After reading a book, Outliners, and some business books, I was thinking about what increases the likeliness of success and achieve your goal.

Does everyone think more money makes your business or activities successful? Is that true? Is there any correlation between more capital equal more success? Probably, personal level, yes. business/corporate level, if your business is the one that you need to burn cash and get more market shares. The answer is yes. Because more you penetrate the market, it increases the margin of your business. Or more marketing budget against competitors, that increases the market shares too. So, I would be keen to have more capital for business and personal if there is a chance. But, what are other things that would increase your outcome and you can use or leverage for your business.

However, are there other things that we can use or built if someone doesn’t have financial support or capital? What could be other things that may work like money with compound interests?

Here is the list I am thinking about: Human Capital (Knowledge, Experience), Social Capital, Reputation, and Network

Knowledge:
Knowledge capital is the intangible value of an organization made up of its knowledge, relationships, learned techniques, procedures, and innovations. In other words, knowledge capital is the full body of knowledge an organization possesses. Having employees with skills and access to knowledge capital puts a company at a comparative advantage to its competitors. Knowledge capital, sometimes referred to as intellectual capital, is considered an intangible asset.

Experience:
Experience capital refers to those subtle nuances of a method, activity, flick-of-the-wrist, and off-the-cuff imaginativeness that can’t be captured easily into a document.

Human Capital/Network:
Human capital is an intangible asset or quality not listed on a company’s balance sheet. It can be classified as the economic value of a worker’s experience and skills. This includes assets like education, training, intelligence, skills, health, and other things employers value such as loyalty and punctuality. The concept of human capital recognizes that not all labor is equal. But employers can improve the quality of that capital by investing in employees — the education, experience, and abilities of employees all have economic value for employers and for the economy as a whole.

Social Capital:
Social capital is “the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively”.[1] It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity. Social capital is a measure of the value of resources, both tangible (e.g., public spaces, private property) and intangible (e.g., actors, human capital, people), and the impact that these relationships have on the resources involved in each relationship, and on larger groups. It is generally seen as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common purpose. Social capital has been used to explain the improved performance of diverse groups, the growth of entrepreneurial firms, superior managerial performance, enhanced supply chain relations, the value derived from strategic alliances, and the evolution of communities.

Financial Capital:
Financial capital (also simply known as capital or equity in finance, accounting, and economics) is any economic resource measured in terms of money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or to provide their services to the sector of the economy upon which their operation is based, i.e. retail, corporate, investment banking, etc. In other words, financial capital is internal retained earnings generated by the entity or funds provided by lenders (and investors) to businesses in order to purchase real capital equipment or services for producing new goods and/or services. In contrast, real capital (or economic capital) comprises physical goods that assist in the production of other goods and services, e.g. shovels for gravediggers, sewing machines for tailors, or machinery and tooling for factories.

How can we use it?

In summary, these things work like money with compound interests. If you have success in your early-career, it works to increase the success for your next thing. Thus, it is always better to focus on the thing and take action as soon as possible to execute the ideas you have. And, learn it as fast as possible and just do it again.

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

Resource:
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital
- https://www.investordictionary.com/definition/experience-capital
- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/knowledge-capital.asp#:~:text=Knowledge%20capital%20is%20the%20intangible,techniques%2C%20procedures%2C%20and%20innovations.&text=Having%20employees%20with%20skills%20and,comparative%20advantage%20to%20its%20competitors.

• Financial capital
• Credit score Definition | Bankrate.com

This post is about 2nd book that I finished reading in 2021. I started to like reading a book every evening. For the past three months, I have read a book every evening, and it becomes my daily habit and changes my preference too!

This medium post is a personal note that I am sharing about what I have learned from this book — the book’s title, Outliers, someone who got success. I am always curious about any reason and factors behind it.

First of all, some people describe it, luck or ability. So, what is chance or luck?

I am thinking about the definition of those words and how to breakdown to other things. This book is for someone like me who wants to understand how people succeed, especially entrepreneurs, business owners, strategists, or anyone planning to start their business or any activités that they want to achieve with a great outcome.

Second, no one tries to fail. When people do something new or companies try to succeed, they take actions that will increase the success. However, we see many different outcomes and results from this. It has the reasons to be succeeded.

