日本科技创业公司夹缝中求生存

    想在日本找到一位传奇的车库创业者吗？这样的车库可不好找。日本初创企业的集聚地东京鲜有这样的场所。光是一个停车位的月租金已和加州的出租式公寓差不多，更别提什么车库了。（写字楼的租金非常昂贵，而且一般也很少接纳新公司。）

    考虑到日本的经济规模，互联网初创企业较少，这或许也是意料之中的事。众所周知，在日本创业素来困难重重，租房只是创业人员需要克服的第一个障碍。根据世界银行（World Bank）的数据，日本每年的新企业平均进入率在世界经合组织（Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development，简称OECD）国家中垫底。此外，也缺乏冒险精神和天使投资人。银行通常都不懂科技初创企业想要做什么，因此相比美国，在日本起步腾飞的这类初创企业很少。

    但在岩石和荆棘间，倒也有人生根发芽。“这个行业在日本得到的支持力度很小，行业建树不多已引来国际关注，”一位在东京生活和工作的、成功系列创业家泰瑞•劳埃德表示。“不过，在日本传统的优势领域，创新并没有落后太多。游戏是一个显而易见的选择，还有过去几年里新冒出来的很多移动应用软件(图像，沟通，社区)。”

    庞大的国内市场以及藏龙卧虎的人才资源推动一些初创企业蓬勃发展，随便举两个成功的例子，如Gree和Line。也有一些努力和尝试，为创业者提供更多的种子资金，最值得一提的是来自日本政府的支持，但迄今为止效果并不好。日本政府已经设立了几百个孵化器，孵化器数量已从1999年的30个增加到了今天的336个。但斯坦福大学（Stanford University）的一份报告显示，有些资金可能被用于大理石浴室装潢，而且掌握这些资金的往往是鲜有商业经验的前官员。

    年轻的创业者们警惕此类优惠措施可能带来的政府干预。资金紧张？他们的解决方法是在日本合租办公室，降低租房成本，这样他们就可以不必接受官员们自上而下的管理和误导性意见，静心创业，打造新的产品和创意。

    在东京新宿一条热闹繁华的大街上，临街一栋大楼的5楼就是Happon。创业者只需支付少量租金，即可共享一个庞大的开放式办公室空间、会议室和工作格子间等设施。现在由几家科技初创公司共享这个简单而时尚的工作空间，巨大的公共桌子独具新意地呈现了日本各县的地图形状。

    Anyone looking for Japan's legendary garage entrepreneurs should not start in the garage. Tokyo, the startup hub for Japan, has few such shelters these days. While the monthly stipend of even a single parking space can cost the same as a rental apartment in California, never mind a garage. (Office rental space, too, is expensive and hard to come by for new firms.)

    Considering the size of Japan's economy there are fewer internet startups that one might expect. In country that has become infamous for the hardships facing would-be entrepreneurs, securing workspace is just one obstacle would-be-startups have to overcome. According to the World Bank, Japan comes last in the average annual entry rate of new enterprises among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Add to that the lowest appetite for risk, a dearth of angel investors, and banks that often don't understand what tech startups want to do, and you have only a fraction of such enterprises kicking off compared to the US.

    And yet some do manage to sprout now again amidst the rocks and thorns. "This sector is the most under-supported in Japan and therefore attracts the most international attention for its under achievements," says Terrie Lloyd a successful serial entrepreneur living and working in Tokyo. "None-the-less, where there are areas of excellence, the innovation is not far behind. Gaming is an obvious choice, but so are the many new mobile apps (graphics, communications, community) that have popped up in the last couple of years."

    A massive domestic market tied with Japan's latent talent means some stratups are flourishing—Gree, Line, to name but two successes. There have been attempts, most notably by the government to seed more such self-starters but so far with mixed results. Officials have set up hundreds of incubators—up from 30 in 1999 to 336 today—but according to one report from Stanford University money has gone on marble bathroom fixings and are often administered by ex-bureaucrats with little business experience.

    Young, cash-strapped entrepreneurs wary of the hand-holding of such dubious merit seem to have come up with their own solution—tech startups that take advantage of Japan's cheap, shared-office space where they are unfettered by the curse of top down management and misdirected civil servants and can quietly get along with creating new products and ideas.

    Five floors above a frenetic high street in Tokyo's Shinjuku district is Happon where hopeful entrepreneurs pay a small rent for facilities such as a large open plan office, conference rooms and work cubicles. Several tech startups share the simple but stylish space with its large, novel communal desks cut in the shape of Japan's prefectures.