Pricing a company turns out to be a surprisingly satisfying exercise once you try it. After all, "one multiplication gives you the share price." Take EBITDA…

Starlink's adjusted EBITDA runs at roughly $7.2 billion a year. The IPO's assumed valuation is $1.77 trillion. Divide one by the other and you get roughly…

"So in the end, isn't this just converting labor costs into revenue?" If you run a contract development business, you've probably felt this unease at least…

The other day, I came across a comment from the executive of a listed company. He said something like, "Among the X thousand listed companies, someone with a…

Recently, something has been nagging at me. An acquaintance of mine was an early member of a startup. He was a complete rookie, only about two years into his…

【Objection ①】 You should start a company with members who fill in the gaps you lack. If you are the engineer, find someone who can sell it. If you are good at…

I envy that. lol Actually, I have a very distant relative—my wife's cousin's husband's sister's husband (basically a stranger at this point, lol)—let's call…

That is true, but I think it is a "speed" choice reached after everyone worked backward, and backward again, and backward again, from several surrounding…

There seem to be as many answers to this question as there are people asked. ① When you step down as CEO ② When your shareholding ratio drops below the veto…

Yes, go ahead and start a company. The people around you will say all kinds of things. Even so, please start a company. Someone with deep knowledge and…

In the early stage of a startup, almost everything is missing. So think about how to make maximum use of the few things you do have. The simplest approach here…

It doesn't necessarily always work out that way, but I hope it does. Here I want to explain why. First, there has never been a moment in human history when…

As you can tell, this isn't a question. It's a message from me. Please, readers, don't aim to be a "smart-looking person." Become an idiot instead. One wall…

Technical skill, a name known in the field, business acumen, charisma, and the ability to draw people in... isn't that basically a superman!? Actually, I hold…

Actually, this isn't something that can be answered easily, and several angles need to be considered. As a starting point, let me lay out the common objections…

It's worth considering this by looking at how you would answer the "common questions thrown at startups." 【Question 1】Why do you think you (or your team) can…

If you were hoping for the answer "There's no such thing as a right age," I'm sorry to disappoint. There is one. It's "late thirties and beyond." This is only…

On this question, I think there are two separate discussions: what "should" be the case, and what actually happens in practice. First, the "should" discussion.…

One of the rankings published in various places is the "Ranking of Unicorn Companies by City." In 2020, Beijing was apparently 1, San Francisco 2, and Shanghai…

I feel like I've mostly been writing about my own thoughts lately, so it's been a while since I've written about something someone asked me. Why do investors,…

My own story is fairly one-sided, so I want to start with the overall picture as I see it. Needless to say, everyone has different motivations for starting a…

Product planning can broadly be organized into two approaches: the "market analysis type" and the "needs-first type." <Market Analysis Type This method…

Do whatever you like. There are two perspectives here. First, nobody knows whether a market everyone currently thinks is big enough will still be big ten years…

I'm often struck by how odd my ideas are, and how readily I act on them. First, in August, I started a new company with a friend. With that company, I applied…

Most people build a persona as a foundation for planning. Persona is the Latin root of the English word personal. (Most Western languages trace back to Latin.)…

I'd like to focus on just this one contrast between the two. First, let me say this up front: "technology-driven approaches rarely turn out well." This isn't…

Being global isn't necessarily important, but securing the possibility of horizontal expansion is very important. Growing a business properly on a single,…

Let me introduce the episode with J, the Canadian entrepreneur I mentioned earlier. One day, after J set up an office in the Bay Area, I stopped by to catch…

A case like this. When you actually run into it yourself, your first reaction is "why me, are you kidding me!" But objectively speaking, this is one of the…

What first drew me to America was the market for the products I was working on at the time. Yamaha mainly develops, manufactures, and sells musical instruments…

There are various definitions of angel investors, but here I'll try to define a true angel investor by looking at it from the angle of "don't team up with…

Something a friend of mine, an MBA-holding executive in Silicon Valley, once said made me stop and think. "Taking investment is the worst-case scenario."…

"It was $3 million for a single sheet of acrylic," entrepreneur I laughs, joking. When he took the stage at TechCrunch, he used a small sheet of acrylic to…

