Hi there, this is Shigeta and I am in charge of Human resources here at Aldagram.

Aldagram Inc. develops and provides "KANNA," a project management application that increases on-site productivity in the construction, real estate, manufacturing, and other non-deskwork industries around the world. Since launching "KANNA" in July 2020, we have surpassed 12,000 companies using our application in just 2 years and 4 months.

Global expansion is also underway, where we released our English version in July 2022, Thai version in November 2022,, and Spanish version in December 2022. Including trial use, KANNA is used in over 10 countries.

This time, we have interviewed Mr. Ito, our Business Development General Manager/Executive Officer, about how we have been able to achieve such success with our global expansion through this kind of development.

ーーThank you very much for your time today! First of all, please give us a brief self-introduction and tell us about the work you are currently doing at Aldagram.

My name is Shinji Ito, and I am in charge of business development here at Aldagram.

After graduating from university, I joined a Japanese medical equipment manufacturer as a new grad.
responsible for sales and overseas business development at that company, I resigned and went to Spain for a year to study for an MBA.
After that, I worked as a consultant at McKinsey, a foreign consulting firm, for several years before joining Aldagram in August 2021.

Since joining Aldagram, I have been working on business development, including alliances/capital and business partnerships with major companies such as MonotaRO, as well as leading the global expansion, which has been underway since the release of the English version in July of last year.

ーーCould you tell us a little more about your duties?

My duties have changed from year to year. For example, until about June of last year (2022), I was in the start-up phase of the global expansion, so I conducted interviews, market research, competitive analysis, etc. with overseas companies.
After that, we started sales activities starting with the release of the English version of KANNA in July 2022, and had 60 business meetings from July to September 2022.
Since the beginning of this year (2023), we have been handling a wide range of tasks from lead acquisition to business negotiations, CS, and onboarding of partner companies.
Let me give you a brief description of each of these tasks.

1，Lead Acquisition
We acquire leads through direct approaches using social media, participating in overseas exhibitions, forming partnerships with construction-related companies, and so on.

2，Onboarding of Distributors
We provide extensive training to partner companies in Thailand and Dubai to enable them to sell KANNA, and we are continuing to find and develop other qualified distributors as well.

3、Negotiation
Online business meetings are the basic method, and during this period, we had business meetings with companies in Malaysia, the Philippines, Kenya, and India in a single day.
About once a month, I travel overseas for about a week to meet and propose to major customers and attend local exhibitions (in the Philippines, Thailand, etc.).

4、Customer Success (CS)
Customer Success is still underdeveloped in many areas, but for example, we already have a lot of onboarding and training programs underway in Thailand, which has a large customer base, and we have an increasing number of customers in Malaysia. We are also doing onboarding in Malaysia and other countries.

As described above, we are engaged in a wide range of business activities.

ーーAre all business meetings conducted in English?

Yes, the business meetings I attend are conducted mainly in English, Thai or Spanish. There are little to no opportunities for me to use Japanese in meetings with clients.

In a case where I do use Thai, it is because I am there to answer questions that the Thai distributor or partner can't answer. I don't understand 95% of what is said during the Thai meetings (lol).

As an addendum, during casual interviews/interviews, I often get questions like, "Is your client an overseas branch of a Japanese company?" But 98% of our current clients are local companies.

To truly become a global product, I believe that we need to be recognized by local companies, so we are aggressively marketing to local companies.

ーーAre you doing all of this work by yourself?

In 2022, Mr Nagahama (CEO) and I did most of the work, but Mr. Nakano joined us in January 2023, so we are now working together with him.

To provide some background, Mr. Nakano was born and raised in the States for more than 20 years, so he is a native English speaker. He has already been a big contributor to the growth of Aldagram`s global business.

In our case, we need to meet with executives of local companies in each market, understand their issues, gain their trust, and make proposals to them.

Therefore, the English language skills required for the Global Business Development and Global Customer Success positions we are currently recruiting for are limited to those with persuasive and high business level English skills. Our criteria for this is being able to conduct business negotiations in English and close deals on the sales side on a daily basis.

Also, in February 2023, Nan-san joined us (Thai National) and is handling the CS for our Thai customers base.

