5 entrepreneurial inspirations from Japanese anime

Last month I was asked by Sunbridge Global Ventures to kick off their Innovation Weekend global rollout as their inaugural speaker. The request included that I address the following two questions:

• What kind of Japanese entrepreneurs can be successful in Silicon Valley?
• How can Japanese entrepreneurs globalize their business from Tokyo?

Achieving success as an entrepreneur anywhere is a challenge, so while I could understand the appeal of targeting Silicon Valley, there are enough factors to consider that are agnostic to location. Rather than suggest that I have solutions to these broad, abstract questions, I decided to have a bit of fun. I chose five qualities I felt were important as an entrepreneur, then reached back into my childhood era living in Japan and tied each quality with a bit of Japanese culture.

First, the five qualities — which are important together; see if you can spot why without scrolling down!

Ambitious /am’biSHəs/, adjective
Having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed.

Nimble /’nimbəl/, adjective
Quick and light in movement or action; agile.

International /,inter’naSHəәnl/, adjective
Existing, occurring, or carried on between two or more nations.

Mature /məә’Choor,-’t(y)oor/, adjective
Fully developed physically; full-grown.

Experimental /ik,sperəә’men(t)l/, adjective
Based on untested ideas or techniques and not yet established or finalized.

Now, why these five? Well, if you take the first letter of each one, you get ANIME.

For each quality, I reflected back on my time in Japan as a kid attending international school and selected one well-known anime or manga character who I felt exhibited the selected quality, and related a story about Gengo and how we, too, exhibited that quality. Now, as this was more a fun rather than academic exercise, you may need to use your imagination and stretch it a bit at times. Here goes!

See: 3 Things Startups Can Learn From Reading ‘One Piece’ Manga