"Entrepreneur's aspirations" to hear the background of deciding to start a business, the conflicts until the business gets on track, and the desires to realize through the business.
The 36th edition features Mr. Shinsuke Oyama, Representative Director of Spir, lnc., who talked about future business visions along with the perspective of investment professional Iria Takahashi.
【Profile】
Spir, Inc. Shinsuke Oyama, Representative Director
Graduated from the Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo. After working at the Tokyo and Shanghai offices of Corporate Direction (CDI), a strategic consulting firm, he
joined Uzabase, lnc. in 2014. At Uzabase, he was in charge of business development and product development for the SPEEDA business, and after working in the sales department, he became the COO of NewsPicks USA in 2017, where he engaged in business strategy formulation, product management, marketing, etc. as a corporate officer in charge of launching the US business. Established Spir, Inc. in 2019.
[What's Spir, lnc.]
Based on the concept of "Adjusting both the other party and yourself as desired", it provides Spir, a one-stop calendar platform that works in conjunction with multiple calendars used for business, from scheduling web meetings on Google Meet and Zoom to registering them in the calendar. The number of registered users has exceeded 100,000, and a team plan service for corporations has also started. The cumulative funding amount is 750 million yen (as of February 22, 2023).
"Spir" that goes beyond scheduling to data utilization
ーPlease tell us about the business of Spir.
Oyama We operate the schedule adjustment business calendar "Spir" based on the concept of "Adjusting both the other party and yourself as desired." Recently, the number of workers belonging to multiple organizations and projects has increased; "Spir" can manage schedules by integrating the calendar tools separately used. Conventional schedule adjustment tools often extract free time from calendar data and make adjustments, but they are unable to reflect detailed needs such as "I want to adjust according to the priority of the project," "I don't want to make an appointment before and after the important events, if possible". Spir allows you to make strategic adjustments based on such things, and even automatically set the remote conference URL all at once.
Our current main user base is the early adopters who belong to startups, etc., and venture capitalists who often coordinate schedules with entrepreneurs. There are also cases where it is introduced in a specific department of a large company as part of the the DX promotion.
Oyama I consider the transition of the calendar in three generations. The first generation is an analog notebook.
The second generation is a digital calendar such as Google Calendar, which enables users access from anywhere and share appointments and contact information with others. And the third generation is a calendar with a schedule adjustment function. Globally, Calendly, an American company that recorded an annual growth of 1,180% due to the corona crisis and became a unicorn company in 2021, is well known. In the near future, I believe that the time will come when third-generation tools will be a de-facto standard, even for large companies.
-Are there any points that Spir emphasizes in order to win in the market?
Oyama From the very beginning, we are designing products for the world, with an eye on overseas expansion. When I was in Uzabase, I took on the challenge of expanding "SPEEDA" and "NewsPicks" overseas, and realized how difficult it was to spread Japanese-localized services overseas. The calendar is a universal interface to begin with, but the process and manners for schedule adjust ment may differ depending on the region, so we take into account commonality and locality in development.
In recent years, global SaaS companies have adopted PLG (product-led growth / a strategy to grow the business by incorporating sales and marketing elements into the product itself), and Spir is also a SaaS based on the PLG strategy. First, we plan to launch full-scale promotions mainly in English-speaking countries to accelerate global use.
In addition, what can be achieved with Spiris not limited to schedule adjustment. Various data are accumulated in the calendar, such as the number, frequency and topics of the meetings. Such a database related to "relationships with other parties" is extremely valuable in business, so in the future we would like to visualize the accumulated data so that users can make effective use of it.
ーCould you tell us how you decided to start your own business after focusing on the field of "scheduling"?
Oyama Our company's mission is to "unleash creativity." My paternal roots are in South Korea, and I myself have been exposed to diverse values since I was a child. At a consulting firm that I joined as a new graduate, I was assigned to the Shanghai office, and at the age of 30 I traveled around the world. Through various experiences, I realized that respecting diversity without being bound by stereotypes would lead to the liberation of creativity, and I started thinking about launching a business that would support that.
In my experience, the trigger that unleashes creativity is "talking to people." When I was in charge of launching NewsPicks in the US, I had a very difficult time getting appointments with partner candidates. I was lucky enough to meet the most promising candidate, which led to the acceleration of the overseas expansion of NewsPicks. The first thing you need to do to create opportunities to meet and talk with people is to adjust your schedule. By smoothing it out, I thought I could create more creative moments.
ーWhy did you choose a tool that focuses on scheduling rather than communication tools?
Oyama I first thought of the HR domain as a business idea to "unleash creativity." When we were considering creating software that would make hiring more efficient, we hit a wall because there was no database in Japan that we could use. In Japan, Facebook has the most accumulated data on who is connected to whom in business, but that data is not open to the public. Therefore, we had no choice but to pivot our business, and that triggered us to explore the possibility of "commercialization of databases."
Communication tools were also an option, but it is difficult to expand the number of users as there are so many existing tools. If so, how about solving the points that everyone feels stressed in the series of processes of communicating with people? With that in mind, I came up with the schedule adjustment. When it comes to starting a business, monetization is of course important, but a schedule adjustment tool accumulates valuable data, so you can expect stable earnings through data utilization. I made the decision because I thought I could make the most of my strengths in dealing with databases at Uzabase.
