Startup | My Eyes Tokyo

I want to foster helpful dialogue between women from different backgrounds and nurture the concept of “Happy Woman, Happy All” to prevent more war.

March 30 2024

日本語 Interview by Isao Tokuhashi info@myeyestokyo.com Erin Shiraishi (Ukraine) Entrepreneur *Photo provided by Erin Shiraishi Last year, we received a message from someone after a long time. It was from Erin Shiraishi, a former journalist turned entrepreneur. Originally from Ukraine, Erin has lived in many countries. She told us that she recently came back to Japan from France and founded ProMaman – an online social platform to help women everywhere to discuss what they need. In celebration of her entrepreneurial achievements, we requested an interview with her. *Interview held online Creating an online space for struggling women I organize

Kobe welcomes global entrepreneurs and catapults Japanese entrepreneurs out into the world

April 29 2022

Reported by Isao Tokuhashi and Jennifer A. Hoff (My Eyes Tokyo) Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com In the past, Japan could have been considered an “underdeveloped country” in terms of entrepreneurship, with only a small population of entrepreneurs and an environment that was not built to foster it. Since then however, both the national and local governments as well as the private sector have been working together to create a more fertile landscape for startups, which has been increasing entrepreneurial awareness. As a result now, even foreign investors have started to take an interest in Japan-born startup companies, and it is

Kobe nurtures entrepreneurs who take on the challenge of solving social issues

December 03 2021

Reported by Isao Tokuhashi Edited by Jennifer A. Hoff Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com Many cities in Japan are becoming centers for startups. In addition to Tokyo, which is one of the most global cities in the world, other places such as Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Sendai are actively supporting startups. There is one more place that should not be forgotten when talking about the startup scene in Japan – Kobe, one of the metropolises in the Kansai region where city and nature exist in beautiful harmony. People of Kobe, the third largest port city in Japan, are open-minded and have been

I want to provide Japan “much more value for functionality”.

January 09 2019

Interviewed by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com Corey Lee (United States) Creative Director / Designer When you hear the word “designer,” you probably associate them with very creative people, but when do you interact with them? In many cases, you probably ask them to work on something that you can’t draw or create. But Corey Lee, a young American creative director/designer, says, “Those days are over.” Until now, designers have mainly gotten orders for design work from planners and developers. However, the future designer should be “A leader who joins the planning stage and takes the lead in concept

Tell me, Japanese people! @ Company Vol.2

August 14 2018

Interviewed by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com We’ve started with a new series of interviews that highlights foreign staff working at Japanese companies in 2017 to learn about their unique perspectives on Japan and its corporate culture. Our second interview was conducted with one Japanese startup company called Table Cross. The company was founded in 2014. Kaoru Joho, founder and CEO of Table Cross, was just a 21-year old college girl when she released the app (also named Table Cross), which would enable people to give school meals to children in developing countries by booking seats at restaurants, bars,

Expanding business all over the world and helping children in need – Both are my dreams.

July 22 2018

Interviewed & Written by Isao Tokuhashi Edited by Daniel Penso E-Mail:info@myeyestokyo.com Serkan Toso (Turkey) Food Entrepreneur One day we received a mail saying, “I would like to collaborate with you.” The mail came from Serkan, a Turkish man who has his own online platform which provides information about food events to visitors to Tokyo. We got interested in him because of the reasons below; 1. He is from Turkey. We’ve never happened upon a Turkish IT entrepreneur in Japan. 2. He is Muslim, which means he must have food restrictions. It is interesting that that kind of person introduces

I will create a culture which encourages both profit generation and contribution to society.

December 16 2015

Interviewed & written by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com Kaoru Joho Entrepreneur One day we happened to find an interesting app on Facebook timeline. It enables you to give school meals to children in developing countries by booking seats at restaurants, bars, izakayas, etc. in Japan. The app is called “Table Cross”, which implies “Cross any boundary, connect with each other through food and make the world happier”. This app is not an interesting app, but it’s really helpful. You can make a difference in the world if you book seats at restaurants – maybe you’ve done it at

Japanese don’t realize how good their image in the world is and how good of a reputation Japan has.

June 04 2015

Interviewed & written by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com Nikola Pavesic (Croatia) Startup for startups twitter: @nikpavesic We found a unique recruitment service on Twitter. They provide their services mainly to Japanese startups, and most of its staff members are non-Japanese. In other words, non-Japanese recruiters support Japanese startups. We wanted to thank them and got really interested in their idea. The name of the recruitment service is called “JUSTA”, which was launched by a gentleman from Croatia with the support of Red Brick Ventures, a venture company from Tokyo. We tweeted that we want to interview them and

Tokyo doesn’t need to be like anybody else. Tokyo doesn’t need to be like New York or London.

January 07 2014

Interviewed & written by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com Loren Fykes (USA) Entrepreneur We have been organizing asakatsu (literally “morning activities”) meetups since early 2013. Initially, we focused on bringing people together for discussions on hot topics in English with English learners and native English speakers. From these meetings, we had the idea to start a new project. Because My Eyes Tokyo does regular interviews with both local and international artists and business, we thought it would be interesting to do bring these interviewees to asakatsu and conduct the interview openly in English with meetup participants. We have

Let’s talk over Israeli startups!

October 10 2013

Reported by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: itokuhashi@myeyestokyo.com Today we introduce you to the meetup which Japanese people who are attracted by “Startups in Israel” got together. Its panelists were those who’ve been getting engaged the business in Israel or with Israeli companies and they discussed “The reason we do business with Israel”. Also there were many big fans of Israeli innovative techniques or Israeli startup scene even though the venue is thousands of kilometers away from the country. My Eyes Tokyo has interviewed a man from Israel before (*Click here to read his story!), but we don’t know very much

Interviews with Tokyo People Achieving Dreams