Kuzuryu here. I serve as a director at several companies, and I also work with many other companies as an advisor, and occasionally as a hands-on consultant.…

Actually, I've been writing a book My book comes out on May 18, 2022. (Amazon has it scheduled for 5/20. Bookstores will follow shortly after.) So I'm going to…

The sample copies arrived today. Sales start at bookstores nationwide and on Amazon from 5/18. This book compiles answers to the typical questions and sticking…

When companies form alliances with each other, or business firms link up with academia, the line between joint development and contracted development sometimes…

This is, in a way, a discussion of technique. Here I'll write down some things to keep in mind when making presentation materials. <Polished materials only…

Let's proceed here assuming a presentation in the early stages of product planning. This is a setting where you explain to senior decision-makers and get their…

There is more than one way to approach planning. Here I'll just write about my own personal stance. First, accumulating knowledge is essential for anything.…

This is also a consultation I get often. First, this kind of consultation only ever comes from large companies. That's because in most cases startups know…

1. Zero yen 2. A few hundred thousand yen 3. At least $9,100 The answer is 2, a few hundred thousand yen. People often say "you can now start a stock company…

People in their 20s tell me, with the best of intentions, "This really is the decade for it, isn't it!" So let me push back here too: "No, no, that's not…

I read Bad Blood. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup This is the book by the Wall Street Journal reporter who exposed the fact that…

I had the opportunity to serve as a judge at the Monozukuri Hardware Cup (held online) on 2/25. <https://hardwarecup.monozukuri-startup.jp/ It's positioned as…

Product planning, business planning, promotional strategy — whatever the case, one thing holds true across all of them: method should be figured out later.…

Let me write about something almost nobody talks about, but that everyone in the industry already knows. Bad rumors about startups spread fast. "So-and-so is…

I recently made my print debut in "Nikkei Business" and "Nikkei Computer." Hooray. It's an article reporting on a conference I spoke at last year, and I'm…

I'm Kuzuryu. My self-introduction has gotten complicated lately, so I've decided to put it all together here. This is a fairly abbreviated self-introduction…

To be, or not to be, that is the question Live as a working adult long enough and you have to deal with all kinds of external things — other people, foreign…

Some people treat risk assessment and risk management as if they were the same thing, but of course they mean different things. Let me start with the textbook…

As a textbook convention for business plans, you often see the sequence "improve operational efficiency" → "efficiency gains and headcount cost reduction" →…

As a common pattern among early-stage companies built around a technology seed, "it's often unclear from conversations who actually owns the project or…

You have an idea. You're torn on whether to launch a startup. You want to try some prototyping and experiments. If that's your situation, incorporate for now…

I once wrote a post Aisei Kobayashi said "most music is a rip-off," and that's true in a certain sense, <https://www.clazytech.com/2013/12/95/ but I sometimes…

Equity ratios matter enormously to the management of every stock corporation, not just startups. Even an elementary school student knows that much, but the…

On the category "Things worth knowing if you're even considering starting a company." The trigger for writing this has been building quietly for a while now.…

"ClayTech" is a tech company located in Japan. Founded by skillful engineer Yuichiro Kuzuryu(Kuz) in 2018. Has plenty of experience especially – hardware…

「意識高い系」(roughly, "the consciously image-conscious type") The phrase usually describes someone who fusses over every detail, who picks branded or fashionable…

When you start a startup, fundraising is probably the thing that torments you most in the early stage. "So-and-so raised ¥XXX million through a third-party…

It's been a while since I wrote in this series, but the other day I felt like I saw the "fruit of years of accumulation," so I'm writing this. By way of…

This is a slide deck I made a while back — a friend told me to reread it, and it turned out to say some surprisingly good things, so I'm copying it over here.…

Let me pick out the parts from an email to a friend that seem worth sharing. I should say upfront that I'm just an engineer, not a politician or policy wonk,…

This article is a reprint of an earlier post. I don't know whether this is a culture unique to Silicon Valley, or whether I just happen to keep running into…

Let's talk about a signature move in business. Today happens to be the day a world-famous figure passed away. Someone once said this. "What Jobs does has never…