Advisor Interviews.
VALUENEX Inc. has established an advisory board with experienced thought leaders; Curtis Sasaki, Masa Ishii, and Patrick Kim. We interviewed them on their motivations and expectations as an advisor at VALUENEX, and are pleased to share their comments below!
Q. WHAT MADE YOU ACCEPT VALUENEX'S ADVISOR REQUEST?
There are two reasons.
Data is such a critical piece in making informed decisions, and from what I have seen in the past, it is difficult to look at the data and produce conclusions and recommendations. VALUENEX’s platform makes such a process much more enlightening and easier than before.
The second reason is around the people. I found that VALUENEX has very talented, experienced people who are very creative, and that’s always a vital asset because it makes you think harder and more clearly by working with these good people.
In 2012, I heard from Mr. Takiguchi of WERU Investments that he wanted to develop VALUENEX into a global company, and when I looked at the documents, I felt that it had great potential, so I began to help.
The company’s product was promising, and the engine was excellent, but the user interface was still in its infancy, so I decided to help improve it. If the user interface was not properly designed, even a good product would not be widely used. Mr. Nakamura, the main person who developed the engine behind the product, also understood this.
VALUENEX needed help marketing its product globally. Because I believed in the product’s potential, I decided to help them achieve their goals.
That was not a difficult decision because we have been doing projects together over the last three years.
Each of them has been an absolute pleasure for me and has helped me discover more and more about the power of the tools VALUENEX is using and the services they can bring to customers. I have seen the customers’ reactions, and I could share their excitement. Being a part of these projects allowed me to build up this excitement for them. So for me, it was a no-brainer. It was a natural extension of what we have been doing already.
“DATA IS SUCH A CRITICAL PIECE IN MAKING INFORMED DECISIONS (...) VALUENEX’S PLATFORM MAKES SUCH A PROCESS MUCH MORE ENLIGHTENING AND EASIER THAN BEFORE”
Q. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE VALUE OF VALUENEX'S BUSINESS AND POTENTIAL?
There is no shortage of data. I think it leads to a bright future for the company because everyone will be looking for ways to look at data, analyze data, and make sense of it. With AI and Machine Learning becoming more of the norm today than an exception, it becomes even more opportunistic for the company to grow.
VALUENEX is already publicly traded in Japan, but I think there is still room for growth. For instance, VALUENEX can develop a wide range of services and solutions, not just extend what it has done so far. The company can also expand globally. There is still great potential for growth in these areas, so I would like to work with VALUENEX to achieve these ends.
We are in a time where everyone talks about AI. What attracted me was when Jiyoung gave a talk back when I first met her at a conference in Amsterdam, which was relevant and important to me as a former executive. I needed to access a lot of information in a simplified way that felt natural. I needed to be able to manipulate this information quickly and intuitively. For me, using VALUENEX Radar is like a game, and I think this gamification side of it where you are exploring maps and discovering nuggets is a part of the excitement that customers can also experience for something that is usually relatively dry. We are in the age where AI is available, but many researchers still go through different content catalogs for literature and must do a lot of reading. I think they can appreciate the help they will be getting through the visual tools VALUENEX is providing.
“I THINK THE FORMAT IN WHICH WE WORK WITH CUSTOMERS HAS ROOM FOR DEVELOPING NEW WAYS TO INTERACT AS A TEAM. WE CAN BE PART OF THEIR EXTENDED TEAM.”
Q. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE VALUENEX'S STRENGTHS?
I think strength in a company is all down to the people you have. I’ve seen so far that VALUENEX has experts who are doing very amazing engineering work and very committed people who want to execute the company’s vision.
The first thing that stands out to me is Mr. Nakamura’s intense passion. He is passionate about contributing to society by spreading the platform he has developed. It is not just a matter of getting the company listed and making money but nurturing a lasting passion. It is challenging to sustain a passion. However, Mr. Nakamura is doing just that. I am most impressed with that burning passion. I also think that many members, including Mr. Samejima, Ms. Jiyoung, and others, were attracted by Mr. Nakamura’s passion and joined our team, which is one of our strengths.
