at that time, in 2012, 34 year old Shintaro, still single, career It's not going well. Bored to death, he left Tokyo and determined to see the world.
he decided to travel in poverty and spend the least money to live directly in his home. It costs only 5 dollars a night, and the room does not even provide hot water. He travels everywhere by hitchhiking and changing buses. In 6 months, he traveled to 23 countries, once visited the largest salt field in the world of Bolivia, once lived in the Sahara, lived in the tents of the local herdsmen, caught the tortoise in the islands of Ecuador, and had been to India to see the Buddha. The more
Shintaro Yamada travels, the more knowledge it will have, the more eager it is to do something for people from different countries in the world. He noticed that even the poorest people in the world are using smartphones, and even if they are in lack of material, they can access all kinds of information like mobile phones in developed countries. So Shintaro Yamada thought about why not creating a platform to connect all the people around the world to allow users from different backgrounds to trade freely. So Mercari was born. This is an e-commerce website that matches individual buyers and sellers around the world. The valuation is over $1 billion.
"the experience of my travels broadens my horizons, and I hope to do something of value to the whole world," Yamada told reporters. Yamada, now 38 years old, likes to wear a big red sweater and his company is located in the bustling area of Tokyo. "So I consider making a platform that allows users to exchange cash, goods or services with their mobile phones. Yamada tried language education before starting Mercari with two other partners in 2013, but the project didn't go well until the Mercari.
Japanese programmers travel around 23 countries at the age of 34, and 4 years later, their company is valued at $1 billion
this month, Mercari is successfully financing 74 million dollars, valued at $1 billion. The company's headquarters is located in downtown Tokyo, near Google and Goldman Sachs Group. The $1 billion valuation is not only a milestone for Mercari, but also for Japan as a whole. Japan, the world's third largest economy, did not have a local Internet Co valued at over $1 billion. At present, there are 155 Unicorn non-listed company in the world, of which 92 are in the US, 25 in China, and 7 in India. Japan has always been criticized because of inactive capital and cultural conservatism. The Japanese do not like to take risks. The most common and wisest choice is to enter a big company and do it for a lifetime.
Yamada believes that there is no such pessimism on the surface. Many Japanese technology companies have already gone public before the valuation reached US $1 billion. Because Japan has a loose regulatory threshold for small and fast growing companies, the Tokyo stock exchange has only a total production of $10 million, with no demand for revenue. This condition is even lower than Nasdaq's listing requirements. Of course, he also thinks that Japan needs more entrepreneurial models, such as apple founder Jobs and Zuckerberg (Facebook) founder Zuckerberg. "There are so few people who dare to try," Yamada said. "Maybe after me, there will be more people who believe that there are other ways to succeed besides spending a lifetime in a big company.
Yamada has long been accustomed to not taking the unusual path. He graduated from the math major of Waseda University in Japan. The Waseda University has a reputation for both in Japan and the world. He could have gone to a bank or a top level consulting company, but he did not, but was an ecommerce company called Rakuten, a small e-commerce site at a university. He saw that the founder of the company made a small business like a small workshop to build up an electric business giant with an annual sales of $14 billion.
Yamada did not stay in this company after graduating in 2001, but started business directly. He founded a game development company called Unoh, which has built several exploding games until it was bought by Zynga in 2010. He had helped San Francisco's companies to localize all kinds of App and insisted on 18 months, but then Yamada was tired of doing something more globalizing. So it took 6 months to travel around the world. After returning, she founded Mercari with alumni Tommy Tomishima and Ryo Ishizuka of the early rice field.
Japanese programmers travel around 23 countries at the age of 34, and 4 years later, the company's company's valuation of $1 billion
Mercari is that the experience of its mobile applications is specially optimized, and users can easily browse goods or turn their own goods. It can be clothes, electronic products or tickets for sports meet. According to Ymada, the App has been downloaded 32 million times, with a monthly turnover of 10 billion yen. Mercari receives a transaction commission from it. "Now the B2C business is quite saturated, but there is still room for C2C," said Tomoaki Kawasaki, an e-commerce analyst. "Since Mercari began to deploy C2C business early, it has already dominated in Japan.
Yamada's current strategy is to push the business to the US market and compete positively with Amazon and Ebay. The US version of Mercari was launched in September 2014, with more than 7 million downloads of mobile terminals. Mercari has reduced transaction fees by 10% and plans to expand its C2C trading products more through social media, in order to gain a greater range of users' hearts.
at present, the progress of Mercari has been smooth, according to App Annie data, the iOS version of App has climbed to the top 10 list of e-commerce downloads last month. Yamada said, without thinking about what a tough battle ahead is, but winning the American market is an essential part of a globalized company.
"even if it wasn't for us, someone else would occupy Japan's market and occupy our market." It is better to preemptive than to sit by waiting for death. "Yamada told reporters.
Article source: Bloomberg, compiled by TECH2IPO / originality IMYG, first appeared in TECH2IPO / originality.