Okay. So, good evening everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Shinta Nakano from JETRO's startup division and I will be serving as your host this evening. It is a pleasure to welcome you all now. So, we are ready to begin this event, a fireside chat with Jason Calacanis: startups, angel investing, and Silicon Valley.
To begin today's program, um, I would like to invite Mr. Tani, head of JETRO startup, to deliver the opening remarks.
Hi, good evening everybody. Good evening.
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much for coming. I'm very excited to host this event. First of all, I would like to say a big thank you to our great partner, Launch, and Founder University to make this event happen.
And also I would like to shout out to my great team, JETRO startups, and especially Satsuki Ibaraki.
Without her hard work, the event wouldn't probably happen. Thank you very much, Satsuki.
So my name is Noriaki Tani. Please call me Nori, Deputy Director General of the Innovation Department of Japan External Trade Organization, JETRO, also known as head of JETRO startups. I oversee all JETRO initiatives around the world. And those who are not familiar with JETRO, let me explain briefly who we are and what we do. We are a government agency to build a global startup ecosystem.
What we do here is to help Japanese founders and Japanese startups go global by providing mentoring and warm introductions to VCs and potential clients. And we've run many acceleration programs with leading accelerators like Plug and Play and StartX.
But we are not just sending Japanese startups or Japanese founders overseas. We are also bringing the global startup ecosystem players to Tokyo or to Japan. So Techstars and Alchemist are our examples. We helped them to run their acceleration program in Japan. They are now investing in Japanese startups. We are also helping Alumni Ventures or any other venture capital in the US and Europe. As you may know, Andreessen Horowitz just announced they will establish an office in Japan to invest in Japanese startups.
And we are very proud that Founder University Tokyo is launching the second cohort this week.
And what we want to bring is not just a program. We want to build a community. We want to build a mindset. Mindset is very important. And great companies have been built, will be built anywhere, and the place you start doesn't matter.
So Silicon Valley is not a location, it's a mindset. Everybody uses this phrase, right? And today we are very fortunate to have two distinguished speakers with this mindset.
One is Jason Calacanis, who is the most influential angel investor who has backed founders before almost everyone else believed in them. And Steve Sato, immediately after graduating from university, he founded his company in the San Francisco Bay Area and he published his book. Has anyone here read this book named Silicon Valley Nerd?
Oh, everyone's reading this book. Wow. And I really enjoyed it. And reading Sato's book confirmed what I've seen in the field at the JETRO job.
And JETRO helps 2,000 startups every year. And some companies succeeded globally, but others didn't. What was the difference? What was the biggest difference? The difference was not technology. The difference was not market. The difference was not funding. The difference was mindset and people.
So that's the reason why we really want to bring the mindset to Japan. And almost all successful founders think globally from day one. This mindset we want to bring, and the people also matters.
And Jason often says founders are unemployable. I think he's true. I don't think Sato is very employable either.
If you read this book, you probably understand exactly what I mean. You wouldn't hire Sato after reading this book. It's true.
You didn't work at a big company before, right? No, this is the first company you worked for. That was a startup.
Great. And so people really matter. So actually, what I speak... Yeah. And probably you founders bet your idea. Nobody believed in it, and you move faster than big companies.
Actually, every time I run a program, I'm really worried about running the acceleration program, running the program, because you are unemployable. So you question everything, you complain about every program, but we will continue to do this because we want to bet on founders.
Founders are really important. Probably you don't like JETRO, you don't like government, right? But listen, we are different. We are different, right?
We are not here to slow you down. We are here to help you move faster. And my final bet is Founder University Tokyo. And I'm very excited to announce Founder University Tokyo will come back to Tokyo this fall.
Next January. Okay. So, applications will be open soon. So, please come back to us, and I want to see you guys at Founder University Cohort 3. Thank you very much.
And buy this book if you want. And Jason also published the famous book Angel. It's published in Japanese.
Thank you very much, Mr. Tani. Now let me briefly walk you through today's agenda.
Yeah. So the event will be structured in three parts. The first is an introduction to the Founder and Angel University program, and second, a lightning talk session featuring alumni participants from JETRO programs. Third, our fireside chat featuring Jason Calacanis and Steve Sato.
We hope that today's discussion will provide valuable insights to support your future global growth and expansion.
