Once a high tech Mecca, Japan is playing catch up in technology startups. Essential lessons for current & future founders considering starting up in Japan.

We love to share uncommon knowledge about fundraising, strategy, sales, marketing, recruitment & retention, cross-cultural challenges, and insights into how the Japanese startup ecosystem is evolving. This is an unparalleled English language resource.

📣 Season 1 Now Publishing!
We are releasing Season 1 'Founder Foundations' progressively throughout H1 2023. Combing through ~2 years of Clubhouses, we have curated the best episodes packed with uncommon knowledge for present and future founders in Japan, invaluable to startup success.

🎙️ Founded In Japan is recorded live on Clubhouse
🫵 Follow us on Clubhouse to join our next recording
　 https://www.clubhouse.com/club/business-in-japan
💌 Contact hosts Jason and Paul on the 'Business In Japan' group on LinkedIn
　 https://www.linkedin.com/groups/54168/

About your hosts

Paul Chapman

I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and have experienced Japan over a 15 year period, as a student, an employee/salaryman, and now as founder of a pioneering Japanese startup. Founding fintech pioneer Moneytree led me to being deeply involved in the early years of the fintech industry. Recently, I have also started mentoring founders, including those up to the challenge of founding a startup in Japan. I can be reached on LinkedIn.

Jason Ball

Australian, lived in Tokyo for over 18 years, Consulting in Retail, Finance, Banking & Insurance in roles related to Cloud Call Center deployment, eCommerce, IT Infrastructure, Facilities, Agile & Waterfall Project Management, Business Analysis - helping teams get things done, track, report, respond to requests for information and get recognition for what they do.

Nalin Advani

Japan and Singapore based hands-on investor with 2 IPOs and 1 Exit from 20 Seed / Series A investments so far. LP in 4 funds and Board Member of TSE Prime listed large SI. Loves technology and the positive impact that can be achieved through applying it.

Haruka Takamori

Born and raised in Taiwan. After working in investment banking, and Plug and Play, Haruka currently works at STRIVE as a VC, meanwhile co-founded Cruzzie, an enterprise tech startup empowering creators. Haruka is also one of the original co-founders of the Startup Co-Creation Community (SCC).

Ilya Kulyatin

2x Fintech founder with an interdisciplinary academic background in Finance and Machine Learning. Before moving into entrepreneurship, spent 10+ years in 4 countries (IT, US, NL, SG) as a quantitative researcher and developer in finance. Loves helping out early-stage entrepreneurs, which was his main “hobby” during the past 2 years in Tokyo. Right now, Ilya is back to the drawing board looking for products to build and prospective co-founders.