We will move on to our feature fireside chat. We are honored to welcome Jason Calacanis, one of Silicon Valley's most influential angel investors and the founder of LAUNCH. Joining him is Steve Nito, a Japanese entrepreneur and founder of Anyplace. He was invested by LAUNCH in 2017. Today's conversation will be moderated by Satsuki from Jetto startup division. During this discussion, we encourage you to think about questions you may wish to ask during the Q&A session that will follow. With that, please join me in welcoming our speakers.
Thank you very much for joining us today. I'm really excited to moderate this session.
Um, I say never, you say employee. Never
I say only, you say founder. Only
Only founder.
I want everybody on Monday to quit your job.
I give you permission and if your mom or dad is upset, they can call me.
Okay. So, let's get started. Sure.
So, I would like to start off with how you guys met. So I believe uh Steve applied for a launch and then you met first um you met Jason first. So uh before you met Steve um how interested were you in Japan or Japanese market or Japanese founders and also um what was your first impression meeting um Steve and what finally convinced you to invest in him?
Well, I meet thousands of founders every year for many decades. Steve, what was the first meeting like?
Oh, really? I remember. I do remember. Um
I know you remember.
I first met Jason um during the the interview for the launch accelerator and then I do remember clearly about um icebreaker. You know, we met in the conference room. I was so nervous. But once you figure out I'm origin from Japan, Jason was like, "Hey, I'm big in Japan." You know, he started talking about sushi in the tempura ginsa. And I was like, "Wow, Jason loves Japan." So um that conversation made me feel comfortable.
Yeah. I um you asked me what I think of Japan. I love Japan. It's my favorite place to come. Uh [applause] and for American founders, it's very special to come here because American founders are living in a society that doesn't understand them and doesn't run like they run their companies. In America, there's not very good customer service and people don't do a very good job at their job. Typically they do the least amount of work sometimes there's not a sense of pride in every job and founders are trying to make the perfect product and they don't know it but there's a word kaizen kaizen kaizen paizen is Italian friend kaizen kaizen and kaizen is something founders do naturally they always want to continually improve and then also they have a deep sense of giri big honor that they care very deeply about their customers, their employees, their investors. And then finally, eeky guy, they look at their life and they say, "What am I good at? And what does the world need? How can I make some money?" And they put the circles together and they try to find a place for themselves in the world. And in Japan, what I've learned coming here for many decades and now twice a year, uh I was coming once a year in January. And the reason I know that the program starts in January is because I come every January to ski in Nco powder. We call it JPOW. And so unfortunately, maybe six years ago, I talked on the podcast about JPAW. And I talked about the secret place I go skiing. [snorts] And the guy who runs the place said, "Don't ever say our name on the podcast, please." And I said, 'Why not?' He goes, "After you talked about the secret ski mountain with the cat skis that drives you up." He said, "We sold out the whole season and now all the regulars are upset." I said, "Oh, okay." I said, "You know, I'm coming." He goes, "We're sold out." I said, he goes, "Okay, I'll cancel somebody for you, but please don't tell [laughter] anybody." Um, so it was a great honor when you guys asked me. Um, now you also asked about Japanese founders.
I think when I was coming to Japan 20 years ago, long before the iPhone, um, and I had no money, I would stay in a very small hotel and I was in my bed and I would roll over and I could touch the wall. Then I would roll over in the bed. I touched the other wall and then I had my suitcase. And in order to get to the bathroom or leave the room, I had to move the suitcase because so it was like Tetris, you know, the game. But I walked around and I said, "Oh, the energy. Oh, Akihabara. Oh, whoa. It's a whole building of robots, water robots, flying robots, underground robots, robot parts." Said, "This is incredible." and I saw the future and uh I always tell founders go just go just go and they come back and I give them a list of where to go. Oh, go to center bakery, get the French toast. Uh, go to Maison and get the katsuki. Uh, and I tell them, exactly. Then the soba place you took me. 100-y old soba place. Don't tell them.
Every time I say it, it's too many. It sells out.
And the reason is because everything, the person who makes the soba, the person who runs the ski resort, the person who rents the skis, they care deeply. They care deeply. Every time I go to a cafe here, every coffee is better than the last one. And every time I go, I buy one of the mugs and I put the coffee mug. And then every morning, I drink from a different mug because it reminds me of the passion that the Japanese people, not just the founders, have for Kai Kaizen. It just make the coffee a little better each time. And so that's what I love about the founders now. And the first cohort, you know, it was new, but we had a good turnout. And the founders were very good, very promising.
And then this cohort, we just finished three days. And in this cohort, it's even better. And every time, Kaizen, we get better applications, more applications, and then we get better at our job. So, it was very nice uh to see Shan talk about the program because I [clears throat] remember talking to him and talking to you get the pitch perfect so you can hire great employees, you can get great customers and you can get great investors and just make it perfect. And if the pitch isn't perfect, it's probably because the business has a problem, right? And so now it's very exciting because it used to be that um you know Steve was very rare and now I see in Japan oh your parents I was talking to a journalist uh here this trip and I he's Gen X like me born 19 he's born 1974 and uh we were talking about our kids and I said your parents I said if your kids were entrepreneurs Would you be scared or would you be happy? He said, "Oh, I'd be so happy if my kids," he lives in Japan, "would be entrepreneurs?" I said, "If your parents, if you told your parents you were going to be an entrepreneur, would they be scared or happy?" Oh, very scared. They were very scared of this. So, it's changed in Japan. Now, I think being an entrepreneur is the number one choice. Yeah. Uh, and then, yeah, go work for a big company. That's okay, too. But maybe that's the number two choice. And so that preference I think is very important. There is one challenge for Japanese founders.