Next, I would like to invite Satsuki Ibaraki, who oversees this year's Founder and Angel University program, to provide an overview of the program. She will explain the program structure, key opportunities, and the benefits startups can gain through participation.
Thank you everyone for joining us today. I'm Satsuki, the project manager at JETRO Startup. So I would like to introduce what Founder and University Japan is about and also share some highlights from Cohort One. So Founder and University Japan is a program run by Launch designed to support founders in Japan who are aiming to scale globally, while also helping angel investors to build a stronger early-stage investment framework.
So in Cohort One, we selected 30 startups. The overall satisfaction rate was really high, with an average score of about nine out of 10. We were also very encouraged to see that 92% of founders would recommend this program to other founders.
And also throughout the program, the Launch team provided 273 founder support, including pitch feedback calls, introductions, and other hands-on support.
So the top 10 startups were selected for the US immersion program, where they had the opportunity to pitch and meet investors in San Francisco.
At Launch Fest, there were about 400 attendees, including founders, angel investors, and venture firms and ecosystem partners. One of our Cohort One startups was selected as top six out of 53 pitches. She is actually right there, and she got an investment offer by Launch.
So these results show the strong potential of Japanese founders, and now we are doing Cohort Two starting this week. So we are also very excited to bring this opportunity again next January.
So that's about it, and we will discuss more about Founder University and Launch accelerator after this, but please enjoy today. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the introduction. Next, we will move on to the lightning talk session. In this session, we will welcome startups that have participated in Launch's acceleration program and share their real firsthand experiences, insights you can only gain by going through the program.
I will now call the names of our speakers. So please come up to the stage. First, Hibiki, who joined Founder University in 2025. I will pass the mic to you.
Hi everyone. I'm Hibiki. I'm in San Francisco, and I'm super excited to be here, and I'll share our Founder University journey. So let me quickly introduce what we do. So I am building the streaming infrastructure for 3D media, aiming to be like a media infrastructure for smart glasses or spatial computing. And I went to Founder University, and I graduated as one of the top startups in our cohort, and I got investment from Launch Fund as a first check. So Launch became our first investor. But today, it's the first time for me to meet Launch in person.
So let me take you back to the start. This was me two years ago. So I didn't have a product, of course, revenue, sales, and I just moved to San Francisco. So I have no relationships in the US, and here is everything I have: an idea, a dream, and one way to get to San Francisco.
So then I joined Founder University. I joined founders from all over the world, and I got lessons from founders who already raised from Launch Fund. And what I loved most was the live sessions where the founders who raised from Launch Fund shared their own journey, their own history, and their insight. Their feedback is like layout and details.
And over 12 weeks, we launched our MVP and we made our first sales revenue, and we received our first check from Launch.
So after 12 weeks, from an idea, we became from an idea to a company with product and sales and investors. And after graduating Founder University, we were featured at the top of the App Store in the US. Thank you.
And Apple featured and named us in the official newsroom announcement, like next to the BBC, HBO, Apple TV. So Apple put a startup that started with an idea and one way to get to San Francisco right next to the biggest names in the world.
So here is what I want to leave you with. I came to San Francisco with an idea and a dream and one way to get to San Francisco. But Founder University promised one thing: turn your startup idea into a reality. So this is what happened and what changed for us. So if you have an idea, that's enough. You should apply to Founder University. Thank you.
So next, for the second speaker, Shun Yamada, who joined Launch Accelerator in 2020, and now he is a mentor of Founder University Japan Cohort One and Two. The stage is yours.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Hi. My name is Shun. I'm a CEO and co-founder of Retreat. Today, I would like to share how this 14-week accelerator changed me.
So this is San Francisco, and meet Shun. Oh, it's me. And he actually, so yeah, moved to the States maybe in 2014, and he built a lot of products. He wrote code and he worked hard, but actually, it's really hard to access the investors. Yeah, sorry, he wrote code, he worked hard, and because he has a dream to build a billion-dollar company, he invested a lot in billion-dollar companies. So I wanted to make it also, and I wrote a lot of stuff, but there were clearly some issues because I had never studied in the States, I had never worked in a company in the States too. So I didn't have any network, so no access to the investors, and I didn't know how to sell. And also, I had no credibility in the States. Nobody knows me and nobody trusts me. So I'm just another founder.
