Dirty Pillows: Subtleties of unregulated collaborative consumption services

This post originally appeared on TechCrunch

When my wife and I travel, we rarely stay in hotels. We usually either stay in hostels or apartments. The apartments are usually found and booked on Airbnb. We’re big fans of the service, and think it’s one of the best ways to experience a foreign city. However, some recent events have made me think a bit deeper about this maturing marketplace and the whole spectrum of collaborative consumption services.

We are currently on a trip to Tokyo for an speaking engagement and some mentoring of the teams at Open Network Lab, a Tokyo-based incubator I wrote about last fall during our last Tokyo visit.

Last night, we arrived to our apartment. The amenities and space was almost exactly as described. But there was something about our place that didn’t appear in the Airbnb description, which almost made us walk out immediately: the cleanliness of the bedding.

Luckily, both the host and Airbnb have been extremely responsive and helpful with the issue and we’ve got it resolved (the pillows and sheets are being replaced). But it got me thinking about a few subtle aspects of collaborate consumption.

Lack of Consistent Health / Cleanliness Standards

When you stay at a hotel, there’s a certain level of cleanliness you expect. That level is probably directly proportional with the price you are paying, but even at budget hotels, you still expect a decently clean room. And the worst case scenario is that your room isn’t what you want, you can try to switch to one that’s more suited for your needs.

But personal apartments are different. There is no baseline of cleanliness, and no immediate options if it doesn’t suit your needs. If when you check into a hotel room, you see a big stain in the middle of the bed, you can ask to switch rooms, or at the very least to get new sheets. But when you check into an apartment in a foreign city, you don’t have that option. There’s a small chance you can be moved to a different apartment, but that might be in a totally different neighborhood, with different amenities, etc..

I think that’s a subtle but very important dynamic. Essentially, when you choose to stay in an apartment, you are making a gamble. Most of the time, the gamble results in a more positive overall experience, but in the times it doesn’t, it really leaves a negative impression.

Sometimes the trade off of a more local experience isn’t worth the chance of dirty sheets.

I’ve found a similar experience when renting cars from RelayRides, GetAround, or Zipcar. In general, the interiors of the vehicles are dirtier than a traditional rental cars. The reasons for this are obvious. Rental car companies prep the cars for each renter, the same way hotels clean / prep the rooms for each guest. But with the economics of car sharing by the hour, it doesn’t make sense to professionally clean a car every time someone wants to pay $10 to take it to IKEA.

As more of these companies come into existence, it’ll be interesting to see if a set of standards is developed so renters / guests can come to expect a certain amount of cleanliness when reserving a car/apartment/etc…. That will most likely increase consumer confidence in these services and take them closer to mainstream use.

Professionals service providers are more attune to when items “expire”

Hotels make a business out of rotating people through its rooms night after night. I’ve never worked in the industry, but I’d assume there is some kind of schedule about when they replace certain things. For example, maybe a hotel has an internal policy to replace the pillows once a month.

But most people renting their spaces on Airbnb or Homeaway probably don’t think about this stuff, because they’re not professionals. They are just making some extra cash from their places.

It’d be interesting to see these services help owners by adding some alerts to their dashboard. Maybe after they have logged 60 consecutive days of bookings, an email is sent to the host saying “We recommend you replace the pillows and sheets”.

Even better, maybe there’s a way for the hosts to mark in their account that this has happened, so potential renters can see “Pillows replaced 23 days ago” in the profile. I know this seems minor but think about it: you are smashing your face (and mouth) into the pillow for 8 straight hours. You should care about how many other people did this on the same pillow.

TripAdvisor brought transparency to hotel photos; Airbnb does the opposite.

When TripAdvisor launched, it gave us all an opportunity to see what hotel rooms actually look like. It was amazing. We got to see beyond the stock photos hotels post on their website and get a glimpse of what the real bed and bathroom we will be experiencing. It was great, and brought accountability to the whole industry.