The last one is what you should focus on. Before starting the things, what you can prepare. Also, while doing your business, how you can focus on something with limited resources. These are the key questions for us. After reading this book, I wrote a summary and points that we should consider.

Summary: what I learned from this book

There are so many factors that may influence the likeliness of success. Even though the achievements seem like just magic or a miracle based on luck, it is essential to understand other factors and think deeply about what will happen in the future. Here are a few key questions: why now, why you, this industry, location/region, how to approach this, and how much. For example, what were the common things between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? We know two of them are quite successful in their businesses. But, what’re other things in common? Both of them were born the same year, 1955. When they were young, they could learn about computers and surround by people and networks who are learning the computer and computing power or environment that inspired them to get into the early-personal computer revolution. For instance, Bill Gates was born into a very wealthy family, and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, was well known to educate him well, and she was a very successful business person in that era. In that sense, it was very advance knowledge that he got learned from his environment and by himself with his friends. And, back then, it was the beginning of personal computers for ordinary people.

Here is another example of the top richest persons in the U.S.

As you can see, a lot of people were from 1830 and 1870. Because there were an industrial revolution and transformation changed the industries.

External factors: something you cannot control

• Politics and regulation
• Technology innovation (you can learn the technology itself)
• Industrial revolution (transportation, telecommunication, internet, smartphone+GPS, crowd computing, AI, machine learning, Deep learning, 5G network, Robot, RNA, etc., Blockchain, Quantum Computing)
• Economic Growth or a recession
• Population growth of the country
• Era, Time (why now)
• Wealth from your parents or relative (Intelligence Quotient)
• Early childhood Education and environment
• Social and environmental change
• Culture and Tradition: Mindset (you can change it, but it is inherited from the environment you grow up ins)
• Place and countries you are born

Internal factors: something you can control

• Network and Community you can have or make
• Place/cities/countries where you move or to be
• Adult Education if you can choose the place and the things to study
• Understand the system and rule
• Hard-work and commitment to become experts
• How to talk, listen, and communicate with other people (Emotional Quotient)

You cannot choose the era when you are born. You cannot select the country and family you are born in. So, even if you do the same business, it depends on the era you are doing. The external factors and demands are different. If we look back at the things that already worked out, we can see why they worked out.

For us, considering these checklists before start to do anything, better to research and make a plan deeply. And, once you have a clear idea, you can focus on the things you can control. Otherwise, it is very difficult or impossible to change the thing you cannot control. At least, you can make a profess and influence.

How to use the knowledge for the future:

First, in my case, I make a plan with a long-term and short-term goal. 2nd, I consider external and internal factors and divide them with the part of your planning and strategy. On the last, think deeply about what is the thing you can have control of, or you can influence it. In contrast, better not to spend time, money, and energy on something that you cannot control or cannot influence. Ideally, you can affect anything that you can. My definition of influence is a more direct impact, and you can change the situation or the things.

So far, my main focus this year is to create contents, expand my network, increase visibility/awareness on the professional world, and build the social credential and reputation that I can use for my fund:https://medium.com/shogun-capital

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

Thanks!

Since I was born, my life has been surrounded by plenty of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial opportunities. My parents’ families are entrepreneurs, my both side of uncles are entrepreneurs, my father, and my brother.

Since I was little, I have thought about starting my own business and becoming an entrepreneur. Also, I always thought about the power of business at the same time: cause and effect. If this business does something, what is the outcome, and how it can be influential for society?

My Entrepreneurs journey began a while ago. When I was 12 years, I did “a business” secondhand book’s Arbitrage.

It is quite a simple step. I bought secondhand books and CDs with my brother and sold them to other stores. I had the list where we can buy a book cheaper than other places and the shops to sell more expensive than other sites. That made my pocket money for teen life.

Since 14 years old, I helped my dad’s business, retail store all summer evening too. It was not scalable, but it was a great experience for me to work with people older and be financially independent, and have the sense to understand how the business works.

