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Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

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Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#11

Post by patio11 »

dicemoose wrote: post #9
pinaceae wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bull. Japan is the second largest market for salesforce.com.

Salesforce Japan was also a joint venture between Salesforce.com and a Sunbridge (that Salesforce.com eventually bought out). Sunbridge was founded by Allen Miner who already had experience building out Oracle in Japan and the team that helped him there also helped build out Salesforce.com in Japan. I recently was talking with some folks from that team and they did share with me that the experience was anything but e…

Yeah, my bad -- I was being slightly hyperbolic on my iPhone. A more nuanced comment would have been "It is very difficult to convince a Japanese company to purchase SaaS on the low-touch sign-up-with-your-credit-card-and-go model."

Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#13

Post by w1ntermute »

patio11 wrote: post #4
gbrindisi wrote: post #3

Why "least hospitable"?

A short list: 1) Japanese companies don't buy SaaS. 2) Japanese companies do buy software, but it is overwhelmingly sold through existing commercial relationships they have with individual salesmen, even for packaged software. This is not an easy sales channel to just show up in one day. (I am not exaggerating the following anecdote in the slightest degree: my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us…

>　my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us to procure a license of MS Office at my old day job

Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping. Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave (he would be positively spinning if he saw もしドラ).

When I see things like faxes still being prevalent because "my feelings and passion come across better"[0], I wonder if the Japanese are really interested in staying relevant in a global economy. I mean, come on, 59 percent[1] of homes still have faxes? How did these people miss the digital revolution?

0: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19045837

1: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-japan-fa...

Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#15

Post by cdavid »

w1ntermute wrote: post #13
patio11 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short list: 1) Japanese companies don't buy SaaS. 2) Japanese companies do buy software, but it is overwhelmingly sold through existing commercial relationships they have with individual salesmen, even for packaged software. This is not an easy sales channel to just show up in one day. (I am not exaggerating the following anecdote in the slightest degree: my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us…

> my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us to procure a license of MS Office at my old day job Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping. Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave (he would be positively spinning if he s…

Funnily enough, Drucker is quite fashionable in Japan ATM (or more exactly was when I was still in Japan 2 years ago): http://www.economist.com/node/16481583

While a lot of those practices are clearly inefficient, let's not forget that they have their plus as well. It is sometimes madening to see consensus building in Japanese meeting, but people are less likely to be blinded by their limited understanding as well. I can't find the reference, but a former colleague of mine knew of some research that showed how Japanese were more likely to know the actual decisions being taken after a meeting compared to their European/American counterparts.

Also, caring about the content of the emails or doing faxes means you are not as likely to answer them with a two letter words, which is just being efficient at doing useless things I suspect the fax thing itself to be more of an artefact of the average age of people in charge in Japan: my gf parents had a fax, but nobody I knew in my own generation in Japan had one. There is also most likely an early adoption paradox.

In the end, Japanese economic woes are mostly demographic I am afraid (GDP growth per capita is closer to the US than most people think), and inefficiencies should be considered with that in mind.

Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#16

Post by justin66 »

w1ntermute wrote: post #13
patio11 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short list: 1) Japanese companies don't buy SaaS. 2) Japanese companies do buy software, but it is overwhelmingly sold through existing commercial relationships they have with individual salesmen, even for packaged software. This is not an easy sales channel to just show up in one day. (I am not exaggerating the following anecdote in the slightest degree: my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us…

> my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us to procure a license of MS Office at my old day job Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping. Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave (he would be positively spinning if he s…

> Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping.

A lot of those inefficiencies exist for the purpose of maintaining the employment rate. They succeed at that.

Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#17

Post by w1ntermute »

cdavid wrote: post #15
w1ntermute wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us to procure a license of MS Office at my old day job Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping. Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave (he would be positively spinning if he s…

Funnily enough, Drucker is quite fashionable in Japan ATM (or more exactly was when I was still in Japan 2 years ago): http://www.economist.com/node/16481583 While a lot of those practices are clearly inefficient, let's not forget that they have their plus as well. It is sometimes madening to see consensus building in Japanese meeting, but people are less likely to be blinded by their limited understanding as well. I…

>　Funnily enough, Drucker is quite fashionable in Japan ATM

Yeah, that's why I mentioned him and said he'd be spinning in his grave if he saw もしドラ, because it's a quintessentially Japanese situation - everyone's buying this book that discusses grand ideas and talking about it with one another, but no one's actually applying any of those ideas to real life.

Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#18

Post by w1ntermute »

justin66 wrote: post #16
w1ntermute wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my manager needed to invite a salesman out to drinks for us to procure a license of MS Office at my old day job Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping. Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave (he would be positively spinning if he s…

> Do you see the Japanese recognizing/fixing the massive inefficiencies in how they do business any time soon? The Japanese economy's been down in the dumps for the last 20+ years, and these sorts of things can't be helping. A lot of those inefficiencies exist for the purpose of maintaining the employment rate. They succeed at that.

Come on, I think everyone here can agree that refusing to accept the broken window fallacy is not a sustainable economic model.

Re: Building a SaaS startup in one of the least hospitable places on Earth: Japan

#19

Post by grose »

kiba wrote: post #14

What the hell is a "Ichiban Entrepreneur"?

Ichiban means "number one" or "best", but I don't think it quite matches what the author of the article is looking for. Ichiryuu means "top class", maybe that would be better? But my opinion is that they could have conveyed the idea of "successful entrepreneurs in Japan" without the superfluous Japanese :)
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