us a bit about where the gig-economy is headed and the kind of innovation that Japan can bring to the world.    The Making of a Miracle The company responsible for the seven-minute miracle is Tessei, and in terms of corporate culture, they are about as far away from a startup as you can get. They were founded in 1952 as a cleaning subsidiary to the JR rail-monopoly and were handed over to JR East when JR was broken up in 1987.  Back in 2005, both the Japanese character, and the Shinkansen schedules were very much the same as they are today, but things were not well at Tessei or in their cleaning crews. The job was considered dirty, dangerous, and dead-end, so it was hard to both recruit and retain employees. Morale was low. Performance was poor. Delays were frequent.   Tessei management responded to this the way managers worldwide tend to respond to these situations. They increased training and supervision and upped the number of checks and inspections. Unsurprisingly, this had the effect of pushing morale down even further. The delays increased, and so did accidents and customer complaints.  At this point, JR East sent in Teruo Yabe to take over business planning at Tessei and he began to change things. In fact, he began doing things that seemed to go against the very concept of efficiency.  The previous goal was to make the cleaning crews almost invisible. To the passengers, this rapid cleaning was to happen almost magically. Yabe turned this idea on its head.  He began a program that he called “Shinkansen Theater”  He changed the uniforms from the pastel tones designed to blend in with the trains’ interior to a bright red that ensured that the cleaners would stand out. The passengers could clearly see that the cleaners were there and what they were doing. Which is the first step to appreciating what they are doing. Waiting to board is much less annoying when you understand why you are waiting, and hey when you think about it, cleaning 1,000 seats in seven minutes and doing a good job of it, well that is pretty impressive.  Yabe made other changes as well. For example, he allowed the cleaners to speak with the passengers, where before they had been prohibited, in the name of both efficiency and lack of training. Most of the questions passengers ask cleaning crews turn out to be related to cleaning or the station layout, and the ones they can’t answer? Well, no one seemed too bothered by an honest “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” Importantly, however. it turned out that allowing this communication not only did not distract the cleaners from their job, but It increased the passengers’ understanding of and appreciation for the job they were doing.  In fact, about this time, something rather remarkable began to happen. As the Shinkansen passengers began to see what an amazing job the cleaners were doing, the passengers began picking up after themselves, and the amount of trash left behind for the cleaners to clean up began to drop.  Yabe also made important cultural changes. He encouraged employees to report the best things about their coworkers to their managers. He took suggestions from the employees and developed a career path by which part-time cleaners had a clear path to a full-time job and the full-time cleaners could enter the management ranks.  Efficiency improved. Training costs dropped. Employee morale and retention skyrocketed. And within a few years, Japan’s seven-minute miracle came to be.  And Yabe-san, Tessei, and the cleaning crews have received well-deserved international recognition for what they achieved. Rail operators from all over the world come to study these cleaning crews, and Harvard Business School has developed case studies to document and understand this incredible turnaround.    The Story Behind the Miracle And that’s great.  But there is something very important and innovative here that tends to get overlooked.  On one hand, this is the kind of just-so story about Japan that the foreign media loves. It’s positive and uplifting, and at first glance it seems to be one of those stories of diligence and efficiency that only happens in Japan.  But it doesn’t have to be.  It’s easy and somehow satisfying to attribute the diligence of the cleaning crews and the tidiness of the passengers to something uniquely Japanese. But it’s not. This was a change in behavior.  Neither the Shinkansen cleaners nor the passengers were doing this in 2005 but they were in 2010, and they still are today. So what really changed? The real innovation here did not involve introducing efficiency. It involved introducing multiple inefficiencies that enabled greater, sincere human connections, and those connections are what lead to greater efficiencies. OK. That’s a lot to unpack so let’s step through it. Almost every change Yabe-san introduced risked decreased efficiency and quality of service in the short term. Having the cleaners distracted from their jobs by talking with passengers, decreasing measurement and oversight. Even making the cleaning crews more visible to the customers went against the hospitality and travel best practices which hold that this kind of work is to take place out of sight and all friction for the customer is to be removed.  But everything Yabe-san did increased the possibilities for human connection. Not the usual, scripted staff-customer communication or the usual manager-staff meetings, but inefficient, unnecessary communication not directly related to completing the task at hand.  Rather than managing for control and compliance, he was managing for transparency and connection. Internally this not only resulted in a skyrocketing of morale but an outpouring of creative ideas. The Tessei staff not only came up with innovations that improved their own jobs, but helped design the shape of the bins on the new Hokuriku Shinkansen Line, and they came up with the idea for the nursery and baby areas in Tokyo Station. And, of course, it was this feeling of human connection that resulted in passengers cleaning up after themselves because they did not want to create extra work for someone they had just seen working so hard.

The automotive industry is closed and proprietary. But Shinpei Kato, founder and CTO of Tier IV, thinks they are going to be forced to change. Teir IV has brought together a global community of programmers and corporate partners to create the Autoware project. Tier IV's goal to develop a completely open-source software platform to drive autonomous vehicles is ambitious, and they have already completed some of the most advanced road-tests of driverless cars in Japan. Today we explore the business bottlenecks in rolling out autonomous vehicles, why open-source makes the automotive industry nervous, and why the first successful driverless car won't be what you think it will. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Introducing Autoware and Tier IV What keeps the auto industry from adopting open source The only way a college professor can actually run a startup The challenges in building an industrial open source community How to road test driverless cars in Japan Japan’s first fully-autonomous taxi service When we will  see driverless taxies as part of our everyday life The bottleneck that keeps robot-taxis from going mainstream Which autonomous vehicles we are going to see first. Tier IV's business model How open-source might be Japan's secret weapon in global AI Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Tier IV YouTube Twitter LinkedIn Check out Shinpei's personal home page Friend him on Facebook Follow him on Twitter @ShinpeiKato Connect with him on LinkedIn Learn about the Autoware Foundation The Tier IV safety report Some other media coverage of Tier IV Forbes The Japan Times Valuer 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. Open-source software has completely changed how we think about operating systems, networking, and databases. The whole Internet basically runs on open-source software, but can a 100% open-source software power an autonomous car? Well, one Japanese founder not only thinks it can, but he's betting his company on it, and that startup has already conducted some of the most advanced road tests in Japan. Today, we sit down with Shinpei Kato, founder of autonomous driving startup Tier IV, and Shinpei is also the chairman of the Autoware Foundation, Autoware, being the open-source project to develop software for fully autonomous vehicles. With so