When I was 21 years old, I had an event business, basically seasonal and social events. My friend and I organized together four times a year until 24 years. It was a great way to make some cash, but there was a gap between what I wanted to do and the thing I was doing. I tried to make connections to many people in their real life, and then they can increase the opportunities and network with people they have not met before. Fundamentally, I always believe a human is a social animal. By socializing, connecting to new people, and communicating with them, increases the meaning of life and even just productivity and creativity. This value creation could be widespread of categories: love, fun, business, and career, so on, so force. So this I notice that the power of business and networking power is the one I believe in in many ways.

My last startup, Foxsy, was an AI matchmaker for making online friends on messaging applications. That time was to increase fun, entertainment, and love by Foxsy. It was a social app for joy, curiosity, and love and decreased social isolation from the world.

Since I came back to Japan, I tried to build something for a business match between startups and investors. It always came from my belief in the power of business and the power of the network. Since I had a chance to support various entrepreneurs, startups, and VCs, I thought about using this model to maximize business power. The transition from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists made sense to increase my mission, significantly impacting society. My next passion is to become a matchmaker for startups and investors to support their business activities.

What we, Shogun Capital, want to do:

Co-Founder Sachin Unni and I have worked past few years together in the venture capital industry. Both of us were founders before. Entrepreneurs, we always see problems and needs that founders look for solutions. We do not need to approach the problem as traditional fund managers. We can be creative and improve the way it has been the problems that exist and untouched founders’ needs.

What if we have enough data points for all startup activities and touchpoints with other stakeholders? Can we have data-driven entrepreneurship and more automation? These are a few questions I am asking now.

First of all, considering dealflow and sourcing, there are more founders and startups than before. How VCs are sourcing/looking for investee is pretty much based on human work. Junior positions find the deal and do DD (due diligence), and once it has a Go-sign, they pass it to the senior team members or partners as the investment committee, aka IC. It is quite difficult for funds to decide the investment because many human interactions usually get involved at the last meeting. However, the first part could be improved as there are so many singles and data from past successful founders. Using the past partners, at that funds can get more deals that may fit their investment thesis. I am not saying that we can automate all workflow and activities. But, there is a space that funds can improve the process of finding investees. Doing this is an excellent way for funds to understand which founders and startups they should back and invest in them.

Secondly, it is a pain point for startups to raise money too. 80% of startups will die without launching their products to the market. The rest of the 20% will try to find PMF (Product Market Fit). But, still, it is quite challenging for first-time founders to raise money from investors. So, I was thinking about what if there is a platform that startups can access to the investor’s lists with partners who are interested in specific industry, sectors, and place for startups. By using the past data, which successful startups raise money from which VCs. It shows the success rate of fundraising of each fund and the match ratio of startups and successful investors. It can increase the fund performance like IRR and Portfolio’s valuation when they raise money for the next financing round.

Lastly, the funds can increase the hit rate of great success for exits, like acquiring and IPO. That’s still I am finding out the solutions that I want to test too. There are many parts and ways to be creative as it has been operated traditionally and regulator in this industry.

For the rest of our journey, you can subscribe to our medium account to get any updates and news from us. Also, there are more potentials that we can improve — each point for both aspiring founders and aspiring investors. We will share the blog here too.

Please subscribe to
this Medium account:
- https://medium.com/shogun-capitalz

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

I just finished reading this book!

Since it is still the 2nd week of January, it has just passed two weeks since 2021. This book is handy for anyone who wants to change your habit this year.

Last year, I wrote a medium post about what I want to achieve in 2021. Since then, I have been trying a few small things to improve my life, health, exercise routine, mental, time-usage, work efficiency, and sleep!

This book is the one I really recommend!

Link: Atomic Habits (MR-EXP): An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Just one example of stories:

When you have something to do, you say that.

I want to do this like more exercise, more sleep, or read more books

But usually, it ends up with no action or improvements. So you don’t achieve or take any of your actions. Maybe you do a bit, but you don’t continue to do it.

Because the plan and reality are missing, you need to make a clear plan to pull the trigger for an action.

When, where, and how

So my mediation routine is after I wake up, set my bed, open a curtain, boil water for a coffee, and seat this small chair, which I bought in Bali and I like. And set a timer for 5 minutes by a Google home. The beginning was not easy to do, even just 5 minutes. But my body gets used to doing it as a routine now. When I skip it, I feel wired now. Same for a reading book.

