robertlaing's comments

robertlaing | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who were you before you were a silicon "valley-type techie"?

Married a Japanese girl in London (I'm British/Australian). She had been there for 10 years so perfect English. We decided to move to Japan a few months after we got married (more because I wanted to live there and see what it was like :)

Started Gengo a couple of years after arriving (in 2008). I wouldn't really have had the idea for the company if I'd stayed in the UK, because obviously it's all about the language barrier. Japan's not the easiest place to start a startup (it's quite a bit easier now, more funding etc) but it wasn't insane.

Onwards and upwards :)

robertlaing | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who were you before you were a silicon "valley-type techie"?

Web designer/programmer working in agencies in London, back in 2004.

A freelancer who was working for us quit and raised some money for a product idea. And friends, who had founded Last.fm, started getting a lot of traction.

About that time I realized "oh I don't need to work for agencies my whole life". Was very inspiring. I think that unless you've grown up in SV, gone to Stanford etc, that kind of idea is very uncommon.

Moved to Japan, started a startup.

All been downhill since then :) Gotta get off this crack :)