much driverless car news coming out of the US, you might not know about what's happening in Japan, but it's pretty amazing. We talk about what's involved in road testing driverless cars in Japan some frightening things people are doing to their cars, the challenges of building an open-source platform in an industry that has historically been fiercely secretive and proprietary and why Japan's first driverless cars are not going to look anything like what you think they will. But you know, Shinpei tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview So I'm sitting here with Shinpei Kato of Tier IV who is developing an autonomous driving software, so thanks so much for sitting down with us. Shinpei: Thank you very much for inviting me to this fantastic show. Tim: Oh, it's our pleasure. Listen, before we get into the details, can you explain the relationship between Tier IV and Autoware, because the two different entities are really closely connected and like, together, they form Tier IV's business strategy. Shinpei: So I used to be at Nagoya University and I had led a project of autonomous driving where we started developing software for autonomous vehicles, so I had a lot of attention from industries that made me decide I should do startup rather than the university research. Tier IV was founded to facilitate RND of this open-source software called Autoware. Two years later, it became much more which made me decide founding Autoware community rather than using Tier IV as just one Japanese startup. The Autoware community can be composed of worldwide industry and academia, Tier IV handed over Autoware to the community. Tim: So Tier IV is started before Autoware? Shinpei: When you say Autoware, it means one is Autoware as a software project which started before Tier IV, but when you say Autoware, it can also mean Autoware Foundation as a community. This Autoware Foundation was founded after Tier IV was founded. Tim: So my understanding is that Autoware is a complete open-source platform for autonomous vehicles, but how do I put it? That's an incredibly complex set of technologies, so is Autoware really, is it a complete platform now or how much does it actually do? Shinpei: When you consider the building blocks of autonomous vehicles, it's huge, yes, as you mentioned, it's complex. Autoware stands for open-source software. I would say it's a small piece but still, it's just a piece of building blocks, so what I wanted to do was to publish Autoware as a basic platform on top of which other commercial building blocks can build. You need hardware, you need cloud, there are many, many other pieces in the building blocks, but Autoware can underlie these building blocks. Tim: Wow, the automotive industry from the very beginning has been this extremely proprietary and closed set of technologies. I mean, it's always run that way, so what has been the reaction of the auto makers to the idea of building on top of an open-source platform? Shinpei: I think that there are several points of view but in general, open-source software must be useful for the automotive industry whether they use it or not for the commercial products because when you have open-source software, you would have your people educated using autonomous software or your broad-type RND systems can also use this open-source software. Now, it's up to you if you want to keep using this open-source software for your commercial products, or of course, you can switch. Tim: Okay, that makes sense. Listen, before we dive into the business side of things, I want to back up and talk for a minute about you. So you mentioned before, this started originally when you were an associate professor at Nagoya University, and so far, your career has been entirely in academia, at Nagoya University, University of Tokyo, so are you still involved with academia? Do you kind of balance between running a startup and being an assistant professor now? Shinpei: I'm still deeply involved in academia but I want to make a kind of new career. For me, I don't really see in the past that university professors actually really do the business, I don't know why, but to me, why not? So I could be kind of a pioneer to show professors can actually do the business. Tim: How do you balance your time? Because like, being a startup founder, it's more than a full-time job. Shinpei: Yeah, that's a good question, so Tier IV is deep tech. If Tier IV is not deep tech, I think it was very difficult for me to balance between startup and university, but given that Tier IV is deep tech, what I do in university can actually underlie what we do in a startup. Tim: So your academic research is also really tied into Autoware and Tier IV? Shinpei: Exactly, that's why I love open-source. If you don't use open-source, then you may see some legal problems if you just use your university outcome to your private company, but here, we search outcome from the university can go to open-source, then my startup uses this open-source of their business, that's the strategy. Tim: Yeah, I love the concept of that. I mean, I'm a fan of almost anything that is open-source. The more open and sharing, and collaboration we have in the world, the better. Well, actually, tell me a bit about the Autoware community? Who's supporting and who's building the platform? Shinpei: So Autoware Foundation is three years old. Including Tier IV, more than half of the community, they actually come from startups, but now, we're getting more large companies in the community, but still the core actually startup. Tim: Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, large company participation is always a great sign for open-source projects of any kind, but most, like, really successful open-source projects have, oh, you know, this core group of individual-like people who are contributing and the companies kind of form around them, and so are there also, like, individuals that are also contributing to this open-source platform? Shinpei: You're right, the core group of Autoware Foundation, the startup too, wants to jump into the automatic driving market but they believe that they cannot do it by themselves, right? You want to make an alliance with the partner companies in order to compete with or cooperate with automotive makers or big tech giants. They want to build a system not by themselves but by using this alliance, that's the core group of the foundation. Tim: Yeah, well, I mean, it makes sense. It kind of levels that playing field so that small startups can tackle a small piece of the program and together build something great. Shinpei: It's something very large scale. Tim: Yeah, but, so this would be, like, a simple basic question but for open-source software, if you're looking at something like Linux or mySQL or something, developers can install it on their own laptops and play with it, and experiment and see how they like it, but how do you do that with self-driving car technology? How do, like, individual startups and contributors booted up to try it out? Shinpei: In practice, they actually play it on the cars, seriously. They download Autoware and they have their car, make it modified in order to accommodate software stack like bi-wire modification, so if you have a car with bi-wire modification, you can play around the cars, but yes,

