Outside of the Bubble with Japan’s Startup Girls: Mone Kamishiraishi
Those of us who spend our lives working with startups live in a bubble. Whether you spend your...
Read More
Category: Japanese Culture
DJ Selects: The Myth of the Successful Startup Failure
Startup culture has crazy and contradictory views about failure. As founders we are told to fail fast, but also to never give up. We are told to follow our vision, but be ready to pivot. Somehow this macho-bullshit culture of “I never really fail and ‘m not afraid of failure.” has become dominant amount founders. But it’s the result of denial. Trivializing failure is a way of not thinking about it’s effects.
The truth is that failure sucks. Failure is painful. Failure …
Read More
DJ Selects: The Real Reason Uber is Failing in Japan
Uber and Airbnb represent a new very kind of startup, one that could not have existed twenty years ago, and the very thing that make these companies so transformative in the United States ensures they will never succeed in Japan. You see…
Read More
Is There (Finally) a Practical Way for Foreigners to Live in Japan?
For decades, Japan has been struggling with the economic need to attract more foreign residents to...
Read More
What This 330-Year-Old Company is Learning from Startups
The conventional wisdom is that traditional Japanese companies can’t innovate. And...
Read More
How Japan’s Unique Relationship with Robots is About to Make it #1 Again
Japan had been a global leader in robotics for decades, but recently the traditional Japanese...
Read More
How Japan’s evocative machines are quietly creating new startup unicorns
This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me. Today,...
Read More
Why Artificial Intelligence Is The Key to Fixing Japan’s Rigid Education System
Using artificial intelligence to change the way the education system works seems like a fool’s...
Read More
Why Japanese Design Is So Different & What You Should Learn from It
There are a lot of passionate opinions about Japanese design. From the beauty and subtlety of the...
Read More
Can This Founder Solve Japan’s Hidden Mental Health Problem? – Hikari Labs
Seeking help for even minor mental health problems still carries a stigma in Japan. This is...
Read More
Foreign Tourism is Reinventing Hiking in Japan – Yamap
Hiking, back-country skiing and mountain climbing are not usually the first things associated with...
Read More
Will Japan’s Geisha Survive the Digital Age? – Disrupting Japan
You don’t usually think of Japan’s geisha as being an industry, but it is. In fact, strictly...
Read More