The future, I think, is being able to interact much more with customers’ Innovation teams. We cannot replace their experts. They have extended experience, but because of that experience, they might have some limits. Their expertise becomes their weakness in a way. If we work with them more interactively, we can help them overcome their weakness by removing some of their previous assumptions based on their work. The big key to doing a good project is to develop the right search queries. That requires some preliminary input from the customer, but it also requires some preliminary research to see what are the things that the customers do not look at, ask yourself why, and maybe see how that fits together. I think the format in which we work with customers has room for developing new ways to interact as a team. We can be part of their extended team.
Q. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE VALUENEX'S CURRENT CHALLENGES?
I think the biggest challenge for VALUENEX is getting exposure on a global basis. We should make clear what the true value the platform brings to other companies. Sometimes it’s difficult for companies to understand what VALUENEX has, but once they see it, go through it, and can visualize their data they eventually get it. That will take some time and effort, but it is having patience and getting exposure so people come to VALUENEX, not VALUENEX always having to go out to companies. This aspect will be essential to growing the company.
If you look at the growth process of any company, you will see that the business has changed from when it was a startup to what it grew into. It is important not to be bound by the past, as a company constantly sheds its skin and grows. To succeed, however, we need funds. We will raise funds as needed and use them effectively to grow. We want to be listed on NASDAQ or the like if possible. In Japan, I can’t help but feel that unless a company is listed on the “First Section” of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, it can’t be said to be a real company. We aim to step up and go to the next level.
Since we are facing more and more uncertainty, a lot of the planning departments in large companies are becoming a bit conservative. They are reluctant to engage in a new direction until they feel some good chances for a lead. We are at a point where we need to deal more with what we don’t know because of all the uncertainties. Other companies will not acknowledge what they don’t know. What we don’t know is actually the exciting place, and selling something to a customer saying, “Well, we’re going to sell you something about what you don’t know.” That’s a challenging proposition. The big challenge will be finding the right executives, the right decision-makers, in the company who are willing to try VALUENEX out. We need to find a new generation of leaders and make the platform attractive to them, so they will not be at risk of making bad decisions.
Q. WHAT SHOULD BE DONE IN THE SHORT/MEDIUM/LONG TERM?
The short-term goal is to gain more exposure outside of Japan. For example, when I do a Google Search for visualization technologies, where will VALUENEX show up outside of Japan?
Getting more customers onboard that we can use as references will be the short to medium-term goals.
As for the long term, focus on how the company will cover more geographies without a huge salesforce and having that expense, and making your customers your advocates.
First, we need to set up the conditions for profitability. American investors have a much better eye for a company’s future value than we do in Japan, and I am grateful for that.
Therefore, we need to make sure that investors understand the value that VALUENEX can provide in the future, not just the current numbers.
How do we make them understand?
The short-term goal would be to deepen the relationship with some existing customers and work closely with them.
In the mid-term, we need to get some people involved who have imagination. If we can combine imagination with analytical capability, that could be a good strength.
In 50 years, the development of technology is going so fast. I could imagine that maybe we can get rid of some of the typical interfaces like a mouse or screen and be able to navigate on the radar and get a more substantial feel for the three-dimensionality.
“WE NEED TO FIND A NEW GENERATION OF LEADERS AND MAKE THE PLATFORM ATTRACTIVE TO THEM, SO THEY WILL NOT BE AT RISK OF MAKING BAD DECISIONS.”
Senior Advisor to LG, Advisor of startups including Pure Watercraft, as well as several stealth startups developing hardware, software and services. Formerly held executive positions at Apple, NeXT, General Magic, Sun Microsystems, and Samsung Electronics. An inventor holding 8 patents in computer hardware, software and services.
Managing Partner of AZCA, Inc. Formerly IBM and McKinsey & Company. Academic Advisor at Toyo University and Visiting Professor at Chubu University. MS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Ph.D in Engineering, alumnus of M.I.T., Berkeley and ETH / EPFL. 17+ years at major OEMs & Tier 1 in the automotive industry including BMW, Benteler, Renault and DaimlerChrysler. Many years’ experience as R&D executive. Extensive research on consciousness, art & neurosciences. Bridge Builder, strategy consultant and executive coach based in Central Germany.