Growing startups in Asia, winning locally and scaling beyond the region. We take a look at how Japanese startups disrupt the incumbents in Asia and what kind of strategies they take to scale beyond their local market.

1. GROWING IN ASIA
How to survive local disruption while going global
Alex Barrera
alex@thealeph.com

2. HELLO MY NAME IS...

3. My Blended Experience

4. FACE TO FACE
FORUMS (WhatsApp)
WOW Room

5. Growing in Asia Group
http://bit.ly/GrowingInAsia

6. Entrepreneurial Region by nature

7. Historically entrepreneurial

8. Later Silla sea dominion
Trade Control

9. China Silk Road control
Trade Control

10. Despite Europe… Asia trade was central

11. Red Seal Ship System.1634 AC
Trade Control

12. Gunpowder

13. Compass

17. First Movable Type

18. Horticulture & use of grafts

19. Horticulture & use of grafts

20. Taoism

21. Buddhism

22. Confucianism

23. 4 books and 5 classics (四書五經)

24. Major peace in the region (Tang Dynasty)

25. Rise of the Startups

26. 1946
Masaru Ibuka

27. 1985

28. 1986

29. 1987
CRISPR

30. 1994

31. 1995

32. 51.1% GDP
70.2% Employment

33. Number of internet users in selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region as of
January 2019, by country (in millions)
Source: Statista 2019

35. Source: The Mobile Economy Asia-Pacific 2018 Report.GSM Association.

36. Source: The Mobile Economy Asia-Pacific 2018 Report.GSM Association.

37. Mobile internet user penetration in Japan from 2017 to 2023
Source: Statista 2019

38. Source: e-Conomy SEA 2018 Report.Google-Temasek
Japan 0.3%

39. Source: CBInsights Data.The Aleph Report elaboration.

40. Source: CBInsights Data.The Aleph Report elaboration.

42. Masayoshi Son

43. Sectors

44. Source: Japan Startup Finance Report 2018

45. Investment
by sectors
Source: Japan Startup Finance Report 2018
Healthcare
Artificial Intelligence
Content
Sharing Economy
Fashion
Security
Gaming
Biotech

46. Messaging
Source: Line Corporation Q4 2018 Earning Results

47. Messaging
Source: Line Corporation Q4 2018 Earning Results

48. Messaging
Source: Line Corporation Q4 2018 Earning Results

49. Messaging

50. Messaging

51. Fintech

52. Fintech

53. Fintech

54. Cryptocurrencies

55. Cryptocurrencies

56. Cryptocurrencies

57. Tokyo University
Kyushu University
Keio University
Osaka University

58. Healthcare

59. Healthcare

60. Healthcare

61. Healthcare

62. Artificial Intelligence

63. Artificial Intelligence

64. Artificial Intelligence

65. Space Tech

66. Space Tech

67. Food Tech

68. Food Tech

69. Food Tech

70. Food Tech

71. Online Retail

72. Online Retail

75. Source: e-Conomy SEA 2018 Report.Google-Temasek

76. Incumbent Disruption

77. And Japan, because of both its hierarchal nature of
society and the importance of consensus and decision
making has a particularly hard time with bottom-up
change, and yet for the Japanese economy to thrive or
even to continue to grow sustainably at all there needs to
be a mechanism for disruptive innovations to take root
and flourish.
So, while Japanese industry made its fortunes disrupting
markets all over the world they put in place a system at
home to protect domestic markets from disruption.
“
Tim Romero. Disrupting Japan Podcast.2015.

78. Corporate Investment
Financial Institutions

79. Source: Japan Startup Finance Report 2018
Overseas
Other
Government / University
Financial Institutions
Corporations
Overseas

80. General disregard for small startups

81. Hiroshi Mikitani,CEO & Founder Rakuten

83. Tips for incumbents
Don’t undervalue disruptive tech (i.e. Blockchain)

84. Tips for incumbents
Don’t undervalue disruptive tech (i.e. Blockchain)
Focus on trends, not tech itself

85. Tips for incumbents
Don’t undervalue disruptive tech (i.e. Blockchain)
Focus on trends, not tech itself
Focus on new business models, not self improvement

86. Tips for incumbents
Don’t undervalue disruptive tech (i.e. Blockchain)
Focus on trends, not tech itself
Focus on new business models, not self improvement
CVC isn’t just about ROI

87. Tips for incumbents
Don’t undervalue disruptive tech (i.e. Blockchain)
Focus on trends, not tech itself
Focus on new business models, not self improvement
CVC isn’t just about ROI
Begin working with Venture Builders

88. Scaling beyond the region

89. Local still complicated

93. Masayoshi Son.Reuters,Jun 2019
“Until recently Japan was at the technological leading edge. In
the most important current technology revolution – artificial
intelligence – Japan has become a developing country,” Son
said at an annual SoftBank event for suppliers and customers.

95. Gaming

96. Gaming
“MOBA games, as a whole, are not really popular here in Japan,” he said.
“Actually, any game that requires building up a team and cooperating
with somebody else is struggling here in Japan. At the same time,
Japanese people love to play against the CPU, because this avoids human
interaction, and they prefer avoiding a real person that disturbs them
while they train.”
Paolo Gianti,former Nintendo EU.Jan 2019

97. Source: LinkedIn Future of Skills APAC Report,2019.

102. The Trade Wars

106. Source: Southeast Asia Tech Investment in 2018.Cento

107. Buddhism
Source: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/jpn/

108. Buddhism
Source: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/jpn/

111. HUAWEI
NVIDIA / QUALCOMM

112. Natural scaling regions
Source: e-Conomy SEA 2018 Report.Google-Temasek

113. Source: e-Conomy SEA 2018 Report.Google-Temasek

114. Source: The Rising of Japanese Startups in Southeast Asia,2016.

115. Cross border investments

116. Cross border investments
Source: JETRO Invest Japan Report 2018

117. Avoided markets

118. Avoided markets

119. 660 M
vs
743 M

121. Average annual spending per capita for online shopping in Europe from 2015 to 2018,
by country (in euros**)
Source: Statista 2019

122. 28 countries
23 official languages

123. Northern Europe
Southern Europe
4000 KM

124. Western Europe
Eastern Europe

127. Source: Dealroom.co.Excludes buyouts,secondary transactions,debt,ICOs,lending capital,grants.

128. Distributed Startups

129. Global Scope
Most SEA too regional
Some players undervalued

130. Europe - Asia opportunities

131. Market Saturation

132. Local Corporates (CVC)
Who funds the region?

133. Increased competition

134. Organic growth

135. Breaking the regional lock

136. Excel at scale
Apply to Europe

137. Lessons of efficiency

138. Logistics (Forward Freighter)
Operations (massive retail operations)
Automation (autonomous vehicle China roads)
Recommendation (Dynamic Yield)
Semiconductors – AI chipsets (Xiaomi)
5G (Huawei)
Cryptocurrencies
eSports
Cybersecurity & Privacy technology

139. http://www.slideshare.net/thealeph Alex Barrera (@abarrera)
THANK YOU
Alex Barrera
alex@thealeph.com

140. Growing in Asia Group
http://bit.ly/GrowingInAsia
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abarrera