Danny Choo
In the middle of a committee meeting with members of the Cabinet and various ministries
About Danny Choo (Past)
After I discovered Japanese Culture in the early 90's back in the UK through Japanese console games, I developed a passion to live and work in Japan. To reach this goal I continued to religiously self study Japanese and took five part time jobs two of which involved carrying, washing and occasionally breaking dishes as a waiter. Exactly how these part time jobs interlinked with each other and got me to Japan are outlined in the How Discovering Japan Changed My Life post.
I arrived in Japan in 1999 and spent 8 years working in the Internet serving as a Marketing Executive at the scientific journal Nature, Website Manager at Amazon and Product Manager at Microsoft.
During my corporate years, I learned how to program PHP and MYSQL from Google Sensei and began moonlighting where I made websites outside of work which eventually lead me to leave Microsoft to start my own gig. My annual income went from 300,000 USD to 0 USD after making the leap out of the comfort zone.
I started to deplete my savings and stock options from corporate days as it started to dawn on me that companies began to think that it wasnt worth paying big money for a website when they could do what they need with social media like Twitter.
I ran around Tokyo with mockups and gave more presentations on Mirai Gaia only to be told "We shall consider your product positively" which in Japanese means "Get Lost." I also remember giving a presentation where the president actually fell asleep (true story).
Eventually, a figure company called Good Smile Company decided to give Mirai Gaia a whirl after I offered to make their corporate website in exchange for figures instead of money. With a brand like Good Smile Company on my portfolio, getting paying clients onto the platform became slightly easier.
Back then I had a well known blog about Japanese culture and a few clients under the belt but always felt that I didn't accomplish much more than that. What I could charge for web development barely made enough to pay for the servers and wages. For many years I would peer into the windows of other offices filled with warm bodies thinking about when I would be able to turn this company around to make it self sustainable and profitable.
I also made a few hiring mistakes in the early days of the company and would lie to myself saying that these folks were worth keeping. The fact was that I was scared I would not be able to go it alone if I let them go and would rather have them on board even if they didn't do much apart from browsing Flickr all day long - I had many arguments with wifey about this and we nearly sold our house to keep the company going.
I decided to use pretty much all of our savings (while managing to keep the house) and bet on a product that I believe would change everything for us - and it did.
In June 2014, we released Smart Doll - a 60cm tall fashion that I modeled after my mascot character Mirai Suenaga.
The How I started My Company in Japan post covers some more detail of how we came to be at our current stage in the company.
About Danny Choo (Present)
Even though my company was incorporated back in 2007, I've never felt like I was in a startup until now - it's like Day One all over again but different this time. I've bootstrapped the company to a point where its self sustainable and now spend my time trying to solve an entirely new set of problems which mainly deal with management of the supply chain (vendors, logistics, storage, order purchasing, inventory) while working out how to scale production to meet demand and stay lean.
We will continue to grow on our own cash and have been doing so at a rate that I myself find overwhelming at times considering it took so long to get here. We don't have ample cash flow which I think is good at this stage in the company as it forces us to innovate our workflows and prioritize our time and resources on the big and impacting rather than the small and insignificant.
I thought that when we launched Smart Doll that I would aim to produce about 50 units per month which seemed like a doable goal given that the production line was still in its infancy with a plethora of quality control issues. I completely underestimated the demand and now we have already shipped a few thousand units in under a year.
In the midst of wanting things done immediately, I began to realize that a founder of any company would want their startup to grow faster and also want things done straight away but in order to go faster, it's important to slow down from time to time to not only reflect on what's going on but also to take time out to make sure the foundations are strong before building more on top.
There are so many companies out there who grow fast but also fail fast because they didn't slow down to fix and reflect - just imagine building a house on top of foundations where the concrete wasn't completely cured - you would finish the house quicker but the consequences of an incomplete foundation could also affect the lifespan of the house too.
Soon we gain the ability to ship 1000 units per month and by then would have worked out a template that we can copy and paste to increase production - I believe that it's only a matter of time when Smart Doll becomes the world's standard fashion doll.
We have just recently outgrown our new office in Gotanda Tokyo. I thought that the 200 square meters would last maybe 2 years but only lasted 9 months. Luckily the folks on the 1st floor of our building moved out which I acquired to make into a fulfillment department and retail store.
Apart from running the company, I also work with the Japanese government who appointed me to be on various committees which revolve around the dissemination of what they call "Cool Japan" which you can read more about here.
Folks who are interested can connect on my social networks.
facebook.com/dannychoodotcom (385k likes)
twitter.com/dannychoo (101k followers)
instagram.com/dannychoo/ (32k followers)
youtube.com/tokyostormtrooper (105k subscribers)
LINE (3 million likes)
PSN Profile (add me anytime!)
