CAREER
I am an entrepreneur, product design leader, and community builder. I am from America and have lived in multiple states including California, Washington DC, and Boston. For the past 20+ years, I have been helping startup and enterprise SaaS companies with strategy, design, and operations, predominantly in the B2B space. As a consultant, I’ve solved problems for many industries, notably healthcare, telecommunications, and global trade and logistics. Additionally, I started and sold my consulting business of 10 years, which made $1M annual recurring revenue with just 7 employees at its peak.
From a community-building perspective, I’ve grown an ultimate frisbee sports community from 0 to over 5,000 members on the Meetup platform, which is still running today with 2 events running per week. Additionally, I started a community of small businesses to help overturn a local tax law that would have created financial hardship, mostly for small software and consulting-based businesses.
I came to Japan in March 2023. My wife is Japanese, originally from Matsudo where we currently live. We felt it was important for our two children to experience part of their lives in Japan since they are half-Japanese. Growing up multiculturally (a theme you’ll see more of later) is important to me because I believe they can become better global citizens: solving the world’s toughest problems and positively influencing their societies.
Personally, Japan is important to me as the values in Japanese match mine: compassion, harmony, structure and order, and 生き甲斐. I’ve been coming to Japan every year for the past 12 years, so I’ve had time to appreciate and embrace Japanese culture, from food to 七五三 to, sadly, funerals. All are just remarkable experiences that are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate elsewhere in the world.
BUSINESS
Musubi Tech, which started in July of this year, is a community-based business that fosters multiculturalism and innovation between the Japanese and International tech communities in Japan. We do this in a couple of different ways.
First, we connect people. Every other month, we hold networking events, which involve activities that help ease the relationship-building process. For example, we held a networking bingo activity in July in both Japanese and English. Participants would seek out people who might have experience with, for example, “着物または浴衣を作ったことがある人を見つける” or “Find someone who can speak 3 or more languages”.
Second, we are testing new ways to help people learn by cross-pollinating. Our next event, happening on November 29th, is going to feature a roundtable discussion. The topic will be: “attracting and retaining diverse talent”. We will match up participants by language fluency, such as Japanese-only, English-only, or fully bilingual, and provide them with topics for discussion, such as “how have leaders managed the transition in supporting diverse product teams?” We believe that true learning happens from immersion, and we will continue to test activities that give Japanese people an opportunity to learn from International people, and vice versa.
VISION
We see a future generation of multicultural entrepreneurs and tech leaders in Japan who believe in building products to solve problems beyond a nation’s borders. These ambitious, mission-driven Japanese & International tech professionals believe that working together translates to mutual growth.
Their commercial success and impact on the world will strengthen Japan’s economy and secure its position as a global powerhouse in technology. We believe that startups, scale-ups, and venture companies are the key to unlocking Japan’s success, and we will empower the next generation of entrepreneurs and tech leaders in Japan to:
1. take greater risks by receiving moral support from a community that cherishes risk-taking, authenticity, and compassion.
2. mitigate commercial risk quickly by using modern product delivery methods and by acculturating quickly to deeply understand a foreign culture.
3. attract & retain diverse talent by creating workplaces that foster respect, growth, and a strong sense of belonging.
The products we build in the future will align with these core value propositions. Furthermore, we will be testing business models that align with the community’s needs and allow sustainable growth for Musubi Tech. If we succeed, we will expand Musubi Tech communities at all the major technology hubs in Japan, such as Osaka and Fukuoka.
Joe Baz
PROFILE
From Watertown, Massachusetts USA
▼ Musubi Tech website
https://musubi.tech
▼ Linkedin ( Joe Baz )
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joebaz/
