Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16)

Re:Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) by DevX101 on Saturday October 09, 2010 @08:23AM (#1774897)

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.

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Re:Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) by po on Saturday October 09, 2010 @08:44AM (#1774920)

If you go to a meet-up organized around a Japanese language website, you will see more native Japanese. We don't really advertise this event anywhere but here.

There is an active startup culture in Japan but it is quite different than in the Valley. It is influenced by the culture, laws and history of the people here. The foreigners living in Japan also bring their culture and have their own interesting relationship. It's a very complex subject.

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Re:Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) by pwim on Saturday October 09, 2010 @09:31AM (#1774993)

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...

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Re:Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) by DevX101 on Saturday October 09, 2010 @10:44AM (#1775072)

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.

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Re:Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) by cdavid on Saturday October 09, 2010 @11:40AM (#1775159)

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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Re:Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) by patio11 on Sunday October 10, 2010 @11:07PM (#1778652)

Come on out to Gifu, I'll introduce you to some people. Bring an iPhone, business cards, and fluency in Japanese.

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