Startups exist to develop new solutions to problems. But many of society's biggest problems fall outside traditional startup business models. Today we explore why that is, and how it might be changed as we sit down with Robin Lewis, co-founder of Mymizu, a startup focused on reducing plastic waste by encouraging reuse. We take a deep dive into possible monetization strategies, why startups should be better at solving social problems than non-profits, and we discuss a possible roadmap for a middle path between startups and non-profits. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The Japanese middle-ground between NGOs and for-profit startups The hidden strategy behind beach cleanup programs Mymizu’s current business model The challenge of mixing environmental and social sustainability When Tim became “The Destroyer of Dreams” The unexpected (positive ) impacts of COVID-19 Why startups  should be able to do more social good than NGOs How bottled water breaks economic theory What happened to Japanese water fountains One common recycling scam in Japan A roadmap for the middle path between NGO and startup   Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Mymizu Follow Mymizu on Instagram Check out Robin's personal home page Follow his blog on social sustainability Follow him on Twitter @robintlewis Connect with him on LinkedIn More about sustainability in Japan 7 Surprising Facts About Plastic in Japan Sanpo Yoshi: the Japanese business principle of success through responsibility 25 Opportunities For Volunteering and Social Good in Japan Milton Friedman's landmark NYT article on corporate responsibility 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. Water, it’s one of the most common molecules in the universe and you personally are made up of about 60% water. There are a number of significant problems today that revolve around water but water is rarely the focus for startups, and today, we’re going to explore why that is and why that might be changing. Today, we sit down in a properly socially distanced matter and talk with Robin Lewis, co-founder of Mymizu. The Mymizu app enables you to find places to refill your water bottles all over Japan, and the company itself exists in a very interesting space between nonprofit and a regular for profit company. Robin and his team are already making an impact in Japan, and we have a deep dive into how startups can be a force to achieve meaningful social change. The challenges of balancing the need for revenues with staying true to your social mission, and we brainstorm about possible monetization strategies that could enable that, and also, you’ll learn something that will probably really piss you off about how recycling is done in Japan. But you know, Robin tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I’m sitting here with Robin Lewis, the co-founder of Mymizu, a water refilling app. Thanks for sitting down with me. Robin Lewis: Thanks so much for having me, Tim, I’m excited to be here. Tim: Actually, you can explain Mymizu much better than I can, so what is Mymizu exactly? Robin: Mymizu, what we’re doing is we’re on a mission to help people live more sustainably, starting with plastic bottles. We accomplish that in, I’d say, four main ways. First, we have the app which you mentioned and it’s essentially a tool where you can find 200,000 locations around the world where you can take your reusable bottle and refill that for free, and so this includes public water fountains like in train station, in parks, and so on, but also, we have this network of what we call ‘refill partners,’ this is cafes, shops, hotels, and other businesses where you can walk in, you can get your water, and then walk out. It’s that simple. Tim: So tell me about your customers on both sides, so what kind of shops are acting as these free refill stations and who are your users? Are they a particular demographic or particular age? Robin: The main businesses that are passerby refill network as we call it, it really ranges from tiny mom-and-pop stores all the way to really big brands, so it really depends, as I say, we have everything from cafés, restaurants, hotels, fitness centers, tourist information places, so there is a huge range. Tim: For the refill partners, why are they on the app? Are they hoping to get additional traffic or they're concerned about single used plastics and they want to contribute to a solution? Why are they signing up? Robin: So our pitch to the refill network partners is that it's a really simple way to contribute to the environment. It also, as you say, brings in foot traffic. It's a great way to get people through the door smelling the coffee, seeing the products, whatever it is, and that's the first step to building a new relationship with potential customers, so it's really simple. It's free and it's a great way to get new customers as well. Tim: Yeah, actually, I want to really dig into the business model in just a minute, but just quickly, you guys, you're not quite an NGO, you're not quite a for-profit, you are sort of a uniquely Japanese corporate structure, right? Robin: So in terms of how we work, we consider ourselves a full purpose organization and as you said, we are not a for-profit kabushikigaisha structure. we operate under what's called a general Incorporated Association which is closer to the nonprofit side and in terms of philosophy, we are really trying to ensure that we can continue our work and scale up to a social business model, so we don't necessarily rely on donations, we really have these kind of various projects that bring in revenue to ensure that we can continue what we do. Tim: Okay, and I want to dig into the business model specifically in just a minute, but before that, I want to back up. You and your co-founder Mariko founded Mymizu pretty recently, you just launched it last year, and I heard that it was based on a trip you took to Okinawa, like the year before or something like that, right? Robin: That's right, so the story of Mymizu began in April 2018 and my co-founder Mariko and I were on a trip to Okinawa, just one of my favorite places in the world, and we are taking a walk along the beach one day and when we discovered this quite significant pile of rubbish that had floated in from the ocean - fishing gear, flip-flops, cosmetics, packages, all kinds of stuff, but the biggest culprit we found was actually pet bottles, and so kind of the pin dropped because we thought, hang on, there are so many pet bottles, many of them bottles of water in a country where we can drink the water around us. We are so fortunate to be in this extremely good situation with safe and drinkable water, so we thought, okay, we gotta fix this problem at the source. Tim: Was that the startup or part of the open loop initiative where you were doing a lot of beach cleanups and things? Robin: Yeah, I mean, at that point, we thought, okay, we have got to do at least two things. One is tackle the issue at the source, let's ensure that we replace the current system in terms of buying bottled water, and then secondly, let's get people together, build community, and for example, do beach cleans where we can actually remove the litter from the rivers, from the oceans, and also educate people, engage people, and create movement. Tim: I mean, that's awesome, but cleaning the beaches with the trash, it's like Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill, I mean, the trash washes in with every tide from God knows where. Robin: No, I agree. I am under no impression that we could clean up the entire world, that's a huge task and that's why our main focus is really this reduction component, let's fundamentally reduce the usage of plastic, but I think the power of, for example, of beach cleans is that it's a great way to engage people and for people to see the impact with their own eyes, and that helps shift the behavior on a daily basis. I think if you sit in a classroom and you watch videos and you hear people talk, it's one thing, but if you go to the beach, the river and you see all this crap in the oceans, then it really hits you, and after you spend an hour bending over getting sweaty and picking up these bits of cigarette butts and whatnot, you remember that, and it has an impact. Tim: Okay, so the purpose of getting 30 people together to go clean up the beach is not so much just to clean up that particular beach but to motivate people to change and support environmentally friendly policies and vote for politicians who are supporting environmentally friendly policies as well? Robin: I would say that, for me, is kind of the bigger goal, but I think the picking up of trash is a great way of visualizing the impact of people working together . Tim: Awesome. Well, let's dig into the business model. I mean, it's easy to see why Mymizu is getting so much attention and you've been earning a lot of really well-deserved awards, but what is the business model? I mean, the app is free, the stores don't pay for the foot traffic and the water is free, so how are you making money on this? Robin: You know, it's funny, I think I get asked this question every single day. Tim: It's not obvious. Robin: No, and I think if you Google Mymizu in Japanese, the first thing that comes up is Mymizu, and then business model, so I think they’re really curious. So to break it down, and I should be perfectly honest from the beginning, we've had to shift many times and we were kind of making things up as we go, but I think we have finally found a number of ways to generate revenue to continue what we are doing. So firstly, it's our work with corporates.

