[Interview] FlutterScape’s Global Domination Plans With Japanese Products
One of the exhibiting startups that managed to garner some interest from attendees at echelon 2010 was FlutterScape. We managed to grab a quick word with two of the co-founders, Takehiro Kakiyama and Ari Awan.
FlutterScape combines the power of social network with a retail platform. They allow users to share information on Japanese products and also purchase or sell items of such nature. The reason they focus on Japanese products is because of their uniqueness among global consumers, where limited edition Japanese products are difficult to obtain outside of the country.
FlutterScape proved popular among investors at echelon 2010. In fact, they managed to secure a couple of investment deals at the event itself. We would like to congratulate them on their success and wish them luck in the “global domination”, as they call it. We apologize for the low audio quality of the interview and have posted a transcript below.
Introduce yourselves!
I’m Takehiro Kakiyama, CEO of FlutterScape and this is my CTO, Ari Awan, and we run a website for the Japanese market called FlutterScape
How long have you guys been doing it?
We officially launched on 29 Jan 2010, and so have been around for about 4 months now.
How many users have you guys gotten so far?
Right now we have about 2,000 users, Our growth rate is about 81% per month. We also have about 3500 fans on the FlutterScape page on Facebook.
You guys are just focused on the Japanese market?
For now yes, but we do hope to expand into other markets.
Can you explain more about the social concept behind Flutterscape?
FlutterScape has two layers: The first one is the social layer and the second, the commerce layer. Our emphasis is on the social layer. Social is for people sharing things and products with the world: you can use your cellphone, snap a picture, give some information about the product. If you want to sell it, you put a price on it and then it becomes the commerce layer. So if someone is interested in your product and wants to buy it, we will facilitate that.
What kinds of special products does your website offer?
Mostly Japanese products that are known for their quality, uniqueness and collectors items.
Have you guys started making money?
Yes we have a business model. Our present transaction amounts to about 250 units per month, we’re making about 10,000SGD per month.
How big is your team?
Its just three of us! Apart from the two of us we have a Creative Director.
Are you guys backed by any investors?
We’re backed by one of the largest e-commerce companies in Japan, netprice.com
How has echelon benefitted you?
Its been wonderful coming here to expand our global domination plan. We came looking for more investors to back our and we got it here at echelon. We managed to close deals on both days of echelon. Its a nice ecosystem that echelon has created and we hope the organisers keep it coming!
A joint article by Joash Wee and Sruthy Kumar
tagged