But Airbnb is almost the total opposite from a photography standpoint:

We extend a professional photography program that offers immense value. Professionally photographed listings get booked twice as often as those without professional photography since high-resolution photos really showcase your space.

Source: Airbnb Support

This is an awesome service that they provide and they’re really smart to do it. They bring in a photographer — with a wide angle lens, it seems like — to stage the apartment and make it feel as bright and spacious as possible. And it works; the places look huge!

But this also has negative consequences. For almost every apartment I’ve rented on Airbnb, my first thoughts were “this is smaller than it looked online”. I’ve come to expect this, so it’s never a surprise, but for new Airbnb-ers, it could be a turnoff.

But this doesn’t bother me. The thing that bothers me is that although they let me write reviews, I can’t post my own photos.

I want to see the glamor shots, and think they should always appear on the front page, but I also think it’d be useful to see the real photos of these places. I can see why Airbnb wouldn’t want that on their site (because the renter photos will undoubtably look MUCH worse than the provided ones), but it’d be nice for this to exist somewhere.

Regardless if it’s apartments, cars, or hotels, when you rent from a well known brand, you inherently start with a basis of trust in how the end product will appear in comparison to how its represented on their website. When renting from another person, there isn’t that basis of trust, which is why reviews from other users are so important and the addition of visual elements can enhance those reviews.

Going Forward

Collaborative consumption is amazing and is here to stay. But as these services grow in usage and enter the mainstream, they will continually need to add more elements that make the experience across their inventory more consistent.

I can’t wait to continue to watch as this dynamic matures and see the new things that become standard across these sharing marketplaces.

Source: TechCrunch

Why Highlight wasn’t a breakout success at SXSW

This post originally appeared on Techcrunch

Highlight is one of the most talked about apps out there. It was touted to be the breakout app at this year’s SXSW. But it wasn’t. In fact, almost everyone I’ve talked to who used it ended up turning it off or uninstalling it.

(The same probably goes for Glancee, Sonar, etc.. but I only really tried and talked about Highlight.)

I’ve had many discussions about the app and most have been really polarizing. Either people love the idea, or absolutely hate the idea. I find myself trying to have a more balanced opinion. Although I uninstalled it the first day, I think the overall concept of Highlight is interesting and with enough adoption, could be compelling for the right user.

But SXSW was the wrong place for it to break. Here’s why.

Battery Drain Fear

Some people experienced this, some didn’t. I installed Highlight the week before SXSW and my battery drained faster than I remember prior, so I uninstalled it. There’s a very good chance that wasn’t Highlight’s fault, but my mind was set up to think it probably was. And for SXSW, battery life is a priority.

SXSW is a week when most people buy $50-100 battery extenders because everyone is out and using their phone to communicate for hours on end. The thought of installing an app that drains the battery at all is counter intuitive. I know a lot of people who didn’t even try the app just because they had heard it decreased battery life. Until there’s a Mophie for Mophie, this fear might have greatly reduced the chance of many people even giving it a try.


Relevance

When you release an app, you want it to feel useful from the beginning. Lots of apps will do extensive alpha testing so when people can finally sign up at random, there is content/activity already visible. Some teams keep apps invitation only for a long time so when people are invited, there’s almost a guarantee a friend already uses it. These are parts of onboarding, and they are important. Pinterest is still invite only. That’s not because they’re lazy.

Once the user is in an app, it should continually feel useful. If I install an app, and never get any kind of value from it, I forget about it. So it makes sense that Highlight decided to set the bar very low when notifiying users about potential connections. That led to more notifications sent, which in theory results in more user happiness.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works for this kind of app and led to a lot of notifications with value at the level of: “You were nearby Sarah. You both like music. Connect?” Yawn.

On Instagram, the average user would rather get “10 random people liked your photo” than just “One good friend liked your photo” because it makes them feel special and gets them to create more content.

But on services like Highlight, most people would rather get one extremely relevant notification about a possible connection than ten somewhat loose connections. If I walk past someone on the street and Highlight tells me they also like Sigur Ros, that’s not going to make me stop everything and connect with them. But if they like Sigur Ros, and we have 10 very solid friends in common, and are from the same town, then I get interested.

