This guy created Tokyo’s Netflix for nightclubbing

Hiroyuki Asahara of Live3.

Like clockwork, the old man pissing next to his room wakes Hiroyuki Asahara. Washing his mouth out with a swish of whisky, Hiroyuki settles back into bed, bumping into his desk and chair with barely enough room to lay down.

He has moved past the hard things now and is determined to bring people the best events and nightlife with his app Live3.

The beginning

“I had a whiteboard on my balcony. My friend would come over after work and we would just chill out there smoking and talking business. It was sort of a natural flow.”

The two musicians originally wanted to get more people to attend live concerts and help sell tickets for small events. Soon after launching in April of 2014, things were looking great. Retention was high with 30 to 40 percent of users still using the app three months later, but seed money was running out, and the team couldn’t raise new capital.

“We were working for free for months. When people do that… relationships are strained,” remembers Hiroyuki painfully. “How long are we going to do this? How long do we have to wait?”

There was this older guy living next to me. I could hear him pissing at night. I couldn’t sleep.

“When you get down to not really having money you start to go through a list.” Hiroyuki wrote out the names of friends and family on paper. “If it were this person maybe they would lend me some… maybe this guy…” he thought.

After months without pay, tensions were high and Hiroyuki’s co-founder and CEO quit. “I like to think it was because of our difference of musical taste,” he laughs. Two more team members followed.

“As a friend, we were great, but it was really hard to do business together. It was a relief after they left. He [the CEO] was late to meetings with investors. It was just really stressful. It felt good to have complete control.”

Completely in control of zero money.

“I’ll just do what I have to,” he convinced himself. “I’m not going to die,” thought Hiroyuki.

Phoenix

Previous investors gave Hiroyuki the ultimate New Year’s present in 2015 with a follow-on investment. He moved to Tokyo to start anew but didn’t want to use the new funds on personal expenses, so he opted to live in his share office.

“There was a capsule hotel right next to me where I could shower if needed. I could do laundry at a coin laundry place.” But living conditions were taking a toll on his mental health.

New energy, new service