train.jsonl

{"text": "Seven years after its founding, Natee is handing over the reins of its business.\n\n39\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nNovember 4, 2025 11:00\nOn August 8, 2025, Natee Inc. announced that it would join the Akatsuki group. Thank you very much to everyone who congratulated us!\n\n\nI have now decided to step down as Representative Director of Natee Inc., which I founded on November 1, 2018, and become Chairman of the Board of Directors. The next Representative will be Oe, who was an Executive Officer and Business Manager.\n\nNatee Co., Ltd. transitions to new management structure in its 8th fiscal year\nNatee Co., Ltd. Press Release (November 4, 2025, 10:00 AM) Natee Co., Ltd. transitions to new management structure as it enters its eighth fiscal year\nprtimes.jp\nIt is with great emotion that I announce the transition of Natee's CEO, after seven full years since the company was founded, which have been such an intense period that seems both long and short, short and long at the same time.\n\nWe will also be writing about the background to the change in CEO, introducing the two new directors, and our future challenges, so please stay tuned!\n\nChanges in executive structure\nStarting November 1, 2025 (8th term), Natee's executive composition will be as follows:\n\nRepresentative Director and CEO: Yusuke Oe;\nDirector and CHRO: Shota Nishibayashi\n; Chairman: Ryoken Kojima\n; Director: Kazuhiko Ishikura (Akatsuki Executive Vice President, CFO and CSO)\n\nCRO Asato has become COO and director of AI Talent Force, which will be discussed later, CFO Ozawa has been transferred to Dawn Capital, the venture investment fund of parent company Akatsuki, and Natee has completely stepped down from both positions.\n\nI will remain as Chairman of the Board and provide support, but I have no intention of ruling the company from behind the scenes, and as Natee, I will leave all final decision-making for the company to Oe.\n\nThat said, I have made very few decisions regarding the business over the past two years in particular, and Oe and Nishibayashi have essentially been running everything, so there may not have been much change in the actual business.\n\nWe have also now appointed Mr. Ishikura from Akatsuki, who has been supporting us as a shareholder since Natee invested in us six years ago, as a member of our board of directors.\n\nHe was previously CFO at 3 Minutes, so he is familiar with the advertising industry and the creator market, and Natee believes that having Mr. Ishikura on board will lead to major financial initiatives, which will be a major change for us.\n\nLet me introduce you to Oe, the new representative, and Nishibayashi, Oe's partner who is leading the entire organization!\n\nYusuke Oe, the \"crazy committed man\"\nimage\nOe joined the company in February 2021.\n\nAs a top salesman who had been awarded an award by the (old) Recruit Lifestyle, which only 11 people out of 1,300 were selected for, he was naturally highly sought after and had received job offers from around 10 companies. And for some reason, he decided to join Natee, which was an apartment-style company with a salary offer that was significantly lower than other companies. Apparently, the deciding factor was that he passionately talked about Hunter x Hunter during the interview (I think).\n\nAt the time, the organization had just collapsed, so we thought thoroughly within the company about \"who to get on the bus,\" as the book \"Good to Great\" says. We changed our hiring requirements to focus on strong employees who sympathize with our mission, and Oe was the first person to join us.\n\nHe's not particularly skillful, but he's one of the most tenacious and committed people I've ever met . I've seen a lot of people, including entrepreneurs, but I think he stands out among them with his exceptional level of commitment. He has an extraordinary grit that allows him to see things through once he's made a decision.\n\nOver the past four and a half years, he has never wavered in his commitment. His obsession with client results and his love for creators are stronger than anyone else's, and he never does a quick job. He always gives his all at the time and never compromises.\n\nNaturally, it is very difficult for those around him to work with the uncompromising Oe, but even so, as they are exposed to his earnest daily life, they come to admire and respect him (I am one of those people).\n\nOe is also the kind of person who makes it a part of his morning routine to recite Natee's mission and values ​​every morning. I 'm confident that it's because of Oe, a man of such insane and crazy commitment, that Natee will become a truly strong organization, contribute even more to our clients, and create new value together with creators that doesn't exist in the world.\n\nPlease also read the article in which Oe talks with Dentsu creative director Tatara. In it, Oe passionately talks about his goal: \" I want to create a world that will be perceived as 'interesting' 200 years from now, just like it is today.\"\n\n\nNishibayashi Shota, the \"Miracle Balancer\"\nimage\nThe company would not have been able to run on its own, with the clumsy Oe, but Nishibayashi, who will become Director and CHRO, keeps things in order with an exquisite sense of balance. I am truly grateful to Nishibayashi for the organization Natee has today.\n\nNishibayashi joined the company a year and a half after Oe, in August 2022. As a new graduate, he was seconded from D2C to Dentsu, and then served as an executive officer at Libalent, which handles Yoshimoto Kogyo's digital business, before joining Natee. I think there were about 15 employees at the time.\n\nWhen he joined the company, his wife, who works in the financial industry, asked him, \"If you're going to a venture, have you looked at the financial statements properly?\" I remember Asato frantically explaining the company's financial situation to Nishibayashi (laughs).\n\nNishibayashi, who was originally a hardcore agency salesman, also set up an agency team at Natee, and grew it to a scale of about 400 million yen in sales within the second year. After that, Nishibayashi volunteered, saying, \"I think what Natee lacks is organizational strength. I'd like to take a look at the organization as a human resources manager.\"\n\nFor a while, he was in charge of both the agency team and the HR department, but since last fiscal year, he has finally become the HR manager, and he has been working tirelessly and with great energy. By the way, he is a superman who continues to work in agency sales, generating impressive numbers.\n\nNishibayashi didn't start out with a career in human resources, but rather has worked hard on the front lines and achieved results, which is why I think the culture has a great balance of tightening things and livening things up .\n\nAnd above all, he loves planning. I also participate in many weddings in my position, but his weddings are planned with an extremely high level of perfection and quality, and I felt that this was because of his hospitality, which is to \"enjoy the people who come.\" All of the work he does is wrapped up in hospitality.\n\nThat's why the quality of our company events has improved dramatically since he became the head of HR (laughs). But as was the case at my previous job at Vision, company events are not to be underestimated. In fact, I think that strong companies have extremely high quality company events (a recent example is Yutori).\n\nThanks to Nishibayashi, I feel that Natee is becoming able to combine both strength and fun, and I look forward to seeing what happens to Natee as Nishibayashi takes the lead in creating it.\n\nWhat are you doing?\nNow, let me tell you about what my main focus will be after I step down as chairman.\n\nNow that I've made some money through M&A, people often say to me, \"Your life is over now!\" or \"Are you having fun?\"\n\nBut humans are strange creatures. When I had no money, I would borrow money to spend it, but when I have money, I stop spending it. In fact, my credit card statement is decreasing every month.