Every year, there are about 1.35 million tech startups created in the world. With such a great number of startups, who can say they have never heard the words ‘startup’ and ‘startup culture’ at least once in their life? Probably only a few people.

But do you actually know what they mean? Let’s start by defining the two words separately: startup is a newly established company started by an entrepreneur trying to develop a product or service, and trying to create a scalable economic model. Culture, in this case, refers to the social behaviors and norms we can observe in society. In other words, startup culture refers to the codes and behaviors that can be found in the startup world among entrepreneurs.

1. Startup Culture

So what is startup culture? Startup culture can be defined by several attributes, such as:

Open-communication
People-first mindset
A strong sense of teamwork
A proactive attitude

It’s also common to find other aspects like horizontal leadership structure or highly adaptable environments.

When we think of the opposite of startup culture, corporate culture comes to mind. This is just a generalization but here is how they usually differ:

Each member’s individuality is reflected in the company’s culture to a greater extent in startups
Startup culture tends to be a lot more fast-paced than corporate culture
Working in a startup comes with more duties and a greater sense of responsibility in general. This is quite often due to a smaller number of employees.

Obviously, those things vary across startups and companies in general. But it’s likely that you’ll come across such differences if you’ve worked in both environments.

Many might think that startup culture mostly lies in the physical environment of startups, such as an open office with the latest coffee maker, white boards everywhere, and a very relaxed atmosphere. While that might be the case for some startups, this is not what makes up startup culture. Startup culture really is about people, efforts and teamwork.

2. Startup Culture in Japan

If you’re not familiar with Wahl+Case, we’re a tech recruitment company based in Tokyo, and many of our clients are startups, just like us! And while startup culture is pretty global in general, there are certain attributes specific to Japan only. Here is how it’s different from the rest of the world.

First of all, startup culture in Japan only recently developed. 10 years ago, it was almost nonexistent, which resulted in getting loans from banks being quite hard (it still is now), and almost no co-working spaces, which is a must when you cannot afford renting an office yet. There were also very few events and meetups, and this did not help foster startup culture in Japan.

But startup culture in Japan is catching up! … With a twist. And that twist is Japanese culture itself. Because it’s really hard to break with tradition and the status quo in Japan, international businesses (not only startups) can have a hard time adapting to the Japanese market. On the other hand, Japanese startups also have a hard time going international on average. The startup culture in Japan is also less competitive as Japanese startups tend to remain relatively small compared to other places in the world. However, they are usually more stable: after 3 years, 91.5% of Japanese startups still exist, compared to 65.0% in the US for example. This makes the startup environment in Japan more steady.

Japan also has fewer unicorn startups, which are privately held startups valued at, at least, $1billion. Currently, Japan only has 5 unicorns compared to 366 in the US or 162 in China. This is pretty low for a country that ranks 3rd on the world's largest economies.

Another important element of Japanese culture that impacts startup culture here is the aversion to failure. In Japan, failure and mistakes in general are usually considered a bad thing, and there’s a real pressure on not failing and not making mistakes. This also results in Japanese culture not being that open to new ideas and new models.

In conclusion, even though startup culture can be defined, it doesn’t mean all startups are going to have the exact same startup culture. Similarities, yes, but just like corporate companies, each startup is unique and has its own culture.

When it comes to startup culture in Japan, there is still a long way to go, even though the Japanese government’s efforts to develop startup culture in the country are starting to bear fruits. If you aim to be part of Japan’s startup culture, you should definitely master the Japanese business etiquette as well as some Japanese as English is not the main language used among startups here.

I hope this article helped you understand startup culture(s) better and if you are interested in working for a startup in Japan, please get in touch with us. We’re always happy to help.

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