Hi Tony
Wow, I finally write this letter to you.
This is a letter from the up-and-coming Japanese entrepreneur who had a very similar background as yours and really
would like to do business with you. I heard from friend who knows you indirectly that you are coming to Tokyo in this
April, and I would at least like you to recognize my name and face as a potential partner to do something that makes
people feel “WOW!”
While you are in Tokyo, I would like to have a discussion with you to talk about this interesting business plan. I
believe that the plan at least makes you feel excited, and I would like to be the one who does this with you.
The purpose of this letter at this time is to let you know about myself, and so that then I can send you the more detailed
powerpoint plan to you before your trip to Tokyo and meet up with myself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1: I want you to know about myself –Shunsuke (Shun) Oyama
2: Tony and Shun -- Launching Global Sake Distribution EC business.
3: Setting up a meeting in Tokyo – will send you a powerpoint presentation to you via separate message, in the
meantime, please enjoy different taste of Sake.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this letter, I would like to introduce myself so that my background and experience make you feel excited as a potential
business partner, and then, would like to quickly introduce what I want to do with you.
Later on, I would like to send a
power point presentation with more operational/financial prospects so that we can meet up in Tokyo.
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Shunsuke Oyama(大山俊輔), 35 year old entrepreneur living in Tokyo, Japan.
I would describe myself as an up-and-coming entrepreneur from Japan who shares with you similar experiences through
my startup as you have had. My experience was not as adventurous as yours as far as I learnt from your book, but the
quality of experience I had with this business is very similar to yours so that they characterized my philosophy in
entrepreneurship and business, and it makes things easy if we can start the business together.
Venture Capitalist originally, but becoming Entrepreneur by believing in the Business
I understand it too much simplifies your background. You did your first startup at Link Exchange and then started your
own Flogs Incubator venture capital. But investing in Zappos and becoming a sole risk taker (both financially and life
wise) as the business went through hardship is something that is quite similar to myself.
Our company, byZOO Corporation, is based in Tokyo that provides “one-on-one” English Language Service. We only
target 20’s-30”s “Female” customers who consider themselves as “Beginner”.
Before I and Mr. Munetaka Takahashi started this business, I started my career as an IT consultant at
PriceWaterhouseCoopers back in 1999, but then to Bear Stearns as an investment banker. But due to my DNA from my
entrepreneurial family, I never felt excited so I switched my career to Poppins Corporation, the young company that
provides babysitting services.
Right before I started this business, I spent 1 year and half as a venture capitalist at Apax
Globis Partners so that I could develop a good relationship with VC communities and also learn from entrepreneurs of
the companies we invested.
Our company “byZOO”, was founded in 2006. It was originally not my company but as a partnership with Munetaka,
until last year.
Experienced “Almost Bankruptcy” Phase and Becoming a Great Company through Surviving
Like Zappos or many other startups, we also went through “almost bankruptcy” stage in 2008 and 2009 and successfully
survived. As described, the company was founded by Mr. Munetaka Takahashi as the chairman and myself as the
president, and we originally had a plan to take this business as a public company (we both had experience as investment
bankers) in few years.
That's how we raised almost $3 mil from angel investors and also venture capital in seed stage.
After several years of running a business, I realized that it was not as simple as we thought and during the hardest time
including 2008-2009 financial crisis, the angels left, and the chairman left Japan to Canada, and finally we kicked out
venture capital as it was quite difficult to run the horse with too many jockeys who wanted to escape. That forced me and
my family to put all of my past savings and my father’s pension, but I learnt a lot from this occasion.
Anyways, I liked this business after 3 years of work with our staffs and serving customers, and I decided to take 100%
risk to run the business and make it profitable. Downsizing the managements and shareholders enabled us to let us
focus on what we only need to survive and then thrive and luckily, we succeeded in this (of course, we did layoffs, but
we did management/shareholder downsizing first and then cut my salary for 100% for almost 1 year and 5 months).
My Original Business Plan
When I started this business in 2006, I originally had another business plan I really felt excited. The plan was to
introduce great “Sake”, or in another word, “Japanese Rice Wines” to people all over the world through the e-commerce
channel.
I deferred this business plan since it was my first time to start my entrepreneurship, and I felt it’s more probable and safer
if I started a business where there was an already successful track record – i.e., Munetaka had a CFO experience at Gaba
Corporation that was sold to MBO fund at $80 mil. But I realized it was wrong --- we both only had financial
experience, i.e., no customer service experience, no teaching experience, no marketing skill, and most importantly, no
entrepreneurship experience at that time.
Through the hardship in the business, especially during 2008 through early 2010, all of our investors including Munetaka
left as they are afraid of potential failure of this business. On the other hands, I (and my wife Emiko) put all of our
personal/family fortune into business as we believe in it and love it.
Now it’s time to “Connect the Dots” and think about the Action
As a result, it is now 100% owned by myself and now making profit.
Surprisingly, except the first layoff, we didn’t cut
people to become profitable, and also nobody (including both foreign and Japanese staffs) left for the firm.
Thanks to
the hardship, we created a strong corporate culture to put “customer service” as top priority in our business as we know
that it eventually leads to profit. This is quite uncommon for educational industry in Japan as customer service is the
last priority in this industry.
