

Start-Up Spirit Emerges in Japan  - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/business/international/japanese-entrepreneurs-receive-tentative-embrace.html

======
jason_tko
A few of the big things that are dampening the startup scene in Japan are as
follows:

* Weak ecosystem - Very few angels available to fund and support early stage startups, although accelerators are popping up that are starting to fill this gap.

* Less exits - Japanese companies tend to be less acquisitive than their western counterparts. IPO seems to be a far more common liquidity event. Even 2-3 years into MakeLeaps, we started getting offers to help us IPO(wtf).

* Less entrepreneurs - A typical "FUCK! THIS SUCKS AND MUST CHANGE!" attitude found in many entrepreneurs is a pretty rare commodity in Japan. The educational system has been designed to generate workers who are effective at carrying out orders rather than taking independent initiative.

* Still not accepted in society - Japanese who set out to do their own companies are still generally looked down upon, and struggle in general. If someone from a western culture starts a company, the typical attitude is "Great! Good luck!" but in Japan it's more "What's wrong? You couldn't get a job at a proper company?" This is however starting to slowly change.

* Less community - There is a much smaller community in Japan, which means less support. We're doing our best to help by organising the Tokyo Hacker News community meetups. Again, this is changing, and there is a marked increase in events now compared to say, 1-2 years ago. (shameless plug - come along if you're in Tokyo - [http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp](http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp) \- next event is 16th of January)

* Less early adopters/more risk adverse - Until we being reasonably well known, getting initial signups and customers was intensely painful. On the flip side, once a customer signs up with you, they tend to be very loyal and stay with you for a long time.

Having said all that, Japan is working through these issues and we are
definitely in a mini startup boom in Japan. Exciting times to be doing a
startup here.

~~~
frozenport
Big thing helping the start-up scene

*A lot of people don't have work.

------
hkmurakami
I'm a bit skeptical of this new trend, since I get the vibe that most of these
young founders are in the game "because it's cool" to do so. I wonder what
fraction of them will survive the first downturn [1].

That being said, smart new grads having options other than BigCo / Western
Consulting&Finance / Shosha / Govt would be a very positive thing. [2]

[1] Though the same thing could be said of many of the teams/endeavors on this
side of the pond.

[2] Interestingly, the best technical minds in web programming seem to be
employed by LINE/Gree/DeNA/Cookpad still rather than venturing out on their
own.

~~~
jason_tko
I feel like doing a startup in Japan is not yet cool, from a general society
perspective.

I think that almost every one of these new founders are having regular
arguments with their parents, who would be trying to convince the founders to
get a "real" job at a "safe" company.

Having said all that, I agree that inexperienced people often give up at the
first speed bump. As Steve Jobs said:

“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are
starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it.”

~~~
hkmurakami
That's a good point about the older generation. I have a few friends who
feuded with their parents when they quit a very very good engineering job at a
big company to do their own thing instead.

That being said I do think that doing a startup is perceived as being cool by
their peers. I've met at least a handful of people who I'd cautiously call
"fangirls".

(Perhaps an overflow from their perceived coolness of working in SV/SF --
which honestly doesn't make much sense to me since their motivations to cross
the pond is often profoundly lacking in substance)

~~~
snowryd88
Working in SV/SF and doing own startup is surely sounds different things to
me, as an Japanese grad student

~~~
hkmurakami
Sorry, to clarify: many young people seem to see the whole SV/SF thing to be
cool and seem to almost idolize the prospect of working in the promised land.
By association startups as a whole (regardless of location) are cool to them.
As a result startup founders in Japan get additional social support from their
peers for their endeavors (which as you know is a huge psychological benefit
in Japanese society).

------
fiskkastanj
I'm a Swedish Javascript dev moving to Tokyo tomorrow (!!!). If anyone around
is interested in coding together, let me know :).

------
Pitarou
Just don't expect any "disruptive innovations" is all I'm saying.

~~~
VexXtreme
Spot on. The creative/disruptive spirit is next to non-existent in this
country. Conformism and herd behavior seem to be the national past time.

~~~
kenshiro_o
Still Japan is the country where companies such as Sony and Nintendo originate
from and the people over there certainly can be creative/disruptive.

One such company that can truly change the world as opposed to creating
another chat app is euglena:
[http://www.euglena.jp/en/](http://www.euglena.jp/en/)

~~~
exo_duz
Sony and Nintendo is now stagnating. So I'm not sure what innovation is
anymore in Japan.

The conformism, herd and inflexibility of generations helped the downward
spiral of Japan. Which is really such a shame from such a beautiful country.

~~~
kenshiro_o
Maybe now but they have innovated in the past, and Nintendo still does to a
certain degree.

It's not like their society became more conformist all of a sudden. In fact it
was probably even more so a couple of years/decades earlier.

Look at the manga industry: there are mangas that touch on virtually any
genre. That is a testament to the creativity of some of the people in this
land.

I am not saying they will become as creative as the people in SV but I believe
they definitely have the potential to bring innovative concepts to life.

~~~
exo_duz
I lived in Japan for 6 years and found that there is no more innovation there.
It's because of the way they are a self preserving economy. Things that are
available in Japan can't be used overseas. Which is the main reason why they
are falling behind.

TVs, mobile phones (before the iPhone came out in Japan), voltage aren't
available to be used overseas.

View my comments here from a previous thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6717211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6717211)

------
mathattack
I really hope that this is true, but I'll believe it when I see some more
IPOs. I'm a very big cultural fan of Japan, but they seem to struggle with
technology entrepreneurship. There is a tradition of small business owners and
apprenticeships, but relative to their size, they have very few breakout
enterprise software firms. Perhaps it's because the large firms prefer to deal
in their own networks?

~~~
mh_yam
A lot of factors. An education system designed to produce worker-bees rather
than independent thinkers. A stagnate economy (although this is improving)
leading to high unemployment for young workers and people taking whatever job
they can get. Social pressure to get into a prestigious university and
eventually a well-established, large company. And for females, the pressure to
get married before age 30.

Mind you--people in Japan are very smart. Science/math education is way better
than in the US. But in the end, emphasis is on conformity and "not standing
out too much" or "being different". This kills the spirit of innovation. I
grew up in Japan but went to college in the US and work in NYC. Every time I
go home, I feel like an outsider even though I spent 18 years of my life
there.

~~~
mathattack
_And for females, the pressure to get married before age 30._

My understanding is the issue here isn't that women are supposed to get
married, rather that they're supposed to drop out of the workforce immediately
thereafter. With a country short of young workers, this is problematic.

Again I love the culture of Japan, but much of the inter-dependence that makes
it fascinating also promotes working for large companies rather doing ones own
thing.

------
polarix
Mirror: [http://pastebin.com/DXCSZxMs](http://pastebin.com/DXCSZxMs)

------
sgdesign
I feel like one of these articles comes around every few months or so. I guess
the storyline of "daring entrepreneurs fight against rigid societal norms" is
just too appealing…

But in my opinion it remains to be seen if it's actually a trend, or just a
few isolated examples.

------
mh_yam
As a Japanese native who went to college in America and moved to NYC to escape
the societal pressure back home, I'm glad to see this. Maybe I'll move back
someday.

