

Where Have All the Entrepreneurs Gone in Japan? - quant18
http://miter.mit.edu/node/142

======
TorKlingberg
This is a very interesting topic, but the linked article does not add much. It
can be shortened to one sentence: Japanese are conformists, and therefor
unlikely to be entrepreneurs. While certainly part of the problem, Japan used
to be far more conformist, and companies like Sony and Nintendo still got
started. Many of the companies, such as Hitachi, Toshiba and Panasonic were
actually founded in the early 1900s, and later turned into hi-tech electronics
companies when the opportunity appeared.

One issue is that most successful startups in the past two decades have been
related to computer software, while Japan's strength has rather been
electronic appliances.

Perhaps Japan needs to find a path of entrepreneurship that actually appeals
to Japanese in their 20s and 30s, rather than desperately try to copy the
valley? My interpretation of Japanese history is that the country is very
resistant to change, but when it does change, it can happen very quickly and
in surprising ways.

~~~
patio11
On the subject of appealing models for entrepreneurship: see my other post on
this thread for why the typical well-prepared middle class person doesn't do
it. You have to be a wee bit broken.

Personally I wouldn't touch iPhone development with a ten-foot pole, but there
is an entire _floor_ at my local technology incubator related to it, and my
town has several iPhone millionaires.

This is one of the "overnight success in ten years" stories: my town has had a
technology incubator (previous employer of mine) and an artsy-fartsy "MIT
Media Lab"-type academic institution which, for the last decade, has soaked up
government subsidies and produced a lot of quirky tortured, brooding artists'
takes on the intersection of music and technology. Fast forward to a wee bit
ago: it turns out that tortured brooding artists who sweat music and visual
design are Kinda Popular Among iPhone Owners. Success breeds success, too --
the technology incubator jumped on the gravy train and there are coffees held
every week where folks come to talk iPhone shop.

Now if only we can get them to start doing B2C/B2SB SaaS...

~~~
listic
Why exactly wouldn't you touch iPhone development with a ten-foot pole? Do you
dislike Apple Inc., or don't trust your ability to design mobile apps that are
worth paying for, or what?

~~~
patio11
I feel about Apple quite similarly to how I feel about Google: they're a
ginormous megacorp with a much better PR team than my insurance company and
precisely as much soul. That doesn't mean we can't do business, it just means
I go into business dealings with both eyes open.

Mobile development doesn't play to my skill set as a programmer, but that is
easy enough to fix. (One copy of Objective C for Dummies, please.) The
graphical design I'd have to contract out. The (limited, to my understanding)
ability to extract usage metrics from iPhone apps and multi-week wait time
between re-releases effectively neutralizes my main strength (testing and
iteration) and the app store's discovery mechanism neutralizes the marketing
channel I understand best (search and search ads).

And the big killer is that the hit- and fad-focused sales lists mean that if I
don't hit a homerun immediately at launch I'm probably going to end up taking
a bath on the development costs. I sold $25 of my software my first month and
sell ~$4,000 a month now. That is a rare trajectory for iPhone apps:
typically, they get released at whatever and then start immediately declining.

~~~
gyardley
It's not so hard to extract usage metrics from iPhone applications. Companies
offering help with that include Flurry (disclosure: that one's partially
mine), Motally, Mobclix, Medialets, and Localytics. Pricing is generally free
with the companies making money off of additional, primarily ad-related
services. Or you can just roll your own.

However, measuring conversions from marketing campaigns is still brutal, when
it's possible at all - it's very difficult to buy installs profitably at
volume. And the 'big killer' statement is largely accurate, although I've seen
higher-priced niche applications grow more like your business did.

------
jcl
This article reminded me of a bit in an article that was on HN a couple weeks
ago:

 _Starbucks evolved from a small chain of cafes to a huge one by consistently
introducing new products, constantly pushing the envelope. Right? So what the
hell? [Chokokuro Cafe] just immediately changed their name to reflect the name
of the first product that brought them moderate success.

A Japanese friend who works in marketing told me this is the "Japanese
resolve." A company sees its fate and resigns itself to it. I think it sounds
more like someone just giving up and settling for what they have._

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1173679>

------
jbm
Anyone who talks about Entrepeneurship in Japan and doesn't talk about the
housing situation & concentration of industry in Tokyo is following fancy
rather than reality.

When you are unable to rent anything other than the oldest (most undesirable)
places without corporate approval, you are not likely to start your own
business.

When all business deals are done in the most expensive part of the country,
you and your sales staff are not likely to have experience dealing with
problems that average people are going to deal with.

------
ahi
First line:

"For a nation that once boasted the likes of Sony, Toyota and Mitsubishi as
its entrepreneurial heralds"

Well that's problem number 1, founding years: 1946, 1926/1937, and 1870.