\n\nSo what do I do? I work pretty much from morning to night, and I'm more committed to AI Talent Force, which was launched as a subsidiary of Natee in August 2024.\n\nFrom the beginning, we had planned to utilize Akatsuki's capital and assets to quickly launch the AI ​​field on a large scale, so now that we have changed capital-wise from a subsidiary of Natee to a subsidiary of Akatsuki, and over the past year we have also assembled a team of six reliable executives in each field, it feels like we are finally at the starting line of the battle.\n\nWhen I founded Natee in 2018, I started it all by myself without knowing what to do, and I researched each step and struggled along the way. I remember the days of twists and turns and it was by no means the shortest route.\n\nBut this is my second time starting a business, and with Akatsuki's capital and some confidence in my track record, I'm a little happy to see how much of a difference there is in the way you start a business. Of course, I'm sure I'll still be struggling (and actually, I still am), but it's true that the speed and accuracy of my decision-making has improved dramatically.\n\nThe creator agency WOWs has also spun out from Natee as a subsidiary of Akatsuki, so Natee Oe, WOWs Lee, and AI Talent Force Kojima are now all rivals as subsidiaries (laughs).\n\nAI Talent Force is the latest to enter the market and has the smallest sales volume, so we feel a bit out of place. We would like to quickly get off to a rocket start in the AI ​​field and surpass both Natee and WOWs.\n\nImmediately after the M&A, I did my best to buy as much Akatsuki stock as possible, hoping to contribute to the company's performance enough to increase the stock price.\n\nConclusion\nCoincidentally, I turned 33 today. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of person I will be at 40 after the next seven years of challenges.\n\nWe hope you will continue to support the new Natee, WOWs, AI Talent Force, and the Akatsuki Group!"}
{"text": "I want to create a great company that rivals and surpasses Recruit and CyberAgent.\n\n67\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nDecember 7, 2022 09:00\nMy name is Ryoken Kojima, and I am the representative of Natee Co., Ltd.\n\nToday, we announced that we have raised 420 million yen in Series B funding. Benesse is the lead investor, and we welcomed new shareholders Revamp, Shizuoka Capital, GMO NIKKO, and several individual investors, and existing shareholders XTech Ventures and Cubic Ventures have also made additional investments.\n\nIn this round, we will be raising funds only from companies with which we have previously done business on projects, and from individuals with whom we have had long-term relationships. We believe this is the result of recognition not only of our business domain and performance, but also of our daily work, and we are extremely grateful and humbled by this.\n\nI'm not particularly good at PR, and since we call ourselves a simple and robust startup, I'm aware that I don't like to make a big deal out of things that don't have substance. However, considering the golden rule of marketing that \"not being recognized is the same as not existing,\" I believe that PR is extremely important, so I created a special website.\n\n\nGo to the fundraising website\nSo here I am, writing this note with such an incredibly provocative title (panting since the night before the release), but because it's something I truly believe, I'm going to be bold and share it with society. I also feel like I want to follow the example of Cyber's Fujita, who has always spoken honestly and without pretense.\n\nMessage from the President | CyberAgent, Inc.\nCyberAgent has a vision of \"creating a company that represents the 21st century\" and is providing various services in the Internet field that are in line with the changing times.\nwww.cyberagent.co.jp\nIt's well known that Fujita has been writing a blog for a long time, and you can actually read all of the articles from the company's founding in 1998 all the way through to 2022. It's a valuable asset in the IT industry that even writings that would be embarrassing to read now remain, and they give us a glimpse into what Fujita was thinking at the age of 25 (laughs).\n\n\ntable of contents\nWhat kind of company is Natee?\nIt's just a TikTok influencer marketing company, right...?\nWhat exactly is a Great Company?\nNot every start-up business lasts for 30 years.\nBusiness development skills are essential to creating a company that continues to grow\n\"Life 2.0\" and new businesses in the virtual realm\nOrganizational strength is the source of long-term value\nWe are looking for colleagues to help us create a great company!\nWhat kind of company is Natee?\nFirst of all, let me introduce myself again, as I'm sure there are many people who don't know about Natee. Our company was founded on November 1, 2018, and for the past four years we have been running a promotional company that utilizes creators active on TikTok.\n\nimage\nMonthly sales have grown to nearly 200 million yen, the number of employees has exceeded 50, and by February 12 new colleagues had joined the company, with nine new graduates set to join in April.\n\nNatee, a company that has grown rapidly through its unique data analysis of teens and twenties, has raised 120 million yen from XTech Ventures and others. Its data platform enables effective influencer marketing...\nNatee Inc. Press Release (November 9, 2020, 10:00 AM) Natee is growing rapidly through unique data analysis of teens and twenties\nprtimes.jp\nIt's been over two years since we raised funds from XTech Ventures and others in September 2020, and I was the only one in the photo from the company, but this time I was photographed with nine people at the department manager level or above. They were all incredibly reliable, and it was a very moving experience.\n\nimage\nIt's just a TikTok influencer marketing company, right...?\nYes, that's right. That's exactly right. There's no doubt that TikTok is a company that we talk about everywhere, but there's a vague feeling that Natee is not just that.\n\nOne is that TikTok is not a company that just wants to sell. Well, if we can sell it, we'd love to sell it as much as we can (laughs). Natee initially started out as a creator agency, aiming to be \"the TikTok version of UUUM.\"\n\nWe now operate more like an advertising agency, but the total amount that Natee has paid to creators so far has exceeded 600 million yen. To me, this is the same as \"creating unique jobs worth 600 million yen,\" and this is exactly what Natee wants to do.\n\nThrough the self-expression that can be achieved through smartphones, fans gather around your personality and talent, which then becomes media value, leads to corporate opportunities, and before you know it, it becomes a way of life. I simply think this is the most exciting thing ever, so it's incredibly rewarding.\n\nI previously wrote a note summarizing the creator economy, so if you have time, please read it (of course, there are many points where my views differ from now).\n\n\nSecondly, as Nikkei has also covered in the context of data on \"TikTok sales,\" I am using my engineering background to develop my own creator database called \"Edison\" in order to make this industry, which is full of black boxes, as visible as possible.\n\nNatee, TikTok advertising effectiveness analysis\nNatee (Shibuya, Tokyo), which handles marketing using the video sharing app \"TikTok,\" has reported that advertising videos have actually generated sales.\nwww.nikkei.com\nIn a world where cookies are regulated and CPAs soar, it's certain that which tribe you belong to and who you buy from will become important, and we're working with the goal of being able to show with data that \"this is definitely leading to a purchase.\" In the advertising domain, I think there's no other way than data assets to take on the challenge of changing the order of magnitude of tens of billions, not billions.\n\nWhat exactly is a Great Company?