Interview with Nakano on why he joined the company

Interview with Nan on why she joined the company

ーーAfter the release of our English version in July 2022, you released the Thai version in November of the same year as the second phase of multilingualization. Why is that?

There are two main reasons.

First, our CEO, Mr. Nagahama used to work in Bangkok during his career before finding Aldagram, so we had a lot of connections in the country.

The second reason is that both Japan and Thailand have a social networking culture, so the use of chat application tools for construction management is similar, and there is still a lot of analog management even among listed companies.

In the course of our market research and interviews, we had a sense that KANNA was quite appealing, and we decided that this was a country where we could provide a lot of value to the market.

In fact, we released a Thai-language version of KANNA because we were receiving an increasing number of customers from listed companies who said they would subscribe to KANNA if a Thai-language version was available.

ーーAfter that, the third multilingualization project was in Spanish, wasn't it?

Yes, it was.
We released the Spanish version in December 2022.
The reason for Spanish is that Ivan, one of the founders of the company, is still living in Spain, and Latin America is all Spanish-speaking, so the market is quite large.

ーーWill you continue to expand your business worldwide? Have you narrowed down your focus areas?

As a result of market research and interviews conducted last year (2022), we have decided to focus on Southeast Asia and the Middle East, based on a variety of factors.

In particular, we plan to establish bases and focus on countries such as Thailand, which I mentioned earlier, where demand is likely to be large and where we can make a strong impact. In fact, we are in the process of establishing a corporation in Thailand and hiring a country manager to set up an office there,

Another important factor in expanding into Southeast Asia and the Middle East is the existence of partners.
We need to work together with our partners to capture the market, and to find partners in each country who are committed to our business and support us.
I have seen in the course of last year's activities that a partnership with a good partner can have a considerable influence, so I think we need to continue to work with them.

While supporting our partners, we need to build a system that will enable us to sell our products as we do in Thailand, while focusing on marketing as well.

ーーWith KANNA's product release itself still in its infancy stage, in July 2020, why have you already begun global expansion?

There are three main reasons.

The first is that we strongly felt that we could provide value to our Japanese clients because we have almost the same sense of issues in the industry as they do.
Over the last year, we have had many business meetings and hearings with companies in various countries, but the sense of the problem is the same: "Information on construction projects is exchanged by phone, e-mail, and chat tools, so project information such as documents and photos are not centralized.

Second, non-desk workers in construction, real estate, manufacturing, etc. exist not only in Japan but all over the world. I think it is very significant that we do not think of Japan and global development separately, but rather view the world as one market.

Third, we have the advantage of being the first to go global now. Project management applications have very high switching costs because daily communication, photos, and document data are accumulating rapidly. Therefore, I had a strong sense that if we did not go overseas now, the market would already be taken two years from now.

⇩The famous newspaper in Japan featured us. / Wednesday, July 13, 2022

ーーThere are very few Japanese software companies that have succeeded in global expansion, but what do you think is the reason for Aldergram's smooth global expansion?

If you ask me if it's smooth... we're having a lot of trouble (laughs).

Well, the fact that we have achieved this level of business negotiations, orders, and sales in just six months after releasing the English version may be considered a successful dash for a start.
Its safe to say that it wasn`t easy, but there are three reasons why our first step was successful.

The first, I think, is the commitment of the management.
Generally speaking, I often hear that even if a company is enthusiastic about global expansion, it seems to be very difficult when the management throws the job to someone else and in the end, the priority is lowered and it doesn't work out.
Selling software in Japan is a difficult task in itself, but expanding globally starts with proposing solutions to local companies that are not well known in the market.
Naturally, there are differences in culture, customs, and values in each country, differences in time zones, and it can be heartbreaking at times.
I think it is important to understand these aspects, and Mr. Nagahama, the CEO, himself goes overseas once a month for a week to conduct business.
So, I think it is important to have a strong commitment from the top management of the company and the belief that, "We will definitely become a global company!” to have a strong will and commitment in becoming a global company.

Secondly, there were several members who had global experience.

I also had the experience of studying abroad in Spain, and Ivan (Spanish) is the founder, and CEO Nagahama also studied in Canada, worked in Southeast Asia, and obtained his MBA in Spain, so I think the first thing is that we had team members.