Highlight just set the bar too low. They know this, and they’re working on it. But they should have just raised it before SXSW.


SXSW is already too noisy.

At SXSW, there are already too many people to see. Regardless of one’s social/professional status, there are probably tons of friends and acquaintances to catch up with. Meetings are serendipitous, not manufactured. This is why SXSW is wonderful. And this is also why Highlight just isn’t the right app for that environment.

Sure, there are some people who go to SXSW to meet people and dont have full schedules. But Highlight isn’t the answer here. Those people will find their way into parties and make an effort in person to network with people they didn’t have access to before. This perseverance is exactly what people respect. If instead, there was some app that allowed the stranger to send a DM from his room at the La Quinta Inn by the airport, then the whole dynamic would be off.


Curiosity != Need

Most of the tech early adopters download apps because they’ve heard an app is cool and they’re curious about why. Then, in the case of apps like Instagram, they are pulled into a cool interaction that leads to a cool community that is already filled with their friends.

But again, Highlight is different. Super early adopters (the ones that end up tweeting about cool apps) rarely need more friends. They want cool experiences to share with their existing friends. So when these early adopters (and many people at SXSW fit this profile) download an app like this, the main value prop of the app isn’t something that’s appealing.

So, if Highlight fails at SXSW, then where will it succeed?

I think not breaking at SXSW is a good thing for Highlight, Glancee, etc… Because these apps have a broader appeal than a networking conference. Example:

Some guy moves to Boston after graduating college. He rents into an apartment in the South End and on his first night, sits down alone in his apartment, with nothing to do. It’s not because he’s not interesting, it’s because he’s new and doesn’t know anyone. He opens Highlight, which tells him within 2 blocks is a guy that’s about his age, who is close friends with some people he went to high school with. And that guy also likes the same basketball team. And there is a game on that night. I can totally see that guy direct messaging the stranger and saying hello. At that point, why not?

So it’s not that I think Highlight wont work. It’s that I don’t think it was ready for prime time, and I don’t think SXSW was the right venue for it to prove itself. I’m not a user, but I’m not ready to write it off. I just probably won’t use it until it provides more value and less battery drain. And even if I never use it again, I don’t think I’m the right target anyway.

Ultimately, I’m really interested when this app gets to people who legitimately say “I want to meet more people” instead of “What’s all this Highlight buzz about?” Then I think we’ll see the app in the hands of people who need it, instead of those who are just curious.

Appendix: Highlight Logo Rant
As someone who appreciates design, I just can’t get past the stupid-ass multi-color logo. the font choice is fine, and the logo looks fine when monotone, but I hate hate hate the multi-colored version. It looks like it was thrown together by someone who doesn’t give a shit if they should be taken seriously and just discovered the Layers tool in Photoshop. I know that’s harsh, but come on.

Source: TechCrunch

The Foundations Of A Startup Community

This post originally appeared as a guest post on TechCrunch.

For the past few months, my wife and I have been traveling and meeting startups around the world. We’ve met entrepreneurs in Tokyo, Thailand, India, Israel, and Istanbul. In the next week we’ll be meeting with a community leader in South Africa. It’s been fascinating.

In addition to meeting with the teams, we have been leading Q&A sessions with larger groups. The discussion always includes the group asking “how do we make our startup community as strong as Silicon Valley?”

It’s an important question, as a lot of the startups’ success in Silicon Valley can be attributed to the strong community. However, that community has been growing and maturing for over 40 years. So when people ask about how to replicate it, I try to direct the conversation back to the foundation of the community.

These are the elements I think are important to seed a startup community:

Support

There are a lot of places where starting a company isn’t seen as an exciting and inspiring pursuit. In fact, in places like Japan, we learned that becoming an entrepreneur is seen as an unwise and ill-informed decision. This kind of environment makes launching a startup, which is already an incredibly difficult task, near impossible. The founders needs to find a way to feel supported. If they don’t feel support, they won’t make it through endless 18 hour days. In places where support isn’t the norm, founders need to find ways to support each other until the rest of the community comes around.