------
csomar
It's all about the education. Internet start-up are now cheap to start. So I
think most students/developers in Japan can do it. There are two factors that
can affect it: 1) education and 2) the network.

When you have a network like the Bay Area, this will encourage, enthusiast new
young students to become entrepreneurs and start their venture. If they are
successful the money and funding will come.

------
adelevie
patio11 seems to be doing ok.

~~~
patio11
Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.

1) I'm fortunate to be in an industry where I can get by with zero employees,
which is exactly how many educated people in my town would be willing to work
for a one-person company that didn't have major corporate backing.

2) I _may_ be forced out of my current apartment after leaving the day job, on
the theory that I present unnecessary risk to the landlord of nonpayment of my
($450 a month) rent, since we all know how dangerous small businesses are. (I
haven't discussed this with the landlord yet. I think I should be able to
finesse this, but I'm a very, very quirky guy by definition because I come
from the perspective that this is something that I can negotiate with the
landlord rather than a condition he'll impose that I'll just have to accept.

Social acceptance doesn't stop at landlords and bank officers, either. For
example, take prospective in-laws. You want to marry your daughter off to a
nice young salaryman or a post office worker: he'll give her and your
grandchildren _stability_. You don't want to marry your daughter off to an
entrepreneur: one bad quarter and your grandkids won't be able to afford cram
school!

Without casting any aspersions on the motivations of parents of young ladies I
may have dated, suffice it to say that for at least some people "salaryman" is
such a good quality it trumps obvious negatives like "he's, ahem, well... he
spent a lot of time overseas."

3) Have you noticed how I use the world's most efficient distribution channel,
the Internet? Japan lags the US -- by quite a bit -- in the "ads -> web page
-> purchase consummated online" space. It looks like America in 1996 in a lot
of ways -- I have software engineers at my company ask, in seriousness, "But
how do people _pay_ you when they get your software?" "I take credit cards."
"PEOPLE TELL YOU THEIR CREDIT CARD NUMBER!?"

Oh, the entire Japanese payments infrastructure is optimized around Big
Freaking Enterprises rather than small businesses. You know how painful it is
to get a merchant account with no corporate history? Think that "about that
painful, cubed" for taking non-cash payments in Japan.

4) I am sharply limited in what I can say of the Japanese government's
entrepreneurial promotion activities having once been employed by a sub-branch
of them (prefectural technology incubator). Here's a general statement, make
of it what you will: the government giveth and the government taketh away.

5) Hypothetically assuming I were Japanese, my resume would read DAMAGED GOODS
right now, because I had the brass ring (salaryman employment at a good
company) and I let it go. (Foreigners interact a little... quirkily... with a
lot of Japanese social norms. This is one of them.)

Let me try putting it in American terms: how attractive would YC be if it were
widely known that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and almost every other company
worth working for considered anyone who either a) did not secure employment at
graduation or b) has ever left a company as the moral equivalent of a felon?

~~~
sailormoon
Good points. There's another relevant one - in Japan, parents are liable if
their child defaults on a debt. How much risk would you be will to take if you
knew your parents might lose their house if you failed?

~~~
9oliYQjP
Is the parent liable for as long as the child is alive (e.g., what happens
when the child is well into adulthood)?

~~~
patio11
You know how you're supposed to return your rental modem by a certain date to
avoid paying an extra fee? The person who previously rented my last apartment
did not get her's returned by the date, so she owed the ISP $100. She also
left the country prior to paying it. Lo and behold, when I tried to get
coverage, they discovered the bill and asked me to pay it.

"I'm sorry, I think you have a misunderstanding. I am not this young Swedish
lady."

"Are you related to her? Is she your wife, girlfriend, etc?"

"No."

"Quite the coincidence that two foreigners would end up renting the same
apartment back to back."

"We're translators. Her contract is up, I'm replacing her, it is my employer's
apartment."

"Oh. So that makes you coworkers?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking."

"You should pay to avoid causing embarrassment for your employer."

This is one of those times when my American brain goes "Oh hellllllllllllllll
no" and my Japanese brain goes "Oh effity, you're right, that _is_ what I am
expected to do in this situation."

I paid.

If your adult child defaults on a loan, and someone knocks on your door (and
there may be an actual physical knock and likely as not the person who is
knocking is a yakuza enforcer, even if your adult child was in debt to an arm
of a major publicly traded corporation), you pay. If your drunken useless
excuse of a son has an automobile accident, you show up to the hospital
several times with flowers and once with a discrete envelope with a generous
amount of money to convey the depth of your sorrow for the lapse.

~~~
pw
Does the envelope full of money go to your useless excuse of a son? And what
is the parent's lapse in such a situation?

Interesting, baffling stuff. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
patio11
Sorry, was unclear. The money is for whomever he hit. The lapse is raising the
kind of son who gets into auto accidents.