\nWhile expressions like \"We made a killing on TikTok,\" \"We jumped on the trend,\" and \"We're just a typical influencer marketing company\" may describe us that way at the moment, we truly want to become a \"Great Company.\"\n\nAt Natee, we use the expression \"Great Company\" a lot. We use it a lot. It's a term that originally appeared in the management classic \"Good to Great,\" and the concept comes from there.\n\nSmart people often ask me to define a Great Company, but there is no such thing, and I don't think it's necessary. I think it's fine if you can see yourself as Great.\n\nHowever, we felt that it was not good to have too many benchmarks to aim for, so the management team once sat down and discussed, \"What kind of Great Company should we aim to be?\"\n\nWe each wrote down what we thought were great companies, about 200 companies, on sticky notes, and then we thoroughly discussed each one, asking questions like, \"What do you think of Apple?\", \"What about Keyence?\", and \"What about Nintendo?\"\n\n\"I think it's amazing, but we don't want to have such a military-like culture,\" \"It's in a domain so different from ours that I can't really imagine it,\" \"It seems a bit unrefined,\" and so on. We all exchanged comments and debated from all sorts of angles, and it was a great time where we all came to a consensus on our values.\n\nAnd so what remained were four companies that coincidentally have a difference of one digit each: Amazon, ByteDance, Recruit, and CyberAgent. Of course, these four companies are completely different, and that may change in the future, but I personally find these goals to be very convincing.\n\nimage\nThey are leading companies in their industry, they provide a large amount of value to society, they have a culture where young people thrive, and they have undergone countless changes. Natee would like to be nominated there too. So how?\n\nNot every start-up business lasts for 30 years.\nI love the company Nintendo, and there was a time when I studied them extensively. Nintendo, the creator of the Switch, which has sold over 100 million units and continues to do so at a rapid pace, was originally a Hanafuda card company.\n\nAmerican Express, the credit card company, was originally a delivery company. The convenience store Lawson was a milk store that prided itself on freshness, Sanrio sold silk, and SoftBank was a software distribution company.\n\nI think business is about anticipating the gravity of the world and leading the way a little ahead of the times, rather than creating something new. The world is a complex web of things, yet it's always heading somewhere. As the world changes, business has no choice but to change as well, and this order is never reversed.\n\nIn addition to the macro perspective, when looking at individual business owners, there is the problem that their capabilities are at their lowest at the time of starting a business . They lack the ability to select a business, the ability to manage, and the mental model they have as a business owner has not been developed. Many startups create services with low market resolution and end up raising funds too quickly, which means they are unable to pivot easily and their goal is to prolong their life.\n\nEvery business has its upside. Of course, it would be best if you could select a business with no obvious upside, like Amazon, but it's extremely difficult. Even Mercari, the most successful startup of the last decade, has an upside, at least when viewed domestically, which is why they're going overseas and trying out so many new businesses at Souzo.\n\nThat's why at Natee, we call our short movie business, which is centered around TikTok, our \"foundation business.\" We believe that the business will still be growing at a rapid pace five years from now, and we are determined to have launched multiple other businesses by then.\n\nBusiness development skills are essential to creating a company that continues to grow\nOn the other hand, an anti-pattern for startups is often cited as \"starting a new business around Series B.\"\n\nVC startup investments are a model in which 2% of investments generate almost all of the returns. This means that 49 out of 50 companies either don't contribute much to returns or are in the red. Therefore, the logic holds that portfolios are created by investors, and startups should generate upside with a single product.\n\nAlso, from the perspective of resource allocation for resource-poor startups, it is necessary to win local battles, so it can be said that concentrating resources is the right thing to do. This is definitely correct.\n\nIn fact, the brain resources of the management, which are arguably the most important in a startup, are split between the existing and new businesses, and when the business is split into two, it basically makes things like sectionalism more likely to occur, which is not a good thing from the perspective of organizational management. When the business is split into two, the difficulty level doesn't just double, but increases by about 10 times.\n\nSo why did Natee start a new business knowing there were potential problems? I can only think that it's because he wants to become a great company.\n\nFukushima from LayerX has written a very clear article about this topic, so I recommend you read it, but I think the summary can be summed up in the following sentence: We must learn from history.\n\n\nIf you study these great companies, you'll see one thing they all have in common: they launched a second business before the first one was fully mature .\n\n\"Life 2.0\" and new businesses in the virtual realm\nSo what exactly are you guys going to do with your new business? To be honest, there hasn't been much progress to write about here. We've tried a lot of different things, but nothing that we can say is taking off.\n\nWhen selecting a business, I basically try to choose something that I think will generate 10 billion yen in sales. In addition, there aren't many businesses or timing that perfectly match the three elements of technological advancements, market trends, and user sensitivities.\n\nAnd even if you're lucky enough to find one, there's the issue of whether you can pull it off with your own logistics. For example, even if you think, \"A game that combines horse racing and beautiful girls will be popular!\", it actually took five years to create Uma Musume. I wonder how much it would have cost to arrange the horse rights, produce the anime, and create a game of that quality...\n\nHowever, one thing I can say is that we are not just good at anything, but we want to be involved in some way in people's lives and lifestyles . We are not a company that is particularly interested in reforming industrial structures or things like that.\n\nWhat I'm doing with my short movie business is to create a world where ordinary, nameless people can be recognized by society for their individuality and talents, and turn them into money. It's like updating your life, so to speak, and I'm calling it \"Life 2.0.\"\n\nOf these, what I'm most excited about right now is avatars, the communication that's possible only because of them, and the communities that can be created through them. If I were to use a more elaborate term, it might be called the \"metaverse,\" but I don't particularly see any potential in VR, and I don't really understand Web3, so maybe I shouldn't use that term too much.\n\nThe reason I chose avatars is because, although it may seem like a cliché, I feel an ecstasy in being freed from innate tags like age, gender, and appearance, and instead being given greater value by acquired tags like personality and inner self . I also think there's a connection to the kind of relationship where you can talk about anything to someone you don't know, even if you don't know their face or name. Like a nail salon or your favorite bar?\n\nThis virtual avatar field is a huge wave, and we feel it is worthwhile for us to take on this challenge, so we will continue to go through trial and error in determining the form of output, but we are determined to create a service that will blossom.