Collaboration

One of the best things about having co-founders is it gives an entrepreneur other people to bounce ideas off of and work through problems with. But in good startup communities, this kind of collaboration isn’t limited to internal conversations. Founders of different companies should constantly get together to share their experiences and help each other. Especially in newer entrepreneurial communities, it’s incredibly important to pool knowledge, instead of everyone figuring out everything on their own. This can happen in any form, whether it’s late night hack sessions or weekly breakfasts. Figure out what works for your community and then get together and talk.

Transparency

When collaborating, transparency is a must. In many places, people are afraid to talk freely about their ideas, figuring that someone might steal what they’re working on. In more mature startup environments, we’ve learned that this shouldn’t be a concern. The risk of someone stealing your idea (which I’ve never seen happen) is almost always offset by the huge amount of value you get from sharing what you’re working on and asking for feedback. So when you get together to talk, really talk.

Embrace Failure

It’s human nature to talk about your successes and hide your failures. After all, why tell people what you’re not good at? Why admit you didn’t do something well? In startup communities, it’s one of the most valuable things you can do. Most entrepreneurs (and people in general) will tell you they’ve learned more from their failures than their successes. By keeping these failures to yourself, no one else can learn from them. In startups, people don’t see failure as a reflection of your talent, they see it as an opportunity to learn and improve. Most startups fail. So if you’re going to get into startups, embrace failure, and learn from it. Then share what you learned.

Form Startup Hubs

Getting a group of entrepreneurs talking is a great step, but finding some common places to do that makes it a lot more powerful. This be a permanent location (co-working space, incubators, technology organizations, cafes) or a scheduled event (meetups, happy hours), but it’s important to establish places where entrepreneurs can co-exist. There are probably a lot more entrepreneurs around you than you think, and getting everyone together is one way to understand the size of your community. This is one of the reasons that Startup Weekend is such a powerful organization. It brings the community together.

Invite Outsiders In

People from more established entrepreneurial cities love helping smaller communities grow. Use this to your advantage. Invite people who have been successful in established hubs to come speak at a local conference, come speak at the local hub, or just come and meet teams when they’re in town. Pay attention to people’s travel schedules (which people always post to Twitter) and if they’re in your area, invite them. Entrepreneurs love sharing knowledge with someone else, and it’s rewarding to do this with a new community. Dave McClure has formed a whole organization around this concept withGeeks On A Plane, which takes entrepreneurs to all corners of the world to teach and learn from the local startup community. Jeff Slobotski has done it for years with the enormously successful Big Omaha conference.

Send Insiders Out

You community can’t expect everyone to come to you or to figure it all out on its own. It’s important to see how people are doing it elsewhere, and there’s no better way to do that than to get knee deep in it. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken with an entrepreneur who took a trip to the bay area who left without learning something new or meeting at least one valuable connection. So use whatever connections you have and visit places with mature communities like San Francisco, New York, etc. If you can’t make it, send ambassadors for you to go learn and then come share back with the community.

Be Patient

A lot of people worry that since top tier investors aren’t interested in their community right away, their efforts aren’t paying off. But they need to be patient. Building a startup community takes a long time.Brad Feld of the Foundry Group spoke about this at last year’s Tahoe Tech Talk, saying it’s taken 15 years to build the community in Boulder, Colorado, even though many people think it’s happened just over the past few years.

Overall, just understand that the most amazing thing about Silicon Valley isn’t the huge amount of venture capital, or number potential acquirers. It’s not all the incubators or co-working spaces. Instead, it’s the collaborative, helpful, and inspiring community that’s developed around it all. It’s the 10 other entrepreneurs sitting next to you at the coffee shop willing to help you through a problem or make an introduction to someone who might be helpful. It’s the support that the entire community consistently gives each other.

A strong community won’t appear overnight, but if you start with the right foundation, the rest will come in time.

