My Experience Helping Tech Companies Enter the Japan Market

This slide was presented in the event "Localize for the Japanese market" hosted by Btrax. I spoke about localization experiences at Noom, Shopify, StockX, and Shootsta along with other speakers from Square, Wix, and Btrax.

References:
My Blog: Experiences at Shopify as the first hired https://chelsea5201.medium.com/
My Podcast: Japanese Startup Girl Working in Tech Industry
https://anchor.fm/chelsea5201/episodes/ep-enddco

Lost in Translations: Bringing the World to Shopify https://shopify.engineering/lost-in-translations
Why Japanese Web Design Is (Still) the Way It Is
https://www.rws.com/insights/rws-moravia-blog/why-japanese-web-design-is-still-the-way-it-is/

"Japan is perceived as a difficult market to enter and grow. If you google different terms around entering the Japanese market, you’ll find insights on consumer motivations, sales strategies, communication advice, and other various results relating to how to position your brand. But what really works? Our panel of experts will share insights on their experiences helping companies with Japan market strategies."
Event details: https://youtu.be/ATLmLn9l02o

Transcript

1. Arisa Chelsea Ueno My Experience Helping Tech Companies Enter the Japan Market
2. Arisa Chelsea Ueno Consultant for Tech Startups / Public Speaker Arisa was born in Virginia, USA, then raised in Fukuoka, Japan, and educated in Norway. She has built her expertise in Japan market entry at tech companies such as Noom, Shopify, and StockX as founding members in Japan. When she was a founding member at Shopify, she heavily advocated building an entirely new ecosystem of eCommerce in Japan, enabling more cross border businesses around the world. Currently, she works as an independent consultant for domestic and international companies entering the Japanese market (ZeBrand, SPROUND, Shootsta). She also works on eCommerce projects to support business owners, especially those who struggled due to COVID-19. Arisa loves empowering and connecting people. She sometimes works as a public speaker and runs entrepreneurial and career design workshops at high schools in Tokyo and Fukuoka, fashion design school Vantan, and companies like Red Bull. Some Examples of Companies I Engaged / ing for
3. The Original Career Plan 2015 Teacher (Planned) Fukuoka Industries: Education Profession: Teacher
4. The Actual Career Path 2012 Student Brand Manager Fukuoka Industries: Beverage (B2C consumer products) Profession: ??? 2015 Teacher (Planned) Fukuoka
5. Industries: Beverage (B2C consumer products), automotive leasing healthcare (mHealth), eCommerce, video. Profession: Consultant for Startup in Tech, Japan Market Entry 2012 Student Brand Manager Fukuoka The Actual Career Path
6. 2012 Student Brand Manager Fukuoka 2015 B2B Sales Osaka 2016 Community Strategist Tokyo 2017 Business Development Advocate Tokyo 2019 Account Manager Tokyo 2020 Japan Representative Tokyo Industries: Beverage (B2C consumer products), automotive leasing healthcare (mHealth), eCommerce, video. Profession: Consultant for Startup in Tech, Japan Market Entry Size of Team: From 1 to 1,500 people. Startup to public companies. #1 #1 #10 #3 The Actual Career Path
7. 2012 Student Brand Manager Fukuoka 2015 B2B Sales Osaka 2016 Community Strategist Tokyo 2017 Business Development Advocate Tokyo 2019 Account Manager Tokyo 2020 Japan Representative Tokyo Industries: Beverage (B2C consumer products), automotive leasing healthcare (mHealth), eCommerce, video. Profession: Consultant for Startup in Tech, Japan Market Entry Size of Team: From 1 to 1,500 people. Startup to public companies. Austria Japan USA NYC (Chelsea) USA Detroit Canada Ottawa Australia Singapore #1 #1 #10 #3 The Actual Career Path
8. • Life at Shopify As the first employee in Japan
9. • More Details on Medium https://bit.ly/3pgY1XE The Blog about Life at Shopify
10. Freelancing Since 2019
11. Collaborating in Japan and the World Red Bull Japanʹͯ ΤϯδχΞ ίϛϡχςΟʹͯ Public-Speeches for/ with ෱Ԭݝཱ߳௣ߴߍ Lecturer at Interviewed by Featured with Featured on Speaking in PV
