Wei Chai (MaWaRoute)

Wei Chai, who was born in China and studied in England, France, and Japan before starting a startup to promote local charms in Japan, talked about his path, challenges, and findings.

‍

First of all, please introduce yourself.

My name is Wei Chai. I am from Tianjin, China. It is famous for sweet chestnuts, isn't it? I was in Tianjin until high school, and then went to England for high school and university.

‍

What brought you to Japan?

I originally studied electronics and programming at Imperial College London. Since I was a student, I wanted to be an entrepreneur rather than a professional engineer.
Meanwhile, I have been interested in Japan since I was little. Japanese model cars were treated as luxury items since those days, and I often bought Japanese stationery myself, so I think my interests naturally grew. Influenced by mystery novels, manga, and anime, I began to develop interests in the Japanese culture and environment. Upon entering university, I had a strong desire to go to Japan once I had the chance.
After graduating from Imperial, I took a gap year and participated in Waseda University's Japanese language program while looking for a program where I could study management and others. After spending a year at Waseda, I studied management, accounting, finance, and economics at HEC Paris, a French business school. Yet, I found a Japan-related program there and applied. I ended up spending one year of my three-year graduate school life in Japan.
After receiving my degree, I worked at the Tokyo office of a French investment bank for one year. But I found an exchange program at the University of Tokyo, so I took advantage of it and returned to Japan. Upon graduation, I continued working for a foreign financial company, but found that it was not for me.
I was interested in "starting my own business" for a long time, so I decided to work for a startup providing, which was founded by my senior fellow student at HEC, as a preparation period. I was helping works related to digital strategies as a system engineer.

What led you to start your own business?

I had the idea of starting my own business while working at the startup but was struggling. 
I considered applying for a Business Manager Visa to start a business in Japan, but it would require capital of at least 5 million yen. So, I wanted to find a business that had a Product Market Fit and that I could really devote myself to, but I was struggling with the challenges.
At that time, I learned that Shibuya Ward would start a Startup Visa program for entrepreneurs in 2020, and I applied the moment the program started.
The first service you launched was Mona Menu, a mobile food ordering app. It is an app which for in-restaurant ordering but with a social feature that allows browsing regular customers’ favorite menus and ways to enjoy.

How did Mona Menu come about?‍

The experience of studying here had a big influence on me. I always thought that Japan had really good food and safe communities and was easy to live in because of the Asian culture.
When I first came to Japan, I didn't understand the language, and although I had the advantage of being able to read kanji, I didn't really understand the local dining culture. When searching for restaurants, I used Google Maps and went with friends to restaurants that were easy to find such as yakiniku restaurant chains, for example. I thought they were delicious despite reasonable and all-you-can-eat menus.
But after living in Tokyo for a few years, I started to run into local gem restaurants. Yakiniku restaurants in downtown Asakusa or Hongo area, for example. There are a lot more hidden and delicious places that I just didn't know about. I wanted to support not only chain restaurants, but also restaurants that are yet to have English menus or only accept cash but are still loved by the locals. That’s how I came up with the idea of Mona Menu.
We designed a system in which regular customers of a restaurant can share their favorite menu items and information. I created this app with the idea that I wanted to bridge the gap between tourists and locals.

How did you feel when you actually started the project?

It was tough as expected.
There were already many players in the domestic gourmet food service, so it was quite difficult to completely grab a market share.
In order to ask restaurants to take advantage of the service, we had to approach them door to door at first.
It was very nice to be able to talk directly with the restaurant owners, who sympathized with my idea and provided support as part of the process of introducing the service. I was very happy when I received a report that a customer actually used our app and was able to place an order easily.
At the same time, however, I felt that many restaurant owners might think twice about using a service from a startup that they were not familiar with. So, we considered commissioning an agency to handle it to expand from the middle of the project. However, we had limited financial resources, so hiring an agency was also a challenge.
When I was researching growth strategies for gourmet food services that were already established in Japan, I was introduced to examples of designing a sales force and sales team to increase the number of restaurants.
However, I personally wanted Mona to succeed not as a sales focused company but as a company that would value latest technology and engineering capability, so I started working toward a new business while continuing to search for a partner company for MonaMenu. 

