What you need to know to sell to schools in Japan

Everyone agrees that the Japanese education system needs to be modernized, but EdTech startups still face an uphill battle in Japan.

Of course, academia and governments are not known for being particularly innovative or forward-thinking, and that's why Kohei Kuboyama left a fast-track career at Japan's Ministry of Finance to launch an EdTech startup.

Kohei lays out his blueprint for getting new technology and new products adopted in Japan's schools, explains the challenges of leaving government service to start a startup, and talks about a few optimistic long-term trends he sees in Japan's eduction system.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why it’s so hard to leave the government to start a startup The three waves of "founder acceptance" in Japan Why EdTech startups sell to cram schools instead of regular schools The key to turning teachers into product advocates The biggest challenge in selling to high-schools in Japan. How to create life-long learners in Japan The appropriate role of the Japanese government in supporting startups The biggest risk with government funded startups Getting over the fear of failure in Japan

Links from the Founder

Everything you wanted to know about okke Friend Kohei on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn

Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan. Straight Talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Edtech Startups in Japan need to overcome some significant barriers in order to succeed. Oh, it's not that people really want those barriers there. There's a huge desire for change in innovation. In fact, there is an almost universal agreement that the way Japanese children are taught needs to be modernized and reformed. The hard part, however, is getting people to actually agree on what concrete changes need to be made. Well, today we sit down with Kohei Kuboyama, the founder of okke. And Kohei lays out his strategy for getting EdTech startup products approved by and used in Japanese schools. He also tells the story of how okke evolved from a simple YouTube curation site into an integrated testing and tutoring platform. We also talk about Kohei’s surprising decision to leave his fast track career at the Ministry of Finance to start a startup, the key steps to selling to Japanese high schools and cram schools. And we dive deep into the Japanese philosophy of education and instruction, how it differs from that in the West, and exactly how Japanese high schools and even cram schools are starting to change. But, you know, Kohei tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: We're sitting here with Kohei Kuboyama, the founder of okke and maker of Dr. okke. Who's helping high school students learn. So, thanks for sitting down with us. Kohei: Thanks for having me. Tim: I talked really briefly about what okke does but I'm sure you can explain it much better than I can. Kohei: Yeah. So, our mission is to make a world where every person learns actively and every person can make their lives fulfilled. We are providing two products. One is for high school students and one is for schools. One product is called okke, this is actually an app for high school students and they can use our app for free. So, the basic concept of okke, is to let high school students learn wherever they want to, whenever they want to, and wherever they live. The basic concept is the search engine. So, there are a lot of useful and helpful learning information and contents on Google and YouTube, for example. But there are many kinds of information there. Game and contents of music and so on. We are making the search engine under the platform focusing on learning. Tim: So, how does it work? So, I think like at first you originally started just curating videos. And recommending educational videos, but okke’s developed into a much deeper platform than that. Kohei: As you mentioned, the main contents are the videos, especially on YouTube. So, we are curating many lecture videos on YouTube, and every high school student can search, for example, like if they cannot understand the concept of some fields of math, they can search that field’s name. So, they can search by levels and the fields and the units they want to learn. Tim: And you also have like quizzes and tests built into the app as well, right? Kohei: We are providing quizzes for schools, but maybe in future, we are incorporating that in the app. Tim: So, who are your customers really? Are they cram schools? Are they public schools? Are they parents? Who pays for okke? Kohei: Yeah, actually okke is free for high school students, and we are not monetizing that. But second product we are providing is called Dr. okke. This is to be service and for cram schools and schools. So, the basic concept of Dr. okke is to let teachers provide tests with their students. Tim: So, the cram school product is not something the students use, it's something only the teachers use. Kohei: Yes. Tim: So, how do the two products work together? Kohei: Yeah, we are combining the products. We are incorporating the Augustus contents into the Dr. okke which means students answer the questions on Dr. okke. And after that, there are many like, details, answers, and below that we are incorporating videos and the articles which is explaining the question. Tim: So, a student can take a test and then based on the results of the test, okke would recommend you should watch these videos to better understand the points you missed, that kind of a thing. Kohei: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tim: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Before we get into the marketing and the go-to market. I want to talk a little bit about you and your background. Kohei: My background. Tim: So, you graduated from the University of Tokyo. You went into the Ministry of Finance which is just a very typical successful path, right? I mean, it's… Kohei: I know what you mean. Tim: I mean, I'm sure your parents are very happy with that. But after about three and a half years, you decided to leave the ministry. So, why? What made you decide to move out of that really great career path? Kohei: Yeah, so I graduated from the University of Tokyo and I went to the Ministry of Finance because I wanted to make a direct impact on our society. When I was 22, I was thinking of how I can make an impact and yes, I have to become a bureaucrat in Japan. And I went into that. But after three and a half years, the Ministry of Finance provided me the chance to study abroad. And I went to the University of California Los Angeles, UCLA, to get the MBA and during the MBA years -- so I had to do an intern, but I was sponsored by the government, so I couldn't get income in the US. So, I applied for many major companies in the US but I was rejected because I couldn't take the money from the companies. Tim: They didn't want you to work for free. It wasn't part of the program. Kohei: Yeah. It's illegal. So, I had to do the intern in the startup. And then I jumped into the startup world and I was excited. This is very fun and maybe I can make a direct impact on the society from startups. Tim: What kind of startup were you interning with? From UCLA? Was it an EdTech startup? Kohei: No, it's actually AI startup, so it's like emotional analytics. But when I was working in that startup, I wanted to do myself. And also I was born and grew up in rural area in Japan, and I went to Tokyo in university. So, I felt like educational regional differences in Japan. So, that's the deep program. I felt. So, when I was thinking of making my own startup, I felt very deep program in education in Japan. So, okay, I will do that. And I make my own setup. Tim: So, after you got your MBA, you came back to Japan and started a startup? Kohei: Yes. Tim: And was the Ministry of Finances said about that? Kohei: Yeah. So, I had to go back to the Ministry of Finance, of course, because the ministry paid my tuition of the MBA, so I had to pay back all the tuition to the government. So, that's very tough. But yes, so I paid back all the fee to the government and also like my boss, like scolded me, of course. Actually it was just start of the coronavirus, the spring of 2020. Actually the day when we launched the website, the Prime Minister of Japan decided to close all the schools in Japan. So, we are introduced by many articles and media. So, it was a good timing and I was able to decide to leave the ministry. Tim: I mean, that's really exciting. But it's very unusual in Japan for someone to leave. Well, no, I find it fascinating because it comes in wave. The first wave was kind of like, so when I started my first startup in the nineties here, only people who had to start startups started startups. If you know what I mean. But then it was students from like, really good universities from Todai and Waseda started starting startups and then more people from like mid-career at really good companies started starting startups. But it's still very unusual to see someone from one of the large ministries starting a company. So, what was the reaction from like your colleagues? Kohei: So, I didn't know the person who left the Ministry of Finance to start their own startup directly. So, there are many people, for example, go to the consulting companies and then do their own startups. But this is like an irregular case, to like start my own startup directory after leaving the ministry. So, the working in consulting companies, it's kind of similar to working on the Ministry of Finance. So, it's like a negotiating and the managing many counterparts. But this is like, I don't know how I can say that, but the startups and the ministry is kind of like opposites. So, it was interesting, but many colleagues cheered me. So,