 investors and innovation. Tom, thanks for coming. How are you feeling? You were here already yesterday. I saw you walking around the booths. Yeah, sure. I saw the pitches. I saw the speakers here. It was a great day yesterday. I hope everyone else felt the same way. Yeah, so I've actually seen you a few times here in Japan. You seem to be a regular. You've had the idea office here for a while. Can you get started a little bit on idea and design thinking and how you guys came to Japan? Sure. So, idea started doing design thinking work 40 years ago this year. It's some ideas that came out of Stanford University and we've actually been working with startups the entire 40 years. But as time went on, we worked more and more with large corporations as well and so we got really interested in how to reconnect with the startup community. And the way we're doing that here in Tokyo is we partnered with other people who we liked and respected and we created a venture capital firm here just in Japan called D4V, Design for Ventures. And so it's been this really fun way of combining design thinking with startup cultures. And we've invested in 30 startups already and there's still more to come and really having a good time with it and a lot of interaction with the startup companies in our portfolio. So, let's talk a little bit more about D4V. When did you actually get started with that? So, the idea of D4V came from our CEO, Mak Takano, who some of you may know. He's the CEO of Forbes Japan. He's a very, very successful investor and as I got to be friends with Mak, we started talking about things we could do together and it was him that proposed this idea of combining the best of IDEO skills with Knowledge of Venture Capital, which was two and a half years ago. We launched officially in December of 2016. We raised the fund last year in 2017 and started investing. And so now we get to shift some of our attention, you know, that the fund is fully raised into more time that will be available for our portfolio companies. Yeah. For me, seeing you guys do what you do with IDEO and then what you do with D4V, it's been very interesting to follow that. Is there like something that is different for you guys in how you think when you do design thinking in the more IDEO sense versus like when you invest in the companies? If I have understood correctly, D4V is like you do, of course, invest but you kind of provide some sort of design thinking services or advice or how is it different working with those two entities? Sure. I mean, it has a lot in common with our consulting work, but it is there are some different elements. You know, when I have my venture capitalist hat on, I have to think a little bit differently about which companies to work with. You know, in the consulting role, it's easy to fall in love with a company that may not have tremendously high growth in its future, but you just kind of love the entrepreneurs and things like that. Whereas what's different when, you know, I have the venture capitalist hat on is I have to be responsible in thinking about our limited partners, right? It's not enough for them for us to just love the company. I have to also be thinking about the growth trajectory of that company, and we're especially looking for companies who have a chance for growth trajectory beyond Japan. As you may know, we're investing 100% in Japanese companies, but as you may know, when it comes time to, you know, have what they call liquidity event, whether it's an IPO or whether it's through mergers and acquisitions, it's great to be open to life beyond Japan because the numbers are higher, the rewards for entrepreneurs can be higher, so we want all of our companies to have at least that possibility. Not that they will all go global, but we want to find companies that all have the potential to go global. The global aspect is a very interesting point that you raised. I think it's very, very interesting and very, very cool. We're of course here in Tokyo, we're honored that you decided to make this kind of effort and initiative in Tokyo. Is there like, is it something that you're experimenting here or is it like something that you might take outside Tokyo at some point or how do you see that? So, you know, Antti, we've talked a lot and I've actually never talked to you about this. I mean, it's in Tokyo in many ways because of you. I mean, I came to slush, you know, I spoke at the first slush in 2015 and at the time, to me, the prevailing perception of Japan and I guess I'm guilty of having that same feeling that the economic success of Japan was basically built on Japan Inc. You know, the giant corporations who do a really solid job of, you know, of, you know, of employing people and making tremendously quality products, right? But that entrepreneurship was kind of quiet in Japan. And then I come to slush 2015, the first one that you put on where you had to build your own venue out on Adaiba. And oh my God, the energy of slush was so amazing. It's like there are entrepreneurs in Japan. There are a lot of them that are just, just searching for, you know, the right amount of support. And so when Mach Mach Takano, our CEO, you know, I'm chairman, he's CEO and we have a, we have a really great team. When he proposed it, I mean, a part of