Reviews website Yelp enters Japan to open a branch station

Absrtact: At the 2014 Japan New Economy Annual Meeting in Tokyo, Jeremy Stoppelman, the co-founder and CEO of Yelp, officially announced that they would open the restaurant in Japan to comment on the site. We've been doing it for years, and there's a lot of people coming back this morning

At the 2014 Japan New Economy Annual Meeting in Tokyo, Jeremy Stoppelman, the co-founder and CEO of Yelp, officially announced that they would open the restaurant in Japan to comment on the site.

"We've been doing it for years and there are a lot of people coming back to corporate headquarters this morning and they are very excited to see the switch and then go to the site and apply that stuff we've been doing for a long time." You can now access through Yelp.co.jp. ”

In September 2012, Yelp entered the first Asian market, Singapore. When Japan became the second stop in Asia, it became the 26th market to enter the world. The decision to enter Japan was encouraged by Salesforce Marc Benioff.

Stoppelman said, Benioff shouted to him: "Why don't you go to Japan?" After continuing to be "rebuked", he said his decision to enter the Japanese market was becoming clearer.

Unique obstacles

Although there is a personal interest in Japan, he said, Singapore is the best choice in Asia, because there is no need to adjust the language, he also discussed his team in Japan to open a shop in the challenges.

Japan has some unique challenges, such as the special difficulty of writing in search. However, we have long known that this is a very attractive market. Historically, Japan had a unique cultural market for American companies, and there was always a notion that Japan was different, such as the Japanese culture of anonymity.

He pointed out that the initial concern was that Facebook did not work in Japan because Japanese users were unwilling to show their true identity, and that the worry proved pointless. Facebook finally defeated the country's most popular social networking Mixi in 2012, with 21 million active users in Japan last year.

Explaining the difference between some of the same services in Japan, such as the popular restaurant reviews website Tabelog, he said the company's contribution to the community, as well as a richer opportunity to comment on.

You can make new friends and connect with each other online, or have a unique part, but most importantly, this service can span different business activities, you can comment on any store with a fixed address.

Target for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Speaking of whether he will attend next year's annual meeting, saying that the company has achieved success in Japan, he said that he is actually thinking of further things, especially in 2020, "I think that time, when the Olympics came to Tokyo, we hope to become a household name." ”

For future expansion in the region, he said the company was looking for other bigger markets, but did not disclose a specific release plan.