Koichiro Yoshida took CrowdWorks from idea to IPO in less than three years, and today crowd-sourcing is seen as essential to Japan’s future economy.

Asking for help in Japan is viewed as a sign of weakness. One startup is changing that, and already counts large companies and the government as backers.

Investors were skeptical that combining traditional face-to-face learning with a P2P web platform would work. Here's how Takashi Fujimoto proved them wrong.

One Japanese startup founder is on a mission to change not only the way we think about the news, but the way we think about each other. The "filter bubble" is a term that describes the natural, but tragic, result of search engines and news services giv...

Casey has been on the founding team of several Japanese startups in markets ranging from from retailing, to recruiting, to information sharing, to private social networks for pachinko parlors. Add to that the fact that he's just published a book on Jap

Starting and growing companies is nothing new to Hiro. He's been doing it his whole adult life. In his younger days, he always felt caught somewhere between Japanese and American culture, never really belonging to either. Hiro found inspiration in an unli

The phrases "disruptive innovation" and "disruptive business" are thrown around far too often and far too loosely these days. Of course, at first glance, it would seem that the same charge could be leveled against this podcast. This is a special one-on-o

Yusuke epitomizes the new generation of Japanese startup founders. That means he is exactly the opposite of what most Westerners picture as a startup founder in Japan.  He left a fast-track, high-status job in academia to start one startup after anothe

Masanori Hashimoto is the hardest woking slacker in Fukuoka. He's bootstrapped a collaborative diagramming company that is growing internationally and founded Myojyowaraku, the largest technology, music and arts festival this side of South By Southwest.

Akiko Naka is an amazing woman. When you first meet, her reserved and unassuming manner makes you wonder if she really knows how potentially transformative her ideas and her company are. As you get to know Akiko, however, it becomes clear she knows exactl