Personal aviation is awesome! Aviation has been a source of inspiration and a symbol of innovation since the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, to Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, to today's dreams of colonizing Mars. Unfortunately, it's been very hard for startups to make money in aviation. Even the Wright brothers did not do particularly well in business. But things might be changing. Today we sit down and talk with Tasuku Nakai, co-founder of Tetra Aviation, and we discuss how public research incentives, support from the aerospace giants, and the changing infrastructure needs might have just tipped the balance to startups. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How Tetra's eVTOL aircraft came to be and what it might become The steps needed to bring a new aircraft to market Why it's so difficult to innovate in aviation The main hurdle in expanding the personal aviation market Fundraising strategies and exist options for aviation startups When investing is considered "evil" in Japan Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Tetra Aviation Friend Tasuku on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn Follow Tetra on Twitter @Tetra_Aviation Check out a video of their prototype VTOL aircraft 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 talk about flying cars. That’s right, flying cars. We sit down with Tasuku Nakai, co-founder of Tetra Aviation and we talk about what it takes to bring a new aircraft, especially a new personal aircraft to market, and it’s not easy. The Tetra Aircraft is an electric vertical take-off and landing, or VTOL aircraft, which they believe will form the backbone of a new aerial intercity transport system. You know, I have a real soft spot for these kinds of startups. I have a private pilot’s license and I love the idea that the age of affordable personal aircraft might almost be here. But as I mentioned, it’s hard, and as Tasuku explains, these kinds of companies don’t fit the traditional VC model for a number of reasons. We also talk about the possible business models open to aircraft startups, the release of Tetra’s new prototype, and the crazy world of experimental aircraft pilots who fly newly designed aircraft as a hobby. But you know, Tasuku tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Tasuku Nakai of Tetra Aviation who makes personal electric aircraft, so thanks for sitting down with me. Tasuku: Thanks for inviting me, Tim, and this is a really great moment to introduce myself and introduce my business. Tim: No, the pleasure’s all mine. I think what you guys are doing is really interesting and I’ve had a passion for, like, aerospace startups for a long time, so actually, I mean, you can probably explain what Tetra Aviation is and what the product is better than I can. So basically, what are you building? Tasuku: We are building personal electrical VTOL aircraft, so vertical take-off and landing, so wherever you want to come, just simply ride on it and fly to the air and arrive on your destination exactly. Tim: And we’ll talk about the history later. This is kind of like the flying cars that startups have been teasing us about since the 1950s, but what you’ve built, is it considered an airplane or a helicopter, or a drone, or how is it classified? Tasuku: Well, a really difficult question about that. There’s no category anymore. There’s a lot of class, almost 50 or 60 classifications, but basically, you think it’s similar for helicopter and the drone, to combine the helicopter and drone, so I mean, the people can ride on it and also, it has a distributed propulsion system as a drone has. Tim: Actually, just today, you guys released this really cool video of the prototype. Tasuku: Mm-hmm, yes. Tim: Yeah, and we’ll put a link of that up on the site cause it’s really cool, but I’ve noticed like the prototype, the video you released still has unmanned piloting. Are you still doing unmanned or have people been able to ride it and fly it yet? Tasuku: Oh, yes, we are still doing unmanned flight for this model, and we’re building up a manned flight aircraft for next model. Tim: Okay, well, actually, let’s back up a bit. Developing a new aircraft is a lot more complex than developing a new HR system or developing new business SaaS. Tasuku: Yeah, that’s right. Tim: So what is the process? I mean, where are you in development? You’ve won several awards already for the work but where are you now and what steps do you have to take until we have people able to ride these? Tasuku: What we have to do is make a culture or some custom about riding on those kinds of aircraft, eVTOL for next transportation network, but first, what we have to do is building an actual product that people can actually onboard. To do that, we mitigate the risk of people’s fear about riding on it or flying over your head, so we have to build some trust about making fine things in the market. So what we do is first of all, there’s no injury is most important parcel. Starting from the unmanned flight basically and also the development is continue to no person onboard, so with that credit, we can put on some test pilot on our aircraft who are willing to collaborate with this experiment, not a special test pilot, but they are willing to collaborate with our aircraft in a more general way. So we are focusing on experimental aircraft market. Tim: In terms of like the time frame, you guys started Tetra Aviation three years ago? Tasuku: About two year ago, two years and three months. Tim: Oh, okay, so it took like a little over two years to get from concept design to an experimental aircraft. From this stage, how long will it take before we can get, like you’re saying, people piloting it as an experimental aircraft? Is that happening next month or is that a year away? Tasuku: Oh, we are planning to introduce our aircraft next year, showing off in the experimental market, get interest from test pilots, so we’re planning to put our aircraft into the exhibition at Oshkosh AirVenture next year, and there’s lots of people who have a similar spirit of ourselves and they are aviator and the airmen out there, so I have to introduce myself and introduce our product and introduce the feeling of what our aircraft does. Someone said yes, someone says no about our product, but those critics help, I think. Tim: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, it’s a much slower process but it’s basically the same user feedback process that all startups go through. One thing that’s surprising to me, so taking a little over two years to go from concept to prototype, and then another, let’s call it a year from a prototype to beta users, the experimental users, that’s not that long of a product cycle. That’s pretty fast, and yet innovation in aircrafts seems to happen very, very slowly. We talked before about flying cars and how, like, startups have been teasing us about flying cars for the last 70 years. Why is it so difficult to innovate in aerospace or in aircraft in particular? Tasuku: I think it’s very difficult to think things integrated into one piece which is flying. Also, there is lots of restriction about getting certified to say this is safe. Other products, even mobility, for example, e-bikes or the electric car is a bit different from those white restrictions, safety restrictions are much more harder than those products. Tim: So there’s two things in there you mentioned. I’m curious because you mentioned, like, the real technical challenges of all the pieces that have to work together and kind of the regulatory challenges. So actually, when we think of, like, satellites and aerospace startups, there’s a lot of innovation going on in satellites, a lot of startups doing that, but you would think that aircraft would be simpler to make than spacecraft. Is that the case or is the aircraft actually more difficult? Tasuku: It’s a very difficult question about that. I think that satellite has, there’s a lot of methods out there. Recently, even in the university, there is CAN-SAT that is a sophisticated structure product that the university students can learn how to develop those kinds of things into a real product, and also, there is actual know-how connected to the actual products in this commercial market, in the satellites market, but there’s lots of people involved in aircraft, it’s not connected to the prototype in the university, I think, and also, it’s not connected to the actual product in the general aviation market because lots of big companies are building their product but there’s no experimental things that people or young men or others can learn about, well, aircraft things more easily. Tim: So it’s just harder to get started with it? Tasuku: Yes, yes, this are very few opportunities to get started with making a new aircraft, but the experimental aircraft culture can learn to follow this and learn about new things, but that’s not so much has a market. For now, the drones and eVTOLs are more closely connected to the Internet, involving lots of people. So recently, it’s more friendly and there is more chance to connect to the commercials. That allows people to get into it, so there’s lots of startups data recently building eVTOLs. Tim: Oh, so I haven’t really thought of it, so it’s not necessarily the technical challenge, it’s just that the ecosystem for satellites and aerospace is much better developed than the ecosystem for aircraft? Tasuku: I believe so. Tim: We were talking about the experimental aircraft market, the pilots who fly experimental aircraft. How big is that worldwide? Tasuku: That market is basically based in the United States only.