You are currently developing "MaWaRoute," a "walk to earn" app that gives points to users who go around and visit real "places." How did this business come about?

Actually, the idea for "MaWaRoute" was born when I was a student, and I even won a second prize in a business school’s pitch contest. However, I had no IoT experiences at the time, so I didn't think about implementing it.
In the last spring, I attended a drinking party where Shibuya founders gathered. I live in Bunkyo-ku, and Sushant, a developer of an IoT service, also lived in Bunkyo-ku, so we happened to be on our way home together. I knew he had a lot of expertise in IoT, so I pitched him an idea from my business school days. He was very interested, and we got to talk again later. We worked on the idea, interviewed people from the Tokyu Group, who were also affiliated with SSS, and talked to department stores to further brush up on the idea, and decided to launch the service together.

Please tell us about the issues this project is trying to solve.

MaWaRoute is a service for the retail industry, and I would like to create a unique purchasing experience and point system for the Web3 era. We are trying to provide a platform that combines SaaS and IoT technologies for businesses to create a point system that allows anyone to "go around to earn" easily.
Web3 and Metaverse are trending now, but I like the real world as well. And I think it would be absurd if we don't work on the world we actually live in before the virtual world. So, I started thinking about usage of the Web3 technology in the real world. 
There are many Web3 ideas now, and for example, there are more and more services that allow users to earn tokens while walking.
But there is a limit to tracking users' movements with GPS. Its accuracy and security are not high; GPS signals can be forged, so you don't even know if the user has really been to the location. We are trying to provide an IoT platform that utilizes beacons to create a world where users can earn points just by going around.
Until now, the point system has generally been based on a customer’s purchase-history system in which they are awarded a percentage of their spending with points upon each purchase. While the demand for e-commerce has increased over the past few years, we heard about the concerns of retailers from our interview that physical stores would no longer thrive. We would like to create a world where people can earn points just by going there and hanging around, rather than just getting points for making a purchase. Without that kind of enjoyment, the e-commerce experience would suffice and keep people from going to the real world even more.
We are developing this kind of platform for local governments, retailers, and shopping malls to offer. In the future, we are exploring the possibility of creating a system where people can also purchase NFTs with Proof Visit, in other words, a system that certifies that you have visited a specific place in the real world.

How do you plan to facilitate your business in the future?

The Ikeuchi Group (Sapporo, Hokkaido), which has a history of more than 130 years, has decided to conduct a demonstration experiment at IKEUCHI GATE, a department store that will be newly opened this fall. That department store was also facing some challenges. Even though a new store had opened, the number of customers visiting the actual store was decreasing rapidly, partly due to the influence of Covid-19 and partly due to EC. They also considered operating their own EC but was afraid that they would lose out to players specializing in EC.
We suggested that incorporating our service could design a new incentive that would encourage users to return to the department stores. The Ikeuchi Group agreed and decided to start demonstrating our project together. 
We hope to conduct several more demonstrations in the future. We would also like to consider markets outside of Japan.

Do you have any advice for foreign entrepreneurs or those who want to start a business in Japan?

I am not in a position to give advice, but I think it would be easier if you learn a little Japanese. Tokyo is not a problem since the city is international, but I think it would be useful to study a little.

What do you find attractive about Japan?

There are many. I am not the only one saying this, but Japan is really a good place to live. You don't have to worry about food. It is safe, and it is easy to live in. It’s also important to note that everyone is friendly. It seems like a nice environment to focus on business. I believe that the startup scene in Japan will grow in the future, and the market is quite large. Excellent, international startups are still few, and VC money is increasing, so I think there are a lot of really good opportunities.

What is your favorite food?

There are many, but I like eel. Genta Kojima, the character from “Detective Conan,” always says, "I want to eat eel-rice box.” I think I have been curious about eel-rice box since I was a child. I was always thinking that I'm going to eat eel-rice box when I go to Tokyo.

Favorite word or phrase?

I like mystery novels, so I like the quote by Sherlock Holmes, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
I still think that startups should be like this, always pivoting to move forward more and more, and I think it’s important to be able to move and think with flexibility.

Thank you very much for your wonderful stories.