Japan has long been a glimmering beacon for emerging tech companies. Some of the world’s most advanced multinationals–think Panasonic, Sony, Toyota and Hitachi–are based there. So for the startups that cater to these companies, as well as emerging tech leaders, “cracking Japan” is inevitably part of their expansion roadmaps.
But it’s notoriously difficult, not only because there are language and culture differences, but because westerners can approach Japan in awkward ways. According to Barnabas Birmacher, CEO of mobile dev-ops company Bitrise, companies make two common mistakes.
They either try to be “more Japanese than the Japanese,” by doing things like bowing and surprising prospects with gifts. Or they attempt to “be in Japan…without actually being in Japan.” Birmacher describes this as “executives who establish physical Japanese presence, without ever spending time in Japan or meeting with people in the community.” As a result of not getting to know their communities, they often fail to tailor their offerings to them.
In 2014, Bitrise attracted its first Japanese client when the company’s platform was featured on Product Hunt. While this initial awareness got them on the radar in Japan, Birmacher knew awareness alone wasn’t enough to expand into Japan in a meaningful way. So, the Bitrise team began traveling to Japan to integrate themselves into the local user community.
Over the next eight years, Birmacher and his team grew their initial Japanese user base of one into 400+ of Bitrise’s highest paying clients. The key was placing relationship-building central to both its’ SaaS platform and to its approach to expand into Japan.
Having achieved all of this without a local presence, Bitrise recently announced the opening of its’ first physical office in Osaka. I caught up with Birmacher to find out more about how Bitrise achieved what so many other venture-backed tech startups deem impossible.
*There are a lot of companies that dream about breaking into Japan but assume it’s impossible. Can you talk about how you were able to go from a single Japanese user to more than 400?*
We were lucky enough to get positive upfront word-of-mouth referrals, and then diligent enough to build on that initial goodwill.
The technology community in Japan is tight knit and very active. A single user can play a disproportionately large role in influencing other users. Our first user was a developer at one of Japan’s larger emerging tech companies. He began using Bitrise for personal projects in order to learn how it worked and experiment with its capabilities. His success using our product prompted him to bring his company’s attention to the platform.
We quickly began to see Bitrise spreading throughout his organization. From there it spread to developers throughout Japan, who began picking it up for their mobile app projects.
Once we realized that we had a small foothold in such a huge market, we were determined to not let luck dictate our further expansion into Japan.
We set up a mention tracking service to watch how user adoption correlated with local discussions of us on social media. We flagged a live tweet about Bitrise from a developer conference, and decided to respond to thank them. Our response blew up among the Japanese developer community. They were happy that we knew they existed and that we were interested in engaging.
*You describe your product as ‘community-led’. What part does the Japanese community play in your product?*
Out of anywhere in the world, Tokyo has the highest concentration of mobile developers doing cutting edge work. It’s a hotbed of mobile development with some of the brightest minds in DevOps all in one place. The developers in this community are probably five years ahead of other developers around the world. This is partially due to the fact that they’re always looking for quicker, more efficient ways to release their apps.
Because they’re so ahead of other developers–and because their needs are so specific–they need to be able to adapt the technologies they work with to cater to what they’re working on. We were able to give them this ability on Bitrise. Our platform automates deployment to the app store with processes including everything from running tests to understanding how new pieces of code affect the apps. But it’s not solely our internally established technology and processes that rallied the community behind us.
To build a community, businesses need to create a platform where users can exchange ideas. Our platform has what we call a “Step Library,” where users can submit open source ‘steps’—or workflows. Others can use these steps to automate common parts of the mobile development process. Because these steps solve such painful problems for users, they generate a ton of engagement.
Our Japanese users have been responsible for introducing very specific steps for Japanese services that they need. For example, DeployGate is an app distribution platform that is huge in Japan, but virtually unknown outside of Japan. We would have never built this step, but our Japanese community built it early on for their specific needs.
Because of our Japanese community’s contributions to the platform, we started popping up all over Japan. We were being featured in meetups, conference talks, development blogs and social media. We started seeing more and more users from Japan coming in. This is when we knew it was time to take a trip over and meet people in person.
*How did your user community influence your ability to scale users in Japan?*
Our user community is the main reason we’re now able to establish a physical presence in Japan.
Western companies dream of working with Japanese developers. However, we’ve learned that the Japanese rarely get to meet with the people responsible for the products they use.
Prior to COVID, we were traveling to Japan four to six times per year. This is relatively inexpensive compared to the costs–and limitations–of trying to penetrate the market from afar. It also meant a ton to the community.
