Terrie Lloyd, President and Founder of LINK Media.


Mr.Lloyd(on the left) with Prof.Tobin

�� "If you become successful at the beginning, don't become proud. Because pride is a dangerous thing. It is very distinct from confidence because pride is the first thing that destroys you before competition."

�� "To get started with a new business, you have to know what you need, or marketing"

                   Terrie Lloyd began to live in Japan when he was 25 years 
         old in 1983.At that time, he was not able to speak Japanese at all, 
         so he starts a translation company.  By the time the Bubble era came 
         and the yen began to rise against the US dollar, he was running an 
         advertisement company. But no foreign company was doing business 
         because of the rising yen. Taking advantage of this rising, he started
         to importing PC's into Japan, as a new business. Today he is the president 
         of Link Media and at the same time running several companies, 
         active in four countries.

                         He talked about M&A. In Japan selling companies or buying 
         it is not a common thing. But M&A brings benefits, not only to the buyer,
         but also to the seller. Actually, Terrie Lloyd has grown his company by 
         selling other of his companies and pouring money into new businesses.  
         "To get started with a new business, you have to know what you need, 
          or marketing", was one of the advices he gave us because he always 
          knew what he needed.
      
                          He also mentioned about the structure of companies.  
          "There are two structures to run a company: stock company[corporation] 
           and limited company", he said. Stock company have to put its money in 
           the banks for 2 to 3 weeks, therefore it costs money. On the contrary, 
           limited company have only to register the department to get start 
           business, and needs at least only 3 million yen. So to start your own 
           business as a venture company it would be more convenient to start as 
           a limited company.
                           
                           Terrie Lloyd has 1 to 10 rules when running company.  
           Sounds unique?  But it is not. It means one manager can control 
           10 persons. It is very important to separate the manager and the 
           producer. If your company grows big, try to stay small, because it 
           becomes difficult to control with only one leader.  
           That was another advice he gave us.

                           Starting a new business in Japan seems tough. 
           But there is a support group consisted by Japanese young presidents(YEO) 
           and of course Terrie Lloyd is a member of it. He said the younger you 
           are the better to start company, because the younger you are, the fresher 
           you are.  The fresher you are it is easier to break through society's 
           rules and to feel the freedom to be creative. The last suggestion 
           Terrie Lloyd gave us was : "If you become successful at the beginning, 
           don't become proud. Because pride is a dangerous thing.   
           It is very distinct from confidence because pride is the first thing that 
           destroys you before competition."  Surely, this is as difficult as being creative.

Written by FujikawaYasuyuki, edited by Kenjiro Tsujino
based on Mr.Lloyd's lecture on MAY 28, 1998

�� Check out LINK Media's internet page "Dai-Job ���v"

�� Hiroshi Mikitani �� Regge Life �� Graham Harris



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