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These past few months in Tokyo have been interesting to say the least. To start I’ve had to deal with a number of interesting challenges that are unique to starting a company in a foreign country.
1) Language: My business Japanese is horrible. My conversational Japanese isn’t all that bad, but as a entrepreneur I need to speak with a nuance and passion that I can only do in English. So I rely on bi-lingual staff to get my point across. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The need for bi-lingual staff means that things move slower than I’m used to.2) Culture: A interesting experience. For example, my bi-lingual staff are young. I realized relationships with other companies and groups were not moving smoothly when I wasn’t around because my staff weren’t of sufficient “rank” to negotiate for me. As a American I think anyone qualified to clearly express the point being made is qualified to speak up. Not so in Japan. Lucky for me I don’t care about such cultural norms. I eat lollipops at meetings and I make my staff sit in the “important” seats. Breaking some of the old cultural norms are needed to make progress, but they still slow things down.3) Lack of support: I haven’t found the type of entrepreneurial talent pool that most people are used to having in San Francisco or even New York. I know they are in Tokyo, but my Japanese isn’t at the level where I can communicate in the same nuanced conversational debates I could expect from peers in the USA.
If you can deal with these challenges I think there is a lot of opportunity for you as a international entrepreneur. The longer I stay the better my Japanese will become, the larger my entrepreneurial circle will grow and the less I will care about breaking cultural norms. In the meantime I spent my Thanksgiving in Japan dealing with artist concerns. That presents entirely new cultural issues.
Later this week I’ll make a announcement of some new cultural and business norms OtoRevo will be breaking. I think this announcement will be significant.
Recently I showed a OtoRevo artist to two producers in Columbia Music and asked for their opinion. One producer said “uhm, doesn’t seem like anything really special.” The second producer had the exact opposite opinion. I will value the second producers opinion much more because the second producer is successful.
Being in Japan the contrast between those that are successful and those that are moderately successful is dramatic. Its not as subtle as the difference between a fine wine and a amazing wine. Its polar opposites.
One thing I have noticed about successful people is they can imagine. The first producer listened and saw a product that couldn’t be sold, the second saw a product with potential. And he was also able to explain why that potential was there.
The successful producer understands something the moderately successful producer does not. It could be imagination, it could be approach but its clearly something. Its not magical or mystical. Its just a different process each producer took. Successful people figure out processes that work and the moment they figure it out, they become 1000 times more valuable than a moderately successful person.
But why are they more valuable? Not because they have a process to creating value, but because they FIGURED OUT the process. Figuring out something new that works requires thinking the opposite of the majority of the population. Those people by definition are rare and therefore much more valuable.
October 29th Jun-ichiro “Itojun” Hagino passed away. Itojun was an amazing hacker. I first met him in 1999 in Tokyo when I was working on OpenBSD. I asked “who do I need to meet in Japan” and everyone said, Itojun is the smartest person there.
When I visited Japan he welcomed me and introduced me to the world of technology there. Because of him I was able to establish a base of technical relationships in the country. He had a naturally warm heart, the type of person you immediately liked and remembered.
Since 1999 we stayed in regular contact and he helped many of my friends who visited Japan. The last time I saw him was around Sept 2007 and he told me about his new business. I told him about a problem I was having in Japan and the next day he introduced me to 3 people that could help me. That type of kindness is rare.
OtoRevo is having a live event Wednesday featuring the top 10 artist selected by the internet community. Its both nerve-racking and exciting at the same time. Everyone is a little stressed out but I feel like we are doing something historical here. If you are in Tokyo you can RSVP here for the OtoRevo party.
I was interviewed for a TV show on PBS. During the interview we went back to my old neighborhood. It was nostalgic. This is just a video of me being interviewed at my friends house.
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