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Disrupting Japan: Tea Ceremony in Blue Jeans & Startup Lessons

Innovation in Japan does not have to mean replacing the old with the new

By 1 min read

His investors Investors were all highly skeptical of the idea of combining traditional face-to-face learning with a P2P web platform. They said it would be impossible to scale.

Over the past three years, startup founder Takashi Fujimoto of StreetAcademy has been proving them wrong. Takashi has taken an approach that shows that innovation in Japan does not have to mean replacing the old with the new. Sometimes the new simply makes the old things even better.

StreetAcademy matches those who want to teach with those who want to learn. Local courses are offered in everything from cooking, to yoga, to foreign languages, to how to best use Excel, to how to generate a startup business plan. And three years in StreetAcademy is just getting started.

EdTech is one of the hottest sectors for Japanese startups today, and the Japanese education system is ripe for disruption. However, there are formidable barriers to change, and very few startup founders are willing to throw themselves against these barriers head on.

On the podcast, Takashi and I discuss a possible third way forward. One that is blends the old and the new to achieve improvement in a productive, harmonious, and a very Japanese way.

For more podcasts about the startup scene in Japan, check out Disrupting Japan.

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