Disrupting Japan is six years old and ready to party! Unfortunately, we can't. Like so much else in 2020, this year's big, live show has been canceled, but I hope you'll make it next year. It's not all bad news, of course. There are a lot of great things happening for both Disrupting Japan and for Japanese startups. So looking back on these six years, I'd like to share some of the most important changes that are happening in Japan. Please enjoy. 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. This is our sixth-anniversary episode. Over the past six years, it’s been a Disrupting Japan tradition to have our big Disrupting Japan Live and Unleashed show on our anniversary. We get three of Japan’s startup thought-leaders on stage and invite a few hundred of our closest friends over for an evening of drinks, conversation, and just hanging out with a lot of cool people. Unfortunately, this year the coronavirus makes this impossible. So we’ll pick up that tradition again next year.  What I had planned for this year’s anniversary episode was to tell you a special story about innovation at it’s best in Japan. The real story behind a video you’ve seen a dozen times on the internet and Western news media. But before that, I wanted to talk briefly about three critical things that have changed for startups in Japan and as those introductory notes became longer and more interesting, I realized I was going to have to split the show, so I’ll tell you all about that video in a future episode. Today, there is something else you should know. But before we get to that, I want to thank you.  When I started Disrupting Japan six years ago, I really could not have imagined what it would become. At first, Disrupting Japan was just me sitting down and talking with my founder friends, and I guess in all the important ways, it still is just me sitting down with my friends. But Disrupting Japan has grown with Japan’s startup community. We now have around 10,000 listeners all over the world, and we’ve ranked as Japan’s #1 entrepreneurship podcast and occasionally break into the top five Japanese business podcasts as well. So after six years, I want to thank all the amazing founders who have come on the show to tell us their stories so honestly, the fans who have spread the word about the podcast in a way that online marketing never could, and to thank you, for listening. I appreciate you choosing to spend your time with me, and I work incredibly hard to make sure this show is worth your time. Looking back on six years, I want to share with you the three most important ways that Disrupting Japan has changed, and what that tells us about how things are changing for Japanese startups. Now, these aren’t the big data-driven headline numbers that you already know about. These trends are more personal, more human, and maybe in a way, more important. 1) Origin Stories During the first two years of Disrupting Japan, I would almost always ask founders about how they started their startup. Many had pretty dramatic stories. Many telling of how their wife or parents were opposed and tried to talk them out of it or force them out of it, or how they had to give up their apartment to save money meet payroll. Many founders had a family role model. A non-conformist relative who was maybe an entrepreneur themselves, or perhaps an artist or musician. Someone who believed in them when everyone else doubted. One of our founders even sold his wife’s jewelry to make payroll.  Although his parting advice to me on that matter was “Tim, your startup is very important, but there are some things you should just never do.” But as long-time listeners have probably noticed, we don’t hear those kinds of origin stories anymore. When I bother to ask the question these days, the most common reply is something like “Well, I really wanted to do it, and my friends and family thought it was a good idea, so we pitched some VCs and got funding.” Which is awesome! But it does not exactly make for compelling storytelling.  But that’s great, it shows the ecosystem is working, both socially and financially things are getting easier for Japanese founders. And hey, I don’t mind skipping that question. As any founder will tell you, all the real drama comes after you've raised the money. But over the past six years, the social shift has been more sweeping and important than the financial changes. Not only do we see more and more students from Japan’s top universities, Today, Keio, Waseda, founding startups, but we also see university professors starting startups, something that 20 years ago was basically forbidden for a professor to even work as an advisor to a startup. Headlines tend to focus on investment numbers, because, well, investment is important and because huge amounts of money in headlines make us pay attention. But money doesn’t create innovation. Innovators do. And the fact that more and more Japanese are willing to challenge the status quo and that more and more people are cheering them on is perhaps the most encouraging development over the past six years. You can always find the money somewhere, but true innovative spirit? That’s almost magical. 2) Female Founders Women founders make up around 9% of founders in Japan, but a much higher percentage of Disrupting Japan guests. I don’t know exactly why that is. My circle of friends and acquaintances is pretty wide, and our guests come from all over Japan, so it’s not obvious selection bias. People have suggested that maybe, on average, women founders speak better English or are more willing to take a chance and be interviewed in English. Maybe? But I haven’t noticed that to be the case, and I’ve certainly not seen any data that would back it up. In any event, women founders are still relatively rare in Japan, even by Asian standards, and we’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with quite a few of them. I get asked about what it’s like for female founders in Japan a lot, both when I speak in Japan and overseas.  It’s a hard question to address and one, that as a white American man, is kind of strange to be answering. Actually, I hate the question “What’s it like to be a women founder in Japan?” and I never ask it. It’s a lazy question and one that’s almost impossible to answer. Look, it’s like I am asked all the time, “What’s it like to be a foreign entrepreneur in Japan? What’s was it like being a foreigner working at TEPCO?”  The first problem is that it’s too big a question. There is far too much surface area for me to get my arms comfortably around a question like that. Where do I start? But more importantly, how would I know?  Yes, it’s true, I have founded startups as a foreigner in Japan, and I have worked at large Japanese companies as a gaijin, but I’ve never done any of those things as a Japanese person. What I am supposed to be comparing my experience to? And of course, my experience as a foreign founder has been very different from that of other foreign founders.  And as a fan of Disrupting Japan, you know that the women founders who have come on the show have had very, very different experiences. Trying to answer A “what’s it like” question directly requires that we assume a huge number of stereotypes and facts not in evidence. So I put aside the lazy questions, so we can get to the interesting stuff. Because it is only when we talk with dozens of women founders and compare their lived experiences do we see commonalities emerge. We start to see patterns that we can explore, and that’s what we’ve been doing for the past six years on Disrupting Japan. When I’m asked about “Japanese female founders” I try to answer with specific things women founders have told me, with actual data, or with trends I’ve noticed in talking to a lot of women founders. But if you really want to know what it’s “like”, then you really need to go listen to the interviews and hear these women explain it in their own words. It’s pretty amazing. But one interesting thing I have noticed over the past six years is that early on I was interviewing a lot of single women who had started companies, a number of divorced women, and a lot of incredibly driven and focused single moms. But it was pretty rare to find a happily married women founder with a supportive husband. That seems to be changing. I don’t think there is any hard data available on this, but from talking to literally hundreds of people about this topic over the years, it seems that the idea of someone being a wife, a mom, and a founder is becoming more and more acceptable in Japan. Now, I don’t mean to imply that it’s easy. Many of these women are making sacrifices similar to those we talked about during the early origin stories. It’s not that it’s become easy, but it’s become … possible.  Accepted. Respected. And watching how attitudes have changed this much over the past six years has been astounding, and incredibly encouraging. Both for women in Japan in general, and startups in Japan in general. But for women starting startups in Japan, in particular. 3) The Overseas Perspective Maybe this is the simplest change to explain, but in a way, it’s the most significant one; at least in terms of how Japan is viewed internationally. And it shows that both Japanese startups and Disrupting Japan are succeeding. In the early days of Disrupting Japan, by far the most frequent question I would get about the show was “How do you find enough founders to interview? Startups are really rare in Japan, right?” This question drove me nuts, and I got it from everyone. Foreigners living overseas, foreigners living in Japan, and even from Japanese people here in Japan.  And the answer was, is, and always has been “No! It’s not hard at all. There are a lot of interesting startup founders in Japan.