\n\nHowever, of course, this can only be possible with the foundation of the short movie business. If this foundation collapses, there will be no time to even think about trying something new. Naturally, I want to grow the short movie business that was founded as a company as much as possible, so that in 2-3 years people won't say, \"Ah, after all, Natee shouldn't have started a new business.\"\n\nAnd if, by any chance, the foundation were to be shaken, we would mercilessly stop any new business ventures and devote all our efforts to building the foundation. In the Edo period, when there was a plentiful harvest of rice, people would stockpile it to prepare for times of depression, so what we do now is not that different from what we did back then (laughs).\n\nOrganizational strength is the source of long-term value\nI have the utmost respect for the company CyberAgent and find it extremely instructive.\n\nSometimes I stay alone in a hotel and have time to read a lot of books, and this time I decided to do some thorough research on CyberAgent, so I came up with this lineup (you can see a bit of Nagamori-san and Ezoe-san in it...lol).\n\nimage\nCyberAgent has been growing its digital advertising since its founding, and has been able to capitalize on large-scale investment media such as Ameba and ABEMA. The reason this is possible is because of its gaming business, which has been able to create the monster IP Uma Musume. Isn't this a model of portfolio management?\n\nimage\nhttps://www.cyberagent.co.jp/career/data/id=24407\nWhat's even more frightening is that they manage to balance B2B and B2C businesses. The capabilities and cultures are completely different, so achieving high results in both must require no small organizational effort.\n\nWhat is the reason for this careful selection of values? There are probably many reasons, but above all, I think CyberAgent's greatest competitive advantage is its unique organizational culture.\n\nOrganizational assets don't appear on financial statements. To be more precise, they are recorded as costs, such as labor costs. However, in order for a company to continue growing over the long term and reach the standard of being a Great Company, I believe that it is necessary to create a Great organization, not just a Great business ."}
{"text": "Second Blog Example\n\nAnother example post. Replace with your actual content.\n\nThe parser also supports:\n- Markdown headers (# Title) as separators\n- Double blank lines between posts\n- But the === BLOG START/END === format is most reliable"}
{"text": "Second Blog Example\n\nAnother example post. Replace with your actual content.\n\nThe parser also supports:\n- Markdown headers (# Title) as separators\n- Double blank lines between posts\n- But the === BLOG START/END === format is most reliable"}
{"text": "Thoughts on the \"Startup Winter Era\": The job of an entrepreneur is to interact with customers\n\n43\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nOctober 28, 2022 06:00\nMy name is Kojima and I am the CEO of Natee Inc., which works with creators to promote short movies.\n\nThe Nikkei newspaper is currently running a series called \"Winter Startups.\"\n\nWinter Startups 1: The Impact of 90,000 Layoffs\n\"There wasn't enough time to change the direction of the company,\" said the CEO of CommonBond, a U.S. company that offers student loan refinancing services.\nwww.nikkei.com\nWinter Startups 2 \"We will not be investing\"\n\"We will postpone the investment,\" said Isamu Nakanishi, chief financial officer of Schoo (Shibuya, Tokyo), a company that distributes educational videos, in the summer.\nwww.nikkei.com\nWinter Startups 3: Unlisted Stocks Remain High in Japan\n\"The stock prices of unlisted Japanese companies remain high,\" said the head of Japanese equity investment at Hong Kong-based investment fund Tyborn Capital Management.\nwww.nikkei.com\nReading this, it seems as if the startup era is over. In fact, from my own observations, the optimistic mood that had been building up until 2021 has faded, and it seems that a great many companies are being forced to change to a management structure that prioritizes profits.\n\nHowever, if you look at it from another perspective, the bonus time just ended and things settled into a normal form, so I feel like it was actually a good thing. No matter how you look at it, the 80x PSR was a world line that's a little hard to explain, that's what I understand.\n\n\ntable of contents\nWhat is fundraising in the first place?\nCapital markets begin to rapidly reverse\nCustomer needs/pains remain the same\nUltimately, it is the manager's job to make a profit.\nConclusion\nWhat is fundraising in the first place?\nPutting aside the question of what you can talk about, I will write down my thoughts to help organize my understanding.\n\nI believe that it is best to run a company that is debt-free and 100% owned. For example, if you had 100 billion yen, would you start a business by borrowing money from a bank or getting investment from a venture capital firm? The more confident you are, the more likely you are to want to do it with your own money, right?\n\nHowever, the reality is that no one has 100 billion yen, so most people start from scratch. Even if you run a debt-free company, you will never be able to create an Amazon or Mercari. To achieve overwhelming growth, you will definitely need to raise additional resources. It takes a very long time to make profits from your business and reinvest them.\n\nIn terms of difficulty, I think that the hurdle of raising 100 million yen in funds is 100 times higher than the hurdle of keeping 100 million yen in profits.\n\nIn the process of striving for rapid growth beyond one's capabilities, there will inevitably come a phase in which capital is leveraged and invested. So a good fundraising environment is fundamentally a great thing, and companies that raise capital will make bold investments and grow rapidly, and even after going public, the rate of increase or decrease in stock prices will be many times higher. They will use the money raised through IPOs to make further investments or engage in M&A, and up until 2021, many mega-sized startups were born by leveraging capital to the max.\n\nCapital markets begin to rapidly reverse\nThe financial economy is several times larger than the real economy, and bubbles periodically burst. The triggers may be different from time to time, but the economy is designed to expand and burst repeatedly.\n\nOnce a bubble bursts, or even if it doesn't collapse, it enters a correction phase, and stock prices fall to unbearable levels. Amazon's stock price fell by 95% during the dot-com bubble.\n\nThe stock prices of unlisted stocks (private market) always follow the stock prices of listed stocks (public market). If the stock price of a listed company falls to one-third, it is natural that the stock price of an unlisted company will also fall to one-third.\n\nIf the stock price falls to one-third of its current value, the amount of funds raised will also fall to one-third. Since the company was seeking growth even at the expense of an abnormal burn rate, being unable to raise funds would be a major event that could threaten the survival of the company.\n\nIn an American startup, the increased staff numbers can be easily restructured, but in Japan, where dismissal regulations are strict, it is not legally or ethically permissible to suddenly cut staff numbers.\n\nSales are not growing enough to cover the increased fixed costs, and in many cases companies are relying on a favorable procurement environment and setting fixed costs that are unreasonable given their business model.\n\nCustomer needs/pains remain the same\nSo, if the market crashes and the capital market starts to reverse, of course the financial economy and the real economy are linked, so ultimately it will have a huge impact.\n\nOn the other hand, did CyberAgent's growth rate slow down after the dot-com bubble burst? What about Amazon during the Lehman Shock?\n\n\nI want everyone to watch this video of Jeff Bezos, who everyone loves. It's only 5 minutes long, but it's amazing. It's electrifying.