Moon Creative Lab Favicon

Moon Creative Lab

SparkIcon.svg

ビジネスを加速する
出資プログラムに参加する

BoostIcon.svg

グローバルで多様な
ビジネスクリエイターの輪へ

OrbitIcon.svg

Our Programs

About Moon

/about

Our Stories

/stories/page/1

<a href="https://www.voox.me/">VOOX</a> is a platform that offers a curated collection of bite-sized audio content for lifelong learning. Content is narrated by the author in order to accurately convey and express what they intend. This can sometimes be quite difficult to achieve when read by someone other than the author themselves. Founder Hong Guihua shares why she decided to create VOOX and the impact her company is looking to create.<h3>In this blog:</h3><ul><li>“I like books but I’m unable to read them.”</li><li>Right plan, wrong content</li><li>Keeping authors authentic</li><li>Connecting authors, editors, and publishers</li><li>Bringing authors and readers together</li></ul><hr><figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/image1_2b52554b2b.jpg" alt="image1.jpg"><figcaption>Hong Guihua launched VOOX in May 2020 and released the application in 2021. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure><h3>“I like books but I’m unable to read them.”</h3>I have always been interested in audio services for two main reasons:<ol><li>While I like books and think they are important, I found myself unable to read them. Especially difficult books; if it is a classic or a book with complex content, it is very difficult to read, let alone understand.</li><li>When I was stationed in Indonesia back in 2016, I had to drive to work for two years. I had spent a lot of time driving and audio content was a crucial means of consuming information for me. I had always used different forms of audio content, including radio, and I had a strong interest in audio services such as audiobooks, news delivered by voice, audio lectures on economics at Peking University, and so on. &nbsp;</li></ol>However, compared to the U.S. and China, Japan had hardly any audio content other than radio. The only thing that existed were podcasts for learning English. There were so few options!&nbsp; I thought that offering a variety of audio content in a different format would grow in Japan. When I had learned about Moon's open call for new business ideas, I started thinking about my idea and how I might commercialize it. I refined my idea, pitched it to Moon and upon acceptance was transferred to Moon where I had launched the VOOX website in the summer of 2020.&nbsp;<h3>Right plan, wrong content</h3>At first, there were only three people on the VOOX team and we didn't have any background knowledge on how to create content. But the important things we wanted to do back then are the same as what we want to do now: provide content that could be listened to within 10-minutes, organize the information so that it’s easy to navigate, and make learning easier and more accessible to everyone.&nbsp; Initially, we tried to create 100 10-minute segments of content focused on the theme of economics, something we thought everyone would like to learn more about. But it turned out that it wasn't interesting content for listeners. Our planning was right, but the content itself just wasn’t interesting enough. It proved impossible to listen to such long content all the way through. I decided to look for an editor. Then I met Fumio Iwasa, the current editor-in-chief of VOOX, who has 30 years of experience in book editing and is also a former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review. Together, we reviewed the world view and editorial policy at VOOX and arrived at the current format, a series of six 10-minute episodes, which allows us to offer a variety of topics.&nbsp;<h3>Keeping authors authentic</h3>At first, we tried to make 100 episodes, but we soon learned that even if we divided the episodes into 10 series, the content would start to overlap in the middle of the series. For this reason, we decided to limit the number of episodes to six.&nbsp; We prepared a landing page and recruited about 120 users to test it out. On that page, we provided three recorded samples:&nbsp;<ol><li>A narrator reads the trend summary articles published by VC.</li><li>A narrator reads their own summary of the book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/Blitzscaling-Lightning-Fast-Building-Massively-Companies-ebook/dp/B0791239V7/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&amp;crid=3D4QYFT3EFJB2&amp;keywords=blitz+scaling&amp;qid=1695110423&amp;sprefix=blitzscaling%2Caps%2C151&amp;sr=8-2">BLITZSCALING</a>.</li><li>The book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E8%B5%B7%E6%A5%AD%E3%81%AE%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6-%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%82%A8%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9-%E7%94%B0%E6%89%80-%E9%9B%85%E4%B9%8B/dp/4822259757">The Science of Entrepreneurship: Startup Science</a> is explained by the author himself.</li></ol>The recordings with commentary by the authors themselves achieved the best results, much more than the others.&nbsp; Option 3 was originally listed as "commentary by the author," whether the content was read by a third-party narrator or by the author. But after qualitative interviews with users about their impressions and the extent to which they remembered the audio content, we learned that the users who chose “commentary by the author themself" were the ones who reportedly retained the most information. When creating audio content, our goal is to try and preserve the author's authenticity as much as possible. We prepare a simple bulleted list of questions for the author to address at the time of recording instead of providing a script for them to read. We don’t edit the recordings, although we sometimes re-record any mistakes. This method seems to work well for not only the user, but also the author.