Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16) | Hacker News Reader

Hacker News Tokyo Meetup #4 (Saturday Oct 16)

blog.makeleaps.com

31 pointspo23 comments

Hope to see you all there. It's been a while so I'm sure everyone will have lots of news!

This time we're trying out the Doorkeeper application from the Mobalean guys. It's quite a full-featured app. I recommend checking it out if you're looking to do an event and want to keep track of registration.

http://www.doorkeeper.jp/

Out of curiosity, what was the Japanese/foreigner ratio at previous meetups?

As HN is primarily in English, and Ycombinator is not yet widely known in Japan, maybe around 15% Japanese or so ?

The Japanese natives that do come along invariably have very interesting backgrounds.

Thanks for organizing this event and promoting doorkeeper. It's still lacking polish, so if anyone tries it out and has any questions or feedback, please let me know!

I took a look at the RSVP for this and notice that all were 'Western' names'. Is there a startup culture amongst local Japanese? I ask because there are tons of smart Japanese, many of whom have developed awesome products for their employers, but I haven't heard of any Japanese founded startups.

Then again, maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

If you go to a meet-up organized around a Japanese language website, you will see more native Japanese. We don't really advertise this event anywhere but here.

There is an active startup culture in Japan but it is quite different than in the Valley. It is influenced by the culture, laws and history of the people here. The foreigners living in Japan also bring their culture and have their own interesting relationship. It's a very complex subject.

You probably haven't heard of any Japanese startups because there haven't really been any who have been successful abroad.

Here's a good presentation that can give you an overview of the web startup space:

http://www.slideshare.net/araipiyo/situation-and-recent-tren...

Thanks for the link, but this confirms my initial suspicions.

Japan's GDP is about 1/3 of the US, yet according to your link there was only $0.2 Billion of venture investment, as compared to $17.7 B in the U.S. That's roughly 1% of US venture Financing and wildly disproportionate!

There seems to be something holding back entrepreneurship, and I don't think its for lack of smart people.

As usual, the US are the outliers, more than Japan :) I think venture financing in most European countries is closer to Japanese levels than US ones.

One particularity in Japan, I don't know if that matters that much: working for a big company is still regarded as the quasi only way to get a career in Japan.

Come on out to Gifu, I'll introduce you to some people. Bring an iPhone, business cards, and fluency in Japanese.

Argh! I'm arriving in Tokyo... at 6am on Oct 17th! I'm going to be there for 2 months though (in a Shinjuku apt), and would love to meet any fellow hackers if anyone is up for a post HN-Meetup drink? Thanks all! (And apologies for the FB-like message on HN; I know, I know...)

Subscribe to the makeleaps RSS feed or send us an email and we'll try to send you an email next time. We do these every month or so, so you'll probably be around for the next one.

You can also just shoot me an email (paul@makeleaps.com) if you want to grab a cup of coffee or a quick drink. I'm only a few stops from shinjuku.

I'm also in Shinjuku so feel free to shoot me an email. Mobile Monday is another international tech event that is happening on the 18th (http://momoto.doorkeeper.jp/events/43), so if you are not too jet lagged, maybe we can me there.

I'll be coming, I hope.

The Mobalean guys are awesome BTW.

Thanks Jawaad!

See you guys there.

Is this awesome enough to tolerate the bus ride from Tokushima?-)

Yes.

If there are still room for me, there will be at least one guy from Kyoto, so not that far :) I think someone else already booked in is from Kansai as well.

Just looked this up. You're not kidding when you say 'tolerate the bus ride'....

  > The overnight Dream Tokushima bus runs from Tokyo and
  > Shinjuku (10 hours, ¥10000 each way).

ref: http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokushima

When I was a student, I usually took a bus for Nara <-> Tokyo for around 5000 Yen each way - but that was barely tolerable, indeed. Even if the bridge to cross the Osaka bay must add a significant cost to the ticket when coming from Tokushima, I would be surprised if you could not find cheaper.

Yup, I'm starting to feel that it can't be awesome enough to justify $200 and 20 hours sitting on the bus. Still it's very cool that these HN meetings happen and I agree Tokyo is the best place for them.

Yay! Looking forward to it! Thanks for organizing!

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