What I learned from working at a Japanese Venture Capital Fund

Venture Capital

This past summer, I interned at KUSABI, an early-stage venture fund in Japan with a unique approach to investing. Unlike many funds in Japan that focus on "base hits" (safe, moderate returns), KUSABI's partners were committed to "home-run" investments, seeking out startups with the potential for huge impact. KUSABI was also structured in a rare way: each of its three GPs was individually responsible for a third of the fund's capital, with no investment committee to approve deals. This structure emphasized an actual "skin in the game" mentality, pushing each GP to take full ownership of their bets, a practice not common in Japan. These attributes about KUSABI attracted me when I considered which VC to work for over the summer.

At KUSABI, Yoshida Junya, The GP I worked under, did not give me specific instructions on what to work on or how to contribute to the fund. All he told me at the start was: "Be different, do something big, be more than an intern." The first thing I worked towards was building my credibility and becoming someone founders could trust and seek advice. I needed to get my name out there in a relationship-driven industry like venture capital. After telling my plan to Yoshida, we agreed on a metric of gaining 1000 followers in one month, with his reasoning being that I am not resourceful enough if I cannot achieve this number.

In building a persona, I aimed to be "the guy who knows a lot about American startups," building a presence online and in person. I spent significant time experimenting with engaging potential founders and partners on social media, adjusting everything from post timing to hashtag choices, and trying to understand what drove more engagement.

I also took every opportunity to attend events, even volunteering as a waiter or receptionist, to meet new founders. As time passed, people began to see me as "the Y-Combinator guy" or "the orange guy," and it was easier to skip introductions and dive into conversations about their startups. This approach helped me successfully grow my following to over 1000 people in a month, and I saw a 20% increase in applications to the fund's accelerator program. This tweet below shows the formatting I settled on to portray information to my audience.

One of my hit products that increased my credibility was this YC startup database that I made.

Although Yoshida did not tell me much directly, being around him taught me many lessons. I will highlight the two most important lessons I learned.

The first lesson was to think about technology as a continuous timeline, where you should think about a specific product/industry's history and make various hypotheses on what the future of that product/industry will look like. Then, make a reasoning process explaining why one specific hypothesis is the best, and find a founder working on this problem. The other direction was to think about consumer behavior as a continuous timeline. It would apply the same thought process but from a consumer behavior/product adoption perspective.

To practice this way of thinking, Yoshida suggested building "mini-theses" through value-chain analysis. This involved tracing the history of a specific technology or market trend, mapping out where new value was being created, and identifying which parts of the value chain were most vulnerable or promising for innovation.

This kind of analysis forced me to segment and categorize each market, leading to insights into competition, potential value-adds, and market direction. As a simple example, Google's value chain changes drastically when considering the 35% fee it must pay Apple for its search product. This practice helped me form hypotheses about future market shifts, a mindset I think is vital to becoming a VC with a long-term view. The document below shows one example of this value-chain analysis.

The second lesson was that assessing founders was much more than their startup's pitch. One of the important questions he taught me to ask myself was, "Would I want to work for this person long-term, regardless of whether their startup succeeded?" If the answer was no, that was a signal about the relationship I'd be building with them. Venture capital, especially with a long-term outlook, is a long journey. Investing in someone you respect and trust isn't just a good idea but essential.

On a side note, Yoshida often preached to me during my time at KUSABI that the venture process hasn't fundamentally changed since Sequoia's early days in the 1970s: deal sourcing, due diligence, growth support, and exit planning still define the work. Yoshida pushed me to think about where there might be room to "hack" this process and develop a unique edge. I focused on deal sourcing and personal networking, building relationships that could continue to benefit the fund long after my internship. However, I must continue asking myself what hacking the other stages would look like because there is no reason to believe these processes shouldn't evolve in the future.

Overall, working at KUSABI shaped my view on venture capital and founders. I learned that success often comes down to grit—doing whatever it takes to get in the room, finding my voice, and constantly iterating. My experience at KUSABI taught me to think long-term, to make thoughtful assessments, and to always ask how I could do more than expected.