Internet Tsunami

01 Oct 2000

Internet Tsunami

Re: Mickey Mikitani (MBA 1993)

Topics: Entrepreneurship-Corporate Entrepreneurship Technology-Internet Business Ventures-Business Startups

Hiroshi Mikitani (MBA '93) is the founder, president, and CEO of Rakuten, Japan's leading online shopping destination. He believes that because the Internet allows merchants to circumvent the many intermediaries who jack up prices in Japan, "it is going to completely rebuild the Japanese economic system, much more so than in the United States," the New York Times (June 7, 2000) reported.

Merchants, ranging from toy stores to fishmongers, pay a monthly fee to access Rakuten's e-commerce software and customer database. Merchants also enjoy low-cost advertising by signing up for Rakuten's service. As for customers, in addition to making purchases, they use Rakuten for online auctions and chats about the site's vendors.

According to Business Week (July 7, 2000), Rakuten, founded in 1997, has 3,100 vendors, attracts some 70 million page views per month, and in the first quarter of this year had operating profits of $1.9 million on sales of $4 million. Mikitani, formerly a banker at the Industrial Bank of Japan, became a man with a mission after attending HBS: He founded Rakuten, he told the magazine, because "I wanted to set up a real Internet business, a model for other start-ups in Japan to follow.

Featured Alumni

Mickey Mikitani

MBA 1993

Featured Alumni

Mickey Mikitani

MBA 1993

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