TStartup Island TAIWAN Kicked Off Their First「Jumpstart Your Japanese Journey」Series: What You Need to Know About Web 3.0, Metaverse and NFT in Japan
In recent years, many Taiwanese startups have entered the Japanese market and achieved great performances. The friendly relations between Taiwan and Japan have driven domestic industry players to actively evaluate Japan as the priority when it comes to overseas market expansion. Startup Island TAIWAN, the national startup brand supported by the National Development Council (NDC), has built an international communication platform between Taiwan and Japan. It is expected that if the pandemic stabilizes this year, Startup Island TAIWAN will bring a delegation to Japan to communicate with key industry players, influencers, entrepreneurs, investors, and the relevant stakeholders through the first “Taiwan-Japan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Exchange Conference”.
“The results we collected from business owners in Taiwan indicate that more than 60% of them are interested in expanding to the Japanese market, but only 20% have actual experience in Japan. Furthermore, less than 10% have more than five years of experience in Japan”, Amanda Liu, Head of Startup Island TAIWAN Management Office says. Most of the industry players are still in the midst of collecting data and believe there are limited channels to obtain new information on the Japanese market. Based on the needs, Startup Island TAIWAN decided to launch the “Jumpstart Your Japanese Journey” series of white papers and workshops as the first step to assist the ecosystem in entering the Japanese market.
The “Jumpstart Your Japanese Journey” series of white papers and workshops focus on trending topics such as Metaverse, E-Commerce & Entertainment, Digital Transformation, and more. Each white paper will be followed by a workshop led by key influencers in the field. The first of this series is on Metaverse: “Web 3.0-related Industry Trends in Japan”.
The white paper compiled a large number of examples within Japan of key stakeholders and their business models on blockchain and metaverse-related fields. The white paper is provided free of charge, but please indicate the source as “Startup Island TAIWAN’s Jumpstart Your Japanese Journey White Papers” when quoting relevant content.
The first workshop was held on February 25th. The workshop attracted nearly 200 people to sign up and nearly 100 people to participate. The three speakers: Co-Founder of Fracton Ventures Yudai Suzuki, Founder of JPYC Okabe Noritaka, and COO of Chaintope Murakami Teruaki shared their experiences and observations on the Web 3.0 trend in Japan, the future prospects for cryptocurrencies and stable coins in Japan, and the application of blockchain technology in the future.
Curious what the speakers shared regarding Web 3.0-related industry trends in Japan? Read along!
Web 3.0 to replace Web 2.0? Not quite yet!
As the first venture in Japan to incubate Web 3.0 projects, Yuda Suzuki, Co-Founder of Fracton Ventures, said that it still takes time for the applications commonly used in people’s daily lives to switch to Web 3.0 technology. Yudai Suzuki suggests that startups shouldn’t think about going global or becoming the best of its industry in Japan from day one but must first resolve language barriers and cultural differences. Recently, Fracton Ventures has already held an online and offline English pitch event with more than 50 investors and provided matchmaking opportunities with overseas partners, mentors, investors and so on. In 2022, a new 10M investment fund was established. They hope to discover more teams with potential in Asia.
Okabe Noritaka: creating a society where salaries and taxes can be paid in JPYC
“Because JPYC is not a cryptocurrency, people can buy it through bank remittance”. Okabe Noritaka, Founder of JPYC believes that if Japan decides to take in NFT as one of its future industrial development strategies, they should aim at the free circulation of Japan’s stable coins in Japan and abroad, and the legal exchange of those coins with other stable coins as the short-term goal so that in the next stage, there will be opportunities to exchange stable coins with fiat currencies. Looking into the future, if in 2022, Japan sets forth relevant regulations on legal use, diversified applications and scenarios of the legal use of digital currency in Japan can be expected.
Decentralized trend by blockchain allows for personal data management
Murakami Teruaki, COO of Chaintope indicates that, Chaintope is committed to developing public chain technology to solve the high cost of communication between the underlying structures of blockchain, and to really put the technology into application. For example, using blockchain’s characteristics of decentralization and of tamper resistance, Chaintope applied blockchain technology to the import of agricultural products to Taiwan, allowing consumers to be able to track the origin and authenticity of products. The same logic also encourages ESG-related industries to work with blockchain technology so that buyers can locate sources, increasing trust. In the future, Chaintope will continue to work with the Japanese government to promote blockchain services for the use of digital transformation.
During the second half of the event, the three speakers answered startups’ questions on the application of blockchain technology, the development of NFTs in Japan, the primary considerations when entering the Japanese market, and finance-related regulations. All three speakers expressed interests to have more collaboration opportunities with Taiwan.
After the workshop, Startup Island TAIWAN also shared the full white paper and speakers’ decks to the participants. In the next few months, Startup Island TAIWAN plans to roll out other white papers and workshops with the next one being E-Commerce and Entertainment.
Complete the questionnaire to download the full white paper on “Web 3.0-related Industry Trends in Japan” (currently only available in Chinese)
Startup Island TAIWAN「Jumpstart Your Japanese Journey」Forewords & Goals:
Entrepreneurs usually face challenges looking for product and solution partners at the early stage of market expansion to Japan because they are unfamiliar with the pain points and user behaviors. This is because local distributors, agents, and system integrators are generally unwilling to spend a lot of time and resources to adjust products and solutions to meet the needs of the Japanese market; sometimes even if they do offer customized opinions, Taiwanese entrepreneurs are not ready for adjustments whether in terms of mentality or resources. Some merely want to “check out” the Japanese market with existing products or services, which is why when they encounter difficulties, they tend to give up. Another possibility could be that entrepreneurs are unable to evaluate adjustment directions and whether the input of resources is in line with the benefits.
Therefore, Startup Island TAIWAN hopes to provide information on specific countries, industries, and market projects through this series of white papers. The Japanese series look especially at cases of collaborations between the buy-side and the sell-side in related fields within the Japanese market. Through a large number of case studies, presents the project’s current existing solutions and entry points in Japan.
This series of white papers hold the following objectives:
Evaluation of business opportunities and market fit: to enable entrepreneurs looking to enter the Japanese market discover solutions or market pain points that have not yet appeared in Japan, and then evaluate whether they can provide higher technology or other advantageous products and services to have business opportunities in Japan.
Understanding of the important stakeholders in the market: to outline the collaborations between stakeholders in Japan for entrepreneurs looking to develop their Japanese market, including but not limited to: partners, competitors, distributors, agents, system integrators, technology/service supporters.
Assessment of suitable partners: since those in Japan that have the ability to look for cross-border partners in Taiwan stand in relatively dominant positions; under information asymmetry, sometimes they may not be suitable partners for Taiwanese companies. After long-term negotiation and adjustment, the collaboration ultimately gets called off due to both parties not willing to make compromises. Time is lost in inefficiency. After reading through this white paper, entrepreneurs will be able to make informed decisions to judge whether Japanese partners’ business objectives, experience, and competitive advantages meet the needs of Taiwanese businesses and whether there are opportunities for investment resources and long-term collaborations; if not, whether there are other Japanese companies with the same attributes to work with instead of being constrained by a single company. The technical capabilities of Taiwanese companies are known in the international market, the goal now is to allow capable Taiwanese companies to be able to choose potential partners to work with instead of waiting to be selected.