As you maybe know, the apartment in Tokyo is not big, but each place can have a specific purpose for action. I only work at my standing desk. I only read a book on the couch after taking a bath!

So, think about how to do it a bit more clearly! It is time for us to improve and challenge ourselves this year by making a good habit and not asking to achieve one. Instead of watching TV, Netflix, and Amazon prime every day, what if you study a bit or read a book? If you have done your challenging Tasks as a treatment, you can have time for watching TV!

If you do the math, you can do so many things in your life!

*disclaimer,

I am not a promoter of this book. Just damn good👍👍👍

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

I am Jin from Shogun Capital, a seed-stage VC firm focused on supporting Asian startups through our accelerator program. We set up a fund management company as a GP in September. Meanwhile, we are working on our fund idea and finalize it to kickoff: many legal, jurisdiction, and financial regulatory. As I am learning it, I will share things that might be useful for anyone, especially for the first time fund manager. This year, we started to raise our seed-stage venture capital firm. Any of my learning related to a venture capital fund and industry-related things., I will share it.

Who could be the first time fund manager, and what type of people become it?

Here are the types of cohorts:

- Angel investors before, and decided to raise money from other investors/LPs
- Ex-Fund manager for different funds and you are planning to launch your fund
- Ex-startup founders or executive who sold your business to other companies

If you are in the first category, you can add your investment performance as a part of your traction as you invested in your Portfolio before. Even if you give up your angel investment and move to under the fund, I think your fund already has a track record of this.

If you are in the second category, I think it depends on your agreement with a previous firm, and you may be added to your pitch deck and declare that could be your traction or experience. As it is not your fund yet, nuance is challenging to tell clearly.

The last one, you don’t have any fund or investment-related experience. In this case, you should maximize your career background: previously founder, CTO, operators, or a part of hyper-growth startups.

In many ways, a fund manager needs to have a great pitch deck. I feel the difficulties for a first-time fund manager comes from a lack of traction record and network to raise money. Network, you can build and reach out to potential LPs. But for the traction is challenging to create. If raising the fund may take more time, investing as an SPV could be an option for you to start to invest in startups and have traction and Portfolios. In my case, I add my founder background as well as my previous firm’s experience too. This is just the beginning of our journey.

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

Thanks!

This was the 2nd version of the logo, actually. We had the 1st one before this.
This is my personal story and what I have learned after running the tech company in San Francisco. First of all, hers is the reason why that I started a tech business. When I was 23 years old, I had an event business in Tokyo; I thought about how to scale my event business before incorporating the business entity. How to scale the business, this question was that stack in my head for a while. Every day by day, week by and week, month by month. I was asking the same question myself. I clearly remembered that I didn’t have the answer to this. After reading books, brainstorming any possibility to scale the business, and searching for ideas, my conclusion was to move to Silicon Vallery because many tech companies are rising from there: Twitter, Facebook, Meetup and etc. I literally thought there is a physical place, town, or city called Silicon Vallery. First of all, back then, I didn’t speak English at all. So, everything was quite challenging and exciting. Besides this, I didn’t know anyone over there.

Before I incorporated the company in the U.S., some of my friends and I built and tested four applications and services since 2014. Over four years of experience in my tech company since 2016, I had shut down the main service, Foxsy. Foxsy was an AI matchmaker to make online friends across multiple messaging applications.
THE LINK:

After we acquired a lot of users, we decided to shut down the app. Because it was too expensive for me to keep the server as people were still using it. And then, last year, this time, I shut down my company. Finally, I am sharing this to move on from the previous journey. Over four years of experience in my tech company since 2016, I have learned a lot. I mean, A LOT. It was great. Overall, I was thankful for any opportunities that I had and everyone I came across during my journey. In the end, Foxsy was not successful. Just one of the failed startups in the world. But again, I feel great about the things I have learned and that I can use for my next journey and even share my lesson learned with aspiring entrepreneurs and early-stage founders. I can turn my failed startup’s experience into a grateful life asset, and the lesson learned is my knowledge.

Generally speaking, it is quite challenging for startups to succeed in their business. Here are the statics. First of all, 80–90% of companies even don’t launch a product. Secondly, the rest of 10–20% of companies can get users or customers who love their products? Let’s repeat 10% — 20%? Lastly, from here, startups 1–4 startups need to find a product-market fit and grow. This may be another 10% of success for each step.
If: X is the number of companies = 10,000
X*(10%*10%*10%*10%)= 1 for growth companies and from there again once to a couple of times more this math.
The thing I want to say is a successful startup = Miracle!

