Blog

Blog (page 6)

176 articlesSearch articles

  1. Thinking About Startups That Take On Japan's Six Kinds of Aging: People, Infrastructure, Industry, the Nonprofit Sector, Institutions, and Ideas

    I think the challenge Japan faces, namely how to deal with "aging" in the broad sense, could become the next frontier for high-growth startups and startup-style activity. Specifically, aging (deterioration) is occurring in six important areas: ...

  2. The Pitfalls of "Supporting the Globalization of Startups"

    Summary by NotebookLM: Expectations are rising for startups to go global, or to be nurtured into startups that earn foreign currency. Personally, I think we should basically push ahead with such efforts and build industries in Japan that earn foreign currency, and...

  3. Get Past the Trough of Disillusionment for Startups

    Reactions to a tweet I posted recently made me feel the 'antipathy toward startups' all over again. (See the quote tweets here.) Certainly, over the past decade or so, startups have drawn a great deal of attention and expectation. In response, there were probably parts that, to outside observers, looked like getting carried away…

  4. Startups Read "Time"

    Slides by NotebookLM. I feel that what makes startups distinctive is how they relate to "time" differently from ordinary companies. By raising risk money from VCs and the like, startups can…

  5. Organizing Startups by "Demand Risk vs. Supply Risk" and "Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down"

    This isn't limited to high-growth startups, but new businesses in general differ somewhat in both their risks and their approaches. This article is a quick attempt to classify those types. The conclusion is that two axes make four quadrants, and you can roughly work out where your own business sits…

  6. How Will Entrepreneurship Education Change in the Face of Generative AI? (2025 Edition)

    As a form of entrepreneurship education, I ran a "policy entrepreneurship" workshop using public policy. The theme was "countermeasures against bears 🐻." Bears have entered hibernation season, so the issue has quieted down for now, but this year they became a social problem that shook all of Japan. Further…

  7. How Much Did Japan Really Need Accelerator Programs? And What We Need Next May Be "Inception"

    Summary slides by NotebookLM. "Acceleration programs," or "accelerator programs," are said to be programs that "accelerate" startups, beginning with Y Combinator in 2005...

  8. Start from 'Business Blueprint,' Not 'Customer Problems' – Moving Beyond the 'Problem-Solving Paradigm'

    I have repeatedly spoken about the Lean Startup methodology and the importance of Customer/Problem Fit (CPF), telling founders to 'confirm customer needs first' and 'go to the field.' Even now, I don't think that exploring customer problems itself has become unnecessary…

  9. The Diversification of "Entrepreneurship" Is Under Way: The Startup Ecosystem in the Late 2020s

    A summary in slides made with NotebookLM. Over the past decade, there has been, in a sense, a rough perception and narrative in the air, something like "entrepreneurship means a fast-growing startup." The energy and capital supply that narrative generated had great value. On the other hand…

  10. Startups That Help Solve the "Supply Shortage" Problem: Making Social Maintenance More Efficient and Creating High-Value-Added Industries

    Summary by NotebookLM. Social problems caused by a shortage of supply capacity are beginning to emerge. I believe that solving these problems and creating new added value is what we expect of new ventures, startups first among them, but I get the sense that the urgency of this problem is not widely shared...