&nbsp; It really helps the authors to organize their thoughts. As a matter of fact, there is even a newly published book based on the content of a VOOX talk. The author, who had no intention of writing a book, realized that he could turn his audio content into a book after talking about it at VOOX. We connected the author with a publishing company, which eventually led to the publication of his book. With an increase in such cases, we have come to realize that VOOX is beginning to produce new benefits not just for authors and listeners, but also for editors and publishers.&nbsp;<h3>Connecting authors, editors, and publishers</h3>Originally, the main objective of VOOX was to have authors read and comment on their own content in audio form. However, every time we spoke with the authors, they would digress and tell stories that went beyond the books in discussion. Then I tried asking authors to not only talk about the applicable book, but also about the entire topic or subject. By doing so, we developed brand-new audio content, which further developed into new publications. One time, an author was writing a book and got a little stumped, so he decided to try and overcome his writer’s block by talking about it on VOOX. That author happened to be our editor-in-chief, but we used VOOX as a place to reinvigorate his inspiration and perspective.&nbsp; Sometimes an author will use it in that way, and other times, they'll have a topic that they've been trying to write a book on, but have neglected it for a long time. So, they'll talk about it on VOOX as a way to refresh their ideas.&nbsp; When you think about it, there are a number of advantages for editors to work with VOOX – it’s a place to learn about authors who are not yet widely known. It’s a place to relieve authors of stumbling blocks and dead-ends and a place to stimulate planning and ideas. It’s a place to discover new authors. And, of course, a place to promote books. In fact, more and more people are contacting us organically. When we find a good book and contact the publisher, the publisher, in turn, contacts us to ask what we think about the book. We are also hearing more from people who are interested in the books that have been published on VOOX. I am very happy to say that in our third year, we are gradually expanding our relationships not only with authors and editors, but with publishers as well.I was happy to hear one of our editors say, "I wasn't sure where I could transfer my book editing skills, but now I know that I can use them in this kind of situation.” I was excited to hear that he thought VOOX could be a new way to apply his skills.<figure class="media"><oembed url="https://vimeo.com/859211849"></oembed></figure><h3>Bringing authors and readers together</h3>Nowadays, the number of people who read books is decreasing rapidly. I don't want this to continue, so I hope VOOX can become a service that can create synergy with books. We did not set out to replace books, but to introduce them. On top of that, we are trying to create a deeper connection between readers and authors. We are currently reaching more people by making VOOX content available on Amazon’s Audible. On the other hand, we think that for fans and listeners of a particular author, even 60 minutes of content isn’t enough, so we are trying to create more ways to deepen the communication between authors and readers. The "pre-publication book club" was one of the ideas we came up with to address that issue. Learn more in the video below (in Japanese).<figure class="media"><oembed url="https://vimeo.com/859212188"></oembed></figure>Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we had never been able to hold an offline event before. But when we held our first in-person event to meet authors, it was more exciting than we had ever imagined. I remember that the authors were very lively because readers came to the events. We plan to do more of these events in the future. Since audio content is a niche market, we are always thinking about ways to make it more widely known. With a Japanese magazine, if 50,000 people know about your business, you can say that everyone knows about it to some extent. Or if the book is on the shelves of a bookstore, you can feel a sense of response. We are still creating content one by one, thinking about how we can create a similar outcome with VOOX.&nbsp;*This article was originally written in Japanese and has been translated and edited for clarity.<hr>VOOX launched its <a href="https://www.voox.me/">website</a> in 2020, followed by its app (<a href="https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/voox/id1546175303">iOS</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.voox&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=US&amp;pli=1">Android</a>) in 2021. A book’s worth of knowledge is narrated directly from leading experts from various fields, including Taizo Son, Dai Tamesue, Ken Kusunoki, Shu Yamaguchi, and others. New series are available for free for two weeks after its release. In June 2023, VOOX began providing content to Audible, the world's largest audiobook and audio content production and distribution service. On June 27, an event was held to celebrate the publication of Surrender Theory with former professional baseball player and current business coach, Yuhki Takamori. In July, VOOX also held a pre-publication reading of Maturity Theory with Dai Tamesue. Follow VOOX on <a href="https://twitter.com/VOOX_jp">X (formerly Twitter)</a> for the latest news and useful knowledge from each series. &nbsp;

