KALKUL is a future tech startup trying to integrate technology and human with the love for music and art. Co-founders Bartek Kolacz and Mehdi Hamadi talked about their journey, projects, and findings.
Bartek:
I'm from Germany and was born in Poland. I moved to Germany when I was a kid. And then, I found a strong interest in mathematics and more science-based stuff, so I became an engineer. I studied cybernetic engineering in Germany, and did an internship here in Japan in 2008.
During that time I fell in love with the country. Everything that includes learning customs came together slowly to form my life here.
Mehdi:
I was born in Nice, France. It’s a very touristic city so it was a bit of a blindfold to reality. I moved to Nantes for my engineering studies then to Paris for work. I quickly realized that I needed to learn science more in depth to achieve higher career goals, so I decided to enroll for a two-year Master program at Keio University in Japan.
I was not especially attracted to Japan before coming here, but I quickly got fascinated with the culture and the way of living here.
Mehdi:
I came to Japan in 2014 then graduated from Keio University in 2016. Around that time I was working in catering and bar business, and we met at the bar through our mutual friend.
Bartek:
We got along when we were carrying drink boxes into a warehouse for our friend. Then, we founded Kalkul in 2016 to make 3D printed earphones. We both have mathematic knowledge and similar backgrounds in engineering.
Mehdi:
I think my background is more like a mix of electronics and biotech. I finished two masters, and my research is about machines that connect human bodies. So, for me, our earphone project was about trying to connect human bodies to machines and use data such as brain wave.
Bartek:
I wasn’t really inspired by the startup culture in Japan. I was more inspired by fashion, photography, and design culture around my friends. It had been always a part of my passion to create speakers. I wanted to bring the best sound to my friends and other people around me.
Together with Mehdi, we started to build more complex things like earphones. And from there we pivoted to a software called AURA. Of course there have been so many stories in between. It's been a wild journey with lots of ups and downs. You must always adjust and learn.
And today, we are having something very new. It is very interesting to see the journey from earphones to our digital products now. I think this is the nature of entrepreneurship. It is all about doing something new and venturing out. You are always looking for opportunities.
Bartek:
Music is our base, but we are focusing more on human technology as we both are engineers and believe that technology can make our life better. And at the same time, we are entrepreneurs. We like to take risks, explore new things, and find new opportunities. Because you gain a whole lot more by challenging ourselves.
Bartek:
We didn’t assign specific roles to ourselves when we started. Everyone had to do as many roles/works as they could do.
I handle everything business, sales, HR, fundraising and marketing related. On the product side I am still designing the UX and UI. I don't code much anymore.
But I was coding everything web related before.I needed to master all techniques and technologies in the process. We want to become experts in many fields. This does not work for everyone, but for KALKUL, we want to control all outputs by ourselves. The founders and the core team work on every detail to ensure quality in our products. If you have too many people working for a single project, you may end up compromising all the time. Of course, working in a team always comes with compromises, but we believe the smaller your team is, the better chances you have harmony in it. And this is exactly what is happening in our team.
Mehdi:
I am a co-founder/CTO, and responsible to oversee all developments of our systems. Our company pivoted a couple of times, and I ended up shifting my engineer activities from designing circuit boards and programming chips to building web server applications for iOS, AR experiences and a little bit for Android. Even if I am in charge of most of Kalkul’s engineering, I stay always involved in the design of each experience that we build. I also share my opinion on most things that relate to our aesthetics.On the other hand, Bartek’s background in engineering gives me good inputs and ideas for developments.For high-level decisions such as the trajectory of the company, I wear my co-CEO hat and we resolve the important questions together.
Bartek:
We are interested in spatial media, so we started with audio products. We believe that in the next era of personal computing, the interaction between us and the machine will be spatial. Right now, we are interacting with computers through 2D screens. Whether it is a smartphone, a laptop or a TV, contents are behind a sheet of glass. We are barely touching the surface of it. But we believe this will change. we all have spatial abilities, so we believe the interface of computers will be spatial too. So our mission is to create technologies that we feel more natural to use.
