1. UNDA VIDEO MESSANGER AND
THE FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION
a tale of a creator founded a startup in silicon valley
NAO TOKUI
徳井直生
徳井直生 @naotokui

2. SHORT BIO
• Researcher of Artificial intelligent
• Musician / DJ / Sound Artist
• Founded Qosmo, inc. 2009. Small collective of coders and artists.
IT x Music x Art
• Started working on “unda” video messenger in 2012.
Seed funded by a VC in Silicon valley.
• @naotokui / www.naotokui.net
徳井直生 @naotokui

3. TOPICS
• unda video messenger - ongoing story
!
• Startup 101 for Creators
• Lessons learnt in Silicon Valley
• How to avoid traps creators tend to fall into
徳井直生 @naotokui

4. PREVIOUS WORKS

5. Phonetica VoiceCosmos 2007

6. “N-BUILDING.app” 2009

7. Salyu “muse’ic” 2011

8. “World 9” 2008
!

10. “ M r. O f f l i m e / オ フ ラ イム 君 ” 2 0 1 2
!
h t t p : / /o f f l i. m e

11. unboxxx
“Brain Disco” 2012

12. M o r e o n w w w. n a o t o k u i . n e t

14. “unda” 2013
http://unda.me

15. ER
V
.1
1
!
ED
S
EA
EL
T R ITH
US W
GN
J
SI
DE
EW
N

16. UNDA HISTORY
• Oscar (CEO) and I met in 2011.
Started working on a prototype in Nov 2012
• May 2013, Got a seed fund from 500 Startups
• June 2013, The first launch!
• Oct 2013, Started Tokyo office
• Now we are a team of 6 people, incl. 4 iOS/Android developers
徳井直生 @naotokui

17. ORIGINAL UNDA TEAM
C EO
D e si g n e r
An dro id
C TO / iO S
Jalapeño Sushi
徳井直生 @naotokui

18. • sえ
@naotokui
徳井直生 @naotokui

20. Why
video Messaging?
徳井直生 @naotokui

21. 徳井直生 @naotokui

22. 徳井直生 @naotokui

23. THIS IS HOW
“I LOVE YOU”
SHOULD LOOK LIKE

24. Social Video ≠ Video Messaging

25. THINK OF VIDEO MESSAGING AS
A
VIDEO
walkie talkie
徳井直生 @naotokui

26. Yo u
SOCIAL VIDEO
Yo u r f o l lo w e r s

27. Yo u
Yo u r f r i e n d
VIDEO MESSAGING
Yo u
Yo u r f r i e n d s

28. WHAT’S New
ABOUT VIDEO MESSAGING??
徳井直生 @naotokui

29. 二十世紀の豫言
1901.1.2 - 3 報知新聞

30. • マルコニー氏發明の無線電信は一層進歩して只だに電信のみならず無線電
話は世界諸國に聯絡して東京に在るものが倫敦紐育にある友人と自由に對
話することを得べし
• 十九世紀の末年に於て尠くとも八十日間を要したりし世界一周は二十世紀
末には七日を要すれば足ることなるべくまた世界文明國の人民は男女を問
はず必ず一回以上世界漫遊をなすに至らむ
• 新器械發明せられ暑寒を調和する爲に適宜の空氣を送り出すことを得べし
亞弗利加の進歩も此爲なるべし
• 獸語の研究進歩して小學校に獸語科あり人と犬猫猿とは自由に對話するこ
とを得るに至り從って下女下男の地位は多く犬によりて占められ犬が人の
使に歩く世となるべし
• 人智は遺傳によりて大に發達し且つ家庭に無教育の人無きを以て幼稚園の
用無く男女共に大學を卒業せざれば一人前と見做されざるにいたらむ
• 衛生事業進歩する結果、蚊及び蚤の類は漸次滅亡すべし ………. などなど
徳井直生 @naotokui

31. 寫眞電話
PHOTO TELEPHONE
電話口には對話者の肖像現出
するの裝置あるべし

34. INFO.
VOLUME
per unit time
×
FREQ.
≒C
constant

35. VIDEO CALL
Information Volume
convenience
TEXT

36. T A P T A P, A T O U C H C O M M U N I C A T I O N W R I S T B A N D

37. EMOTION, NOT MEANING
I love you
I’m hungry

38. Issues
we are tackling
徳井直生 @naotokui

39. WHICH CAMERA OUR USERS USE
In Mexico
Back Camera
18%
83%
Front-facing Camera

40. WHICH CAMERA OUR USERS USE
In Japan
Front-facing Camera
25%
Back Camera
75%

41. ISSUE #1: AWKWARDNESS
• People tend to feel awkward to talk in front of video camera.
• How can we foster a new social norm?
• People are not used to shooting video.
• Filters and motion sticker might help to mitigate the
awkwardness.
徳井直生 @naotokui

43. EARLY PROTOTYPES

44. ISSUE #2: USE CASES
• Where is our target users?
What kind of use cases we can think of?
• We are not trying to replace text messaging
• Unda is for intimate communication.
• Couples (long-distance relationship)
• Family members.
• For illiterate people in developing countries (20% of population)
徳井直生 @naotokui

45. Text
NATURAL EVOLUTION OF
MESSAGING MEDIUM
Sticker
Video
Voice
Photo
?

46. LESSONS
LEARNT IN THE PROCESS
3 PITFALLS CREATORS SHOULD AVOID

47. http://www.flickr.com/photos/reinhard_schuldt/5173453428
1 . G O R GIE T I N ETR FEE C T ITN G L
1. FOD S P H DE AI
完成度に対する思い込みを捨てる

48. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fx-1988/4420186167/
2. RELEASE WHEN IT’S DONE
2. RELEASE AS FAST AS YOU CAN
とにかく速く!

49. EXAMPLE - COOL ANIMATION

50. EXAMPLE - LOCALIZATION
PREMATURE OPTIMIZATION

51. DO NOT TRY TO MAKE IT PERFECT
• Don’t think like “we cannot beat A with this poor quality” nor
“Their product B is better than ours in terms of degree of
completion”
• The question you should ask will be how you can find a niche
nobody has found nor tackled correctly as fast as possible.
• If users like your product even though it has limited feature set
yet, it means you found something unique and valuable.
徳井直生 @naotokui

53. 3 . B E L I E V E I N MO U R I IC SE A
Y ET
D
数字が友達
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grandmaitre/5846058698/

54. NUMBERS MATTER
• Do not believe your ideas, gut instinct, design esthetics … too
much.
• Keep your eyes on metrics.
• Know how users use your product through numbers and reflect
it into next release as fast as possible.
• You don’t have to be an expert of metrics.
徳井直生 @naotokui

55. RELEASE
AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!
YOUR
ORIGINAL
IDEA
VER 0.1
If your users finally love it,
then try to make it perfect
and scale!!
V
V E R 0 . 2 V E R V0E 3 V E 4 0 .R 0V 6 R 1 . 0
. R0. R E 5 .E
EUREKA!
Get user feedback.
T w e a k y o u r p r o d u c t A S A P.
ITERATE!

56. 1. Do not try to make it perfect!
2. Release as fast as possible!
3. Listen to your customers/users.
Keep your eyes on numbers.
徳井直生 @naotokui

57. E
AR !
E NG
W
I
IR
H

58. Thanks for your time!
• nao@unda.me
• twitter: @naotokui
• www.naotokui.net