why I said yes was slush because slush 2015 changed my point of view about entrepreneurship here. And there's still people out in the world who haven't changed their point of view that yet. And it's our job to, it's our job to change that. I feel like Japan is at a kind of an inflection point, you know, in the S-curve of growth, right? It's flat or it looks flat for a while. And then there's this magical time, which I've witnessed in many different locations and industries where, where growth happens and things really, really get exciting. And to me, Japan is in that moment now, that, that there's an inflection curve where entrepreneurship is cool, right? I swear 10 years ago, it felt like if you were to be an entrepreneur, first, you were going to disappoint your parents in Japan. It's like, oh, poor Takeshi couldn't get a job at Mitsubishi. He's got to try a startup, right? 10 years ago, it felt like you do a startup. It's going to be harder to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend, right? Because they really want somebody trustworthy who's, you know, working for Toyota, right? And, you know, there was a time when entrepreneurship was not cool in Japan or was not respected. And I think those times are over. Japan needs to turn up the engine of economic growth. And I personally believe we have all these wonderful big clients at IDEO, but I personally believe the economic growth in Japan is going to come from you, from the entrepreneurs. And yes, the big companies will continue, you know, on their way, and that's great. And we need that, right? But if Japan is going to outpace the growth of other countries, I think entrepreneurship is going to be part of it. This is true in America, right? We were talking earlier this morning about Hewlett Packard, you know, as the original company of the Silicon Valley that continues to this day. But look at the growth. Look at the growth in the U.S. It's Google. It's Facebook. It's Apple. It's the companies that were, you know, they were startups. In my career, those companies were startups. You know, I sat recently, well, it's a couple of years ago now by a very wise guy named Warren Benes. And he's a, he writes many books, has written many books on leadership. And he said to me one day, he said, Tom, you know, the number one role of every leader today is to make the leaders of tomorrow, right? And I actually have three roles right now. One at IDEO, one at D4V, one speaking out in the world. And I think all three of them, that is the theme. That is the overriding theme is try to create the leaders of tomorrow. And so the leaders of tomorrow are here in this room. They're at slush. They're at slush every year. And so, yes, I'm very happy to be here, auntie, because really you, well, you and slush changed my perspective about entrepreneurship in Japan. I was not expecting comments like that. No, we've never talked about this. Very honored with everything what you just said. This is a community effort. We have five, 600 volunteers here today. Could I invite all of you guys to give a big hand to all of our volunteers? Give it up. Thank you. Apparently, apparently we're doing something right. Thank you very much for that. Is there something that you've learned, like since your career in more traditional design consulting is very, very long? Is there something that you've learned through your new venture capitalist hat that you're going to do differently in your more traditional design consulting world? Well, one of the really fun things about D4V as opposed to the consultancy business is all of our portfolio companies are smaller than our clients on the consulting side. And so the really fun thing is speed, right? If I'm working with one of the largest companies in America or the world and we propose a new idea, we kick off a series, a long series of meetings in which they talk about the idea. And maybe there's a 20% chance they might implement the idea at the end of the meeting sequence. Whereas we meet with these portfolio companies, we do these design sprints. We're not actually doing the full design for the companies, but we help them in short bursts of energy. And we do the design sprint one week and the next week, it's like done. It's on their website. It's up and running. And so that speed, it's different and it's so much fun to see things come to life. You know, we have some portfolio companies here. I don't know if you saw Infosteller presentation here on the main stage, which has been named one of the future unicorns of Japan. Nikke said that about it. And so just to see the nimbleness with which companies like that or studio also presented, I think on the pitch stage, which makes websites without having to do the coding, you go straight from design and not templates, but actual custom design to webpage. And you know, both companies, they're just really quick at implementing. They take an idea straight into implementation. I see. One thing I've been thinking a little bit myself is that some of the design thinking methodologies, they've actually studied a little bit in university myself. And a lot of the projects we did were working with big companies is basically is the methodology something that works just like as it is for smaller companies? Like what I'm thinking