

Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) - po
http://blog.makeleaps.com/2010/10/hacker-news-tokyo-japan-meetup-4-–-saturday-16th-of-october/

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po
Hope to see you all there. It's been a while so I'm sure everyone will have
lots of news!

This time we're trying out the Doorkeeper application from the Mobalean guys.
It's quite a full-featured app. I recommend checking it out if you're looking
to do an event and want to keep track of registration.

<http://www.doorkeeper.jp/>

~~~
olalonde
Out of curiosity, what was the Japanese/foreigner ratio at previous meetups?

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jason_tko
As HN is primarily in English, and Ycombinator is not yet widely known in
Japan, maybe around 15% Japanese or so ?

The Japanese natives that do come along invariably have very interesting
backgrounds.

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DevX101
I took a look at the RSVP for this and notice that all were 'Western' names'.
Is there a startup culture amongst local Japanese? I ask because there are
tons of smart Japanese, many of whom have developed awesome products for their
employers, but I haven't heard of any Japanese founded startups.

Then again, maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

~~~
pwim
You probably haven't heard of any Japanese startups because there haven't
really been any who have been successful abroad.

Here's a good presentation that can give you an overview of the web startup
space:

[http://www.slideshare.net/araipiyo/situation-and-recent-
tren...](http://www.slideshare.net/araipiyo/situation-and-recent-trends-of-
web-startups-in-japan-asiajin-shanghai-meetup)

~~~
DevX101
Thanks for the link, but this confirms my initial suspicions.

Japan's GDP is about 1/3 of the US, yet according to your link there was only
$0.2 Billion of venture investment, as compared to $17.7 B in the U.S. That's
roughly 1% of US venture Financing and wildly disproportionate!

There seems to be something holding back entrepreneurship, and I don't think
its for lack of smart people.

~~~
cdavid
As usual, the US are the outliers, more than Japan :) I think venture
financing in most European countries is closer to Japanese levels than US
ones.

One particularity in Japan, I don't know if that matters that much: working
for a big company is still regarded as the quasi only way to get a career in
Japan.

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spxdcz
Argh! I'm arriving in Tokyo... at 6am on Oct 17th! I'm going to be there for 2
months though (in a Shinjuku apt), and would love to meet any fellow hackers
if anyone is up for a post HN-Meetup drink? Thanks all! (And apologies for the
FB-like message on HN; I know, I know...)

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po
Subscribe to the makeleaps RSS feed or send us an email and we'll try to send
you an email next time. We do these every month or so, so you'll probably be
around for the next one.

You can also just shoot me an email (paul@makeleaps.com) if you want to grab a
cup of coffee or a quick drink. I'm only a few stops from shinjuku.

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jbm
I'll be coming, I hope.

The Mobalean guys are awesome BTW.

~~~
pwim
Thanks Jawaad!

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patio11
See you guys there.

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bemmu
Is this awesome enough to tolerate the bus ride from Tokushima?-)

~~~
pyre
Just looked this up. You're not kidding when you say 'tolerate the bus
ride'....

    
    
      > The overnight Dream Tokushima bus runs from Tokyo and
      > Shinjuku (10 hours, ¥10000 each way).
    

ref: <http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokushima>

~~~
cdavid
When I was a student, I usually took a bus for Nara <-> Tokyo for around 5000
Yen each way - but that was barely tolerable, indeed. Even if the bridge to
cross the Osaka bay must add a significant cost to the ticket when coming from
Tokushima, I would be surprised if you could not find cheaper.

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Swoopey
Yay! Looking forward to it! Thanks for organizing!

