The host — a Startup Integrator
09STATES
Change to chance
- Practice
- Business design, AI, education
- In Seattle
- Seattle
- From
- Between Japan and the US
The host
Presents Made Between Markets, and runs it with Japan Seattle ABC Network.
Origins
- The technology, products, customers and shop-floor knowledge already inside Japanese companies
- Regional resources and brands that took decades to build
- Operating experience on both sides of the Pacific — retail, food service, engineering
New opportunities
- New markets, new brands, and the digital and AI products built on those assets
- A small test in a real market first, and the next decision made from what comes back
- Programmes where students and working professionals learn on live business problems
At a glance
Based in Seattle, 09STATES is a Startup Integrator. It connects the existing assets of Japanese small and midsize companies — products, technologies, customer bases, operational knowledge — with new markets, technologies, brands and talent, and stays involved from business concept through market validation, development and implementation. Rather than committing a large investment at the outset, it starts with small-scale tests and lets the results decide the next step.
In full
09STATES is an execution partner for Japanese small, midsize and regional companies. It starts from what a company already holds — technology, products, customers, shop-floor knowledge, the resources of a particular place — and works from there into new business, overseas markets, digital and AI, and the training of people. Based in Seattle, it stays involved past the concept and into the market test.
It calls itself a Startup Integrator. That does not only mean founding something from nothing: the work is to multiply existing assets by new perspectives, technology, markets, brands and people until they become a hypothesis someone can act on. Its strength is less in nought-to-one than in widening what already exists, and in combining businesses, regions and people that would not otherwise meet.
The method runs in five steps. Put the problem and the purpose into words, take stock of the assets already in the building, design the market and the value offered, test the reaction with a prototype or a trial sale, then decide the next move from what comes back. Small tests first, rather than a large commitment made before anyone has evidence.
Three practice areas carry that work: business design validated in the US market, digital and AI products built for a specific operational problem, and hands-on education run on live business problems. US TEST KITCHEN — where Japanese food businesses trial products and menus in a real American storefront and watch what customers actually do — comes out of the same thinking.
Made Between Markets sits on the same line. How is a maker with Japanese roots received on a Seattle street? A one-day market is a small way to find out. On the day, students handle the interviews, the storytelling and the running of it.