Yeah. So I joined Launch in 2020, and yeah, and this Jason, this Jason is actually the first person to believe in me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Launch is the first community I joined. I never worked in a company or any community. So thank you so much, Launch team.
And actually, what's actually the most different point from other accelerators is Launch is built for fundraising. So I met 500-plus top investors like Sequoia, The Craft Ventures, True Ventures during the cohort. Also, the founder network is very huge, and Launch has invested in more than 1,000 companies. So we can help each other in this community.
And also, this accelerator is 14 weeks, but Launch continues to support us, like all founders, every fundraising, always. So I really appreciate Launch. So I'm proud of the world's number one accelerator for fundraising and for startups. Yeah.
So finally, yeah, after graduation, I raised $3.5 million totally right now. And so actually, from just an engineer founder to a fundraising founder, I became this thanks to the Launch team. So actually, what I learned at Launch, the biggest thing I learned is like pitch is everything. Because I think every time, actually, so pitch to hire, pitch to raise the funds, and pitch to hire the talent, pitch to acquire the customer. Actually, as a founder, I think to tell the story, actually, so make people believe is our job. And actually, I really like the Launch team, and I want to make, I want to, I will be the next billion-dollar company in the Launch portfolio, and I will make Launch the best investor. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much for your presentations. Please join me in giving our speakers another round of applause.
So next, we will move on to our featured 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 Sato, a Japanese entrepreneur and founder of Anyplace. He was invested in by Launch in 2017.
Today's conversation will be moderated by Satsuki from JETRO 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.
Never employee. I say only, you say founder. Only.
Okay, now you know. Here we go. 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 Steve applied for Launch, and then you met Jason first. So before you met Steve, how interested were you in Japan or the Japanese market or Japanese founders? And also, what was your first impression meeting 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? I don't remember.
Oh, really? I remember. I do remember.
I first met Jason during the interview for the Launch accelerator, and then I do remember clearly about the icebreaker. You know, we met in the conference room. I was so nervous. But once you figured out I'm originally from Japan, Jason was like, "Hey, I'm big in Japan." You know, he started talking about sushi and tempura and Ginza. And I was like, "Wow, Jason loves Japan." So that conversation made me feel comfortable. Yeah.
Yeah. You asked me what I think of Japan. I love Japan. It's my favorite place to come.
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 for 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, a big honor, that they care very deeply about their customers, their employees, their investors.
And then finally, ikigai, 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, 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 Japanese powder. We call it JPOW.
And so unfortunately, maybe six years ago, I talked on the podcast about JPOW. And I talked about the secret place I go skiing.
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 ski 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." He goes, "Okay, I'll cancel somebody for you, but please don't tell anybody." So it was a great honor when you guys asked me. Now, you also asked about Japanese founders.
I think when I was coming to Japan 20 years ago, long before the iPhone, 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, 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. This is incredible." And I saw the future.
And 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. Go to Maison and get the katsu curry. And I tell them exactly. Then the soba place you took me, 100-year-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 kaizen. 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 to see Shun talk about the program because I 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, you know, Steve was very rare, and now I see in Japan, oh, your parents. I was talking to a journalist here this trip, and he's Gen X like me, born 1974, and 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. 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 alluring. 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'm very much trying to work with the founders now in the program. Think bigger. Think bigger.
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, Cursor, Claude, Grok, any of the services will let you make your own website or app today. And today is the worst those tools will ever be. They're getting better 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, right? How long would it take now?
I don't know. Just a month, a few weeks.
Few weeks. Yeah. 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 are 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.
Okay. So I was going to ask about the AI era and how Jason thinks about, I mean, how has your evaluation criteria of early-stage startups changed? But can I go into the topics like that? That was going to 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 outsourced developers or 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 need it. 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 in credits and 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 find a co-founder, I think. What do you think about it?
And how has it changed your company and how you run it?
I think by leveraging AI, we could streamline a lot of processes like marketing, sales, and development. But only one thing that hasn't changed is execution, right? So still we have to find customers, we have to get feedback from them, we have to improve the product. So that iteration is existing, right? I would say execution and iteration still matters, right?