12. • Facilitated Educational Program in India Pitched @Embassy of Canada Operated a class @UC Berkeley On the Japanese TV show Matsuko Kaigi Lectured @Red Bull Japan Pitched @Yahoo Japan Pitched about API Integration (GraphQL) @developer community Pitched @Female Entrepreneur Community
13. Attended Hult Prize as a Judge Current Activities On Japanese National TV Show “News Zero" Working with Shibuya Ward to Empower Female Entrepreneurs Pitched about Video x eCommerce
14. More Details on Podcast https://anchor.fm/chelsea5201/episodes/1--Japanese-Startup-Girl-Working-in-Tech-Industry-epe4bf
15. Localization ≠ Translation
16. Localization ≠ Translation “My friend speaks Japanese.” → Is speaking Japanese enough for localization?
17. Localization ≠ Translation “My friend speaks Japanese.” → Is speaking Japanese enough for localization? → Experiences of 20-year living in Japan with a western perspective was very helpful for me.
18. Localization ≠ Translation What do people in Japan feel “normal” for appearance and food? → Trend of fashion, food culture experience daily basis; A sense of the local → Copy-writing to sound more natural. (Google translate doesn’t work.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2m-kT3YTLo
19. Localization ≠ Translation Is the tone of language appropriate for the contents? → Translators in academic, fashion, finance, marketing, tech, sports are different.
20. Localization ≠ Translation Acquiring local partners and putting spotlights to them more than the internal employees. → Making “being local” more visualized gives less uncertainty for progress of localization. https://www.shopify.jp/blog/partner-shopify-evangelists
21. Localization ≠ Translation Understanding non-alphabet language which doesn’t have any spacing between words or double-byte character (શ֯) is very confusing for developers only use single-byte character (൒֯). https://shopify.engineering/lost-in-translations
22. Localization ≠ Translation It was very important to educate internal teams that why Japanese design is different as well. https://www.rws.com/insights/rws-moravia-blog/why-japanese-web-design-is-still-the-way-it-is/#
23. Localization ≠ Translation Design, the amount of info people would like to see are also different. https://www.rws.com/insights/rws-moravia-blog/why-japanese-web-design-is-still-the-way-it-is/#
24. Localization ≠ Translation Design, the amount of info people would like to see are also different. https://www.rws.com/insights/rws-moravia-blog/why-japanese-web-design-is-still-the-way-it-is/#
25. Localization ≠ Translation Having subtitle in Japanese on the original video in English is enough? → Showing someone Japanese actually speaking in Japanese gives credibility of the brand. For scripts, revising the copies with applying exiting business cultures in Japanese to define strength of the service. (In this case, I created the sales pitch and presented it by myself like above.) https://www.atpress.ne.jp/news/230653
26. How Do We Find Talents? ɾFinding bilingual talents in Japan is not easy. ɾHiring process, commission rate for recruiting agencies higher than other countries. ɾ30% or even 40-50% of annual salary especially for tech startup or female management positions. (Startup mindset, attitude to learn something unfamiliar, ownership, comfortable with uncertainty)
27. How Do We Find Talents? Connected in startup co-working space in Tokyo Connected through a friend while traveling in Singapore In many case of mine, I directly got hired by its country manager or the equivalent level of person at each company. (I reached out to them.) (They reached out to me.) ɾFinding bilingual talents in Japan is not easy. ɾHiring process, commission rate for recruiting agencies higher than other countries. ɾ30% or even 40-50% of annual salary especially for tech startup or female management positions. (Startup mindset, attitude to learn something unfamiliar, ownership, comfortable with uncertainty)
28. Let’s connect! Find me @chelsea5201 I’m here to help you. Arisa Chelsea Ueno