In our case, we didn’t reach out to the Miracle. What was our schedule, how we started it, and how we executed it as a team? Two Co-Founders and I lived together at the same house in Berkeley. Literally, we worked, lived, cleaned a house, cooked, spent time together literally 24/7. As we didn’t know how to build startups, there was one way to develop our startup: Execution, execution, execution. We always try it without questioning and learn from our mistakes and success. We ever tried, errored, understood, and hustle.

It was the best way to execute any ideas and deliver our product to the market most efficiently, effectively, and cheaply. We were like a cockroach. We do have so many funny stories: we used the law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, aka WSGR. Their co-working space is in Soma, San Francisco. We stayed until kicked out there the office due to a security issue; we always ate office snacks and had drinks. These free meals were a paradise for us.

One of the stories which described us clearly was that there is a beagle store next to the office. Every Friday around 3 PM, they throw away leftovers, we wait to get them, and it becomes our meal for weekends, at least it is Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast.

For example, this is our daily schedule:

- Stand-up meeting at 6 AM at the kitchen and leave home before 7 AM.
We brainstorm and test a new app that we see news on TechCrunch during our commenting ours.
- Start to work in Starbucks around 7:45 AM until the office opens at 9 AM
- Have lunch around 1 PM. Usually, go to Safeway to get two or three bread pieces for $2.99 and soup for $3.50 and share with other teammates.
- Work at the office until we’re kicked out. It is usually around 9 PM and heads back home to Berkeley
- I usually cook dinner as I am not a software engineer. Software Engineer is the king! The reason is to maximize the product development speed, the rest of the team can spend coding and built the product.
- After dinner, work until 1 AM. We rent a master bedroom. The main bet as a semi-double one is for CTO, and 2nd bedroom, a single one is another software Engineer. Of course, I don’t have a bed and sleep on the couch in the living room. Just once, we didn’t have enough money, so we sold the furniture that I picked up from an old apartment that I lived in before starting a startup.
- After working this life for almost two years. We start to become remotely. We travel together to have an intense team collaboration while having a remote work environment.

Here are some pics about about us:

As the team, what we have achieved:

Traction, Qualitative:

• We grew from 0 to almost 1 million users, precisely around 950,000 users.
• Active users: Monthly active users 150,00 and Daily active users 15,000 users
• Session length is around 15 to 20 minutes
• Ad conversation rate was 1.7%
• Feedback from more than 30,000 users
• The survey from over 5,000 users
• Interviews with more than 100 power users

Traction, Quantitative:

• Got the best social bot 2016
• POCs with a google’s team, Viber, and FC Barcelona

GIF: lesson learned http://gph.is/2e3f3Zs

Here are lesson learned :

• Don’t believe startup myths
• Test your hypothesis
• Do something that doesn’t scale
• Have a lean mindset
• Hack your ideas and processes
• Build something people really love
• Have the right metric and growth equation
• Turn user’s love into a viral mechanism and spread it to potential users
• Find out the risk: market risk or execution risk.
• Ask the right questions to the right people.
• Create a network: investors and experienced entrepreneurs who went through the same process

This week, I will share the blog post that might help aspiring Entrepreneurs and earthly stage funders. Again, I cannot find enough words to show my appreciation to co-founders, old-teammate, business partners, investors, users, family, friends, and anyone who supported me and our journey. I feel very thankful and want to say thank you for your support again.

If you are interested in it, here are my social media and blog. Feel free to share your experience and share your thoughts too me.

Extra thanks and big love for co-founders: Yoyo and Luke.
Early team members and supports: Phi, Dallas, Taiju, Thomas, Yuya, Jules, and Kawahara-san. All mentors, advisors, and investors!

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Shogun Capital

Jin

Happy new year, everyone. I hope everyone has a great time with your family and friends, virtually or physically. It depends on which countries you live in, I suppose. 2020 was over, and I am curious about what will happen this year. Since last week, I have been thinking about this question again and again. I want to get back to my word and reflect on it with myself the next year. So, I will share my notes here as my record.