We think modern technologies are not natural enough for humans. They need to be set up properly, or we need tutorials to understand them. They’re just not easy. We believe the next phase is creating interfaces that feel more natural to humanss. That’s why we are building AURA, which is a spatial media platform.
In the ’90s, people were still trying to figure out the reason to use the Internet, but now everyone is using the Internet every day. The Internet is so natural to us. We believe that the next type of interface is by interacting with our environments in a spatial way. Information will be layered on the top of the physical world. Over the streets, daily-use items, or walls of houses for examples. So you won’t need to touch your phone as much as now. We believe that there will be glasses, earphones, and smart earphones, that can be integrated with reality.
So that's why KALKUL has been trying to integrate technology with reality. And AURA is a mixed reality world. It's an ambitious project, we love exploring this project because we don't know all the answers. We can only say there is a future. People tend to assume that they know everything including the future. But you cannot tell what exactly the future will hold. That’s why we embrace our lives and are building something for tomorrow. We build first and then iterate. Our secret sauce is our endless love for merging new technologies with culture. If something doesn’t work, we build something new again and keep building. We are not afraid to fail. If we stop building something new, that’s what we call a failure.
We have a very good team that shares this mindset. We made earphones, and some parts didn’t work well, so we made new ones. We made AR earphones and learned so many things such as productions and marketing. We made some software, too. Every time we learn what works and what doesn’t. These experiences slowly came together for AURA. AURA is more like an umbrella word or a name for our platform, but we are aiming to create something very new.
We don't want to waste our lives by creating just copies of something. We go from zero to one.
Bartek:
So, we built AURA and launched it during a music festival called “MUTEK Japan”. We showed our first versions of holograms during the festival, then we showed them to brands and other music labels. People slowly started to show their interests.
Now we have gained trust from bigger brands and artists for their marketing campaigns. Because one of AURA’s important business applications is a new digital marketing. So, we switched from a B2C model to a B2B model this year.
We provide a new marketing solution for activation campaigns of companies and brands. Recently we worked for Audio Technica’s campaign for its 60-year anniversary. In Japan, we made a hologram experience together with Japanese idol “新しい学校のリーダーズ” (Atarashii Gakkou no LeaderS) this year. You see a poster over there. We made a big hologram of “新しい学校のリーダーズ”. I chose them because it was the first time when I saw a Japanese girl band with original contents. They are fresh and growing fast outside of Japan.
Sometimes Japan can be so domestic that they make products just for themselves, but these girls can make international appeal. We created holograms that fans can display in their own rooms and enjoy TikTok dance with.
We are going to shoot R&B artist “IRI” from Sony Music Japan for her new song. She will be performing during a campaign for French fashion brand “agnès b.” And we are working with a British artist “Jockstrap” and a Canadian up-and-coming artist “Saya Gray.” We’d like to pair our technology with young up-and-coming artists because they are the future. We can help promote brands and young artists for a break through, hoping our technology can get noticed along the way.
Bartek:
Exactly. If you include fans, it can be triple wins. Since these campaign, we have got requests from many other brands, and we have some other exciting projects in the pipeline, too.
Bartek:
I have no startup experiences in Europe, so I cannot really compare. And when I launched a startup in Japan, all my friends and other entrepreneurs that I knew were in Germany.
But the reason I love Japan as a location for startups is that there are so many early adopters. People here love to try new things. In general, it seems there is an interest in new things. When it comes to trying a new technology or new media, Germany is not so open. They are more conservative.
Mehdi:
To be honest, I’ve always been more attracted to adventures than comfort. It was not a question for me to leave my home country France and go onto a quest to discover new cultures. I think coming to Japan was an extreme culture shock, but Japan is very safe on many aspects compared to other places. I have to say I am still learning everyday about how to work in Japan. There are so many social codes that the local people grew up with. As a foreigner it is important to know when to prioritize your personal manners and when to follow the local codes.
