About the Show
Potentialist Show is where top tier founders and investors share their stories.
Potentialist Show is a talk show where we sit down with founders and investors to talk about their stories and secrets to succeed in the international startup world.
Often, we hosted a live, in-person talk show with guests, however, now we focus on podcast-like 1on1 talk show as we want to deliver the experience everywhere in the world.
The Show has been around since June 2018 and was hosted in multiple countries including US, Japan and Korea. The latest series started on October 19th, 2020 with focus on stories behind viral growth ventures and how to invest in them.
Check out our featured guests below to know who came on our show in the previous seasons!
Featured Guests
Gen Isayama
GP, WiL
Fmr Partner, DCM
WiL Co-Founder & CEO Gen Isayama shares his IT startup founding experinece in the 90's, co-founding the venture "Laboratory" WiL (World Innovation Laboratory), and his insights on company culture and strategy which leads startups to success.
Justin Waldron
Founder, Zynga
President, Playco
Zynga's Co-founder on Stories Behind Zynga's Viral Growth : Reaching 10 Million DAU within Six Weeks of Launch & Going Public at $7B in Year 4. Justin Also Talked About His 50+ Angel Investments and Its Exits to Firms like Google/SamSung, and Raising $100M Series A Led by Sequoia for His New Venture Playco.
Phil Wickham
GP, Sozo Ventures
Chair, Kaufman Fellows
Phil Wickham, a veteran capitalist and General Partner of US-Japan Cross-border VC Sozo Ventures explains how a founder should pick a VC when starting a company in the Bay Area.
Christina Qi
Partner, Domeyard LP
CEO, Databento
How an MIT Undergrad Built a High Frequency Trading (HFT) Hedge Fund from Scratch by Raising VC Capital. Stories about Getting Chased by the FBI, Getting Backed by SoftBank and Why She Started Her New Venture : Alternative Data Provider Databento, All Explained by Serial Entrepreneur Christina Qi.
Koh Nakamura
GP, Sozo Ventures
Founding Partner of Sozo Ventures, Koh Nakamura explains about venture capital industry and how it is different from other financiers. He also talks about how Sozo became a successful cross-border VC by helping American companies like tiwitter & Plantir to come to Japan.
Noriaki Sakamoto
Partner, UTEC
UTEC (University of Tokyo Edge Capital) is a VC firm founded at the University of Tokyo which invests in DeepTech startups founded both in and outside of the university. UTEC Partner Noriaki Sakamoto explains UTEC's philosophy behind investing in DeepTech and generating one of the largest financial returns in Japan? in 2018.
Ryota Hayashi
CEO, Finatext Holdings
Tokyo-based Fintech venture "Finatext" was founded in 2014 when an ex-Deutsche Bank CEO started a devshop creating UI/UX of consumer apps for Japanese financial institutions. The company's aggressive growth never stopped and Finatext became bigger as they innovate financial services and acquired other firms that shared the same vision. In 2020, with $100m in funding, the company is a holding company with 7 company under its umbrella. CEO Ryota explains how his company got there.
Hisahiro
Chofuku
CEO, LINE Pay
Before LINE merged with Yahoo! Japan, the company was facing stiff competition with YJ's Softbank-backed Payment service "PayPay". LINE is a messaging service used by 80 million users in Japan, working as a life infrastructure. Leveraging that, LINE Pay aims to become the largest cashless payment service in Japan. Here is what their strategies CEO Chofuku has to say.
Jon Su
CEO, PlusOne
PlusOne is a San Francisco-based EdTech startup which offers a service called "SmartTutor". The service leverages Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality technologies for employee language training to better interact with their clients. The users of "SmartPlus" can take lessons from human hologram "Holosapiens" in a VR space. CEO Jon explains PlusOne's story and leveraging his 6-year experience at Walt Disney producing multiple hit apps including Tsum Tsum for product design.
Takahiro Miyasaka
CEO, BONX
Bonx CEO Takahiro Miyasaka is an avid snowboarder, former BCG consultant turned entrepreneur. In his college years, he spent half of the year in the northern hemisphere and the other half in the southern hemisphere, so that he can snowboard all year. The difficulty of communication while snowboarding in the mountains inspired him to design a wearable communication tool BONX. Taka's first prototype had a successful $250k sales which encouraged him raise VC funding and explore further. Today, this GoPro-inspired device is widely sold as a B2B product, providing hands-free communication to people in industries such as medical, construction, transportation, and retail. The Bonx story, explained by CEO Taka.
Yutaro Tomoto
CTO, Linc’well
Linc'well is a startup founded by a CEO who has experince in being a Doctor at Univerisity of Tokyo Hospital and a Consultant at McKinsey & Company. From offering medical SaaS to individual clinics to producing Linc'well franchise clinic, the company aims to transform the daily operations at medical clinics, using the power of technology.
Shinichiro Kai
CEO, Folio
Folio had a massive growth in two years since its founding. The comapany raised $91 million from companies such as LINE and Goldman Sachs and launched three core services: "theme investment", "omakase investment" and "one-coin investment". "Theme investment" allows users to manage their wealth by selecting a theme such as "girls' trend", "drone", "AI" and "e-sports" using an algorythmatic trading system built by Folio. Folio CEO Kai talks about his career transition from a professional boxer, to a trader at Goldman Sachs and Barclays, to entrepreneur.