Thank you. And in that case, what will be the moat 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 moat is to build trust. So, I have Slack. Everybody uses Slack for their startup, but I'm frustrated with them right now because I want to have complete access by API to all my data. And they said, "Oh, 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." I said, "Well, how do I get the API access?" He said, "$45." I said, "What? Three times more to get my data back?"
And I said to him, "Do you know how crazy that is? 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 I'm friends with his boss, Marc Benioff, who's awesome. But I was 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 Marc Benioff. 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 Uniqlo, has anybody heard of Uniqlo?
In America, it wouldn't be everybody. Uniqlo. I took one of my daughters to Uniqlo with me, and she's like, "I don't want to go. I don't know." Sometimes your daughter, if I like something, maybe they don't like it as much. After we left, the first thing she said when we were leaving the store is, "Can we go back tomorrow?" I said, "We just left." She goes, "I know. There's more stuff I want to get, and I want to try on more clothes."
And I trust and love Uniqlo for so many reasons. They make Aism. It's so light. They make Heattech. It's so warm. And then I buy shirts, white shirts with a collar, and I spend, you know, James Perse $150 for a t-shirt. And I feel very stupid. Then I buy, and then it turns into bacon. The collar turns into a piece of bacon after 10 washes. And I'm like, I don't trust him.
And then I met Kathy, who's on the board. She's a venture capitalist here. I met her last time, and I said, "Oh, Kathy, I love this Uniqlo." She goes, "Oh, I'm on the board." And she started telling me, "Oh, all they do is do research on fabric. They're experts. It's a technology company." I said, "It's a tech company. Explain." She goes, "You know, when you leave the store, you put all your clothes in the thing, and it counts them, and you leave quickly, and they keep releasing stuff, and they have all this advanced technology."
And I'm wearing the underwear right now. It's incredibly hot out. I'm not hot.
Very cool. Does anybody wear Aism? Who's got Aism? Who's wearing it right now? He's cool as a cucumber. Look how light he feels. Great. And so everybody here loves this brand. I say Uniqlo. People are like, "Oh, I love Uniqlo."
I'm rich.
Yes, I know. And I shop sometimes. This suit is incredibly expensive. Tom Ford. Very nice.
But then sometimes I feel very stupid when I buy a $150 t-shirt and it fades. And then I buy Uniqlo for $25, and then when I'm here it's only 18. And I buy five or six for the same price, and those are still perfect. And so trust builds from quality. The quality builds the trust. Yeah. And this new innovation that builds trust. And then every time I go, there's some new product.
I didn't have a parka. I bought a parka, you know, from the guy from Oasis, Liam Gallagher. He wears the parka. It's a cool English guy. And I was like, I need one of those. I just bought one. There's incredible value. Incredible value. Right. So that's how you build the new moat. That's the new moat. That's the AI moat. Brand, trust, loyalty, trust, love, you know, and not quitting. If I come back here in 20 years, Uniqlo will still be in the Ginza flagship store, right?
Okay. Thank you. So regarding trust, I would like to ask Steve, because you've been building trust, how have you built trust so far?
Oh, yeah. So our product is pretty simple. We provide accommodation. So what we do is we provide the best customer experience during their stay. So in the US, customer support quality is pretty low. So if I respond to our customers within one hour, they were surprised. They said, wow, and they left you great reviews. So yeah, I think that mindset originated from Japanese hospitality, omotenashi style. So that would be super helpful for our company's culture.
Also, you have great design, which also matters, and details.
All of those build trust. So you have the standing desk and the beautiful monitor, right?
And so they think his design is very well thought out. So also consistency will also build trust and moat.
If one service is not consistent, you go to Starbucks downstairs, if you order a flat white downstairs, you order a flat white in Australia, you order a flat white in the US, it should be, they hope, perfect in each one. The last CEO, it wasn't. And they brought a new CEO and they fired him so they could fix that. Now they're trying to get back to that every single cup is as good as the last city you were in. You were going to say something, right?
Right. So as a result, you know, 20% of customers, you know, come back to Anyplace because they love, you know, standing desk, monitor, you know, work setup stuff. So that's the important part.
I have a tip for you. You should, as the founder, ask them, send an automatic email that says, "Hi, I'm the founder. This is an automated message, but if you hit reply, it goes to me. And I was wondering, is there anything we could have done better?"
And so it's automated, so you don't have to send it, but they get it. And then say, and if you rate us and give me candid feedback, we'll give you 20% off your next stay. The 20% will go from 20% to 40% overnight.