Most of my work is on the engineering side so I don’t have to worry too much about my Japanese. But as a co-founder, sometimes I need to talk and socialize with Japanese people for business purposes. My vocabulary is still limited but somehow, I have developed a way to express my ideas using a lot of gestures!
Bartek:
Japan is very personal country to me. In Germany during the ’90s, Japan was always with me. There was anime “Dragon Ball,” and we even had old ones such as “Attack Number One” on TV, too. And of course, we had Nintendo and PlayStation.
So, I grew up with so much Japanese content that my interests in Japan became stronger.I think some of the most creative people live in Japan. They are hidden and I am trying to find them, I know they are here. Among them there are very creative people who have helped define this culture and I'm excited to be around them. Maybe they are working in the next building. We never know!
When it comes to media business, I think Japan is the biggest exporter and maybe one of the most successful countries in the gaming industry. Also Tokyo is the intersection of cultures. So, for me, this is the best location to start, and hopefully we can expand our business to overseas at some point.
Bartek:
I think the Western startup model is not optimal for Japan. Because I think the Western model is based on the American individualism. But Japan seems to be based on communities, and each community seems to be very tight-knit and powerful.
I think Japanese startup ecosystem seems to be driven more by community than by individuals. So, to me, the startup ecosystem here exists within a small community.
And language can be another reason why we don’t really see breakout successes here. There is a language barrier when you try to export information technology to outside Japan. We had a hard time finding investors. But you just have to knock on enough doors and talk to people as many as possible. You just need to get outside. I don't think Japan is an easier place to start your business than others. It's hard everywhere in the world. I think building a company from a scratch with a new technology is tough no matter where you are.
Bartek:
I'm a routine person, I love routines. I guess that's my German side.
I start my day with making my bed super clean. Next is workout. Then have a cold shower, write my journal and have my first coffee. After that, I walk to our office. I love our office. I arrive in the morning. I start the coffee machine for my second cup of the day and burn some sandal wood, then play music. Usually, we start with ambient music. “NTS” is my favorite radio from London, so I tune in and play one of their ambient playlists. And then I sit on the balcony, enjoy the sun, and meditate a bit about my upcoming tasks. I call this “the silence before the storm.” Then the storm hits hard… emails, phone calls, problems and meetings. When the day gets wild and chaotic, we work until midnight. But in the next morning I try to follow a same routine.
Mehdi:
Same here! I try to get at least 8h30 of sleep every might. Because I believe this is when I may have the best ideas.
If I wake up before reaching 8h30, which is usually the case, I force myself to stay in bed to sleep, dream, reflect on my life, or prepare my day.
Then I take a super extended list of supplements because I believe in the anti-aging science.
I start working around lunch time and I barely move from my desk until late in the night. But we both are obsessed with health. So, we cook dinner at our office as a part of our routines so that we can save time for work and have a complete control on our diets. And cooking is mentally very relaxing, too. On weekdays my private life is my work life, but on weekends I try to stay away as much as possible from work so I can re-calibrate my thoughts.
Bartek:
Yes. I walk around 14,000 steps every day. I have a regular route. I walk around a big circle from Shibuya to my home in Nakameguro via Aoyama.
But once a month, I walk from Ueno to Shibuya. My friend works in a barber shop in Ueno. I go there for a haircut and then I walk for three hours along Tokyo Metro Ginza Line to go back to my place.
I love walking with music. It's the most natural way of body movement, and I get all my ideas while walking.
Bartek:
My favorite word in Japanese is “情熱”(jyo-netsu.) Because it's my favorite word in German, too. It's called “Leidenschaft,” which means “Creation through Suffering.”
Mehdi:
Unfortunately my vocabulary is quite limited, but I like “ださい” (dasai). It’s a short word but easy to use and can be applied in many situations. And I think you can see their critical thinking about style and quality through this word. The Japanese culture seems to value these two. I think this makes Japan inspiring.
KALKUL Inc.：https://www.kalkul.com/
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