# data[].attributes.headline
Startups in Japan seeing ample cash but lack of innovators Cyber Security

# data[].attributes.subject
Startups in Japan seeing ample cash but lack of innovators Cyber Security

# data[].attributes.body
In this March 25, 2016 file photo, a man is silhouetted while watching toward high rise buildings at Shinjuku shopping and entertainment district in in Tokyo. Japan Inc., long dominated by old-style companies, is finally warming up to startups. But megabanks, venture capitalists and major companies looking to invest can't find enough innovative entrepreneurs, some in the industry say. (AP/Koji Sasahara)

Japan Inc. where companies with roots going back decades, if not centuries, have long dominated, is finally warming up to startups.

Major banks and venture capitalists are keen to tap into faster growth by investing in innovative entrepreneurs, when they can find them. Money raised for ventures in Japan reached a record 276 billion yen ($2.5 billion) last year.

Silicon Valley still raises 50 times more cash for startups than Japan, but the number of U.S. startups chasing that cash is higher. So there's relatively more money to go around in Japan, where young, daring risk-takers are still relatively scarce.

That helps startups to survive, says Yusuke Asakura, who heads a Tokyo-based angel network of entrepreneurs.

Still, he says Japan needs a change of "mindset."

"Japanese value hard work, but what creates innovation is not keeping at the hard work but deciding it is too much work and figuring out how not to do it," said Asakura, who led a turnaround as chief executive at Mixi, a social networking service in Japan.

"There is potential for startups in all the old-fashioned sectors," he said, pointing to growing use of digital tools in education and home-remodeling. "Creating a totally new sector is one way. But there are many old areas that need fixing."

Arata Ohwa did exactly that: Innovating in an area where practically nothing had changed for decades.

His Tokyo-based startup Classico sells stylish lab coats and scrub tops online to doctors and nurses around the world, especially in the U.S. and Japan. Classico coats cost about $200 each, about seven times more than utilitarian conventional ones, but are more fashionable.

Classico's U Scope is made of a more pliant material than traditional stethoscopes, whose basic design has been the same for a century.

It can be rolled up to fit into a pocket, and doctors say it's light and easy-to-use. This year, it won Germany's iF Design Award and Red Dot Design Award.

"In the medical industry, even if you do what's considered normal in the internet world, everyone says it's new," said Ohwa, 36.
Investment by financial institutions and manufacturers, some of whom are setting up corporate venture capital funds, is driving the startup boom.

Local companies that once tended to think locally without considering overseas markets increasingly are focusing on global platforms, said Akira Kitamura, chief executive at Japan Venture Research.

"Companies are investing in open innovation because they don't want to end up like Sharp or Toshiba," said Kitamura, referring to big-name companies whose fortunes have fallen in recent years.

Japan's earliest "startup" ventures were in the 1970s. The 1980s brought internet giant Softbank Corp., travel company H.I.S. and the Culture Convenience Club, a video-rental chain. Online retailer Rakuten and game company DeNA were born during the dot.com boom of the late 1990s-early 2000s.

Startups still face other hurdles in Japan, where initial public offerings remain the main exit option, rather than the relatively easier mergers and acquisitions approach typical of the U.S. and Europe.

Yusuke Umeda, 35-year-old co-chief executive of Tokyo-based startup Uzabase, is banking on a smartphone subscription news service focused on business and economic news.

Umeda's NewsPicks service has attracted 2 million users who each pay 1,500 yen ($14) a month, 550,000 of them daily active users. It eked out a profit last year on nearly 3.1 billion yen ($31 million) in sales last year, up 63 percent from 2015.

"And so they know it's not fake news," Umeda said.

While working for the Swiss investment bank UBS, Umeda found Western financial data services hard to use. He launched Speeda, a Japanese-language service designed for financial professionals in 2009, and NewsPicks in 2013. His company has gotten 1 billion yen ($9 million) in Japanese venture money from investors such as Globis, Monex and Itochu Technology Ventures.

"It's unimaginable how easy it has become to get funding from both big companies and venture capital," said Umeda. "The culture to nurture startups and try out new businesses is also growing. That was totally absent eight years ago. That's a big change. And I think that is positive."

Some startups, like software distributor Sourcenext Corp., serve as bridges between Japan and the rest of the world.

Sourcenext helped facilitate launches of Dropbox and Evernote in Japan. Its iOS and Android voice-recognition application, iGotcha, transcribes voicemails into text in 11 different languages.

The app sends messages to email and Facebook Messenger accounts by WiFi and collects and organizes voicemails from a user's mobile phone numbers.

Noriyuki Matsuda, the company's billionaire chief executive, founded the company in 1996 in Japan but has lived in California since 2012.

While the climate toward ventures is gradually improving in Japan, it still hasn't caught up with more globally-minded Silicon Valley, says Matsuda, 51.

"You can make deals there," Matsuda, who used to work for IBM Japan, said of Silicon Valley. "There are many advanced tools that have been developed in Silicon Valley, and we bring those products and the culture to Japan."

# data[].attributes.headline
Pharmaceutical Healthcare at Pacific
Associates Limited Minato-ku Tokyo Japan

# data[].attributes.subject
Pharmaceutical Healthcare at Pacific
Associates Limited Minato-ku Tokyo Japan

# data[].attributes.body
The pharmaceutical industry in Japan is the 2nd largest in the world, and market for the best talent is extremely competitive. With a combined track record of over 500 successful placements, the Pharmaceutical Team at Pacific Associates Limited has the local experience and know-how to assist pharmaceutical professionals in Japan. Our consultants possess intimate knowledge of the Japanese market and understanding of local business practices, as well as line manager contacts. We are at the forefront of industry trends and the latest available positions. Such knowledge and connections enable us to keep updated industry professionals on happenings in this ever-changing market, as well as allow us to give qualified feedback on their career development.

