Disrupting Japan: Startups and Innovation in Japan Tim Romero: Serial startup founder in Japan and indomitable innovator

Graffiti is impermanent.



Normally, thats a good thing, but as the global art world has begun to recognize graffiti and street art as a legitimate art form, the short-term and public nature of street art has presented challenges around sales and ownership.



The team at Totomo has found a solution. They have been working with street artists around the world and galleries across Tokyo to create a platform to prove digital ownership of street art.



We talk about the challenges of bringing digital tools and provenance into the spray-can world of street art, why this international team decided to launch in Japan first, and how to take advantage of the new startup support programs offered by the Shibuya government.



It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Not many startups land their tech on the moon.



Dymon has designed an autonomous lunar rover that will land near the lunar south pole later this year as part of NASA's Artemis program.



Today, we sit down and talk with founder Shin Nakajima who explains what it takes for a startup to become part of a NASA mission, the role YouTube had to play, what startups can contribute to space exploration, and how NASA and JAXA are changing to be more startup-friendly.



It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

There is a lot of hate directed at Japanese UI design.



To Western eyes, it's just too busy, too dense, too confusing, too outdated, and just plain wrong.



And sometimes that's true, but usually there are very good, and highly profitable, reasons Japanese websites and Japanese software looks the way it does.



Today I sit down and talk (and argue a bit) with Brandon Hill about how Japanese design got this way, and the new direction it's currently heading.



It's an amazing conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Sometimes it seems like Japan is almost invisible in global e-commerce.



Despite a dynamic domestic e-commerce market and a long tradition of global exports, Japan just  doesn't seem that interested in selling to the outside world.



But things are changing, and Kazuyoshi Nakazato of Zig Zag is working to make sure they change even faster.



We talk about why Japan is unrepresented in global e-commerce, why that's changing, some things you should never try to sell online.



It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

This is our 200th episode, so I wanted to do something special.



Everyone loves to complain about the poor quality of Japanese software, but today I’m going to explain exactly what went wrong.  You'll get the whole story, and I'll also pinpoint the specific moment Japan lost its way. By the end, I think you'll have a new perspective on Japanese software and understand why everything might be about to change.



You see, the story of Japanese software is not really the story of software. It's the story of Japanese innovation itself.









Intro

Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs.

I’m Tim Romero and thanks for listening

Shakespeare only wrote 37 plays, Orson Wells only made 64 films, Mozart wrote 41 symphonies, but Disrupting Japan? Well, as of today, Disrupting Japan has 200 episodes.

So, what to talk about on this special occasion? Well, I’ll be giving an in-depth answer to the one question I get asked most about Japanese software and Japanese software startups.

This is a piece I’ve been working on (on and off) for over three years. I know that seems like a long time, but a lot of my solo podcasts come together like that. I know what I want to say, and will let it will bounce around in my head for months or years before I figure out how to turn it into an interesting story that you will find worth listening to.

Some ideas are too short to develop into full-length shows, some I end up talking myself out of before a finish, and some -- like this one -- just take me a long time to craft in a way that I’m happy putting it out into the world.

I have about 30 of these article in progress, and that’s far more than I’ll ever develop into podcasts. I’ve been thinking of starting a Substack newsletter to publish some of these in a much shorter form. Let me know what you think. Is that a good idea?

Anyway, on our 200th episode, I want to thank you for listening, and making this show possible. I realize that “thank you the listener” has become cliche in and podcasting, but I don’t know what other words to use here.

I feel incredibly honored to be able to sit down and have these deep conversions with some of the most creative and visionary people in Japan, and to have thousands of people around the world care enough about my thoughts and options to listen, and to get in touch, and to tell people about it.

So thank you for listening,  and thank you for coming on this journey with me. Let see where it takes us.

And now, on with the show!

 

The Elephant in the Room

Japanese software has problems.  By international standards, it’s just embarrassingly bad.

We all know this, but what’s interesting is that there are perfectly rational, if somewhat frustrating, reasons that things turned out this way. Today I’m going to lay it all that out for you in a way that will help you understand how we got here, and show you why I am optimistic about the future.

And no, this is not going to be just another rant about all the things I dislike about Japanese software.

I am not going to waste your time or mine cataloging and complaining about the many, many bad practices, user-hostile design decisions, mind-boggling complex workflows, and poor development process that afflict Japanese software.

If you want details and debate about exactly how Japanese software falls short, or if you just in the mood for some good old-fashioned venting about being forced to use it, check out Reddit or maybe Hacker News. This topic comes up pretty often there.

No, for the sake of this podcast I’m going to assume that we are all in agreement that on average, Japanese software. is just … awful.

That way we can spend our time talking about something far more interesting. We are going to walk though the economic events and the politic...

Today I explain how to raise money as a new startup founder in Japan.



I’m going to give you a clear and actionable plan so that:

1) You can decide which VCs you should approach

2) You can set up meetings with partners at reputable Japanese VC firms

3) You how to pitch in the most effective way possible

4) You will have some strategies to help you actually close the round, and get the money in the bank.



And you’ll be able to do it all in a reasonable amount of time without going absolutely crazy

 Now, I’ll warn you. Each of these steps is significantly harder than the one before, but you’ll be building up your skills as you move through the process.



Also, as part of my research for this episode, I not only had a lot of conversations, but I also created an informal “Why Meet a Founder” survey and sent it to many of my VC friends in Japan. The survey asked what factors influenced their decisions to meet with a founder and hear their pitch. We’ll talk about the survey a bit during this podcast, and the results available to you as a special bonus download in the show notes on the Disrupting Japan site.