large_image1.jpg

medium_image1.jpg

small_image1.jpg

thumbnail_image1.jpg

image1.jpg

In Moon Alumni interviews, we hear from entrepreneurs who have worked with Moon Creative Lab on their innovative ideas for new businesses and incubating new startup ventures. This time, we talked with Takayuki Yamanaka, General Manager of Innovation &amp; Corporate Development Div. of Mitsui &amp; Co. India Pvt, Ltd. Mumbai Branch.In this story:<ul><li>Supporting overseas expansion of domestic IP businesses&nbsp;</li><li>Using Twitter to gain traction</li><li>Personal experiences benefit businesses</li></ul><h3>Supporting Overseas Expansion of Domestic IP Businesses</h3>Takayuki Yamanaka has an incredibly diverse background. Since joining Mitsui &amp; Co. in 1999 having a license of registered customs specialist, he has dealt imports/exports and logistics consultations in Logistics Business Unit, was involved in overseas sales and project management for the Iron &amp; Steel Products Business Unit, served as a COO in the Media Division’s affiliate(at that time) TV Channel “Kids Station”, and is currently the General Manager of Innovation &amp; Corporate Development Div. of Mitsui &amp; Co. India Pvt, Ltd. Mumbai Branch, where he focuses on B2B information and communication technology.Takayuki joined Moon in 2021 to work on his venture, Japan IP Studio, an intellectual property platform to support the global development of content produced in Japan. This idea had been on his mind for a very long time, seeing that Takayuki is an avid domestic anime fan and collector owning a library of around 6,000 books in his basement.<img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/_62843e0378.jpg" alt="山中さん.jpg"> "I wanted to create an environment that would make it easy to match domestic content creators with companies that wanted to showcase their content overseas by making all kinds of IP and creative data related to domestic content searchable,” Takayuki explained.Japan IP Studio would provide domestic content creators with marketing data that would help them determine the value of overseas expansion, while also helping international companies search for Japanese content. By acting as a mediary to handle business and IP between Japan and other countries, Japan IP Studio would have hopefully helped the supply of content meeting overseas demand.According to Takayuki’s research, there were at least 40,000 manga, anime, games, novels, and other types of content in Japan. Though the language barrier was a large challenge, cultural differences in content creation also presented a hurdle. In Japan, content is often created before a marketing strategy is put in place. With global companies, however, art is created to tailor to existing market data. As a result, Takayuki says, foreign companies would often only see popular content, while lesser-known creators remained overlooked.To counterbalance the disparate domains, Takayuki collected data on each piece of content existing in Japan and made it, for the first time ever, searchable. He also managed the information in intricate detail so that other countries could determine if the content fit its cultural background and legal restrictions.Takayuki collected and compiled data on approximately 5,000 pieces of Japanese content into a singular database. With the help of a data scientist, he worked with domestic IP owners and overseas companies to customize the search results. But setbacks with time, resources, and the pandemic slowed the Japan IP Studio project down. "I remember it was like a game of messages. Later, with advice from Moon members, we decided to pivot. At first, we were aiming to develop a matching platform for B2B, collecting data on works and systematically connecting content and companies. But then we realized that it is consumers who support the foundation of the IP business. As a result, we came to the conclusion that we must first understand the fans in each region, such as what fans in the U.S. were looking for, or what fans in Southeast Asia are searching for. It seemed faster to take the data I had in my head on domestic content and link it to international fans. For example, trends in games can be generated from Discord conversations, and content can generate buzz without any marketing. I thought it would be faster for me to create such things by sending out information myself, rather than collecting data and creating a platform.”