Jason Reacts To Japanese Founder Pitches + Fireside Chat With Yuki Shirato

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Lightfield: https://lightfield.app

Rippling: https://Rippling.ai/twist

Upwork: https://upwork.com

Today’s show:

AssetHub built an AI agent that recreates licensed characters in 3D while respecting copyright rules... But Jason says he needs to think BIGGER. 11 founders pitched their companies to Jason and Yuki Shirato of Techstars Tokyo at our Osaka event this week, and neither investor held back.

Find out why Jason says Seekr feels more like a vitamin than a painkiller, and needs to ditch the press mentions from their deck. Plus, a vital lesson for founders: if everyone already knows about the problem you're solving, investors expect a tight solution and business plan. Truly novel business ideas get more leeway. Japan's startup community is booming, with many recent grads bailing on lifelong gigs at major corporations to start companies. But here's why Yuki says the fear of failure is still holding back progress.

Guests:

Yuki Shirato on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuki-shirato

Techstars Tokyo: https://www.techstars.com/accelerators/tokyo

Founder Pitches:

Seekr: https://seekrai.global/product