Bio-tech is messy because life is complicated. A lot of attention is given to computers sequencing genomes, but some of the most advanced and important work is done by studying and using other living things to make our own lives better. Kenta Yamato co-founded Kaico to commercialize a technique that uses silkworms to manufacture small-batch custom proteins. And Kico is involved with everything from veterinary medicine to Japan's search for a coronavirus vaccine. We also talk about the challenges or creating startups based on university technology and the one e-commerce model in Japan that just won't go away. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. Show Notes How to get proteins from a silkworm (It's not fun for the silkworm) Why silkworms, in particular, must be used The importance and uses of small-batch, custom proteins The start of a silkworm startup The most common (and least successful) Japanese e-commerce model Why it's so hard for Japanese universities to spin-out startups How Kaico silkworms are part of the fight against covid-19 How to scale a silkworm startup Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Kaico Friend Kenta on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn A Kaico video explainer 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 be talking about worms. No, no, wait, don't go, I promise this is going to be really interesting. Today, we're going to sit down and talk with Kenta Yamato of Kaico, a Kyushu-based startup that is using silkworms to rapidly produce custom small-batch innovative proteins that are used for bio-research, medicine, and they play a part in Japan's search for coronavirus vaccine. It's a fascinating process but admittedly one that's not particularly fun for the silkworms themselves. We also talk about the most popular and most unsuccessful e-commerce business model in Japan, the challenges Japanese universities in spinning out startups, and we even cover some practical solutions to that problem. But you know, Kenta tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I'm sitting here with Kenta Yamato of Kaico, a company that uses silkworm to produce specific protein used in medical tests and vaccine, and thank you for sitting down with me. Kenta: Yes, thank you for me and I have a very pleasure to explain our company's story. Yeah, thank you very much. Tim: It's great to have you on the show. I tried to explain very briefly what Kaico does, but I think you can explain it a lot better than I can, so at like a high level, what does Kaico do? Kenta: We started Kaico two years ago in 2018. Kaiko means silkworm in English. Maybe you know silkworm can make silk for clothes, but we will use this kaiko silkworm for making proteins. We are a startup company from Kyushu University and our products are many proteins, the protein the other companies cannot make because it is difficult to make it. We make this protein by silkworm. Tim: So if I understand the basic process, you inject the silkworm with a virus containing the target gene, and then it makes the proteins as part of its silk, and then you extract the proteins from the silk? Kenta: No, no. First, we'll incorporate the gene of target protein into baculovirus, so this baculovirus is safe for us humans and animals, but baculovirus damage to only silkworms and we will insert this recombinant baculovirus into silkworm and their body can make the specific protein in their cell, and finally, we'll collect and purify the body liquid from the silkworm. Tim: Okay, so it's not from the silk, it's from the silkworms themselves that you extract the proteins. Kenta: Yes, we don't use silk. Tim: Okay. So why silkworm? Is there something about silkworms that makes it easy to generate proteins in this way? Kenta: Yes. Maybe other insects can make same like proteins, but silkworm is the only one insect not moved and it's very cheap. Do you know the price of a piece of silk? Tim: I have no idea. Kenta: A piece of silk a silkworm can make is $0.20 or $0.30, so very cheap, silkworm, and we can plant a huge amount of silkworm in a very narrow space. Tim: So the advantage of the silkworm isn't genetic, it's the fact that they just eat the mulberry leaves and stay put, and you can control them? Okay. Kenta: Yes, yes, it's very easy to plant silkworms. Tim: So what is the normal process for producing these kinds of proteins? Kenta: Normally, people use very huge tanks like beer tanks, silver tanks, but the silkworm is like a biologic tank, so very useful and convenient for us. Tim: So they're little bio-factories? Kenta: Yes, a bioreactor. Tim: Little bioreactors? Kenta: Yeah. Tim: So you mentioned it was cheaper to use silkworms, so how long does the process take and how much cheaper it is than the industrial approach of large tanks? Kenta: Maybe many industrial tanks need to study and develop for the production ways and process but we don't need the scale up period and money because we can make proteins from silkworm. One silkworm, we will make a huge amount of protein because we just increase the number of silkworms, so it's easy to increase. No need to study for scale up. Tim: Yeah, I could see why that would give you a lot of flexibility for producing small amounts or very flexible amounts of the proteins as you need. So what is the turnaround time? How long does it take from the time that you identify a target protein that you want to produce to the time that you've isolated and you have that protein in the bottle? Kenta: Our setup time is about one month, we'll make the recombinant baculovirus, and after that, we will insert this baculovirus into the silkworm in three or four days so they can make the target protein in their cells. So after four days, we'll pick up the protein from a silkworm, just only four days. Tim: Oh, wow, that's much faster than I imagined it. Kenta: Yes, but we need about one month to make recombinant baculovirus, so total is two months. Regarding COVID-19, we already developed the spike protein of COVID-19, so earlier this year, we get approval from the Japanese government to procure this COVID-19 and two months later, Kyushu University and our company had finished this research and we can get s-protein in May 10 or 15th, yeah, about two months. Tim: I want to go into more detail about the COVID research you're doing in a minute, but in general, what kind of problems does this solve? So I mean, everyone's talking about COVID right now but what other kinds of medical research and testing is this technology likely to be used in? Kenta: Oh, we are now developing the diagnostic product with partner companies and maybe in September, we can show our demo kits to the domestic markets, and next, our target is vaccine for coronavirus. Tim: Actually, before we get into the details on the vaccine and the corona, I want to ask you a little bit about your own background. You mentioned before you started Kaico in April of 2018 but your co-founders, it's based on the research of two very prominent researchers, but your own background is in economics and business, right? Kenta: Yes, that's right. Tim: So how did you end up starting a silkworm startup? Kenta: [laughter] Yeah, mysterious, maybe mysterious but my history is long. So after graduation from Yokohama National University, I joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. I was responsible for the ship sales and procurement for materials for ship building and power plants, and after 15 years, I decided to make own company, name is Burio and we were handling Internet products because I was in the Kyushu island in 2004 or 2005 and in these days, the first stage of Japanese Internet trade, so I built Kyushu local products, for example, Castella and the other product produced Kyushu. Tim: So like e-commerce selling Kyushu products? Kenta: So using Rakuten commerce, but very busy. We could sell the product but nothing profit because we need packing and dispatching, everything needed for manpower, so no - Tim: I think that is - yeah, that is one of the most common and most commonly failed e-commerce models. Everyone wants to sell like, interesting food and crafts from local hometowns. Kenta: We can sell but no profit. So two years later, I decided to return to salaryman, but I thought I want to make one more startup company and I watched a commercial, Kyushu University has a business MBA course for businessman, evening class and Saturday and Saturday class only, so I joined. In the MBA course, I met these professors, Kusakabe-sensei and Kamiya-sensei, and we talked about silkworms problem and silkworms merit, so I found this is very interesting business and this is very Japanese domestic science. Tim: Yeah, definitely very uniquely Japanese, I think. Was this like a university program trying to match business and researchers or did you just run into your co-founders socially at the university? Kenta: We had some classes in the university, industry and academic collaboration program and I joined this class and I was taught how to make a startup, so one of the selections is the startup company we will make, so I negotiated with these professors: please make our startup company. After that, these professors agreed. Tim: That's great. I mean, we're seeing more Japanese university spin-outs but they're still pretty rare, so it's great to see this working out. Kenta: Thank you very much. And one more matter is Dr. Kusakabe was willing to spread their technology worldwide but he wanted to stay in the professor's position in Kyushu University. He didn't want to be a businessman, so he said, okay, I will stay in university but you have to make a business. Tim: Well, that's - I mean, I think that is,

