SXSW Startups: Stroly
The Forrest Four-Cast: March 5, 2019
Fifty diverse startups will aim to impress a panel of judges and a live audience with their skills, creativity and innovation at SXSW Pitch Presented by Cyndx. Winners in 10 categories will be announced at the Pitch Award Ceremony at 6:30 pm Sunday, March 10, at the Hilton Austin.
A finalist in Entertainment and Content, which will pitch at 3:30 pm Sunday, March 10, Stroly empowers graphic maps by taking them online. It is an online platform for maps linked with location information. Anyone can upload and add their own maps, and find maps created by others near their current location. For free.
The maps can be the Historic Maps, Bar Hopping Maps, Craft Beer Maps, Movie-location Maps, or a map by your guest house hosts. It’s the way to share the way you see the world around you!
CEO Machi Takahashi answered some questions about her company.
Tell us about some of the branding advantages that come from using Stroly.
You can do branding of your area, cities, communities by illustrating with interesting points of views. It works really well in cities and towns with historic, cultural, and interesting ways of life to share the experience visitors can have there.
This year at SXSW we are hosting the official SXSW map online as well as amazing maps of Austin drawn by artists and some historic maps.
How does Stroly partner with academic institutions?
We help libraries and museums with making their collections come alive. Many institutions have digital archives of historic maps. We help these maps become useful for both locals and visitors. The locals find out about their history and become proud of their cities, while visitors really can get deep down to know the historical background and become fans of the area.
What is your competitive advantage?
Technology wise, it’s the only platform for illustrated maps that shows GPS positioning. But I really think our advantage is the concept of sharing the diverse perspective of the local points of view through unique maps.
Stroly is currently based in Kyoto, Japan. Tell us about the startup ecosystem there.
In Kyoto, there are many makers and game companies (Nintendo HQ is here). There is a Makers Boot Camp that supports startups in the makers field. We choose to be here because Kyoto is the No. 1 tourism city in Japan and that’s our target users.
In Japan, the startup scene is gradually growing. Compare to 5 to 10 years ago, the funds are bigger and there is a rise of unicorns.
How and when did your team come together?
We started our invention in a research institute in Kyoto, and became independent almost two years ago. We are not serial entrepreneurs, but come from various backgrounds.
Looking at the entire tech industry, what trend is your team most excited about?
Maps as media is something we think is exciting. Now the maps are made by big corporations and are top-down information. We think by making maps more open and diverse as they share the way they see the world, we can make the maps become media.
What has the startup experience taught you about life?
As a women entrepreneur in the tech field in Japan, it’s important to ask people to get involved, especially women, to help each other and find success together.
Look for more interviews with other SXSW Pitch finalists in this space between now and March.
Click here to see all 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch 2019, along with the links to their interviews on Medium.
Also, if you are an entrepreneur, check out all the cool panels and presentations in the Entrepreneurship and Startups Track, which runs March 8–12 at SXSW.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
