Only 1 percent of the Japanese population use sharing economy services, says this founder

Anytimes CEO Chika Tsunoda.

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.

Online marketplaces seem like the ideal business model, and on paper, they are. The reality, however, is that running an online marketplace business is hard.

I recently sat down with Chika Tsunoda, the CEO of Tokyo-based skill-sharing platform Anytimes and the director of the Sharing Economy Association of Japan. She explained to me how she’s been building a P2P services marketplace and what the sharing economy looks like in the country.

What is Anytimes?

Anytimes is a skill-sharing platform that connects people who need help and those who want to work in the neighborhood. These services include everyday household chores, pet care, furniture assembly, language lessons, and so on.

The most popular customers are housewives, university students, and senior citizens. And the most popular categories are house cleaning, cooking, and assembling furniture. But we also have other categories: pet care, English lessons, Chinese lessons, and guitar lessons.

The average price for one hour is around US$18 (¥2,000), and the platform takes a 15 percent commission.

You worked for some big, stable companies before. Why start a startup?

When I was little, I wanted to work in developing countries. I wanted to work in the United Nations, Unesco, and United Nations Development Business (UNDB). But after I graduated from university, I wanted to have experience first and learn business and finance. But then, I realized that there are many social problems in Japan, and I thought I should be serving these problems first. That’s why I decided to found Anytimes.

My parents didn’t like me running a company because my father was also an entrepreneur and my mom was a programmer. Both of them were worried about me, but they know that once I decide on something, I don’t accept other opinions.

How did you start the business?

In the first year, I did things by myself and crowdsourced services. After one year, I started to hire people. My first employee was my sister-in-law, and then I hired my friends, and my friends’ friends. This was very difficult because I didn’t have experience or direction. So, everything was my first experience. After two years, I stopped outsourcing and started to hire programmers and designers.

What is the attitude toward the sharing economy in Japan?

Japan has many stereotypes. For example, big companies are great; stay in one company for your whole life.

But Japan has already changed its mind about freelancing and the labor market—only a little and only in Tokyo. Because freelancers, especially programmers, designers, and writers, can work from anywhere, there is so much opportunity in the countryside where the cost of living is low.

But I don’t think there is wide adoption of freelancing in the countryside. This is because of the mind. City people, especially those in the center of Tokyo, are more international and flexible. The minds of the people in the countryside are very old and dependent on people.

The people who have experience using sharing economy services are at 1 percent in Japan. Only 1 percent. But in the US it’s 25 percent or 30 percent.

If you could change one thing about Japan, what would it be?