Also, I know it is a mentality, but I think it is important not only to have team members, but also to have "the willpower to do whatever it takes, even if it is gritty work" (laughs).
(laughs) Since Japanese startup software is unknown overseas, it is not enough for us to be reactive and wait for inquiries.

I don't think it's possible to get that many leads from the beginning, so we approach them through cold emails and cold calls to acquire distributors and end users.
Not everything is glamorous, and it is important to be willing to do the dirty work.

Third, the strength of "KANNA" is its versatility and simplicity.
As mentioned in the Nikkei article of last July (see above), project management applications such as "KANNA" are categorized as "collaboration tools" like Zoom and Slack, and are not easily affected by laws and business practices, so it is easy to expand overseas.
Based on this premise, the versatility combined with its simplicity of the application, which can be used by a variety of non-desk workers in the construction, manufacturing, real estate, infrastructure, and other industries, has earned it a high reputation among overseas customers.

As an example, this story is about an Australian company, which was our first international order.

Of course, we conducted the meetings and negotiations in English, and I am embarrassed to say that I couldn't understand half of what they were saying (laughs) due to the strong Australian accent (and this may vary from person to person).
But even so, we were able to receive the order!
I think this means that our product they saw through Zoom really stuck with them.
I think the quality of our product really showed.

【Ivan, one of the founders】

M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence from University of Edinburgh, Ph.D. in Neuroscience from University of Navarra
Executive MBA from IE Business School.
Lead Data Scientist at Dativa, a leader in the global data science industry.
He is also an adjunct lecturer in the field of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Navarra.
He founded Aldagram Inc. in May 2019.

*Photo taken at a BBQ gathering with employees upon Ivan's return.

ーーWhat do you think are the advantages of working for a startup like Aldagram that is expanding globally in terms of career development?

The Japanese medical equipment company I joined as a new graduate had global operations, but when I joined the company, it already had "80% overseas sales, branches all over the world, and global colleagues," so to be honest, what I could do was quite limited.

At Aldagram, we just released the English version of "KANNA" in July last year (2022), and we have zero customers who know about "KANNA", zero employees in overseas branches, and zero partners. We are now increasing the number of customers and partners one by one.

Moreover, there are very few examples of successful Japanese software being used overseas, and I believe that the experience of developing software that is used around the world from scratch, from a situation that had not yet been created, has a very high market value.

If someone with such experience were to appear in front of me today, I think any company would probably hire him or her immediately.

Of course, it is not as easy as it sounds, as it is challenging to become a very valuable human resource. But I think the attractive point is that you`re able to see the world in a bigger picture after overcoming such a challenge.

ーーFinally, could you give a message to our readers?

Since this is a good opportunity, please let me promote a little more about the interesting aspects of working in Aldagram's global team.

I think there are two major things that make it interesting.

The first is, as I mentioned earlier, the future potential and business growth of “KANNA's” versatility.

“KANNA” is a project management application that improves the productivity of non-desk workers around the world, so it really has a wide range of customers.
In Japan, "KANNA" is used not only in the construction industry but also in the manufacturing, real estate, infrastructure, and amusement park industries, and globally, we have proposed to a Thai security company and a mold trading company.
Therefore, we do not go to solve a fixed problem for a certain industry or customer, but propose "KANNA" for various problems of customers in various industries and business categories, and create a market by repeating hypothesis testing on "this is the best way to sell to this market in this country". In a sense, it is very interesting to be able to work like a BizDev.
It is also interesting to build relationships with partner companies and make proposals, stirring up the imagination of "which partner would be good for this xx business and which partner would be good for this market?”
But I think this is possible because "KANNA" is truly a highly versatile product.

Second, as I may have mentioned earlier, I think I can form a "career in which I can develop software used around the world from the very beginning as a start-up from Japan.
In terms of global development, there are some Japanese software companies that have the potential to compete overseas, but I don't think there are many yet.
Therefore, I think it is interesting in a sense that if you join us now, we can build a global team together and start to build the foundation to spread "KANNA" around the world.

If you are interested, we look forward to hearing from you!

■job description
・Global Business Development (Japan location)
・Global Customer Success (Japan location)
・Senior Account Executive, Thailand
・Customer Success, Thailand

■Entrance book