[Report] #SVFT Meetup with Florian Jourda at #HiveShibuya
The reason why #SVFT was kicked off to begin with was to bring the Japanese startup ecosystem closer to that of the rest of the world — and that’s exactly why the event was conducted entirely in English. While #SVFT is where it all took off, we decided not to let the enthusiasm die with just one event and thus introduced a series of monthly (or even more frequent when we manage to get lucky!) networking events called #SVFT Meetup at #HiveShibuya — the new co-working space of East Ventures and Skyland Ventures. While the first meetup was with Chinmay Malayvia, co-founder of foodpanda, we had the second meet up on 13th July with Florian Jourda, former Principal Architect of Box. Florian was the first engineer at Box and the 7th employee (which also explains why he felt that Box is like his baby — he was in the team quite early). The event was moderated and wonderfully interpreted from English to Japanese by the current Japan Head of Salesforce Ventures, Shinji Asada.
The fact that Shinji had invested in Box (when he worked at ITOCHU group VC) for a long time meant that the session was better than what we expected. And what was better than the session itself? The audience! Yes! Even though we had a healthy mix of Japanese and foreigners in the audience, the entire event somehow went on without anyone asking anything in Japanese — despite Shinji translating everything! #SVFT started with the aim of “all English” but who knew we’d see the lovely day so soon!?
Florian’s talk was beyond interesting and very enlightening as well in terms of startup lifestyle and culture. He talked about his early years at Box and how the team struggled to get the product where it is today. Florian with his sense of humour insured that the audience didn’t get bored — and damn, wasn’t everyone listening with a lot of attention! In the Q&A session I found a lot of his words struck the right chord for me — especially the part where he said that it’s necessary to make every member of your team feel important. Given the kind of work culture and input a startup requires, I couldn’t agree more! Everyone in the team needs to feel important — that’s how everyone feels as if they are also a part of the product and motivates them to give inputs without hesitation! Now, isn’t that something one learns only out of experience! This is why I’m loving the #SVFT meetups so far — they let you get on board with the speakers and surf through their lives with them as they speak.
Even if you missed the event on Monday, don’t forget to join us for the next #SVFT meetup or just drop by at #HiveShibuya — we love everyone and you’re always welcome!
Deepali / Associate at Skyland Ventures
*Contact :info@skyland.vc / http://skyland.vc/