View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27288/About+Culture+Japan.html
In the middle of a committee meeting with members of the Cabinet and various ministries
About Danny Choo (Past)
After I discovered Japanese Culture in the early 90's back in the UK through Japanese console games, I developed a passion to live and work in Japan. To reach this goal I continued to religiously self study Japanese and took five part time jobs two of which involved carrying, washing and occasionally breaking dishes as a waiter. Exactly how these part time jobs interlinked with each other and got me to Japan are outlined in the How Discovering Japan Changed My Life post.
I arrived in Japan in 1999 and spent 8 years working in the Internet serving as a Marketing Executive at the scientific journal Nature, Website Manager at Amazon and Product Manager at Microsoft.
During my corporate years, I learned how to program PHP and MYSQL from Google Sensei and began moonlighting where I made websites outside of work which eventually lead me to leave Microsoft to start my own gig. My annual income went from 300,000 USD to 0 USD after making the leap out of the comfort zone.
I started to deplete my savings and stock options from corporate days as it started to dawn on me that companies began to think that it wasnt worth paying big money for a website when they could do what they need with social media like Twitter.
I ran around Tokyo with mockups and gave more presentations on Mirai Gaia only to be told "We shall consider your product positively" which in Japanese means "Get Lost." I also remember giving a presentation where the president actually fell asleep (true story).
Eventually, a figure company called Good Smile Company decided to give Mirai Gaia a whirl after I offered to make their corporate website in exchange for figures instead of money. With a brand like Good Smile Company on my portfolio, getting paying clients onto the platform became slightly easier.
Back then I had a well known blog about Japanese culture and a few clients under the belt but always felt that I didn't accomplish much more than that. What I could charge for web development barely made enough to pay for the servers and wages. For many years I would peer into the windows of other offices filled with warm bodies thinking about when I would be able to turn this company around to make it self sustainable and profitable.
I also made a few hiring mistakes in the early days of the company and would lie to myself saying that these folks were worth keeping. The fact was that I was scared I would not be able to go it alone if I let them go and would rather have them on board even if they didn't do much apart from browsing Flickr all day long - I had many arguments with wifey about this and we nearly sold our house to keep the company going.
I decided to use pretty much all of our savings (while managing to keep the house) and bet on a product that I believe would change everything for us - and it did.
In June 2014, we released Smart Doll - a 60cm tall fashion that I modeled after my mascot character Mirai Suenaga.
The How I started My Company in Japan post covers some more detail of how we came to be at our current stage in the company.
About Danny Choo (Present)
Even though my company was incorporated back in 2007, I've never felt like I was in a startup until now - it's like Day One all over again but different this time. I've bootstrapped the company to a point where its self sustainable and now spend my time trying to solve an entirely new set of problems which mainly deal with management of the supply chain (vendors, logistics, storage, order purchasing, inventory) while working out how to scale production to meet demand and stay lean.
We will continue to grow on our own cash and have been doing so at a rate that I myself find overwhelming at times considering it took so long to get here. We don't have ample cash flow which I think is good at this stage in the company as it forces us to innovate our workflows and prioritize our time and resources on the big and impacting rather than the small and insignificant.
I thought that when we launched Smart Doll that I would aim to produce about 50 units per month which seemed like a doable goal given that the production line was still in its infancy with a plethora of quality control issues. I completely underestimated the demand and now we have already shipped a few thousand units in under a year.
In the midst of wanting things done immediately, I began to realize that a founder of any company would want their startup to grow faster and also want things done straight away but in order to go faster, it's important to slow down from time to time to not only reflect on what's going on but also to take time out to make sure the foundations are strong before building more on top.
There are so many companies out there who grow fast but also fail fast because they didn't slow down to fix and reflect - just imagine building a house on top of foundations where the concrete wasn't completely cured - you would finish the house quicker but the consequences of an incomplete foundation could also affect the lifespan of the house too.
Soon we gain the ability to ship 1000 units per month and by then would have worked out a template that we can copy and paste to increase production - I believe that it's only a matter of time when Smart Doll becomes the world's standard fashion doll.
We have just recently outgrown our new office in Gotanda Tokyo. I thought that the 200 square meters would last maybe 2 years but only lasted 9 months. Luckily the folks on the 1st floor of our building moved out which I acquired to make into a fulfillment department and retail store.
Apart from running the company, I also work with the Japanese government who appointed me to be on various committees which revolve around the dissemination of what they call "Cool Japan" which you can read more about here.
Folks who are interested can connect on my social networks.
facebook.com/dannychoodotcom (385k likes)
twitter.com/dannychoo (101k followers)
instagram.com/dannychoo/ (32k followers)
youtube.com/tokyostormtrooper (105k subscribers)
LINE (3 million likes)
PSN Profile (add me anytime!)
View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27288/About+Culture+Japan.html