This Japanese startup lets you earn money by selling your old school notes

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with Disrupting Japan where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with Japanese entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Arcterus CEO Go Arai.

I spoke with Go Arai, CEO of Arcterus, a startup that is trying to help students learn more effectively. It is a platform that allows students to share their study notebooks with other students and then profit from it. Here, we also talk about the company’s challenges and recent Asian expansion.

Why don’t you tell us about Arcterus?

“The main product that we have is called Clear. It’s a platform for the students to share their study notebooks. Users can publish their notebook, other users can see it and use them as a textbook to solve their study problems, and if you are a very popular user, you can sell your notebook in the platform.”

Who are your main users?

“The users are mainly middle school students and high school students. We also have university students and also primary school students. They use it mainly for preparing for school exams and entrance exams.”

You were a consultant and you worked in the hospitality industry. Why start an edtech company?

“Right before starting out there, I was the COO of a ski resort turnaround business between Hoshino Resort and a private equity fund, and that was about almost 10 years ago. I had this business plan regarding education and I proposed this to Mr. Hoshino to do the joint venture with me, and Mr. Hoshino agreed […]. But after I did the feasibility study, I found that this business won’t make money. When I told that to Mr. Hoshino, he told me that the thing I’m lacking here is management experience. He offered me this position to manage a new business that they were starting in Hoshino Resort and that was the ski resort business.

“[I went into that career] to learn how to manage a company, do marketing and make money, and manage a team.

“There were two triggers [that made me decide to take the plunge]: one is that my very good friend from business school decided to join me. He had very good experience with startups.

“The other trigger is very interesting. So when I was working in the ski resort and I was skiing outside of the course with my team members, I bumped into a tree and I broke three of my ribs. Two of them were sticking into my lung and the lung exploded.

“I thought I was going to die. But luckily, someone in my team found out that I was lost and came back and called the rescue team. During that time waiting for my team, waiting for rescue, [I thought], ‘If I can live through it and get back to Tokyo, I have to restart my career as an entrepreneur.’

“I didn’t want to die before finishing what I wanted to do, [which was to] provide a new education service to the world.”

How does your platform match students with notebooks? 

“The basic approach is that [we take into account] the background of the students and what kind of notebooks they have and what kind of textbook they use at school.

“[It’s] very similar to how Amazon recommends products. Someone who bought the product also bought this product.”

How are you appealing to users? 

“We directly communicate to our users. For example, in Japan, the only way we communicate to our users is only through Twitter and maybe through App Store and Google Play. We don’t do any paid marketing and we don’t do Facebook in Japan, as middle school and high school students in Japan don’t do Facebook, but are heavily on Twitter.

Your customers are going to graduate and stop using your product. How do you combat that?

What’s your approach in entering new markets?

What’s the best advice you could give to someone who’s thinking of leaving a company and starting their own?   

So what is the one thing that makes you want to run a startup over working for a large company?

If I gave you a magic wand and I said you could change one thing about Japan, what would you change?