Also, with the current ownership, employees, and business model we’ve established, I now believe that it is the right
time to “connect the dots” between my original plan and what we have now.
The only unfortunate thing regarding this English Language School business is that this business doesn't have enough
market so that it can expand.
The biggest reason is “it is Japan based” model where the domestic market is shrinking
due to low birth rate, and another is due to the recent bankruptcy of major two players in the market. We successfully
survived for 5 years while the market has shrunk by almost 40%. As you described in your book, I strongly feel that it
is now time to change table on poker game.
Of course, we simply don’t change tables; we can bring all of what we’ve developed to the new places while we can also
keep the current small table.
As described, my original business plan was to create an Amazon like e-commerce company that only focuses on niche
products that I really like and live with my whole life.
The products are “Sake”.
Why Sake to Global Market?
I strongly believe that Sake is one of the missing products that Japan failed to market globally, due to the old fashioned
domestic business customs and also poor distributor’s global marketing skills. No TOYOTA or No SONY, but they are
still unknown, but potentially great global small brands.
Wine and Scotch Whiskey are the ones that have lots of
breweries with different manufacturing process and different taste that attracts people from allover the world.
I could only imagine Sake is the last product that has a potential of becoming globally recognized alcoholic product,
regardless of culture and race as it matches with any kind of food.
Sake is similar to Wine and Whiskey in a way that each micro-brewery has its own way that makes different taste. As
some scotch tastes sometimes like fruit and another like medicine, but people like the story of manufacturing process and
history of each brewery. Sake is quite similar in this regards, except that people can’t have a skill to market them to
global market.
What we can do through working together?
Strong leverage – strong Japanese products (unknown with great potential) and global market for great upside potential.
Big/High Growth Potential Market
High Competition
Low Competition
Introducing and Delivering through
e-Commerce
High competition in
shrinking market
Small/Shrinking Market
For e-commerce to be successful (especially globally), we need to have 1) good products, 2) marketing skill, 3)
distribution know how and 4) great customer service.
I strongly believe through this English Language School business, we have established a quite successful highly targeted
marketing skill (now 100% web based) and customer service philosophy (please don’t get surprised, services sack here
in this industry here and we are the only “service oriented” educational company in this industry).
And no doubt, great
access to English speakers (mostly foreigners) who are long term residents in Japan and can become potential customer
service staffs.
And no doubt, I’m a super fan of Sake and have accesses to many micro breweries and definitely I really enjoy this if I
can work together with you. Of course, if I can’t work with you, I will eventually do it by myself, however, the
partnership with you (hopefully personally) will enable the whole process much quicker to achieve.
Big guys such as
Japanese trading firms (like Mitsubishi or Sumitomo) can do it because they already deal with many products, but they’ll
never be able to make something like Zappos of Japan as they are smart but bureaucratic.
I believe this letter will capture your attention and justify yourself to allocate your important 1 hour meeting for me
while you stay in Tokyo.
In the meantime, I have enclosed two different types of Sake – the one that tastes really like
wine, another that still keeps taste of rice. Both match with French, Japanese, Oyster, or any kind of foods.
Shunsuke Oyama (大山 俊輔) – 1 Page Introduction
大山(Oyama)=Big Mountain / 俊輔(Shunsuke)=Speedy but Precise
1975
Born in Ashiya (芦屋) city -- very similar environment as Silicon Valley (in terms of living
environment) close to Kobe
登(Noboru)/Father: formerly dock labor / entrepreneur who founded several startups.
GrandPa: formerly Japanese Imperial Army Officer and then sailor who became the CEO of
publicly traded company.
GranMa: Taiwan born Japanese
1987
Went to Okayama Hakuryo Junior High School but dropped out in 3 months
(same as Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten President)
1995
Experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe and was nearly killed.
1998
Graduated from Kwansei Gakuin University
Moved to Southern Methodist University for MBA degree but switched to Thunderbird
Graduate School of Business after 1 semester (my father’s company was taken over by
hostile attack and no need to stay in Dallas where we had business partner there)
1999
Moved to Tokyo and started working at PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consultants, but left in 8
months after training in Tampa, Florida (I think it’s similar to your experience at Oracle).
1999-2003
Working at Bear Stearns Investment Banking Department
(left Bear for 3 days and started working at GE (needed to prepare my marriage with
ex-girlfriend living in the US, but at the last minutes we broke up), but didn’t like the big GE
culture so submitted resignation on the first day and returned to Bear – I was the first and last
Bear’s employee in 75 years who left but was allowed to return before bankruptcy)
2003-2005
Worked at Poppins Corporation, a startup company providing childcare education services.
2005-2006
Worked at Apax Globis Partners – joint venture VC between Apax Partners & Globis
Corporation of Japan.
2006
Planning to start Sake distribution business, but the last minutes I met with my old friend Mr.
Takahashi and decided to choose business model in “female/beginner” only English language
school.
2006-2008
Expansion phase – raised USD 3mil from Mr. Shigeta and Globis Capital Partners and lost
more than that over 3 years.
2008-2009
Survival and Striving phase –management/shareholder downsizing: just 1 management and
shareholder (no outside voice till we confirm that we survived), and made the business
profitable.
Envisioning the future of this business and next with you