\n\nI'm not sure if it was a reporter or an investor, but they were making fun of Amazon, which is building a lot of distribution centers, saying, \"Amazon is not a purely internet company. They have warehouses, they hire a lot of people, and they're taking a huge gamble. Investors don't think highly of them.\"\n\nBezos' response to this was , \"It doesn't matter whether Amazon is an Internet company or not. We are obsessed with customers. In the long run, what is in the interests of customers and what is in the interests of shareholders are no different. \"\n\nJust because the bubble has burst, it certainly won't mean that people will stop using convenient Amazon services, stop watching YouTube/TikTok/Netflix, or cancel their Microsoft Office subscriptions. Customer behavior is not going to reverse.\n\nUltimately, it is the manager's job to make a profit.\nWhen I was with Mr. Saijo of XTechVentures, our main shareholder, he told me, \"It's more healthy to think of a PER of around 20. If you're aiming for 100 billion yen, you'll want to have an operating profit of 8 billion yen.\" I found this very convincing.\n\nAlso, when I asked a shareholder for advice on how to determine the PER, he scolded me, saying, \"PER is calculated by multiplying it by net profit. It's like a mirage. Net profit is the reality.\"\n\nOf course, determining the PER is also an important job for managers. It's not an either/or situation. A PER of 200 is definitely better than a PER of 20.\n\nHowever, if we get the order wrong—that companies survive because they ultimately make profits—we will be hit hard by the reverse rotation of the capital markets.\n\nWhat is considered the most important indicator, such as market capitalization, net profit, average annual salary of employees, number of employees, or growth rate, depends on the management's thinking, and there are a wide variety of management styles.\n\nI would like to make Natee a company that makes good use of the capital markets while steadily providing value to customers. I believe that profits will ultimately be the source of all funds, maximizing both the company's market capitalization and the average annual salary of its employees.\n\nOf course, depending on the phase, when you are trying to gain market share you should go for it even if it means incurring losses, and when you are trying to make a profit you need to cut down on extravagant costs to the utmost, which requires completely different skills, so it's not that incurring losses is bad or anything like that, but I always think that at the very least I want to manage my business while checking the soundness of the business model and not relying too heavily on external procurement."}
{"text": "If you're in your 20s and struggling with your career, I've written an article that you should definitely read.\n\n1,215\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nJanuary 13, 2020 18:15\n\"In life, you have to make your own decisions and follow through.\" ___Taro Okamoto\n\nWhat's in this article (headline)\n・Adjusting prerequisites (the case of Kojima Ryoken)\n・\"Isn't there no point in trying so hard?\"\n・Inequality in Japan will definitely continue to widen\n・Annual income is determined by supply and demand\n・People can only make choices based on their knowledge and experience\n・\"External pressure\" and \"introspection\"\n・If you don't know what you want to do, think about what you want to be\n・Building long-term assets rather than short-term profits\n・A/B testing is not possible in life\n・Conclusion (advertisement)\n・(Extra: If you want to become a millionaire)\nI'm really grateful that so many people have read the notes I wrote previously, and several people have even said things like, \"I've read all of your notes up to now.\" If I added up all my previous articles, it would fill a book, so I have mixed feelings: I'm incredibly grateful, but also sorry for taking up people's precious time (laughs).\n\nThis time, I've been hearing a lot about careers lately, and I've also had some thoughts about it while experiencing a lot of things in recruitment and management, so I decided to write about careers.\n\nI think this book will be useful not only for people in their 20s who are struggling with their careers, but also for people in management positions in their 40s and above, as it will give you an insight into the career perspectives that people in their 20s have.\n\nAdjusting the prerequisites (Kojima Ryoken's case)\nWhen discussing career theory, the concept of \"success bias\" is essential . This is the impression that comes with comments like \"Well, that's just because of you\" or \"It just happened to work out well.\"\n\nFirst of all, I am by no means a successful person, and I have no intention of saying that you should do things differently just because I have done them this way.\n\nHowever, I am currently 27 years old and have followed a variety of paths, such as starting a business as a student, working for a venture company, being a NEET, freelancing, and starting a startup, so I think I have a broader perspective than most people, and I would like to use my meta-cognition skills (lol) to discuss careers.\n\nThis is a subjective opinion based on my extremely objective judgment, so you can have any opinion you like, but I would be happy if it can provide some useful thinking to people who are struggling with their careers.\n\nI haven't written any nice-sounding things like \"learn programming\" or \"study for TOEIC,\" and I may talk a little abstractly, but I have tried to cover the basics of your career.\n\n\"Isn't there no point in trying so hard?\"\nFirst, let's understand what kind of career concerns people in their 20s today are facing, and in order to have an aligned starting point, let's first understand what macro trends are occurring in Japanese society.\n\nPeople currently aged 20-29 were born between 1990 and 1999 (Heisei 2-1999).\n\nMy recent theme of thought is \"the impact of macroeconomics on individual values ,\" and we are the people who have been most affected by the lost 30 years of the Heisei era.\n\nAccording to the National Tax Agency's \"Private Sector Wages Survey\" and the IMF's \"World Economic Outlook Databases,\" we can obtain the following indicators.\n\nGraph showing the average annual income of men in their 20s\n\nImage 1\n\nGraph showing the average annual income of women in their 20s\n\nImage 2\n\nTrends in Japan's Consumer Price Index\n\nScreenshot 2019-10-16 23.12.36\n\nWhat we can see from this is that prices are rising but incomes are falling, meaning people are becoming poorer . This generation is being hit harder than any other.\n\n・Witnessing people in their 40s and 50s being laid off\n・Understanding that wages are no longer based on seniority as they used to be\n・No matter how hard you work, there is no sense of growth as a society (the news is all negative)\n・In fact, it seems like it's the successful people who are suffering because they are criticized so harshly online\n\nIf I were to speak for our generation, I'd say , \"Isn't there no point in trying so hard?\" The risk and return don't match. That's why we at least want to live happily and be ourselves .\n\nThe gap in Japan will definitely widen\nPoverty is a frequent topic of discussion on Twitter. With hashtags like #20MillionYenRetirement #140KTakeHomePay, business influencers take the high ground, and many others respond with counterarguments.\n\nI think the current situation in Japan is becoming similar to that of the United States and the United Kingdom, and that this has led to ``BREXIT'' and the ``birth of President Trump.''\n\nThe context is one of an increase in relative poverty, a social divide between the rich and the poor, exclusivism to protect one's own country's interests, and the rise of nationalism.\n\nIn addition to this, in Japan, the national finances are collapsing due to rising social security costs, government bonds are being issued to cover the costs, and the consumption tax is being increased. The ones who are bearing the brunt of all this are the young and the poor, so the result is populism. I'm getting into some complicated topics and I think readers might want to leave, so I'll stop here lol\n\nRemember, the following is guaranteed to happen:\n\n・Income disparities will widen.