Disrupting Japan: Startups and Innovation in Japan

Disrupting Japan: Startups and Innovation in Japan


DJ Selects: Why Your Startup Accelerator is Going to Disappear

March 30, 2020

Almost all startup accelerators are going bankrupt and going away.

Hiro Maeda, the founder of two of Japan's most successful, and most different startup incubators explains both the brief past and precarious future of startup incubators and accelerators. We talk not only about the mechanics and challenges of what it takes to make an incubator successful, but Hiro has some practical advice on when founders should consider joining an accelerator and how they can avoid the 99% of them that provide no real value.

Hiro also explains why so many Japanese VCs today find investing in South East Asia more attractive than Japan, the forces behind Japan's startup boom, and what the next ten years holds for Japanese startups.