What does it take to make it? Mayuko Yamaura appears to have figured it out. On Feb. 15, the Portland State graduate returned to present on the intricacies of global entrepreneurship from a Japanese perspective.
“What makes this speech interesting is that Mayuko Yamaura is a PSU grad and one of the more renowned female entrepreneurs,” said Ken Ruoff, director of the Center for Japanese Studies at PSU. “Some people might say she is in fact the most famous young female entrepreneur in Japan.”
Yamaura is one of the first Japanese entrepreneurs to target the global market before settling in Japan. “Being a company from Japan, it is tough to become number one globally because the domestic market is a totally different market,” Yamaura said. “Because of this, a lot of Japanese startups and companies fail when they try to go to overseas markets because they settle in Japan first and then try and move on.”
Not only is Yamaura a successful female entrepreneur, but she pulled it off in the traditionally male-dominated tech industry. Her company Edison.Ai, with offices in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, uses artificial intelligence image recognition to help companies understand consumer behavior.
“Being a female in the tech industry is an advantage because people can remember me, especially abroad,” Yamaura said. “When I was in Hong Kong expanding our business there, I was the only Japanese female in the community, and the best thing about it is that the bathrooms are empty at the tech conferences.”
Yamaura’s presentation was part of a larger lecture series on the entrepreneurial sector in Japan, organized by the Center for Japanese Studies. “[CJS], over time, tries to cover just about every aspect of Japan, which is an impossible task,” Ruoff said. “We got the idea that Americans don’t necessarily understand how vibrant the entrepreneurial sector is in Japan.”
Ruoff said one of the goals of the lecture series is to encourage PSU students to consider entrepreneurship as a valid career option. “So many people want to get a job,” he said. “But there is another way of thinking about this, and that’s [by making] your own job, and that’s basically what entrepreneurs do.”
For anyone considering an entrepreneurial path, Yamaura offered some advice. “Being your own boss means that everyone is your boss,” she said. “If you want to create a startup because you want to be your own boss and don’t want to take any commands, you probably shouldn’t make a startup. Regardless [of whether] what you do is working for a company or owning your own business, you really have to live for yourself.”