is that do you, for example, your portfolio companies that you've invested in, do you advise them to use the framework exactly the same way from day one? Or do you wait until they grow to a certain size? Like is design thinking for something that you should do later? Or like can you do it already early? Sure. Yeah. I mean, we're not locked into a certain specific. It doesn't have to follow five exact steps or anything. But yeah, sure, we think design thinking is really important from day one. I mean, the starting point of design thinking is, you know, always start with empathy, right? And so empathy deeply understanding your customers, that is huge for all companies, right? And in some ways, design thinking, I believe is more important for startups because it's a survival game for startups, right? If you can understand your customers better than your competitors do, or if you can build simplicity into their lives when other companies are trying to add more complexity, right? That's your that's your competitive advantage. And so in some ways, it's more important for startups. And by the way, I'm not talking about design, just like the appearance of things or the look of your website. I mean, design thinking is very broad. It's the it's the mindset with which you approach the world. You you start with empathy, you do lots of quick prototyping, you you prototype to learn. And so you associate your small failures with learning as opposed to small failures with depression, right? You know, that that's that you you build prototyping into your process. And then one thing that small companies sometimes struggle with a little bit is the storytelling part. And this is not specific to Japan. It's true in the Silicon Valley to the startups are so in love with their technology. But honestly, your customers don't care about technology, your customers care about their lives. So in the storytelling part of design thinking, you got to you got to meet them where they are, you got to talk about their life and how how your technology fits with their life, right? You know, it was really good at that was Steve Jobs, you know, I had the great chance to encounter Steve a few times during his lifetime. And he I remember there's this moment a long time ago in the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, he held up the first Apple iPod. It was the MP3 player. And he says, you know what this is? And I'm thinking, Yeah, that's an MP3 player. They existed already. I wasn't interested at all, right? And he did not talk about technology. He didn't talk about compression, algorithms, you know, no, he held up that that new device. And he told a six word story. He said, you know what this is? This is 1000 songs in your pocket. And me and everybody in the audience is like, got to have one of those got to have one, right? He talked about us. He talked about our lives. He didn't talk about his technology, right? And so I think that's a that's an issue that startups need to understand pretty early on, you know, especially as they approach market, we invested the seed stage. So some of our portfolio come to have not yet gone to market. But when you start going to market, wow, you have to speak your customers language using good storytelling. It's not about megabytes, or it's not about Hertz numbers, or it's it's about how how you get it to the customer. Yes. So another thing I had in mind was that since you guys have been I'm very curious on how idea or the design thinking existing design thinking people that you have, what kind of support they provide to the startups, you said that it's more than just money. It's also like concrete advice. And sure. And so how, how does that actually work? Like, it sounds like it's something really unique that most VCs can't really give to their company. Yeah, I mean, I think of it as truly unique here in Japan. By the way, this is happening in the VCs in Silicon Valley and has for many years combining design thinking with with venture capital. But yeah, so I mean, to be honest, if you're a really hot startup, you can get money anywhere, right? And so what you're looking for is a VC partner who offers something more than that. And so we're offering the chance for coaching and mentoring and connection to IDO's global network, but also at critical moments design help. So, you know, when we we approaches on an ad hoc basis, when somebody gets stuck or you know, or when we observe them and talk in and look at design opportunities, we'll say, Hey, let's, let's spend a day, we go to design sprint, let's spend a day talking about your your interface on the smartphone, or let's spend a day talking about how you're telling your story or think about the video you're currently showing. And so that kind of quick hit consulting, we have, we have 30 people in IDO Tokyo, and they're all interested in D4V, they all want to work with startups. And so we're trying to find the match up between our interests and capabilities and the and the portfolio companies needs. All right. It seems we're running out of time. But ladies and gentlemen, let's give a big hand to Tom Kelly. Hey, thank you very much. We'll be heading to a slush cafe for some Q&A. So those who want to continue the discussion, see you there. Thank you. See you there.