Pocket Supernova has pivoted through three countries and three completely different products before they hit their stride with their current video editing platform for mobile, and they now seem ready to move a generation of video content creators out from behind their desktops and onto their mobile phones.

We talk about the market forces that lead to the past pivots and why the team is confident they they have a winner on their hands this time. Oscar also outlines what he sees as the critical business model flaw that will cause 99% of all social startups, even the very cleaver ones, to fail.

The logic behind their move to Japan is fascinating as well, and Oscar views the use of Japanese developers, rather than San Francisco-based programmers as a key strategic advantage.

It’s a great discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Disrupting Japan - Straight Talk From Japan's Most Successful Entrepreneurs

DJ047: Pivot Till It Hurts: Making Mobile Video Profitable – Pocket Supernova

Crowdfunding is at a crossroads. The inherent conflict of interest in the business model is forcing US firms to either limit their growth or become the online equivalent of late-night infomercials.

In Japan, however, crowdfunding has grown more slowly than in the US, and Japanese companies have had the chance to learn from their  successes and failures. As a result crowdfunding may end up looking very different in Japan than it does overseas.

In today’s discussion, Ryota Matsuzaki, the CEO of Kibidango, one of Japan’s newest crowdfunding platforms his approach. It’s not completely unique to Japan, but the strategy is particularly well suited to Japan.

Ryota details what he thinks the future of crowdfunding will look like in Japan and we argue over the likelihood of Japan’s consumer electronic giants taking advantage of the tremendous talent pool available on crowdfunding platforms in order to supplement their product lines via M&A.

It’s a great discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it.


DJ048: The Dark Side of Japanese Crowdfunding - Ryota Matsuzaki

A key component to making a startup a success is knowing who your true customers are. Today, Antti Sonninen, the Japan CEO for Slush, one of the largest startup events in the world lays out the business model for us, and the facts will probably surprise you.

Many of our American listeners will not have heard of Slush since they have not yet expanded to North America, but they are a startup event powerhouse in Europe and, increasingly, in Asia. Their recent event in Tokyo had over 4,000 attendees.

This week, we take a no-hype look at the business model that supports all the hype. These events do a lot of good for the startup community, but even when everyone has the best of intentions, someone has to pay the bills. Nobody will work for free for long, so it’s fascinating to see who are the real stakeholders are and what they get out it.

It’s an interesting discussion, and I think you’ll learn a lot. I know I did.

DJ049: The Business Model Behind Startup Events - Antti Sonninen

Startup founders claiming their company is going to “change the world” has become a cliche. But rarely do we see a product that could clearly and significantly make someone’s life better. D-Free is one of those products.

Atsushi Nakanishi and his team have developed a wearable device that monitors your bowels and bladder, pairs with your phone and notifies you a few minutes before you need to go to the bathroom. At first this seems almost like a joke, a company solving a problem that does not exist, proof that anyone can raise funding these days. But its not.

There are millions of people all over the world who because of disability or disease, cannot regulate their bowels, and a device like D-Free would, quite literally, be life-changing for them.

Atsushi and I talk about his rather unique inspiration for the company and the team’s hight;y unusual path in testing and development.

It’s a fascinating product and a great story, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

DJ050: IoT and the Future of Poop - Atsushi Nakanishi

This is a rather personal episode. There is no guest this time. It’s just you and me.

Uber and, to a lesser extent, Airbnb are failing horribly in Japan. There have been quite a few articles that have tried to explain what this is, and most of those articles have focused on why the market conditions in Japan make it hard for those companies.

These is certainly some truth to those articles, but they miss a larger and much more important factor about why these companies are struggling in Japan and in Asia in general.

You see, Uber and Airbnb represent a new very kind of startup, one that could not have existed twenty years ago, and the reason has nothing to do with smartphones or cloud computing or anything related to technology at all.

In fact, the very thing that make these companies powerful and transformative in the United States is what ensures they will never really succeed in Japan.

You may not agree with everything I have to say, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

DJ051: The Real Reason Uber is Failing in Japan

Startups are already changing Japan. 

Japanese government and big business say they are in favor of disruption — as long as they can control it. But disruption, almost by definition, does not happen that way. 
 
It’s not well understood in the West, but there is a vibrant, creative startup community here in Japan, and it’s rapidly changing the rules for how business is done and how venture capital is deployed. 

Japanese startups are expanding rapidly overseas, and many of the founders you meet for the first time on this podcast will be household names in the years to come. 

Until that day comes, however, please join me as we sit down and talk with the men and women who are actually Disrupting Japan.

Disrupting Japan

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