<h3> Using Twitter To Gain Traction</h3><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/2023_06_29_20_08_43_f466459c96.png" alt="スクリーンショット 2023-06-29 20.08.43.png">Takayuki decided to pivot to a business model using SNS. Japan IP Studio used Twitter to not only communicate with fans to identify and forecast trends, but also used that information to provide planning proposals to Japanese content creators and introduce content to overseas companies.&nbsp;However, building a fan-based business takes time. Though Takayuki was able to gain valuable data by using Twitter, it was difficult to show results in a short time frame. He decided to end his time at Moon after one year.The project was unfortunately terminated, but Takayuki decided to continue the operation on his own. He devoted his personal time to his blog and Twitter, promoting the account at his own expense and continuing to introduce Japanese productions to overseas users in English. Japan IP Studio’s Twitter account now has a following of over 10,000 international anime fans.<h3>Personal Experiences Benefit Businesses</h3>Takayki emphasizes that he learned the importance of personal growth through his research at Moon and his Twitter operation. "I took advice from consultants and actually tried it out, but there were few successful social networking strategies that could be applied directly to what I had heard. I had to try it myself."Takayuki explains further, "If you advertise too much, you are likely to lose followers rapidly afterwards. So, how much is just right?” He says that subtle adjustments to the strategy, like trying to find the right amount of advertising, would have been difficult to understand without actually trying it, and would have been something that no one could teach him.&nbsp;He believes that an individual’s hands-on experience brings the greatest benefits to a business group or organization. "Right now, I'm using my personal time to increase my social influence as much as possible through the Japan IP Studio account… I think it is better for individuals to first gain experience and then apply it to their own business where it will be mutually beneficial. That alone has the potential to create great synergy."Takayuki, who also holds an MBA from the University of Wales and a PLD (Program for Leadership Development) from Harvard Business School, shares that creating connections, such as the personal ties of alumni, can also help build business. "Harvard Business School has an alumni association called HBS Alumni. Everyone has left for their own paths, but the concept of alumni is to loosely unite them… in five or ten years, if the internal entrepreneurs at Mitsui and Moon can create synergies within their networks, the relationship between them should be a great asset.”&nbsp;He explains the necessity of networking, sharing information, and receiving feedback in order to make a business successful, and how a collaborative environment is beneficial for innovation. “It is similar to checking out of a hotel. ‘How was your stay? Please let us know if there is anything we can improve on, and please come back and have a nice trip!’ I think Moon is playing an important role in promoting such an environment within the Mitsui &amp; Co. group.”&nbsp;Learn more about Japan IP Studio on their&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Japan_IP_Studio">Twitter account</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://japanipstudio.hatenablog.com/">blog</a>. Alumni Interview<ul><li><a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/stories/interview-hiraoka">"Experiment Fast and Take Control" Anna Hiraoka</a></li><li><a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/stories/interview-tatsumi">"Be the target user" Yoshinori Tatsumi</a>&nbsp;</li></ul>

Our Programs

About Moon

Our Stories

Books as an Experience: How Author Narration Drives Listener Engagement

Hands-On: How an Entrepreneur’s Experience Helps Build Better Business

News

What does Artificial Life reveal about us?

The optimal solution between remote and office: who chooses where to work

ニュースレターに登録

Our Programs

About Moon

Our Stories

0 to 1 - Moon Stories Blog

Books as an Experience: How Author Narration Drives Listener Engagement

Hands-On: How an Entrepreneur’s Experience Helps Build Better Business

News

What does Artificial Life reveal about us?

The optimal solution between remote and office: who chooses where to work

ニュースレターに登録