The reason I did this was when we meet with a founder. Now, when you met with me, you didn't give feedback. Now, within 24 hours of meeting with us, anybody on my team, so if Bianca meets with a company, 24 hours after they meet, they get an email from my email address that's automated and says, "This is an automated message from Jason Calacanis, but this is my real email. I know you met with Bianca. It would be very helpful for me if you could fill out this form and give some feedback, and if you hit reply, you'll get me." So every day, I get two or three of those.
And the reason I added it, and people tried to stop me in my own company, they said, "Ah, I don't know. It's annoying or, you know, whatever." And I was like, "I know why they don't want it, because they're scared of the feedback." I said, "Listen, nobody's going to get fired." I lied. If they get a bad review, we're all going to get better together. I mean, but if somebody did bad, I would fire them. But it made everybody be very conscious on the phone.
And then when the bad reviews came in, I said, "We have one room which is like the Founder University flowers, and one room's the Founder tomatoes." Like they threw a tomato at us. And if it's below an eight, if it's a seven, we get a tomato. And when Bianca gets a seven, she loses her mind and goes and watches the call again.
Now, founders are tough cookies. Like they'll give you a seven. You saw before we got a nine out of 10, and 93% said they got, like, who's the 7%? It's like, well, founders are hard, you know, like some of them might be like, "I didn't raise money, or my company failed, so it's your fault" kind of thing. I understand it. But what that has done for our organization is when new people come in and they get a low score, sometimes a founder will unload on us. "I felt like they were distracted. They seemed like they were tired, or I don't think they understood my idea."
And one of the pieces of feedback I got more often than other people was that they felt I didn't understand their idea because I've heard so many ideas, I process it very quickly. So now I said, hm, how do I fix this customer support? And there's a very fancy hotel in Ginza called Aman Hotel, Aman. It's very, very nice.
And so I always tell my team, we have to do Aman-level service. So at the end of every interaction, I started asking, "May I repeat back to you your vision, Steve, so I make sure I understand it and I didn't miss anything?" Now, when you came through the program, we didn't ask that question. I added it. Constant kaizen, right? Always trying to get better.
The reason I phrased it like that, and then I insisted that everybody on the team phrase it that way, and then sometimes somebody on the team forgets, and we record every call. So when you get a low score, Bianca will watch it if Kabir got a low score, and they'll talk about it, and we'll study it like a basketball player might study if they lose a game.
But when we asked that question that way, no founder could ever say they didn't understand my idea because the last impression they got from our firm was, "Can I repeat it back humbly, that I understand your idea because I want to make sure I didn't miss it?" And I use the word vision because that shows respect to the founder. We know it's the hardest job in the world. And so if we say we want to understand your vision, they know that we take it seriously. We didn't say your idea, right? The words matter.
And that's the moat. I can compete with anybody, any venture firm, because those other firms don't send that email, and they don't have that feedback, and they don't have that secret question. Please don't tell anybody, but they don't have the secret question, right? And that's something you have in your business. Like you can find that secret that makes every single person feel special. Like the Aman Hotel over here. I have so many stories about the...
Aman Hotel.
Yeah. I'm curious to know what's the best and worst feedback you received through the...
Me personally or just overall?
I mean, it was very... it made me very sad and I was very frustrated myself that people felt that I wasn't listening, and it was because I'm so fast.
So, you know, there's sometimes you don't know how much of an impact you have on somebody because I don't think about myself as, you know, Jason Calacanis, All-In Podcast, Uber investor, very famous or, you know, internet famous. I think of myself just the same as Steve. We're both entrepreneurs. So when he came to visit me, I don't understand... I wasn't fully recognizing the power differential, the power difference. He might have been very intimidated and nervous. I wasn't nervous. I didn't know he was nervous. He just told me he's nervous. I was like, why would he be nervous? He's so confident. But okay, you were nervous. So I had to be aware of that.
And other people on my team, um, sometimes I hire young... I almost always hire young people who haven't worked in venture, and sometimes they think to do a good job they need to ask hard questions and give advice.