Global pandemic:

I am not optimistic about this year yet. I hope the global pandemic is over as soon as possible. However, realistically speaking, the situation might be tough. Even there is a vaccine already, it may take a while for everyone to get it as there is no enough supply. The Vaccine’s mutation speed to get a new version of them and the speed or cycle that people can get another vaccine after authorized it by the government. I am not sure how Covid’s mutation affects vaccine effectiveness. It may take more time. I took a PCR test last year. Last week, a few companies announced the test kit at a much lower price, around $20 for a test kit than before. I remembered that the test I took was over $200 per test. This year will be more tests, which it should have been. And, summertime after everyone will get a vaccine, it will be a normal life. However, in September or October, there is another lockdown again. At least, we need to get a vaccine three times this year. And winter will be similar to this year. It might be another grant to support all citizens for the government, and more financial supports to SMBs both protect an economy and employment.

Work Environment:

Last year, it was quite hectic. In hindsight, many companies successfully adapted to a new remote work environment. It will continue to work from home. Again, during the summertime, it might be going to a normal situation; however, many companies implemented the new work environment and software. Thus, the new normal will be continuous virtually. You may need to go to the office once or twice a week depends on the department you work in and the companies you work for. Many companies may not need the full-capacity of office space for the entire workforce. Therefore, the company may be going to reduce office space by one third. It will not be 100% of the remote environment if you work for software companies as I did 100% remote at my previous company. For example, if you do a sale activity, it will be done hybrid model: The first few instructions will be an online meeting, and closing will be done by a physical appointment, especially if you are selling something to big corporates.

Consumer Life:

Do you feel comfortable to travel or spend time as it was before? Probably, the answers are still quite negative at this moment. Even if you want to travel overseas, international flights may require that everyone needs to have a vaccine proof and test result (24–72 hours before your flights). How about after getting the Vaccine? Many people may think about spending time normally. So, during the summertime, people may spend time dining with their friends and family, more social events, and more trips. But, after the summer, we may need to go back to our current life. My prediction is to continue the life we have now, unfortunately.

Early-stage investments: private tech market

It will be more investment in early-stage startups, as many companies went public last year. Many economists and VCs predicted or said to their portfolios that it is important to have a much longer runway at the beginning of last year. However, as there were more liquidation events: people continue to invest in private tech companies. This type of asset class will be popular among family offices and held high.

IPO of tech companies: public teck market

Last year was the year of IPOs. How many famous companies went to the public last year? Airbnb, DoorDash, Wish, C3.ai, Snowflake, Plantir Technology, Asana, Lemonade, Unity, etc. NEWS LINK FROM Crunchbase news. My prediction is that tech companies’ public share prices will be high. And, the number of IPOs will maintain high. The companies’ names went public last year via SPAC: Luminar (Autonomous Vehicle and lidar tech company), Nikola (heavy-duty transport trucks using hybrid hydrogen-electric powertrains). NEWS LINK FROM Crunchbase news. And more SPACs. Thus, less mature companies will go public. They will slowly become mature and solid performance companies.

Overall, 2021 will be slightly better and more human communication. The trend of remote work, automation, and more Tech industry will maintain a high stake both privately and publically. We will continue our life the way it is right now. So, more patient.

Here is my social media account, if you are interested in this:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JinHTanaka
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jintanaka/
- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Jin.Gino.H.Tanaka

Dear friends,

2020 has been challenging for everyone, and I felt it for the ages.
Finally, it is the end, and 2021 will begin tomorrow. I thought it would be fun to take this chance to share what’s happening to me and what I have changed about my work and life.

What I have done in 2020:

Work:

2020 was a great time to digest what I have done past few years, learn from them, and think about what I want to do in my life to get ready next decade and what is meaning and mission.