We have always loved maps. Maps combine artistry and utility in a way that very few disciplines allow. But of course, it's always been a trade-off. The beautiful, ornate maps from centuries past told you where the major landmasses were, but provided little detail. And today's GPS-based maps provide an unprecedented level of accuracy but uninspiring in their presentation. Machi Takahashi, founder and CEO of Stroly, has a best-of-both world's solution. We also talk in-depth about the unique challenges facing women founders in Japan, and what can be done to make things better for everyone. It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes Strolling with stories: How Stroly works How to make Google Maps community-oriented How Stroly pivoted to prosperity during Covid-19 How industry will be using VR after Covid-19 ends Why corporate spinouts are so hard in Japan Why Japan has problems commercializing fundamental research The challenges female founders face in Japan How Japanese women are taught they should not really be CEOs Why Japanese startups need to think globally Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Stroly Connect with Machi on LinkedIn Women's Startup Labs Ari Hori on Disrupting Japan 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. One of the most common themes on Disrupting Japan is the intersection of tradition and high technology. Stories about what things that we’ve known and loved for generations can teach us about how we should use technology today. Now, I’m not sure how much of this is due to the fact that I personally find such startups fascinating and important, and how much of it is due to the fact that there’s something about Japanese startups and Japanese culture that encourages and appreciates these kinds of innovations. Well, today, we sit down with Machi Takahashi of Stroly and we discussed that while mobile GPS mapping is awesome, there’s something important that we’ve lost in our rapid adoption of that technology and it’s something that Stroly is bringing back. We also look into how COVID is not only changing things but changing some things for the better and how this is really a time for innovative startups to shine. And we also talk in some detail about the challenges women founders face in Japan and some simple ways to improve the situation. But you know, Machi tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I’m sitting here with Machi Takahashi, the CEO of Stroly, so thanks for sitting down with me. Machi: Thank you, Tim, for having me. Tim: Stroly makes custom maps that are overlaid onto Google Maps, but I think you can explain it a lot better than I can, so why don’t you explain briefly what Stroly is, how it works? Machi: Okay, sure. So, Stroly is our company name and also the name of our service and it means to stroll with story, so we came up with this idea to combine illustrated maps with GPS positioning while we were developing a new guide system for a theme park, and instead of choosing Google Maps, we chose to use this beautiful hand-drawn illustrated map of this theme park and we came up with this technology to combine these latitudes and longitudes on top of these illustrated maps. Tim: Okay, so when people are visiting the theme park, instead of looking at Google Maps or Apple Maps as they are wandering around the park, they would look at those kind of cute hand-drawn illustrated maps and they’d navigate on top of that? Machi: Right, exactly. So, we have this technology where we can adapt these GPS positioning on top of any kind of a map in any form so people can actually exaggerate some of the spots in the map, and then actually draw some of the spots in the map. Tim: Are most of your customers in tourism and entertainment? Machi: Yes, most of them are in tourism and also, some of them are in transportation and also in area development. Well, our platform is open, so you can start free and people can upload their maps themselves, so a lot of people who upload their maps themselves are not necessarily business customers, so they could be just some community leaders who want to show great things about their cities. But for the business users, it's mostly in the travel area. Tim: So you mentioned people can upload their own maps. How difficult is the system to use? Does it require… Machi: It's very easy. Even some people who work for, I don't know, like a library – I shouldn't say that, but I don't know – Tim: Non-programmers, non-programmers, yeah, that's right. Machi: Non-programmers, right, exactly, so it's very easy. People who draw their maps, they can upload the image of the map and they would have this correlation of positions on top of these maps, so they put some thoughts on the map and Stroly will show all the other places with GPS positioning. Tim: Oh, I see, so they would kind of like pin a few key points and then Stroly will sort of interpolate the others and so people can see their position on the cute illustrated map? Machi: Exactly. Tim: So far, you mentioned a few cases of the people creating their own maps. I mean, what kind of maps are they uploading? Machi: During this COVID-19, people actually suddenly started realizing how important their local business is. Some designers have started drawing their own city or their own neighborhood with the restaurants or the food stands where you can take your food out. So, some maps were made to empower these local communities or local businesses. Tim: Wow. Machi: That's something we didn't see before this COVID-19, so that was quite interesting. Tim: So from the consumer side, the user side, it’s just a chance to feel, I don't know, more connected or less standard, more special. Is that the – Machi: I think so because if you imagine like, moving into a new town and you have this map that shows how this small business is doing around your neighborhood or like these attractive places, small places where if you go into just one alley down, then you would find them, then it just makes your life so much richer and more interesting. Tim: You know, it is interesting because kind of the tourism apps, those illustrated maps, in a sense, they serve a really different purpose. Machi: Yeah, it does. Tim: Like, Google Maps has replaced a lot of kind of the street maps that used to be for sale at every gas station in the world, but in tourism, they never would use a street map, they always would use these kind of illustrated and fun, engaging maps, so there's definitely something there. Machi: Yeah, I think so. These maps have their own points of views. It kind of sets up the context of the city. With  this kind of viewpoint, you would start to see different things in the city. Tim: So, how do you get users onto the app? How do you get users using Stroly? How do they find out about it? Machi: Our service is not an app, it's a web-based service, so these maps actually work on the websites. We encourage these paper map creators to put a little QR code on their paper map so that people can actually read it and they can start immediately with their browser on their phones. Tim: So, this is like, really cool technology. It's fun, but what's your business model on it? How do you make money? Machi: We have this B2B service. If you are using Stroly for business, you obviously want to put your brand on top of these maps, and we help them put their logos on their maps and we also unlock the foot travel data, how these maps are used. Tim: Okay, so you've got a kind of data collection, data analytics component to this as well? Machi: Yes. The users, they have their GPS positioning on while they are using our map and we have analytical data of how people tend to use these maps. Tim: From your customers’ point of view, do they view the main value of Stroly as being the presentation, the ability to show these lovely kind of illustrated maps or do they see the main value coming from those data analytics? Machi: I think the first value comes from presentation of it, yeah, because you cannot control how Google Maps would look. Tim: Well, yeah, everything looks the same on Google Maps or Apple Maps, right? Just, everyone in the world has the same presentation and that's useful too, but it's not good for branding. Machi: Right, right, exactly. First, it's the presentation and nowadays, because of COVID-19, users cannot come to their park or cannot come to the areas. Tim: Yeah, that is something I wanted to ask you about, and since your business is so focused on tourism, COVID-19 must have had a huge impact on your business and your startup. Machi: Yeah, it did. Well, kind of hit directly to our clients and we were actually planning to have a lot of things coming up for the Olympics and Paralympics, of course. All these got canceled and we had to develop our service so that we can help our clients stay connected with their users. Tim: How do you do that? Because I mean, Maps is such a – you know, it's such a… Machi: I know. Location-based [crosstalk]. Tim: I can't think of anything that is more directly like being there, right? Machi: But the thing is, we said Stroly maps are more about branding or just communicating how great the place can be to the users. So, what we did is that we've created this virtual map service where people can actually come into the map with an avatar and there is a tour guide who is standing in the map showing around how the park looks like. Actually, we have this one experiment with the theme park already, the same theme park, and they've filmed the movie in the themepark so that this guide person of this virtual map can show around where this film was taking,