They have to think bigger. He thinks big. Shun thinks big. This is such a special place. 100 million people to sell to. You can just stay on the island. Hawaii. I just went to Hawaii again and it's very alloring. You can just stay on the island forever. It's so beautiful. Australia. Sometimes the Australians never leave because there's 30 million great customers. But it's not enough to win Japan. You have to win in America. You have to win in Europe. You have to win in Africa. You want to win in Latin America. So I very much trying to work with the founders now in the program. Think bigger. Think bigger. Uh because now is the time. AI makes it so anyone can make a product. You don't need a developer anymore. You can go on lovable, co-work, claude, grock. Any of the services will let you make your own website or app.
today and today's the worst those tools will ever be. They're getting better [clears throat] and better and product is going faster. The amount of time you spent to build your first product in the first year, it took you a year to build,
How long would it take now?
I don't know. Just a month, a few weeks.
Few weeks.
So the amount of time it takes to start a company is now 90% less. the cost for you would be what?
10x less. So this is the time. Don't miss this opportunity. 2026, 2027, 2028 is a very special time. Anyone can build anything, okay? And it doesn't matter if you're old or it doesn't matter if you're young. You could be 19 or you could be 59. It doesn't matter. Any age. Sometimes the best entrepreneurs 40 to 60 years old even if you had another career and you worked for one company for 30 years it doesn't matter you could do it just start tomorrow okay
so I was going to ask about AI era and how Jason think about I mean how has your evaluation criteria uh of early stage startups changed but can I go into the topics like that that That was gonna go to the last topic but yeah
yeah we have some criteria and everything has changed again so we used to really worry do you have developers how many developers do you have are they outsource developers are they inside the company now I'm starting to think maybe we need to change that because maybe in year one you don't need a developer maybe you need them in year two or three and maybe you don't maybe you're not going to need developers I mean it'd be great to have them but depending on the company you may not
So I think the solo founders getting the number of solo founders increasing I guess but
the number of founders will be 10x
because the opportunity is 100x
if you can make a company for 90% less then what that means is a company that made maybe 90% less money is viable. It used to be ah this idea is too small now. And because if you had to spend $1 million in 12 months to build it, maybe you shouldn't.
No matter how dumb you think your idea is, no matter how small the audience is, just build it. I'm building software for one person. You know who?
Me. I built a podcast player in Paris last week. I had jet lag. I stayed up and I built myself my own podcast player because I wanted a podcast player that depending on the topic would take all the business podcasts and if it was the SpaceX IPO instead of me listening to 10 podcasts and scrubbing to look for it I said look in the timestamps play the first episode if it's story number one start at minute one if it's story number three start at minute 30 and it went bing bing bing bing bing and I made it for $12 incred in tokens for $12. I pay $99 for my favorite podcasting app.
It's not customized or bespoke. That's the future. It's okay if you're a solo entrepreneur. You'll you'll find a co-founder, I think. What do you think about it? Um
and how has it changed your company and how you run it?
I think like um by leveraging AI um could streamline a lot of processes like marketing, you know, sales and uh development. But uh only one thing that hasn't changed is execution right. So still we have to uh find customers we have to um get feedback from them. We have to improve you know the product. So that iteration is you know existing right the ex the I would say execution and iteration still matters right. So
thank you and in that case what will be the mode for the startup? So the moat is that you will not quit. The moat is the relationship and trust. So the new moat is not a patent.
It's not how hard it is to build software. It's how much people trust you. Because if I'm going to use your software, I need to know you won't quit tomorrow.
And the way you are going to build that mode is to build trust. So, I have Slack.
Everybody uses Slack for their startup, but I'm frustrated uh with them right now because I want to have complete access by API to all my data. And they said, "Oh, uh, you're on the $8 version." I said, "No, no, I'm on the $15 a month version per employee." And they said, "Oh, okay." I said, "Do I get it?" And they said, "Oh, no, no. For API access, you need to get this new higher plan." I said, "But it's my data." He said, "Well, you can special request to export it." I said, "Okay, how long does it take?" He said, "I don't know. Fill out the form to get my data." I said, "I want to get my data in real time every day." He goes, "Okay, well then just export it again." I said, "Export it again. This is incredibly slow. This makes no sense." He said, I said, "Well, how do I get the API access?" He said, "$45." I said, "What?" "3 times more to get my data back." And I said to him, "Do you know how crazy that I said, can I talk to you on the phone?" He said, "No, phone equals death. I don't want to talk to you on the phone. I want to get this problem solved." And we go back and forth, back and forth. He goes, "I'll give it to you for free." Now, it's also because I have 1.5 million Twitter followers, so he probably doesn't want me upset. And he doesn't want his b I'm friends with his boss, Mark Beni off, who's awesome. But I was I'm like I just want to let you know that I don't trust you now because you won't give me my own data and I'm thinking about using open source because I trust open source more and I don't know anybody at the open source project.
So, I know you. I know Mark Beni off. I know two other people who work at Slack and Salesforce. And I trust you less. And I've been using you for over 10 years. And I trust an anonymous open source more. So, if you're building your startup, you must build trust. Trust. The service is fast. The service doesn't go down. If I have a problem and I talk to customer support, somebody answers. So, yes, you build a company and 10 people will follow you. And within one year, seven will quit. So now you're back to three. And then the next year, one more will quit. And two years later, the other one will quit. And you'll be the last one standing. So trust and longevity are what is the moat now. And then trust means your brand. So if I say Unilo,