Our first time in Tokyo one of our early adopters, DeNA, hosted an event for us. Around 500 to 600 developers came. Once we connected with the community in person, our reach began expanding. The face to face interactions went beyond what would have been possible on social media alone.
For instance, we discovered that the best place to meet the Japanese mobile developer audience is at the DeployGate office on Friday nights. Everyone in mobile gathers there to eat and drink. There is no way to be an insider in this event if you’re outside of it. You simply have to be there.
That’s where we met Rakuten, who has now been a user for years.
Japan is known for wanting companies to cater to them specifically* How did you continue growing your client base without a dedicated local presence?*
In our experience, when you begin investing in the community, they will return by investing in you. A big part of that for us was having our team there in person. Rather than just setting up a local office with local hires, we visited to establish deeper connections. Our early customers were thrilled that we would travel there to be in the community before hiring a single person.
During our first several visits, we deliberately didn’t bring sales people. We traveled to Japan with a mindset of pure acknowledgement and discovery.
The first step for us was breaking down the language barrier. Generally, when people are trying to quickly translate text in another language they run it through a Google Translate. But that doesn’t translate the culture, meaning, or dialect; just the overall wording. Especially in the tech industry, where some words still have to be communicated in English and translators don’t understand the nuances enough to properly bridge the gap.
Instead of working with translators, we worked with local developers to translate all of our documentation. They were able to add localized context to better communicate both philosophy and technicalities. With their help we now have more documentation in Japanese than in any other language.
Following this we kicked off Bitrise User Groups. Our customers in Japan each took turns hosting meetups. Bitrise users came together to troubleshoot issues and improve their usage. Connecting in person brings another level of personalization that video-calls and chats cannot begin to touch. Bridging that cultural gap together is what turns users into advocates for a company.
Although we didn’t have a fixed physical presence until recently, we regularly spoke at meetups that our customers set up. We always provide drinks, sushi and a ton of swag we had created locally. Additionally, we schedule meetings with all of our clients and shoot customer story recordings in their offices.
We even found a Manga comic artist and created a series of comics featuring the difficult life of a mobile developer. These started as digital comics that we distributed through our Japanese twitter account. Now we also print them and create stickers featuring the characters.
Growing in another country is all about the people there. By showing our customers that we took their needs seriously, and supporting the local community we established a great relationship. From there, we further stimulated organic community creation.
*Now that you’ve established a physical presence in Japan, what are your plans for growth there?*
Since we have already established a wide customer base in Japan, we’re now investing in partnering with them to the same degree we do in the U.S. and Western Europe. To achieve this, we will be implementing a hiring wave in Japan. We want to have multiple teams (customer success, sales, engineering, etc.) , all specifically dedicated to the Japanese developer community. With this committed group, Bitrise will be able to work closely with customers. This close relationship will improve customers’ mobile product organizations with insights and recommendations, going beyond simply providing a tool.
We’ll also be increasing our investment in the local community by attending even more events, including meetups and customer visits. These events come with multiple benefits. We are able to drive forward our goal of finding and supporting local mobile businesses. And we also learn from Japan’s sophisticated mobile product organizations. They have a wealth of knowledge for us to learn from.
By taking in this information we are able to bring back new insights to Bitrise customers all over the world. While we work to grow relationships, our client-base in Japan continues growing organically, keeping it one of our top markets.
*What advice would you give other tech companies who are looking to “crack Japan”?*
There are multiple essentials that companies need to take into consideration if they want to establish a meaningful presence in Japan. The foundation of success in any market is building a product that fills a gap. As a Y-Combinator funded company, we live by the motto: “Make something people want.”
It’s fairly obvious why a company would want to enter Japan. It WILL be impossible if their product does not serve a purpose for Japanese consumers or businesses. Before anything else, it’s imperative to make sure the product or service that is being brought to the table is the best option.
Japanese developers are highly skilled, and in comparison to other regions, more advanced. With that in mind, businesses need to ensure that their technology fulfills a significant need. If we hadn’t built a platform that solves an immediate problem for mobile developers, no amount of T-shirts and sushi would’ve made us successful in Japan.
Once the business has a solid product, the next step is to find and support customers in any way possible. They have the potential to become the company’s biggest advocates, so it’s essential to cultivate the relationship.
When interacting with prospects or customers, take into consideration the context of the situation. Meetings with a traditional long-standing business will be different than meetings with a start-up. And despite what you learn from shows and movies, shaking hands is a perfectly acceptable alternative to bowing. At the end of the day, they appreciate your effort to understand them and be respectful.
