Today, I’m flying to Tokyo.
Not just for meetings, and not simply to add another city to my schedule. I’m going because there is a question I want to stand closer to.
“Is Japan next?”
There is something about Japan today that reminds me of Korea around 2010.
At the time, Coupang and Toss were still early stories. Woowa Brothers was still becoming itself. None of them felt inevitable yet. But within Korea’s own market, these companies eventually grew into outcomes that once seemed almost impossible.
Japan is more than twice the size of Korea.
That changes the nature of the question. Maybe the point is not whether Japanese startups can expand overseas. Maybe the deeper question is whether Japan’s domestic market is already large, complex, and mature enough to produce companies of global significance on its own.
Japan has always been a country I’ve quietly admired.
Its ability to turn tourism into a national strength, its deep respect for craftsmanship, and its cultural instinct to avoid causing discomfort to others have always felt deeply impressive to me.
These are not loud forms of power. But they are durable ones.
And perhaps that is why Japan’s next chapter interests me even more. If a startup ecosystem begins to grow from a society with this kind of depth, discipline, and sensitivity, it may not look like Korea, China, or Silicon Valley.
China and Korea both began by learning from global models. But their strongest companies did not remain copies. They absorbed what worked, translated it into their own context, and eventually became something only their markets could have created.
Perhaps Japan is now entering that same loop.
Starting today, I’ll be spending five days in Tokyo.
Rather than trying to summarize everything after the trip ends, I want to write as I go one day at a time. Small moments, passing thoughts, brief conversations, and subtle impressions that are easy to forget if left too long.
Because often, it is not the big conclusions that matter most, but the fragments.
A space that feels unexpectedly alive.
A quiet detail in how people interact.
A single sentence from a conversation that lingers longer than expected.
I’m going to Tokyo because I want to feel that possibility directly.
Not as a tourist. Not as someone looking for quick answers. But as someone trying to understand whether the next great ecosystem is already forming quietly beneath the surface.
This trip may not give me a conclusion.
But it may give me sharper questions.
And sometimes, that is where a better journey begins.