And I had to sit some of them down and I said, have you ever run a business? Nope. I said, when did you graduate school? And they said, oh, in June. I said, okay, six months ago? Yeah. Why on the call did you tell them how to run their business? You don't know anything. That's not your job to tell them how to run their business. Maybe after 10 years as a venture capitalist, then you can ask them, have you considered... have you thought about... So when I told Steve I have an idea for him, I know he respects me. He wrote a book and I'm in it. So I know we have great respect for each other. I said, oh, I have an idea for you to consider. I'm not telling him to do it. I said, very careful, oh, I have an idea, maybe you should consider, or have you thought of this? Because I don't want him to think that I'm smarter, or I think I'm... I don't want him to think that I think I'm smarter than him or I know his business better than him.
Okay. And I had to teach some young people, like, because the founders would come back and be like, this person didn't understand my idea and they gave me stupid advice. So, oh my god, that's the worst for us. Now they think we're dumb and we proved we're dumb by giving them bad advice. So I told people, why would you give the founder advice? You're there to listen. Oh, well, don't we need to vet it? Yes, we need to vet it, but it's not your job. You can give your opinion internally. What good does it do for you to give them bad advice with no credibility in the world? You're a nobody. Nobody knows who you are, and then you have the audacity to tell them how to run their business. If you... maybe after the phone call you could email them and say, I read this blog post about how to do viral marketing and it reminded me of you. I thought you might find it helpful. I hope you're doing well. I really enjoyed our time together. Like, maybe you could do that.
But you're not there to make them feel bad or to grill them like it's Shark Tank. Shark Tank is fake. It's fake. It's made up. It's designed to be entertaining and cruel and to create drama that doesn't exist. We're on the same team. We're not adversaries. Investors and founders are trying to change the world against great odds.
Thank you. So, I think we need two or three more hours to...
Great. Let's keep going. I don't have to be anywhere. Keep going. They're not going anywhere.
So I think so many audience are interested in, you know, in Jason, of course, in LAUNCH, and some of them might think they want to invest, get an investment from you or LAUNCH.
I brought checks.
Tell me how much you need.
So I would like to ask Steve again, so when you had an interview with Jason, how did you feel that you have to prove within the short amount of time?
Oh yeah, it was a short interview period, just 20 minutes, and then during that process Jason asked me real questions like who are your customers and how do you acquire them. So what I've proven is execution. So at that time we were hacking Facebook housing groups to acquire customers for free, no marketing budget. So once Jason heard of that, he said like, you are a hustler, so it means a lot to me, and then we got money from LAUNCH. So I would say like, you should prove your execution skills, not only presenting a great idea. So that's my tip.
I think it's very important, especially in the early stage. The great founders at the early stage can take 10 cents and get a dollar of value, and then the bad founders will take a dollar and get a penny of value. They'll waste money and then they'll ask for more money to waste more money. These underdog founders who don't have money, they're gritty. They don't waste. No waste. No part of the animal is wasted. And if they don't have money to get a customer, they will just stop somebody on the street or knock on their door or just email people until they say, you're so annoying, fine, I'll buy your product, or fine, I'll take the call. I told my team, you know, if... and I've told many founders, you know, if you have a hundred people on your mailing list and you're not having anybody unsubscribe, then that means nobody's reading it. And if you're emailing them and trying to get them to use the product and nobody's buying it, like, well, okay, maybe I have the wrong product, but you have to be dogged. And if they see you believe in your product and they've asked you three times, four times, hey, I want to come to the accelerator, hey, I made more progress this month, next month I made more products, and you're dogged, right? Gritty hustler, and you're not going to give up. Well, then I know if I invest, you may fail, but at least I know you won't give up.
Because that is actually when you're... anybody here an investor? Investor in startups? Okay. Yes, I made 10 of them. Good. A lot of times, like, you're an investor and you'll give money to a founder and you're just like, oh my god, they gave up so easy. And you're like, but they pitched so hard and they gave up so easy. They laid down like a dog. Just gave up. And they're like, but I thought you were like a real dog. Like, who's the one in... who's the loyal dog statue? Shibuya. Like, I thought you were like a strong, honorable dog, and no.
So we want the founder who has the dog in them. The loyal, hardworking dog.
Okay.
Okay. So to close, we have to...
Yeah, finish soon. But we will have a Q&A after this. After this. So a quick question. So what's one concrete thing a Japanese founder in this room should do in the next 30 days to become more globally successful and competitive?
