Episode #52: Moeko Suzuki, Founder, StartUp Lady/Tailor Innovations
The Japan Business Mastery Podcast
Moeko Suzuki provides valuable insight as a young global-minded entrepreneur having studied in the UK, US and established two organizations in Japan – StartUp Lady and Tailor Innovations. After graduating from an American University, Ms. Suzuki returned to Japan and worked for a company specializing in foreign direct investment as a business developer. After working for two companies, she founded Tailor Innovations, a company that provides a variety of IT and consulting services including manufacturing of IoT products, live streaming support, and helping Japanese business expand abroad. In 2015 she co-founded StartUp Lady, a nonprofit organization that aims to connect and help educate a diverse community of entrepreneurs who are starting up their business.
Giving up a stable job, Ms. Suzuki decided to pursue her dream and establish Tailor Innovations. Ms. Suzuki initially faced many challenges such as being unable to communicate with engineers in creating the operating platform. Ms. Suzuki also found it challenging to grow her network as a young entrepreneur without former connection. When recruiting her team, Ms. Suzuki focused on hiring people who did not want to work in the traditional Japanese company culture but be in a more flat, transparent organization. Her company also provides flexible working styles for people who are interested in holding a side job. Ms. Suzuki notes that the change in Japanese government policies around 2017 have made it much easier for foreigners to work in Japan and the recent pandemic has also allowed more companies to permit their employees working more than one job.
On motivating people, Ms. Suzuki notes the importance of having close communication with each individual to understand their needs and where they want to direct their energy. In order to establish this trusting relationships, Ms. Suzuki has frequent one-on-one meetings at least 1-2 times a week. Ms. Suzuki also actively participates in social events with her employees to bond with them not just on a professional basis but in a more casual environment. Moreover, Ms. Suzuki carefully coordinates what type of work people are assigned so that her employees can focus on utilizing their skillset. For example, with the CEO of the company, who is also her husband, Ms. Suzuki splits responsibilities based on their expertise and strength, which she finds makes them a good team and well trusted by the employees. Additionally, she seeks to create an open environment where her employees can freely admit their mistakes in order to prevent future mistakes from happening and they are able to find the best solution together. Ms. Suzuki says: “I feel like many people only learn from their mistakes. So what I can suggest is probably show them the [past] cases” of what type of mistakes have happened and how they have been resolved.
On StartUp Lady, a female entrepreneur community, Ms. Suzuki explains: “I think showing that there is a community where [many] international females can get together to encourage each other [will] support younger generations. I feel like a lot of young people are very motivated to do something, but there's not much [of a] safe community or the community that's maybe open to younger generations at this moment.” StartUp Lady seeks to meet such needs of young entrepreneurs. Another of Ms. Suzuki’s dream is to better the education in Japan, which StartUp Lady seeks to do by providing an educational program for female entrepreneurs called 60 days Start Up Program Challenge where they take classes for 60 days and eventually present their business ideas. Currently, the community has grown to around 1500 members, mostly spreading by word of mouth and some media exposure.
On leading in Japan, Ms. Suzuki advises to maintain open communication in order to build trust. She also advises new incoming leaders to look for communities to join in order to gain from other people’s expertise and experiences. Lastly, Ms. Suzuki explains the importance of not just studying businesses in Japan but foreign businesses who have already started something within the same field to gain insight.