We're one week removed from HEEX 2025, which makes it long overdue for a little summary post of this year's Hokkaido Innovation Week events 👏
For this year's HIW, we hosted two events: HEEX 2025, and Brews & Complaining 🎤☕
HEEX 2025 was everything we had hoped it would be, and was in many ways the most "complete" version of the original HEEX event vision: The pitch relay showcased a diverse array of startups either based in, or inbound toward, Hokkaido, focusing on what they needed to take their startups to the next level🎤 The new event format addition, our Hokkaido Entrepreneurship Fireside Chat, added a completely different level of depth to the event, with 1 hour of our panelists (with some audience members even joining the panel briefly) sharing their experiences running a company in Hokkaido, and discussing what needs to be next for our ecosystem to keep on growing and flourishing 🔥
Combined with the drink selection provided by local entrepreneur Matt Chen (Chen&Coffee), the beautiful venue provided by our sponsor TREEBASE, and the amazing, super engaged audience, this HEEX event rendition managed to cover all the main reasons that our organization exists: To shine a spotlight on our local startups, and to strengthen and grow our ecosystem 👏
Brews & Complaining on the following day, had a much more humble aim, which it managed to deliver on: Get the entrepreneurship community together for some high quality brews, and some high quality complaining ☕ Once again with TREEBASE providing a comfortable environment, and lovely views of the heavy Sapporo snowfall, and with Matt Chen providing the brews 👏 The event was peaceful, or at least as peaceful as an event devoted to complaining can be, and the timeless combination of good coffee and venting hopefully allowed everyone to face another day of entrepreneurship struggles, with renewed energy and fighting spirit 💪🔥
We're proud of the two events we hosted this year, and knackered from the effort it took to make everything come together. However, there's no rest for the wicked, and even less for entrepreneurs, so we're already scheming our next events and initiatives - make sure to follow to keep up with future HEEX projects!
A massive, massive thank you to STARTUP HOKKAIDO and the Hokkaido Innovation Week team for once again letting us host a set of HIW spin-off events - it means the world to us! Thank you to Mr. Matt Chen of Chen&Coffee for providing both brews and good vibes to both events - we hope to collaborate with even more local entrepreneurs in the future, of course with Matt included! And finally, a massive thank you to our sponsors TREEBASE and Guramu Software - it's thanks to generous sponsors like them, that we can keep growing the scale and ambition level for our events 🙇♂️
The Hokkaido ecosystem is small, but mighty - if we keep focusing on our unique strengths, and learn from the world around us, there's no limit to our potential 🏔🗾