\n・Young people will shoulder an increasing burden on social security.\n・The Japanese economy will decline due to a declining population.\n\nThere's no doubt about it. All of these things will 100% happen. You should understand that first. You may not have any dreams or hopes, but as long as you hold Japanese nationality and live in Japan, it's inevitable, so don't you think that knowing this situation will make a big difference in your career choices?\n\nSalary is determined by supply and demand\nNow that we understand what happens in macros, let's understand the logic behind how salaries are allocated.\n\nThe crucial thing about a capitalist economy is that the value of things is determined by supply and demand .\n\nEach individual's career is very valuable, but if we explain it in an economic context, employees are simply supplying labor to meet the labor needs of managers who want to get their jobs done.\n\nFor example, Goldman Sachs has advanced automation of financial transactions, and as of 2017, the number of stock traders at its New York headquarters has dropped from 600 in 2000 to just two.\n\nTraders, who made the most money in the latter half of the 20th century, have been replaced by engineers in the 21st century. This is a matter of social supply and demand and has nothing to do with individual ability.\n\nSo, you need to think critically about whether what you are doing now meets the needs of society in the long run and whether it will benefit the future. For example, even though the number of engineers has increased, there is still a shortage, and it is said that demand will continue to increase for another 10 years, so it is not too late at all.\n\nApart from monetary rewards, there are emotional rewards.\nOn the other hand, if you were to ask young people today if they were to be paid a lot of money, would it be okay to do something they don't want to do? I'm sure they wouldn't say that.\n\nInstead, they would surely say, \"I want to do what I love, even if it means I don't have any restrictions .\" Even now, I think the YouTuber's catchphrase \"living by doing what you love\" was a destructive force.\n\nAs I wrote at the beginning, we know that no matter how hard we work, the upside of monetary rewards is limited, so we want to at least seek emotional (meaningful) rewards .\n\nPlus, with so many subscription models like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime available, you won't be short of content for just 5,000 yen, and if you include YouTube, you can enjoy as much content as you want for free.\n\nI think that people of the \"workaholic\" generation who are managing people in their 20s will find this attitude very unsatisfying and fragile (I do too lol), but individual values ​​are basically formed by the macro economic environment, so it's not that individuals are at fault, and it's also true that even if they say something, society will tend to drift in that direction.\n\nIn Obara's \"Motivation Revolution,\" he explains that the rewards people seek are changing dramatically from \"pleasure\" and \"achievement\" to \"good relationships,\" \"meaning,\" and \"immersion.\" When I read this, I nodded so much that I thought my head would snap off (laughs).\n\nThere is no doubt that management in the Reiwa era will lean more towards emotional rewards.\n\nHumans can only make choices based on knowledge and experience.\nFrom here, we will drill down a little further and talk about tips on the order in which you should think about your career when job hunting or changing jobs.\n\nI often give job-hunting advice to new graduates, but to begin with, students have no work experience and no knowledge of the industry, so to be honest, it's confusing when they're told to choose a career in that state.\n\nFor example, about 90% of the business ideas that university students who want to start their own businesses bring to the table are either \"education\" or \"travel.\" Of course, there's no way that a university student would come up with a SaaS business for factory purchasing staff, like crowd factoring.\n\nAn interesting story I heard the other day was about \"What is the dream of an Ainu village chief?\" When I asked smart students to answer, they said things like \"prosperity of the Ainu people\" or \"spread of the Ainu language.\"\n\nThe answer is \"killing a bear with your bare hands .\" It's something that city dwellers like us would never think of, right? Humans can only think based on their knowledge and experience, so the answers they come up with are limited.\n\nI always explain this as if you were being asked to choose your favorite ramen without having tried it before. Can you choose? You can't.\n\nSo the first thing you should do is gather as much information as possible . Even if you can't actually eat the whole bowl, you can smell it during the company information session and taste it during the internship.\n\nJob-hunting students who say, \"I don't know what to do,\" should stop hesitating and go and talk to alumni from companies of various industries and scales. Read books and watch movies that will teach you about the industry. Any method of input is fine, but you won't be able to make a decision unless you have a lot of information.\n\n\"External pressure\" and \"introspection\"\nI call the intake of information from the outside world, as mentioned above, \"external pressure.\" However, if this is all you get, you'll end up feeling full and unwell.\n\nThe important thing here is the process of \"introspection .\" It's something you have to do every time.\n\nThen you gradually realize, \"If I have to choose between soy sauce, miso, tonkotsu, and salt, it seems I like salt ramen.\" If you dig deeper, you'll realize, \"It seems there are rich and light salt ramens, and I like the light ones,\" and your preferences will become more and more refined, like, \"Among them, chewy curly noodles are the best!\"\n\nThe important thing here is to verbalize it, and a great way to do so is to give it a specific score .\n\nFor example, let's say you went to hear from companies A, B, and C. You gave company A 50 points, company B 75 points, and company C 80 points. Showing the numbers makes the ranking clear. Then, you can start asking yourself questions like, \"Why did I give company A these scores?\" \"Why is company A lower than the other two?\" \"I thought both companies B and C were good, so why did I give company C 5 points higher?\"\n\nThis process is called \"increasing the resolution .\" The key to increasing the resolution is to visualize it specifically. Be conscious of thoroughly eliminating ambiguity.\n\nIf you don't know what you want to do, think about what you want to be.\nBy repeatedly going through the above two factors, \"external pressure\" and \"introspection,\" your preferences will become sharper and sharper. Then, you will be able to see the axis of your decision-making. However, beyond that, a considerable percentage of people\n\n\"There's nothing I like or want to do.\"\n\nYou may be worried about this. There is nothing to worry about. You don't have to decide what you want to do.\n\nIn that case, try thinking about \"the person you want to be\" instead of \"what you want to do.\" There is no one who can't think of this. Even if \"becoming a kept man and being supported by a rich man\" is the ideal person, it still exists.\n\n\"I want to work in an environment where laughter never stops.\"\n\"I want to be able to get work under my own name.\"\n\"I want to value my private life.\"\n\nThese aren't all things you want to do, but we're talking about the ideal state of being. It's very meaningful to dig deep into the ideal state of being and make decisions based on that, so don't give in to the pressure from people who are overflowing with things they want to do and tell you to \"do what you love!\"\n\nBuild long-term assets rather than short-term profits\nHere's something a little more complicated.