• Shut down the American company, which ran the service called Foxsy previously and done the last tax filing this September.
• Left the previous investment firm, Zeroth.ai, in February.
• Worked on AI Research Lab: a joint incubation program for the Masason Foundation and Minerva Schools with aspiring entrepreneurs during summer
• started a new fund business&company: Shogun Capital, with Sachin in September
• Advised/Advising a few startups

Personal:
This year has been challenging for everyone, no exception for me. I needed to stay home and dispatch from other people. The great thing is my friends, family, and GF are very supportive of me always. In the end, it gives

• read more book, ideally, two books per month
• write a personal learning blog for work
• deleted Instagram and try not to use social media that much for unique use-case
• Traveled to Kyoto with my GF during Autumn Leaves, which was my first time and beautiful season and less tourist due to a COVID. And Shimoda, Izu-city during summer. White sand beach and ocean was very clean and blue with many many local foods and fresh fishes.
• meditation every morning
• put my phone away an hour before sleep
• more time with family, especially my mom

Health:
My health condition is quite good. More exercise this year. I also bought a standing desk and a monitor at my apartment. It helps my back and neck pain.

• I bought all the workout equipment and weight training twice a week at home.
• gain weight and 2kg more until 80kg
• daily work for an hour almost every day
• once a week running so far my average speed is 5 minutes 18 seconds for 1km
• continue to do Yoga at least once a week
• Surfing once a week or twice a month in Chiba. Yesterday was my last surf day this year.
• Futsal with friends twice a month. If you want to play it with us, feel free to join this group.
• More cook me and eat balanced meals.

What I will do next year, 2021:

“More output and execution instead of observing information” will be an idea.

Work:

• Launch our first fund.
• Advising startups more
• Events once a month
• Start podcasts once a week or even twice a week.

Personal:

• Write a blog once a week for personal learning.
• Read two books every month.
• More automation for life and maximize time spent on something meaningful
• Meditation for every morning and evening for at least 10 minutes each time.
• Appreciation for the time, every single moment

Health:

• Continue my exercise routine.
• Run 1km under 5minutes
• Join the half marathon
• Participate in the longboard surf competition
• Gain 2kg more

Happy holidays, enjoy your new years eve with your family and friends. Looking forward to 2021 in 6 hours in Japan time.

We are very happy to have seen the word “Foxsy” on a lot of media these days. Slowly slowly, our vision, connecting people together starts to work in this world. Last week, we got featured by some wonderful medias like Forbes and VentureBeat. That makes us feel like we are on the right track, and we really appreciate that.

VentureBeat

Foxsy was featured by VentureBeat on April 24th in the article “Delivering value in Facebook’s immersive future.” As Facebook’s current strategy is converting its messenger platform into the place of social communication, entertainment, and shopping, bots will play the key role in the big change in the near future for sure. However, it doesn’t mean, of course, all bots providers will be successful. The author, Havas, pointed bots providers need to offer real value to consumers and showed some possible key values; Educating, Empowering, Optimizing, Connecting, Expression, Entertainment, Access, Security and Privacy. Within those, Foxsy was used as an example of the bot which offers good connecting value people together.

Also, Foxsy was featured by them on April 25th in the article,

“Why this former Facebook Messenger product manager is investing in AI.” Seth Rosenberg, the former Facebook Messenger product manager, is currently well known as an investor of GreyLock, and he says he has been interested in bots that connects people outside of each other’s network. Foxsy was introduced as one of those, which was our great honor.

Forbes

Moreover, Foxsy was pressed by Forbes on the April 24th in the article

“20 Fun Facebook Messenger Bots To Play With Right Now” as well. We have seen a bunch of bots service since bots came up, and it is not so easy to choose practically useful bots within those. As you can see the title, Foxsy was literally chosen as one of the 20 fun Facebook Messenger Bots.

The Bridge

Furthermore, we are getting more attention from Japanese media too. We were covered by a well known Japanese tech media, The Bridge, on April 28th. We were introduced as a recent successful startup. It’s been a year and several months since we launched our business here in San Francisco, and we just started getting certain awareness in our home country as well, which is very grateful to see and motivates us a lot.

New update from Foxsy,
" Let's vibe with new friends via Foxsy"

We really appreciate those opportunities to gain our brand awareness. We strongly hope the people who just knew us enjoy Foxsy and get meaningful matches.

" To make meaningful and beautiful connections"

Featured by Forbes, VentureBeat and More was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When we started Foxsy last year, we couldn’t imagine the progress that would happen. Our team is so thankful for all of the Foxsy users worldwide. Some people may know that we launched our service on Viber in April, and over 1,000 people have started using Foxsy via Viber every day. This progress has lead us to the next stage. We recently got accepted as a member of FbStart, which is truly an honor. It will help us provide our users with greater experiences and more meaningful matches.