Our pharmaceutical clients cover a broad range, from small, to mid-sized, to large multinational companies, as well as vendors (CROs, SMOs and market research firms). The main driver behind our success with clients is our deep understanding of their inner workings and hiring needs. Whether it is the pipeline, company structure, connection with key members (decision makers) in the organization or future expansion plans, our thorough knowledge of our clients and their needs distances us from our competitors and distinguishes us as true "search partners."

Areas of specialty for Pharmaceutical
•Medical Doctors across all functional areas
•Clinical Operations and Project Management
•Medical Affairs
•Pharmacovigilance
•Post Marketing Surveillance
•Quality Assurance / Quality Control
•Regulatory Affairs
•Marketing
•MRs and District Sales Management
•Clinical / Sales Training
•SCM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PAL K.K. (Formerly Pacific Associates Limited)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PAL links highly-skilled candidates with the unique hiring requirements of some of the most successful and well respected companies in Japan.

# data[].attributes.headline
Meir Ezra, Who is Stopping You? (Part Three)

# data[].attributes.subject
Meir Ezra, Who is Stopping You? (Part Three)

# data[].attributes.body
Meir Ezra - Do you know someone who appears kind and polite, but makes your work and life difficult? This person may be an antisocial person. He or she can make you feel like you are riding a roller coaster.

You feel good one day and bad the next. You are productive and efficient one week, but then waste time and get nothing done the next week. Your mood goes up and down, apparently with no explanation.

Abraham Lincoln was known for his mood swings. Sometimes he was energetic, ambitious and cheerful. Other times, he was withdrawn, exhausted and unable to sleep. Winston Churchill was also on a roller coaster: forceful, energized and brilliant one day, depressed and drinking the next. Imagine how much more these men would have accomplished if they had been more stable. They did not recognize nor handle the antisocial people around them.

Businesses are also prone to ups and downs because of antisocial people. One week your productivity and income are doing very well. The next, you have major problems.

Marriages and families can go through the same ride. Happy and loving one month, unfriendly and argumentative the next month. If this happens to you, someone may be secretly messing up your family and marriage.

Luckily, you can handle the negative people in your life. You can take control of your progress. You can have a stable, steadily improving business, career, marriage, family and life.

The first step is to recognize who is causing you trouble and what they are up to.

In two previous articles, we outlined three characteristics of the Antisocial Personality. (See links below.)

Characteristic #4

“4. A characteristic, and one of the sad things about an antisocial personality, is that it does not respond to treatment or reform… .” – L. Ron Hubbard

For example, while most people find a walk to be refreshing, even therapeutic, an antisocial person complains about walks. “I don’t enjoy walks … just look at all that polluted air . . . the city needs to do something about those weeds … you shouldn’t be outside for so long.”

Improving life circumstances, like moving to a better home or learning a new skill, makes most people happier, but not an antisocial. He or she does not change for the better. No matter how hard you try to help the antisocial person’s performance, work skills or productivity, nothing changes.

You can waste years trying to make an antisocial kind, considerate or supportive, with no change. For example, antisocials will beat their wives or kids until someone threatens them. They pretend they have changed and then start the beatings again.

The antisocial is the constant complainer; the critic who is never happy; the whiner who threatens to leave you. He or she acts kind and thoughtful … while stabbing you in the back.

If you open your eyes and face the truth, you eventually realize you cannot help the person, no matter how hard you try.

The opposite characteristic is true of the social personality.

“It is often enough to point out unwanted conduct to a social personality to completely alter it for the better.” – L. Ron Hubbard

For example, you say, “Ed, you won’t stay married for long if you yell at your wife.” Ed says, “Oh, yea, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Because Ed is a social person, he no longer yells at his wife.

Employees, bosses and coworkers, who are social personalities, are fun to work with. They are considerate and kind. They change and improve themselves.

For example, a telephone company gives people-skills training to its employees. Each employee can learn how to provide better service to customers. Social personalities enjoy the training and improve their work skills. Antisocial personalities complain about the training and, if forced to do the training, show no improvement.

If you supervise a social employee, correction is simple. “Sally, please don’t use your computer for personal shopping.” Sally says, “Okay” and stops shopping with her computer from then on.

Are You an Antisocial Person?

“Self-criticism is a luxury the antisocial cannot afford.” “Only the sane, well-balanced person tries to correct his conduct.” – L. Ron Hubbard

Do you criticize yourself and try to correct your behavior? If so, you are not antisocial.

For example, a father finds a broken vase and asks his 7-year-old son, “Who broke the vase? Did you break it?” His son says, “No, I didn’t!” The father gets angry and spanks him for breaking a vase and lying about it.

His wife comes into the room with a broom and says, “I need to clean up the vase I broke.”

The social person would say, “Son, I’m sorry for not believing you. I’ll be more trusting in the future. I owe you a big pizza and ice cream, okay?”

The antisocial personality would say, “The kid deserved the spanking for something else he probably did. You need to show these kids who the boss is.”

Just about anyone can be made to act like an antisocial if he or she is pushed hard enough by an antisocial. For example, antisocial parents teach their children to be antisocial. The key is whether or not the person easily changes to a social personality, once he or she realizes the truth.

If you want to improve your conduct, you will. You have a social personality!