Item — HN Reader

You probably haven't heard of any Japanese startups because there haven't really been any who have been successful abroad.

Here's a good presentation that can give you an overview of the web startup space:

http://www.slideshare.net/araipiyo/situation-and-recent-tren...

1 comments

Thanks for the link, but this confirms my initial suspicions.

Japan's GDP is about 1/3 of the US, yet according to your link there was only $0.2 Billion of venture investment, as compared to $17.7 B in the U.S. That's roughly 1% of US venture Financing and wildly disproportionate!

There seems to be something holding back entrepreneurship, and I don't think its for lack of smart people.

As usual, the US are the outliers, more than Japan :) I think venture financing in most European countries is closer to Japanese levels than US ones.

One particularity in Japan, I don't know if that matters that much: working for a big company is still regarded as the quasi only way to get a career in Japan.