What Is FbStart?

FbStart is a global program from Facebook designed to help startups build and accelerate their services and products. There are numbers of benefits of this program.

Global Startups Community

We can connect with an exclusive community of global startups through the online tools, meetups and other events, which is going to be a huge opportunity for us. There, we can exchange our ideas and experiences with one another. We are looking forward to showing all of you the progress.

Free Tools and Services

We have access to a free package of tools and services from Facebook and dozens of its partners including Amazon, Dropbox, MailChimp, Salesforce, Stripe, and UserTesting, that will increase our work efficiency. This means we can provide you with more frequent and state-of-the-art updates for match-making features.

Direct Support From The Facebook Team

We will also receive support, training, and year-round opportunities to connect directly with the Facebook team for technical and professional mentorship. We will be able to tap into their remarkable experiences and knowledge, which is going to be an excellent resource for us.

Bots From All Over The World

1. Foxsy

• Foxsy is your matchmaker for new friends to chat with.
  - Makers: The Foxsy team from Xpresso Inc, Jin CEO, Luke CTO, and Yoyo Bots Developer.
  - URL: https://goo.gl/fC8LPL

2. Alfonsino

• The best meals, from chat to your door, in minutes.
  - Maker: Domenico Pascarella, CEO & Co-founder.
  - URL: m.me/alfonsino.delivery

3. Growth Bot

• The growth bot coaches startups and website owners on growing their business through feedback and growth techniques.
  - Maker: gotcha.i0
  - URL: m.me/gotchabot

4. DoctorBOT

• Introducing DoctorBOT. We believe everyone should be able to find a doctor close by without leaving Messenger.
  - Makers: Nirbhik Jangid, Pankaj Agarwal & Teja Mulagala.
  - URL: m.me/DoctorBOTx

5. Sure

• ️Bot that curates the most Instagrammed food & drink spots
  ️- Founders/makers: Juraj Pal Alexandra Neczliová Sebastian Krumhausen
  - m.me/surebot

6. ComicBot

• Your favorite webcomics in your Facebook Messenger inbox.
  - Maker: Silvio Do
  - URL: m.me/thecomicbot

7. Artemis, Artnapper

• Artemis is your personal art companion, who can tell you titles and sometimes even the artist of famous paintings. You can search artists by name too.
  - Maker: Pamina Georg
  - URL: m.me/artemis.artnapper

8. BotsMarket

• A bot to create a bot in 30secs. Select Ready Made templates and select page to deploy and thats it the bot takes information from Facebook page and other sources based o template and is ready to go. Templates available for Travel, Events, Restaurants, Influencer and many more.
  - Maker: Snehal Dhruve and Bineet Desai
  - URL: http://m.me/botsmarketai

9. Promo Bot

• Promo Bot is an A.I. for League Of Legends (Gaming), Giving recommendations based on big data analysis for champion selection.
  - Maker: Amit Bendor
  - URL: https://m.me/try.promo.bot

10. Booklist.ai

• Discover new books, create reading lists, and share them too!
  - Maker: Sheba Mayer
  - URL: https://m.me/booklistbot

11. vimmune

• Science-based Health and Wellness Advisor for the Family. Currently, the bot provides scientific information around everything related to Immunizations, Vaccine Safety, etc.
  - Makers: Vivek Prasad and Ashutosh Prasad
  - URL: m.me/vImmune/

12. ️Instalocate

• AI-powered personal travel assistant.
  - Maker: Ankur Jain
  - URL: m.me/instalocate/

13. Sumi

• Teenager BFF chatbot.
  - Maker: Heroku.ai
  - URL: m.me/saysumi

14. Epytom Stylist

• Personal fashion stylist.
  - Maker: Anastasia Startan
  - URL: m.me/838975282894755

15. Machaao

• Your new A.I. sport assistant.
  - Maker: Harshal Dhir
  - URL: https://www.messenger.com/t/machaao/

"Making meaningful and beautiful connections"

What Is FbStart & How Is It Useful for Bot Makers? was originally published in Chatbots Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.