Please add anything I missed in the comments.

[Update: A video of Brad’s talk]

Source: TechCrunch

Reduce Friction, Increase Happiness

This post originally appeared on TechCrunch.

There has been a reoccurring theme on my mind recently as I’ve advised startups on areas of focus. It revolves around the goal of reducing friction.

Reduced friction in a product leads to less user frustration, high conversion, and overall user happiness. I’d like to use a few examples to illustrate what I mean.

Taxis / Uber

Let’s start with Uber, the startup that lets you order a black car from your mobile phone in San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Chicago, and a growing list of cities. Because I know the team, I’ve been following this startup since they launched. I actually took an Uber car to celebrate selling my first startup during one of their first weeks in beta.

When I first heard about the service, I focused on the luxury aspect of traveling in a black town car with a private driver. Who wouldn’t? It’s in their tagline (“Everyone’s Private Driver”) and it sounds awesome. But after my first Uber experience, I found out that while nice, the luxury component is strangely unimportant compared to their much bigger function of reducing the friction of getting a ride somewhere.

Let me elaborate. Friction points are italicized.

Here is generally what you need to do to get a cab:

  • Find a Car: Stand on the street waving at taxis as they drive by, hoping one stops (this can take a long time in SF), or call for one, which usually takes 15-30 minutes to arrive.
  • Set Destination: Tell the driver where you are going.
  • Ride: Many taxis aren’t the most peaceful drivers.
  • Pay: Take out your wallet and pay with cash (or credit card if they accept it – many don’t).
  • Tip: Calculate a tip to add to the fare.

Here is the Uber experience:

  • Find a Car: Open app and hit Pick Me Up. The car usually arrives within 10 minutes, sometimes within 5.
  • Set Destination: Tell the driver where you are going (although you can set this ahead of time)
  • Ride: Almost always a quiet, peaceful experience.
  • Pay: Your credit card is charged automatically.
  • Tip: Tip is calculated for you and included in fare.

Uber has reduced all the friction. What was a tedious process before is a seamless, pleasurable interaction. The most important thing Uber provides its users is that frictionless experience. The fact that it’s a black car means it’s generally an aesthetically nicer experience (and with SF Taxis, that can make a big difference), but that’s a small detail compared to the other benefits of using the service.

Zipcar / GetAround

A lot of people are familiar with Zipcar. It’s pretty simple. There are a bunch of Zipcar-owned cars around the city that members can rent on an hourly basis. All reservations are done through their website.

GetAround is a new startup taking on Zipcar by altering the model. Instead of GetAround purchasing a lot of inventory (cars), they built a marketplace for car-owners to list their own vehicles for other people to rent. I love the idea, and so do thousands of car owners looking to make money from their unused cars. The company won best startup at TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC and since thenhas been well funded. I have used the service frequently. I love what they’re doing and think they’re going to build a great company.

However, they face a serious challenge. Zipcar owns its inventory, so they have more control of the friction in the experience:

  • Search: Search Zipcar.com
  • Reserve: Click on an available car and it’s instantly reserved.
  • Get Keys: Unlock with your Zipcar Card
  • Find Car: Go to the dedicated Zipcar parking spot
  • Drive
  • Add Gas: If less than 1/4 tank is left, use provided gas card to fill up tank. Otherwise, just return the car.
  • Return Car: Park car in reserved parking space
  • Lock and Return Key: Lock with card and walk away

There isn’t really a lot of friction there. Now let’s look at that experience with GetAround:

  • Search: Search GetAround.com
  • Reserve: Since the cars are personal property, car availability isn’t guaranteed, so this turns to two steps.
  • Request several potential rentals.
  • Wait to hear from an owner.
  • If an owner replies, your booking is reserved. If not, repeat search.
  • Get Keys: You can unlock some cars with the mobile app. Most, however, you need to set up a time to exchange the key in person with the owner.
  • Find Car: Since GetAround owners don’t necessarily have dedicated parking spots, the car’s location varies, so you need to ask the owner where it is. Sometimes the answer resembles “On 27th between Guerrero and Dolores”.
  • Drive
  • Add Gas: Before returning every rental, the gas needs to be filled up to where it was at the beginning of the rental, which you pay for. So you need to remember the initial level and try to add just enough gas to return it to that level.
  • Return Car: If there’s not a reserved spot, you need to find a place to park it. If this takes longer than expected, you might be late returning it.
  • Lock and Return Key: Coordinate with the owner how to return the key and tell them where their car is parked.