A sense of security provided by fast investment decision making
Mr. Oyama and JAFCO's investment professional Iria Takahashi (left)
ーIn August 2022, funding was carried out with JAFCO's lead investment. Please tell us about your first encounter with JAFCO.
Oyama The first time I talked to Mr. Takahashi was in February 2021. It was around the time we decided to raise seed funding.
Takahashi I was originally a Spir user. Due to the nature of my work, I had to use various tools in parallel to coordinate schedules with business owners. I wanted to somehow improve efficiency, so I started using "Spir" and realized the high accuracy of the product.
With regard to data related to connections between people, the more data accumulated, the more it becomes a foothold for the creation of huge services. In that respect, the data accumulated in a tool called a calendar is extremely valuable, and as Calendlyin the United States has grown rapidly in recent years, it was an area that had not yet received attention in Japan. As there were fewer opportunities to exchange business cards due to the corona crisis, I felt that the value of data related to "relationships with others" will increase further in the future, so I contacted Mr. Oyama because I really wanted to talk with him.
ーYou said you met Mr. Takahashi right after the funding was raised. How did you start considering the next round?
Oyama I had regular meetings with Mr. Takahashi to discuss the business situation, etc., but at the end of 2021, I said, "I may not make an investment it right away, but I would like to seriously consider an offer. So, may I conduct due diligence in advance?" JAFCO was the only VC who said that much. We could tell that they felt the potential in our business.
Around the same time, the SaaS bubble burst, and we decided to change our strategy around April 2022. Until then, we had put off monetization by increasing the number of active users globally, but due to increased risk stemming from changes in the environment, we changed direction to create a situation in which we can generate solid sales and control cash in Japan. In this situation, JAFCO was prepared ahead of time to make an investment decision. That reassurance was significant.
-Please tell us the decisive factor in choosing JAFCO as the lead investor in the end.
Oyama I think that investors and startups have a relationship like marriage. If the way of thinking about business and organization building does not match, both parties will be unhappy. JAFCO is the largest and longest-established venture capital firm in Japan, so I thought that many people would have a traditional way of thinking, but it was not so. We think that the evaluation axis is different between general SaaS and SaaS that incorporates PLG.The decisive factor was that JAFCO understood that and appreciated the world-view that we were aiming for.
ーAs an investment professional, what aspects ofSpir were the decisive factors in your due diligence and investment execution?
Takahashi In addition to the attractiveness of the business I mentioned earlier, since it is a PLG service, we can expect the possibility of explosive expansion as users call users like Zoom, Chatwork, CloudSign, etc.
The rest is Mr. Oyama's personality. When I first visited the office, I could see that he was not wasting money, and I felt that he was a down-to-earth manager. On the other hand, he talked about his big dream of capturing overseas markets with a product-driven approach. He was very well-balanced as an entrepreneur. I once again thought that I would like to take on the challenge with him.
To services originating in Japan that are used all over the world
Now that you have completed the fundraising, what are you planning for the future?
Oyama In 2022, we started offering paid team plans services for corporations. I would like to spread the value of Spir firmly so that large companies can use at ease. We also aim to resume overseas expansion in 2023 and strengthen promotions to acquire users.
ーHow do you think Spir will be used around the world to achieve its mission of "unleashing creativity"?
Oyama According to a certain study, the key to enhancing creativity is "how you use your time." Time is an asset given equally to all human beings. Within that finite asset, who would you meet and what would you talk about, where would you go and what would you experience? We hope that Spir will eventually be able to support such decision-making to maximize the creativity of each individual.
In order to aim for a service that is commonly used around the world, I think there are two options: create a new service that uses new technology like ChatGPT, or renew an existing service with a completely new usability and experience. Spir is the latter. If we can present a new way of using calendars and schedule adjustment tools that goes beyond the common sense of conventional tools and have them used around the world, we should be able to make great strides as a global service originating in Japan, which has only a limited number of examples. As an entrepreneur, I would be very happy if the number of world-class startups increased.
-Finally, please give a message to all entrepreneurs.
Oyama Of course, it is important in which business domain to start a business, but equally important is "with whom to start a business." In order to meet the best colleagues and succeed in business together, I believe that open communication is the key. If we feel even the slightest bit of concern while working together, it will eventually manifest itself, so we immediately confirm each other's perceptions and take countermeasures. From my experience so far, I know that this is the secret to generating good results as quickly as possible. This is a point that I personally would like to cherish as we expand our organization in the future.
Person in charge: Comment from Iria Takahashi
It is said that many business people spend more than 30 minutes a day on scheduling tasks such as sales and hiring. There is a lot of room for efficiency, including eliminating multiple inputs and many back-and-forth emails. In addition, it is also a market where needs are increasing due to the spread of online interviews and changes in work styles such as side having jobs due to the corona crisis.
Spir steadily promotes its business amid such market tailwinds. We are paying close attention to its business expandability, where email addresses, which are unique IDs tied to people, and data related to connections between people are accumulated as assets. With a PLG strategy that takes advantage of the virality of the act of schedule adjust ment, there is also the possibility of realizing a different dimension of growth speed than SLG SaaS. I will do my best to support Spir on the unprecedented challenge of becoming a globally successful BtoB software company from Japan.