You don’t usually think of Japan’s geisha as being an industry, but it is. In fact, strictly speaking, it’s a cartel. A cartel that is now being disrupted by internet-based booking agencies and low-cost substitutes. It seems that even geisha are not immune to internet-based disintermediation. In this special interview Sayuki, Japan’s only geisha who also holds an MBA, explains the business model behind geisha. We talk about the way things used to be, the current threats that have many geisha concerned that the traditional art form and the lifestyle will not survive, and how some geisha houses are trying to adapt. This is a rare, behind the scenes look at the business of being a geisha and a chance to see how Japan’s geisha might survive and even thrive in the coming digital age. It’s a fascinating discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Show Notes for Startups How Sayuki broke 100 years of tradition to become a geisha How geisha are being challenged by both the entertainment and tourism industries Changing geisha from a private art to a public one Why geisha might not survive the modern era of tourism The geisha cartel is being challenged, and why that's not good for anyone The challenge modern geisha face on social media The changes in training for the next generation of Japan's geisha Links from the Founder Sayuki's home page  Follow her on twitter @sayukiofasakusa Become her patron on Patreon Follow her on Facebook Book a geisha experience Geisha Banquet in Tokyo Private Custom Shopping Tour with a Geisha Private Lunch with Sayuki Kimono Shopping Tokyo Tour [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] 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’ve got a great Selects show for you today. We sit down and talk with Sayuki a geisha. An actual geisha. and she also holds an actual MBA from Oxford. It’s a great conversation that breaks down the business model of running a geisha house, and it's a lot more complex than you might imagine. A lot of people talk about disrupting traditional business models, but this is a truly traditional business model. And we also talk about how the Internet and social media is threatening to complexly destroy it. There are a lot of people wondering if geisha will survive this. In fact, there are a lot of geisha wondering if geisha will survive this. It’s a story involving centuries-old cartels in new turf wars, counterfeit goods knowingly being sold over the internet, and the challenge of getting maiko off their social media accounts long enough to train them. Although that last one is both a problem and a potential revenue stream. Anyway, please enjoy the conversation, and I’ve got an update for you at the end of the show. Intro Today I’ve got something really special for you. We are going to talk about the kind of business that you’ve probably never heard any details about. Today we’re going to sit down and interview Sayuki, a Geisha. And since this is Disrupting Japan, we’ll be talking about the business side of being a Geisha. We’ll look at the Geisha business model and examine how it’s being disrupted by modern technology. And believe me, it really is. Now, listeners outside Japan might not understand how special this opportunity is. Traditionally, Geisha are not really supposed to talk about their business. Geisha create the illusion of comfort, beauty, and elegance, that is unsoiled by such base things as money. But make no mistake about it; it’s an illusion. Geisha is a very serious business and Sayuki, who also has an MBA from Oxford, has agreed to sit down and walk us through it. In fact, from a business point of view, Geisha are an established cartel that are being disrupted by new technology, the internet, and tourism websites in particular, and by low-cost substitutes. And there’s a very good chance that Geisha will not survive in their traditional form. In fact, many Geisha houses are proactively trying to adapt to this new market environment. But Sayuki tells this story much better than I do, so let’s hear from our sponsor and then get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So today we’re sitting down with Sayuki, who is a bonafide Geisha here in Japan and we’re going to talk about the business of being a Geisha, so thanks so much for sitting down with me today. Sayuki: Thank you. Tim: First and foremost, a lot of our audience is either in Japan or knows a lot about Japan, but a lot of people don’t, so before I get started for the business can you clear up exactly what a Geisha is, what they do now, what they used to do? Sayuki: A Geisha means arts person, literally. So Geisha are traditional dancers or musicians, and most of the entertainment that we do is private entertainment. So we go to dinners and parties, which are usually in private rooms, and not large-scale public performances, although we also do those occasionally. Tim: Okay. You’ve been a Geisha now for about 10 years? Sayuki: Nearly. Getting there. Tim: Wow. Okay, so since this is an audio podcast, I should explain that you are Caucasian—you are not Japanese, which makes you very unique and I’m sure appealing in the world of Geisha. But can you back up a bit and tell us a story of why on Earth you decided to become a Geisha and how you managed to do it? Sayuki: Sure. I’m an anthropologist. I got my doctorate from the University of Oxford, and graduating, I started to lecture in Japanese studies, and also to make documentary programs for television for broadcasters like BBC or National Geographic Channel. And I took a slate of ideas one day to National Geographic Channel, including ideas about infiltrating the mafia and all of those kinds of things. And one of those ideas was to make a program about Geisha. Tim: So you started to infiltrate the Geisha? Sayuki: Instead, yes. Tim: Which sounds a lot more interesting and safer than infiltrating the mafia. Sayuki: My life could have taken a very different turn. Tim: I imagine so. I mean, but especially as an Australian, you can’t just decide, “I want to be a Geisha.” How did you get connected? How did you find someone willing to take you on? Sayuki: I looked first among my alumni and I was the first white graduate—the first female white graduate of Keio University in Japan, and it’s a school with a very strong alumni network. And it came in very handy in the Geisha world because many of the tea house owners are Keio graduates, many of the customers are Keio graduates, and it was a really great network, and they really looked after me and helped introduce me to the Geisha world. So I was very lucky in that sense. But it’s true that you can’t just walk into the Geisha world. There’s a lot of misconceptions. There was an American anthropologist in the 70’s, called Liza Dalby, who wrote an absolutely amazing thesis about the Geisha world, after researching in Kyoto for a year. She was living in the house of an ex-Geisha and somewhere along the road, in her research, they dressed her up and sent her out to a banquet to experience what it was like. And she wrote her thesis on the basis of that research. And some people have made the assumption that she became a Geisha because of that, but it’s actually very different to actually become a Geisha. For example, in Kyoto, to become a Geisha, they would have to change their rules, their constitution, to allow a foreigner in for the very first time in Geisha history. And that would be an absolutely major affair, as it was for me. It needed the agreement of all 45 Geisha in the Asakusa and of all the people who are connected to the Geisha world, and it was a very major decision, and there was absolutely no way possible that Kyoto would have made this decision in the 70’s. Tim: I’ve been in some hard negotiations before, but how did you manage to convince 40+ different Geisha houses to make this change? Not only accepting a westerner in but accepting—most people start off the Geisha training very young girls, right? So that’s a really big deal. How did you get them to make that change? Sayuki: I think I was really lucky and I had very good introductions and those people worked very hard on my behalf. Asakusa is a very conservative, very old fashioned district and a lot of people realize that Tokyo is very much more conservative in many ways than Kyoto is. Kyoto is very conservative in the look and the way they do things but they have many modern business methods that Tokyo still doesn’t have. So in that way, Tokyo is still very conservative. In that way, I think it’s surprising that I got permission to debut in Asakusa, knowing now what I know about the Geisha world. There’s other misconceptions that people make. They think that I opened the door and now suddenly the Japanese Geisha world welcomes foreigners in. That is very far from the case. That’s not true at all. To get in a proper town district now would be equally as difficult now as it was when I debuted 9 years ago. Since I debuted, there have been a number of foreigners who have worked as a Geisha in the countryside, or in former seaside resorts, or Geisha districts that have very casual standards, and they’re not at all the same thing as town districts. In some of those districts, they have fewer Geisha than they used to have and they have a lot of need of Geisha for tourists who suddenly come in at certain times of the year. So they recruit part-timers and all kinds of casual people. Tim: Geisha is not really a part-time job. In the town that—see, there is a very big divide between a town class Geisha district and a countryside, or seaside, or former lodging town.