Wow. That’s a lot more friction.

Again, I love GetAround, and their team is more aware of these issues than anyone. I’m 100% confident that as they go, they’ll iron this stuff out, just as Zipcar ironed out all the challenges they faced at the beginning. The friction issues GetAround faces are a result of the fact that Zipcar bought cars, while GetAround buys bandwidth. This initial disadvantage will make the company much more nimble and scalable long term.

I think the key to reducing friction quickly is to incentivizing the car owners to reduce the friction points. Give owners the option to guarantee their schedule, so cars can be booked immediately. Push them to install the CarKit, (the device that lets the renter locate and unlock the car from their smartphone). Then, when owners do these things, GetAround should give them a bigger percentage of the rental fee or prioritize those cars in search results. These owner will get more rentals and make more money. Over time, as users choose these cars, other owners will need to add these options to compete in the marketplace, and friction starts to disappear.

Airbnb / Kayak

Even successful startups still work every day on reducing friction. Let’s quickly compare Kayak andAirbnb.

Kayak:

  • Search: Search Kayak.com and only available hotels appear.
  • Confirmation: You can make a reservation instantly on the hotel website
  • Arrival: You go to the front desk, get your key, and go to your room.
  • Checkout: You leave your room.

Airbnb:

  • Search: Search Airbnb.com and get a list of properties, some available, some booked (since the owners don’t keep their schedules up to date).
  • Confirmation: Many times, owner writes back saying the calendar wasn’t updated and you need to search again.
  • Arrival: You need to arrange a time to meet to get the key, sign a small contract, etc.
  • Checkout: Most of my experiences, you can just leave the key and go.

A lot of times, finding an Airbnb accommodation is a bigger hassle than a booking hotel. But they’ve managed to build a $1 billion company, and continually works to make the process seamless and frictionless. And it’s getting better and better.

So what does all this mean?

Friction is important to consider when creating a product. If your users feel friction using or signing up for your service, you have a problem. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but you should do everything in your power to remove as much friction as possible. And you should pay attention to this constantly as your product and service grow.

When you examine your product, where are the friction points? Are you letting users sign up with Twitter/Facebook, or do they need to register separately? Are you opening popups to get their attention instead of letting them continue on the site? Are you requiring information you don’t need?

Reduce friction, increase happiness.

Source: TechCrunch

Understanding How Dilution Affects You At A Startup by Mark Suster

Mark Suster (@msuster) has posted another incredibly valuable article for startups on Techcrunch. In this one he teams up with Visual.ly to create an infographic that shows the realities of equity dilution over time in a startup. 

Take a look. It’s really interesting and shows that founders with big exits don’t walk away with as much as you’d think. 

Our visit to Open Network Lab in Tokyo

This post originally appeared on Techcrunch.

Before coming to Japan, we asked everyone we knew for advice on how to connect with the startup community in Tokyo. Every recommendation pointed at the exact same place: Open Network Lab.

Open Network Lab (“Onlab”) is a Japanese startup incubator in the same vein as Y Combinator or TechStars. The incubator provides startups with mentorship, office space, and a small amount of cash in exchange for a piece of equity. This model is popular in the United States, and leading Japanese internet company Digital Garage(investors in Twitter, Path, and more) wanted to try it in Japan. Onlab is currently in its second year of operation has incubated three batches of startups. Even though it’s a young program, they are already making an noticeable impact on the Japanese startup community.

