I just got back from a fruitful business trip to Japan and got a little rest, time to update my blog I guess. On this trip, I was able to go to my home town Osaka for one night and met several people I wanted to meet for ages. One of them was a guy who is the same age as my father that has kept an eye out for me since when I was in my twenties, he hadn’t changed a bit and still lived his life enjoying every bit of it and I was relieved to see him happy and well. Since I have been living in a place which is going through so many changes constantly, it was great to be in an environment that hasn’t changed a bit in twenty years and people will welcome me after my long absence.
After a rather sentimental stay in Osaka, I met some interesting people in Tokyo, along with a presentation I had to give for AGRIBUDDY’s next step. One of the encounters I had was through Mr. Shigeta, who is the author of several books relating to business in India and who is a pilotage for the business advance of AGRIBUDDY in India. “There is a NIKKEI Fintech event on June 24th and they are hosting a start-up pitch battle, are you interested in joining?”, Mr. Shigeta contacted me with some interesting news.
I had just purchased a ticket back from Tokyo which was due to leave in the morning of the 24th, but this was an opportunity I could not miss, I decided to stay for one more night and cancelled my ticket from Tokyo. Actually, I noticed after getting back to the hotel on the day of the event that I had forgotten to change my flight…
Prior to the event, one of the pitch battle moderators, Mr. Ohira of Tohmatsu Venture Support had gone through my presentation and gave me some advice on how to finish the presentation within 7 minutes, thanks to that I was able to give a good presentation and expressed the minimum scope of AGRIBUDDY’s business and received excellent feedback from the judges.
As soon as I got off the stage, Mr. Haruta sent me a photo of myself on stage (see below) along with a message, “Congratulations on receiving an award at NIKKEI Fintech!”.
As I hadn’t got a single photo from the event, I was quite surprised at the speed and his network.
Here are some articles about the event.
http://thebridge.jp/2016/06/nikkei-fintech-conference-2016-fintech-startups
http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/column/14/346926/062700559/?ST=fintech&P=1
Maskin of Techwave had interviewed us last month and also written a great article.
http://techwave.jp/archives/agribuddy-22001.html
Very professionally written and his explanation of our business is spot on, when someone asks me about AGRIBUDDY in the future, I will use this article to save me time.
Mr. Kato who has been supporting and investing in our business ever since the days of HUGS Agtech (agricultural plantation business in Cambodia) has also written a blog about the award.
Mr. Kato was the one who brought Mr. Haranaga (now CTO) to Cambodia when I first talked about AGRIBUDDY’s idea, the suggestion to spin off AGRIBUDDY’s business concept from HUGS Agtech, introducing me to Mr. Shigeta who was the one to invite me to NIKKEI Fintech, all a great model of hands on investment by Mr. Kato.
Come to think about it, I am very lucky to have so many people supporting me. I must bring success to AGRIBUDDY and make them feel the success was because of me. (Laugh)