\n\nJeff Bezos, the beloved founder of Amazon, says he still includes the letter he wrote to shareholders in 1997 in his annual shareholder letter.\n\nIt's All About the Long Term\n\nIt's a simple idea that we should focus on market leadership rather than immediate profits, which will lead to long-term corporate value , and the same thing can be said about careers.\n\nThis explanation may be confusing to those who don't understand financial statements, but everyone is only concerned with the P/L (short-term salary) and is overlooking the B/S (long-term career advantages) .\n\nRecently, I've been seeing more and more people going freelance right after graduating from university, but I'm quite negative about it. This is because, although freelancing can temporarily increase your salary, it often means selling off your skills, which can reduce your career assets .\n\nThe most important thing when making a career decision is maximizing long-term career value . Even if your annual income increases by 5 million yen, if it doesn't translate into savings in five years, it's better to quit. On the other hand, even if your annual income decreases by 5 million yen, if you can recoup the savings in five years, it's better to choose the option.\n\nFor example, taking on a hot topic or volunteering to take on a project that you think you can't carry out yourself will build long-term assets even if you fail, so it's important to gain that kind of experience. This is something that company employees are much more likely to experience.\n\nYou can't A/B test your life\nI've written a lot, but now I'd like to finish by writing about the most important thing, or rather, what I most want to convey in this article.\n\nDeNA's Akagawa: \"Because life cannot be A/B tested\" - A way of life that makes the path you choose the right one\n\nIn the article, Mirrativ CEO Akagawa says, \"Life can't be A/B tested like a web service, so you have to make sure the path you choose is the right one!\" and I think that's exactly right.\n\nThere are two types of decision-making: \"judgment,\" which involves finding the optimal solution from past examples, and \"decision,\" which involves moving forward resolutely in the face of an uncertain future. Both are important, but there are very few people who can make decisions.\n\nNo one else can take full responsibility for your life, so I think you shouldn't leave your decision-making up to someone else. Other people's advice is all for the sake of \"judgment,\" but what's 100 times more important is the \"decision\" you make after careful consideration.\n\nIf people laugh at your decision, then cut ties with them. If you can't believe in your decision, then put in more effort. You can't make decisions because you have confidence. You can gain confidence by making decisions.\n\nI think that no matter how many times I explain this, there are people who don't get it, and I understand because I made the decision with some degree of resolve, but to those who are determined and taking on the challenge, people who can't make decisions appear very vague and frivolous.\n\nIt doesn't matter what decision you make, whether it's to work hard, value your private life, work overseas, or be a NEET, but what's important is the sense of satisfaction that you made the decision yourself and no one else.\n\nTake control of your own life.\n\nConclusion (advertisement)\nThank you very much for reading this long article to the end. If you have read this far, it means that it was worth your time, so let me make one final request.\n\n1. Come work with us!\nThings are so much fun right now, so why not join us? As an entrepreneur, I can say with confidence that nothing is more life-changing than the experience of creating a business at the center of a trend.\n\nNatee has only been in business for a year and two months, but we already have about 10 full-time employees, and including contract and part-time workers, our team is over 20 people.\n\nIf you're looking for something exciting, or if you're even slightly interested, let's have tea together! I'm addicted to having pancake breakfasts on the weekends starting around 8am, so that's fine too lol\n\n1. Ad sales people who want to try new media!\n2. Planners who want to create buzz promotions with short movies!\n3. Talent managers who love to develop people!\n4. People who want to do entertainment business in China!\n\nWe're short on positions in all areas, so if you're interested, please feel free to contact us via DM or Natee's Wantedly !\n\n2. Please follow me!\nI tweet frequently, so please follow me! I mainly talk about startups, marketing, and TikTok.\n\nRyoken@Let's do TikTok💪 (@RyoukenK) | Twitter\nThe latest Tweets from Ryoken@TikTokLet's do it💪 (@RyoukenK). On TikTok\ntwitter.com\n3. Press the ♡!\nIf you've come this far, why not just give up and press the ♡? See, if you press it, I'll be in high spirits and might even be more willing to carry the elderly person's luggage, and if you think about it, the world will go a little smoother just by tapping, right?\n\n4. Please tweet your thoughts!\nI'd be happy to receive your thoughts, whether they're good or bad! I have great ego-searching skills, so I'll read through them all, and I'd like to share more of the points that you're interested in in the future, so I hope you'll keep checking back.\n\n(Extra: If you want to become a millionaire)\nI'm going to write something that won't make sense to most people, but I'll write it anyway.\n\n(I'm not particularly rich, but) if you want to become super rich in this world, you should find out how super rich people were born. Except for cheats like inheriting a fortune, most of the ways to get rich are as follows.\n\n・A company founder\n・A real estate owner\n・A stock or FX trader\n・A large purchaser of virtual currency\n\nI'm sure there are many stories in this world that are beyond my reach, so I'll leave that aside (lol), but the bottom line is that the only way to become wealthy is to become the owner of financial assets.\n\nMany people don't understand the fundamentals of financial economics, but financial assets are simply a matter of digits, so 2% of 1 million yen is 20,000 yen, but 2% of 10 billion yen is 200 million yen. The world is designed to make the rich get richer . As Piketty pointed out in his thick book. Something like r > g.\n\nTo put it more simply, in today's zero interest rate environment in Japan, 1 million yen deposited in a bank will remain at 1 million yen even after 20 years. On the other hand, if you invest in an index fund with a 4% annual yield, it will become 1.04 million yen. If you do this for 20 years, it will become 2.2 million yen.\n\nThis is the important part. What if the principal was 1 billion yen instead of 1 million yen? 20 years later, it would be 2.2 billion yen. Just because the principal is different, there is a difference of 1.1988 billion yen in profits. Of course, the labor force is 0 in both cases. That's what the number of digits is all about.\n\nSo, as long as we're talking about annual income, you can't become super rich. The upper limit of a salaryman's annual income is around 50 million yen, so you can be considered rich, but it's extremely difficult to get into and the cost performance is poor.\n\nRecently, there have been cases where students have started their own companies, been bought out for hundreds of millions of yen while still in school, completed their coursework during the lock-up period, and then started a second company upon graduation."}