We spent our first hour talking with Hironori (Hiro) Maeda, the guy in charge of overseeing the incubator’s operations. Hiro grew up in Japan and attended an international school before going on to study computer science at Bucknell University. After college, he launched a startup of his own, and several years later was asked to return to Japan to help build and run Onlab as a way to move the Japanese entrepreneurial community forward.

But developing that community has its cultural challenges. “Launching a startup, where there is a lot of uncertainty and unsuitability, does not fit a culture where harmony and stability are strongly emphasized,” Hiro told us. “However, a lot of younger Japanese are realizing that the nation itself is at uncertainty. The employment rate of college graduates have reached the lowest point in the past decade and the Japanese earthquake has made the people in entire nation uncertain about their future. The uncertainty and the increasing interest of the success that Silicon Valley is experiencing has made more younger Japanese take bigger risks.”

This has led to a ton of interest in Onlab from both entrepreneurs and the general public. This interest doesn’t come without its hurdles, however. Even though the community is willing to take risks, Hiro says it’s just not quite ready to be as transparent as entrepreneurs in other parts of the world.

“Entrepreneurs in Japan haven’t realized the benefits of transparency and sharing information. People are afraid of sharing ideas and experiences — thinking that it is their only competitive advantage”, he said.

In more mature startup communities like Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs share their war stories on a regular basis. And they don’t hide their failures, but instead embrace them and try to help others avoid it. Hiro knows this, and is fostering the same type of communication with his startups: “We encourage failed entrepreneurs to move on to their next idea and hope that they will see their failure as an experience they can take advantage of for their next venture.”

Hiro also requires his startups to get together at least once a week to discuss ideas that have worked, tasks that they found challenging, and points in they’re development where they’re getting stuck. Although it doesn’t necessarily come naturally, it’s working. Hiro says these sessions are getting better and better and the entrepreneurs are seeing the value in openness and transparency.

And Japan is taking notice.

When we were there, national network Tokyo TV was spending the day filming the lab and talking to the startups. When they found out some people from Silicon Valley were visiting too, they asked us to sit down for an interview. Most of the questions were around whether or not Japan had the ability to compete with Silicon Valley and whether Onlab could work. Overall, my responses were that it was already working. People are learning about this community all over the world and Onlab has started to put the Japanese entrepreneurial community on the map.

We also spent a few hours talking to and mentoring the startups (listed below). Overall, the companies were on par with the types of startups you see in the Bay Area’s incubators. There was an impressive focus on design and user experience and most had well-fleshed out business models and quality prototypes. As a taste of what Onlab has been producing, here is a quick look at a few of the incubator’s current startups:

Giftee
Giftee has built a platform that allows people to send each other gift certificates for physical goods. They’re responding to the gifting trend, and already have deals in place with some major brands in Japan, including Muji.

FindJPN
FindJPN is the AirBnB for Japanese experiences. They focus on providing a marketplace for some of the best excisions, experiences, and events that tourists to Japan can easily purchase via their website.

ABCLoop
ABCLoop is building a language learning community that enables people help each other learn a foreign language in very short, direct interactions. The site gathers the lessons in Loops, which are conversations around a particular topic.

Pirka
Pirka has built a mobile app that inspires people to help pick up litter around them, by giving users a social network to post photos of what they’ve picked up. They’ve already recorded over 20,000 pieces of trash picked up in 20 countries.

Dressful
Dressful is building a social shopping network for working woman, where they are recommended new items by Dressful according to their taste profile and also by their friends through a mobile app.

Mieple
Mieple is building a new way to meet people through your social connections. Think about it as LinkedIn Introductions for the entire web.

Our advice: Pay attention to what Onlab is doing and expect to see it develop and inspire a new generation of Japanese entrepreneurs.

Source: TechCrunch

Onesheet: The Onesheet community is now over 10,000 strong

onesheetapp:

I’m thrilled today that we can announce that the Onesheet community now has over 10,000 artists! And that’s just after a month.

Support for this project has been overwhelming and I thank everyone for being a part of it so far. We’ve got some really great stuff coming up in the future and we’re…

Source: TechCrunch