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,