Foreign Tourism is Reinventing Hiking in Japan – Yamap

Hiking, back-country skiing and mountain climbing are not usually the first things associated with Japan. Japan, however, has some stunning natural beauty and Yoshihio Haruyama of Yamap is trying to get more and more people to appreciate that.

Yamap is a mobile app that allows hikers, back-country skiers and other outdoorsmen to know exactly where they are even when they are well outside of areas cell-phone reception, and the platform is also providing Japan’s outdoor enthusiasts with a way of connecting to each other.

Yoshi also explains how relatively young Yamap managed to negotiate OEM deals with both Casio and Kyosera, and give practical advice for other startups hoping to partner up with large Japanese firms.

It’s a great discussion and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Show Notes for Startups

Why add gamification to a hiking app Why Yamap had to pursue multiple monitazation strategies What a startup needs to know to work with a large Japanese brand Why going global might require a business model pivot There are important differences between hikers in the US and Japan The importance of inbound tourism for outdoor activities in Japan How the Fukuoka startup scene is different from Tokyo

Links from the Founder

Everything you wanted to know about Yamap See a demo video of Yamap in English Check out Yoshi on Tumbler Follow him on twitter @haruyamayoshi Friend him on Facebook

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Transcript from Japan

Disrupting Japan episode 75.

Welcome to Disrupting Japan- straight talk from japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.

Ah, the great outdoors, it is something that nerds like me do not get enough of, especially living here in Tokyo. Yoshi Haruyama of Yamap is starting to change that. Yamap is a mobile app that allows hikers, back country skiers, mountain climbers and other outdoors men to know exactly where they are. Even where they are far, far away from anywhere with cell phone reception, and to share this experience with others and to learn from them. If you are one of our overseas listeners, you might be surprised at how much natural beauty Japan has to offer, and if you are of our listeners in Japan you might be surprised at the average age of Japanese outdoors men.

Yamap has also done some OEM deals with Japans largest brands. Yoshi gave us some practical advice on how startups can sell to and work with large Japanese companies on joint projects. Oh and during the interview we talk about a wireless transmission technology called Lora. Just so you know, it is a low power wide coverage network that is useful for transmitting large numbers of very small messages. So, now you will know it when you hear it. Let us hear from our sponsors and get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ]

[Interview] Tim: I am sitting here with Yoshi Haruyama of Yamap, it is an application for hikers and mountaineers and other outdoors men in Japan but Yoshi I’m sure you can explain it a lot better than I can, so, tell us abet about a Yamap, what is it?

Yoshi: Yamap is a social GPRS tracking application. You install the Yamap application. You can find where you are without mobile reception, such as mountain or foreign countries.

Tim: Who are the main users, is it hikers, is it back country skiers, mountain climbers? Who uses it?

Yoshi: The most of our uses are hikers and back country skiers.

Tim: Okay let us see, you started the company in 2011 and you launched like two years later, right? You were working on this project for a long time and you digitized a lot of these maps by hand and were like marking the trails yourself earlier on. Was there problem that there just is not digitized information on hiking trails in Japan? Why did you spend so much time having to do it by yourself?

Yoshi: The most difficult point, we made this application Yamap, so Yamap can work without mobile reception. So most applications are based online. We had to adapt our application online environment and offline environment.

Tim: Mobile reception is good in Japan, but if you are in the mountains there is no cell reception.

Yoshi: No, no no. Now we have a full set of aerial maps in Japan and about 100 areas in foreign countries like New Zealand, United States, Switzerland, and so on. We need enough time to make maps.

Tim: Are you and the Yamap team still creating and entering the maps or are your users now doing that for you?

Yoshi: Both. We take advantage of the information from users, but, we made a map which is based on our information.

Tim: What kind of information? I mean it is easy to understand why a hiking map application that works with no cell connection is valuable, but what is the social aspect of it?\

Yoshi: We add information such as, hiking time to where the toilet is, where the parking lot is, to the map, so that is why we need to customize our map. Then, when our users used our maps, we can take the advantage of these users’ data. They make our maps better. Like Wikipedia.

