SynchroLife CEO Tomochika Kamiya Interviewed by Plug and Play Japan
Earlier this month, SynchroLife was chosen to be featured in an article in Plug and Play Japan’s new monthly newsletter. The article features an original interview with our founder and CEO Tomochika Kamiya and commentary on SynchroLife. Although the article is in Japanese, we’d like to share a few highlights with our worldwide community!
You can read the original Japanese article here:
Here are some translated highlights from the interview!
Nicole (Community Manager at Plug and Play Japan): What strengths does SynchroLife have compared to other restaurant search services like Tabelog or Yelp?
Tomochika Kamiya (Founder & CEO of SynchroLife): For users, we’re the fastest way to find good restaurants. Our restaurant database is based on positive ratings users have left for restaurants they enjoyed. SynchroLife then using our unique algorithm to calculate each user’s dining preferences and location to give them personalized restaurant recommendations and search results.
Nicole: I downloaded the app the other day, it’s great you can pick your preferences when making an account.
Tomochika: Yes, and the more you use the app the more it learns your preferences and becomes personalized to you. Right now the app is gamified, with users motivated to post for in-service status and rankings. But soon we’ll be launching token rewards for users who contribute valuable and quality content to the platform too. As the platform grows we can share that future value with the users through the token, giving them economic motivation as well.
Nicole: I see, you’re aiming to make it a fairly autonomous platform. I noticed SynchroLife is already avaliable in four languages, what are your main target markets other than Japan?
Tomochika: Outside of Japan, we’re targeting other countries with a passion for food and a strong culture of dining out such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the Asian market in general. But we aim to build a platform where users from anywhere in the world can share their favorite restaurants and dining experiences.
Nicole: Your platform seems like it would be very useful to foodies worldwide and Japanese people living overseas as well! I’d like to ask you a few questions about Plug and Play Japan too if you don’t mind. How did you first find out about us?
Tomochika: I first learned about Plug and Play Japan in detail after pitching at THE BRIDGE news event “THE COIN” this past January. It was held at Plug and Play Japan’s Shibuya office. I met the COO of Plug and Play Japan then and started following your press releases and news. Your team seemed really young, international, and hardworking so I wanted to know more!
Nicole: Why did you chose Plug and Play Japan over other accelerator programs?
Tomochika: As a startup gearing up for expansion into Asia and the world, we were very interested in joining Plug and Play’s global network.
Nicole: I’m not surprised! Plug and Play has 26 offices in 11 countries worldwide.
Tomochika: Yes, and making connections as a startup is really important!
Nicole: What events or contents are you looking forward to as part of Batch 1?
Tomochika: The Lunch and Learn session Plug and Play Japan held on June 27th was really great. It was really educational and fun to talk with experienced entrepreneurs openly and hear about their struggles and successes.
Nicole: Anything you’d like us to add or do more of?
Tomochika: It’d be great if we had more chances to connect with other startups! I’d love to hear more about what they’re doing. It’s be great if there was a way to easily see news about what the other startups are up to or other chances for PR.
Nicole: I agree, with all the startups from overseas joining we hope to create more chances for communication between all the startup teams. What is the SynchroLife Team planning for the remainder of the program?
Tomochika: For starters we’re planning to brush up our business model and marketing strategy! Before we move on to the next stage where we welcome restaurants to join the platform, we want to do some proof of concept testing of using our token from Online-to-Offline (O2O) marketing campaigns over the next 3 months. At Plug and Play Japan we’ve been given the opportunity to connect with many partner companies and we’re excited to work with them as we get down to business working on POC testing, marketing, and overall branding/PR.
What makes SynchroLife great isn’t just the fast restaurant search, but how fun and social it is to use too. For anyone who hasn’t used it before, I challenge you to open the app and just look through it for 5 to 10 minutes, like you’re looking at a restaurant or foodie magazine. We hope users around the world will be able to share their favorite restaurants and enjoy SynchroLife, you can try the beta for yourself for iOS and Android today!
We would like to thank Plug and Play Japan for this great interview! 👏 As you may know, SynchroLife was recently chosen to join the Silicon Valley-born global venture capital and accelerator Plug and Play Japan’s accelerator program Batch 1 in the Fintech category.
Read our press release regarding joining Plug and Play Japan here:
Since the Batch 1 accelerator program has started we’ve had the opportunity to join a variety of lectures, workshops, and mentoring programs through Plug and Play Japan.
SynchroLife is still a startup and we have a lot to learn, so our goal for the next three months is to meet new mentors and partners to help us get the know-how and connections to help us grow our platform.
We’re also excited to work with Plug and Play Japan partners for proof of concept (POC) testing and to polish our marketing strategy over the next couple months. We’re working hard to make SynchroLife a success and can’t wait to share more good news with you soon!
Be sure to join the SynchroLife Telegram community to keep up with the latest SynchroLife and SynchroCoin news: https://t.me/synchrocoin 💭
Other Medium Articles by the SynchroLife Team:
・SynchroLife Major Launch Announcement — Becoming the World’s First Restaurant Review Platform with Token Rewards
・SynchroLife Nominated at “THE COIN” in Tokyo, CEO Tomochika Kamiya Presents
・How SynchroLife Takes a Unique Position in the Competitive Restaurant Search and Discovery Market
・Current Features of the SynchroLife Beta App
・Why We Decided to Use Blockchain Technology with SynchroLife
・SynchroLife’s Token-Based Economy: How Users Can Earn & Spend SynchroCoin (SYC)
・Behind the Scenes: The Meaning of “SynchroLife” and Our Seahorse Icon
・How SynchroLife will Handle Fake Reviews
Please visit the following links to learn more about SynchroLife! 📲
Official Website: https://synchrolife.org
White paper: https://synchrolife.org/whitepaper.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/synchrocoin
Facebook: https://facebook.com/synchrocoin
Telegram: https://t.me/synchrocoin
SynchroLife Mobile App:
iOS App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id557532449
Android Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.synchrolife
