Three Female Entrepreneurs Discuss Foundational Experiences at IVS 2026
The panel challenged the common assumption that female entrepreneurs are driven by personal pain, arguing that foundational experiences can be acquired later in life or borrowed from others, and that treating them as a narrow origin story can limit a business's perspective.
Reporting from 1 source: 4Gamer.net.
At the startup festival IVS 2026, a panel of three female entrepreneurs discussed whether foundational experiences are an asset or a bias in business. Moderated by Takanori Oshiba of East Ventures, the panelists-Fumiko Inada, Mayu Konno, and Sekiko Suzuki-explored how to avoid narrowly defining foundational experiences, sometimes even hiding them, and connecting them to the market.
The session, part of the startup festival IVS 2026, was moderated by Takanori Oshiba of East Ventures, a venture capital firm where about half of portfolio companies are founded by women. Oshiba argued that foundational experiences are often too narrowly defined as past hardship or personal pain. He said they can also include facts encountered as an adult or the challenges of someone close, and that everyone has them.
Panelist Sekiko Suzuki of NEWSTA said for her second startup she first decided on a theme-solving a difficult problem that would take at least 10 years-and then layered her own issues onto it. Mayu Konno of Reelu described a foundational experience that was not her own: a talented friend whose resume was rejected due to a dropout history, which led Konno to imagine a video-based job platform. Fumiko Inada of Bee-Informatica noted that many women start businesses from issues tied to daily life or passions, while a male entrepreneur she knew chose his theme based on profitability and scalability.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.