Tim: Right, exactly. Let us talk about your customers. Tell me about your users, so, right now, how many monthly users do you have?

Yoshi: We have 380,000 users per month.

Tim: Are they mostly hikers, or skiers or what kind of activities are the most common?

Yoshi: Most of our users are hikers.

Tim: Before, you mentioned gamification was very important in this, but I am curious, to me it seems like a very interesting concept. Is the idea simply that if this person climbs this mountain he gets a badge? Do hikers and outdoors people, do they need that kind of motivation?

Yoshi: I think that developed countries like, United States or Japan, there is a big problem, so many human beings do not use their own body. There is no chance to connect our body to nature.

Tim: I can see that. Most Japanese do live in cities and most people are working at office jobs, programming computers or making podcasts, but does an application such as Yamap actually motivate people to go out and hike or do you think it is the existing hikers who are adopting Yamap because it provides a very convenient way for them to get maps?

Yoshi: Yea in Japan, there are 7,400,000 people who are doing outdoor activities, so, I think they are few.

Tim: Does that include things like going to the beach? Or is that only hiking and skiing?

Yoshi: Hiking and skiing and picking the mushrooms in the forest.

Tim: How does the gamification work?

Yoshi : We want to give the people who are not doing outdoor activities the chance.

Tim: The hope is that it will attract new hikers and new snowboarders. Let us talk about the business model itself, it has been very interesting watching Yamap over the last three years now. You launched in 2013, so, over the last three years both grow the size of your business, but also find the right revenue model. Tell us a bit about how Yampa actually makes money?

Yoshi: Our monitization point; one is the freemium model, two is outdoor insurance for hikers and skiers, and three is the affiliate model for outdoor equipment.

Tim: Alright, now those are three very different ways of monetizing ,so let us take them one at a time. In the freemium model, the basic application is free, and in-app purchases are used to buy a what, different maps or?

Yoshi: It is like an airplane, the people who pay more, sit business class. The person who pays for Yamap can use the good maps.

Tim: Practically what is the good difference? Is it just that there are more maps, more detail?

Yoshi: Pay users can get a premium maps which is color map.

Tim: So it is not like the free version they will tell you how to hike in, but you need to pay for...

Yoshi: No, no we are very honest.

Tim: That is good to hear. I think the affiliate program, where you are running like an affiliate for outdoors goods and the insurance program, it is very interesting. They are both a way of monetizing your community. It is a very different model from a freemium, from a pure freemium model. Which has been more profitable for Yamap?

Yoshi: That is a very good question. I think it is easier to sell goods to our users. It is very difficult for our users to buy premium. I think human beings don’t used to get digital contents.

Tim: I see what you expect .It is hard to get a pure digital purchase. Every one that is running freemium model, the overwhelming majority are free and free is often good enough. So what percentage of your users are paying users, and which are free users?

Yoshi: Just one percent.

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Tim: Okay, that is pretty standard, I think for a lot of apps, but I can see why it makes it very difficult to run business, when you only have 380,000 users.

Yoshi: That is why we want to emphasize on that, such as goods, insurance.

Tim: it is changing the company from being a company focused on the application to a company that is focused on the community. You have also just recently done some really interesting deals with Casio, and Kyocera. You integrated with Casio’s outdoor smartwatch. How did that project happen did you pitch to Casio or did Casio find you,?

Yoshi: Casio found us, maybe two years ago. First, Casio was interested in Yamap. One year later, Casio, wanted to develop smart watch for outdoor people so Yamap has a big community for outdoor people. That is why we can help with Casio.

Tim: What is the arrangement? Are they just pre-installing your app on the smart watches, did they pay a onetime license fee, are you getting a percentage of every watch sold? How did the deal work out?

Yoshi: It is a license fee.