Akihabara News (Tokyo) — In the fifth episode of the Japan Startup Megaphone podcast, we spoke with our dai-senpai in this field, Tim Romero, a Tokyo-based author and entrepreneur best known for his Disrupting Japan podcast.
Romero has been on the Japan startup scene for nearly a quarter century, and his podcast now tends to pull in about 10,000 listeners per episode.
He explained that he chose the podcast format, as opposed to video, because it seemed less work intensive and better suited to facilitating conversations. Through the podcasts, he has strived to highlight unique aspects of Japanese culture through the lens of startup founders.
In the more than six years that he has been at it, the overall startup ecosystem in Japan has become much more supportive, and the society has become more understanding of young people who have chosen to take this unusual career path.
Romero is an optimist about the future prospects of the startup scene in Japan, though he sees a need for further development of global perspectives.
We also got his take on news media coverage of Japanese startups.
The full podcast is linked below.