52: Moeko Suzuki, Founder, StartUp Lady & Tailor Innovations

Moeko Suzuki provides valuable insight as a young global-minded
entrepreneur having studied in the UK, US and established two
organizations in Japan – StartUp Lady and Tailor Innovations.
After graduating from an American University, Ms. Suzuki returned
to Japan and worked for a company specializing in foreign direct
investment as a business developer. After working for two
companies, she founded Tailor Innovations, a company that
provides a variety of IT and consulting services including
manufacturing of IoT products, live streaming support, and
helping Japanese business expand abroad. In 2015 she co-founded
StartUp Lady, a nonprofit organization that aims to connect and
help educate a diverse community of entrepreneurs who are
starting up their business.


 


Giving up a stable job, Ms. Suzuki decided to pursue her dream
and establish Tailor Innovations. Ms. Suzuki initially faced many
challenges such as being unable to communicate with engineers in
creating the operating platform. Ms. Suzuki also found it
challenging to grow her network as a young entrepreneur without
former connection. When recruiting her team, Ms. Suzuki focused
on hiring people who did not want to work in the traditional
Japanese company culture but be in a more flat, transparent
organization. Her company also provides flexible working styles
for people who are interested in holding a side job. Ms. Suzuki
notes that the change in Japanese government policies around 2017
have made it much easier for foreigners to work in Japan and the
recent pandemic has also allowed more companies to permit their
employees working more than one job.


 


On motivating people, Ms. Suzuki notes the importance of having
close communication with each individual to understand their
needs and where they want to direct their energy. In order to
establish this trusting relationships, Ms. Suzuki has frequent
one-on-one meetings at least 1-2 times a week. Ms. Suzuki also
actively participates in social events with her employees to bond
with them not just on a professional basis but in a more casual
environment. Moreover, Ms. Suzuki carefully coordinates what type
of work people are assigned so that her employees can focus on
utilizing their skillset. For example, with the CEO of the
company, who is also her husband, Ms. Suzuki splits
responsibilities based on their expertise and strength, which she
finds makes them a good team and well trusted by the employees.
Additionally, she seeks to create an open environment where her
employees can freely admit their mistakes in order to prevent
future mistakes from happening and they are able to find the best
solution together. Ms. Suzuki says: “I feel like many people only
learn from their mistakes. So what I can suggest is probably show
them the [past] cases” of what type of mistakes have happened and
how they have been resolved.


 


On StartUp Lady, a female entrepreneur community, Ms. Suzuki
explains: “I think showing that there is a community where [many]
international females can get together to encourage each other
[will] support younger generations. I feel like a lot of young
people are very motivated to do something, but there's not much
[of a] safe community or the community that's maybe open to
younger generations at this moment.” StartUp Lady seeks to meet
such needs of young entrepreneurs. Another of Ms. Suzuki’s dream
is to better the education in Japan, which StartUp Lady seeks to
do by providing an educational program for female entrepreneurs
called 60 days Start Up Program Challenge where they take classes
for 60 days and eventually present their business ideas.
Currently, the community has grown to around 1500 members, mostly
spreading by word of mouth and some media exposure.


 


On leading in Japan, Ms. Suzuki advises to maintain open
communication in order to build trust. She also advises new
incoming leaders to look for communities to join in order to gain
from other people’s expertise and experiences. Lastly, Ms. Suzuki
explains the importance of not just studying businesses in Japan
but foreign businesses who have already started something within
the same field to gain insight.