{"text": "[Definitive Edition] What job seekers taking new graduate job interviews absolutely need to know about their careers\n\n101\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nJune 19, 2024 13:00\n\"People don't travel to arrive, they travel to travel.\"＿＿＿I'm Kojima, the CEO of Natee, a social media marketing support company co-created with Goethe creators. I previously wrote a note about careers, and it became the note that received the most likes in my history. I'm a little biased, but it covers the very basics of careers, so I highly recommend you read it. This time, I'll write a version for new graduates looking for jobs!\n\n\n\n\n\nOf course, this is the time when Natee is stepping up its recruitment of new graduates, so I have written this long article in the hope that job-seekers will learn a little about Natee. However, I have tried to avoid making any positional statements like \"Go to a startup!\", and I will do my best to write in a way that anyone who reads it will find it useful.\n\nMixed martial arts for working adults\nFirst of all, you need to understand that this will completely change the life and game you have been living up to this point. It's like going from boxing, which is all about punching, to mixed martial arts, which includes punching, kicking, and ground fighting.\n\nThe items assessed before graduating from university are basically limited to academic ability, athletic ability, or artistic ability, and most of these are tied to individual ability.\n\nHowever, when you enter society and start working, all of a sudden, many factors other than just personal specs come into play. Of course, generally speaking, people with higher educational backgrounds tend to perform better, but having a higher educational background does not necessarily mean you will be successful in society. If you get the right marks, you will be accepted into the University of Tokyo, but just because you are a student at the University of Tokyo does not mean you will be able to succeed in society.\n\nOf course, it depends on the job and environment, but I think that in most cases, the latter will be more successful than the person who is not so smart but is humble and charming to those around him, rather than the person who is very smart but has a high pride and irritates others.\n\n\nUntil now, we have lived in a world that places too much emphasis on academic ability and IQ, but from now on, we will be fighting using everything from personality, charm, communication skills, initiative, observation skills, and creativity as weapons .\n\nSome people may have been praised for their hard work in their studies and club activities, but then suddenly find themselves in a freestyle competition, which can be a challenge. It's like trying to swim fast in a 25m pool and then suddenly being thrown into the ocean, feeling like you have no idea where you are or where you're going. However, this vast ocean is where your life truly begins.\n\nWill your career be decided as a new graduate?\nSo how should you start your career when you're thrown into such an ocean?\n\nThe common saying, \"You can only use your new graduate card once, so choose carefully,\" is absolutely correct, and it is of course not recommended to choose a job at random. On the other hand, with the collapse of the lifetime employment system and job changes becoming the norm, it is also true that the importance of new graduate cards is steadily declining compared to before.\n\nThis is something that Minami-san from my previous company, Visional, used to say a lot, but if you compare 50 years of working life to 16 years of student life, the first five years of working life would be like being in second grade in student terms. I'm in my ninth year of working life now, but in student terms, it would be like being in the final stages of third grade in elementary school. In other words, I'm a runny-nosed kid. I have a long career.\n\nIt's not so rough that your entire career will be determined by the company you join after graduating from university. Some people are early bloomers and quickly lose momentum, while others achieve great success towards the end of their careers, so I want to make it clear that the results of your job search as a new graduate do not mean that your future is bleak.\n\nCareer is a Straw Millionaire\nSome people may think, \"Well, if you have a long career, why not just get serious about it halfway through?\", and there is certainly some truth to that. However, this is an approach that only a few truly confident people can take, and in general, everything is judged by your track record.\n\nI previously wrote a note titled \"The Straw Millionaire's Guide to Management and Career.\"\n\n\nThis is very important to remember, but there is a rule in society that states that you are only allowed to take on challenges to the extent that you have built up trust in society .\n\nTo put it in a really easy-to-understand but boring way, if you were an investor, which one would you be more excited about: someone who graduated from the University of Tokyo, went to McKinsey, studied abroad at Harvard Business School, and can speak three languages, or someone who was a NEET for 10 years, and then started a company?\n\nEven in interviews, I think it's much more important to consider what you thought and made decisions at turning points in your life than what you said. And the result of that is your resume.\n\nWhen I was talking with a talented headhunter about executive recruitment some time ago, he was able to read a lot from a person's resume, saying things like, \"This person moved to this company in this position, so they must have been thinking about these things, and as a result, this is what happened at their next company,\" and I thought, \"I see.\"\n\nIt's important to understand that your resume is your proof of existence in your career .\n\nI love hip-hop, so I think that overthrowing the underdog is the best part of life, but society isn't so simple that everyone has a chance to overthrow the underdog. Without the trust that has been built up, you're not allowed to take on a big challenge. That's why overthrowing the underdog is cool, feels good, and makes for great content.\n\nMountain People and River People\nSo how do you build trust in society, advance your career, and build your resume?\n\nThere are two main career paths: Mountain People and River People. In MBTI terms, this is the difference between J and P.\n\nMountain people are people who decide which mountain to climb, work single-mindedly towards it, and realize their vision.\n\nRepresentative examples include Masayoshi Son and Shohei Ohtani, and I feel that many outstanding business leaders are of this type.\n\nimage\nimage\nOn the other hand, river people are people who build their careers by going with the flow of the river, \"jumping into what excites them the most at the time.\"\n\nMountain people seem somehow cooler, and when you meet people like that, you might get the feeling that they haven't thought about their future at all, but in reality there are tons of successful people in both cases, so there's no need to worry (I'm pretty much a river people myself).\n\nThis has its pros and cons, with mountain people running the risk of choosing the wrong mountain to climb, and river people simply appearing to be wandering aimlessly. In reality, it's not A or B, but a gradation, so it might be good to know that there are ways of thinking like this.\n\nLarge companies vs. startups\nNow, let's move on to a more specific topic. This is a topic that often comes up when talking about job hunting.\n\n\"Should I go to a large company or a startup?\"\n\nIn conclusion, I think it's better to go to a large company if you're unsure. Of course, there are many different types of large companies, so there are differences, but I'll roughly summarize the characteristics of each.\n\nCharacteristics of large companies\n: Large companies are strong in Japan, so you can learn how they\nwork. Even if you want to change jobs, it's easy because of the name value\n. Work is highly specialized, so it feels like you have very little impact on the company as a whole.\nWhile the amount of money and scale you can move to your new position is large, it takes time for your career to bear fruit.\nIt's all about whether you can have a time frame where you can shine from around the age of 40 onwards.\n\nCharacteristics of ventures\n: ・Needless to say, there is a sense of speed compared to large companies.\n・You have more discretion, so your contributions have a direct impact on the company's growth, and it's easy to find fulfillment.\n・If you work hard at a good venture, you will definitely gain strength, and if you can properly talk about your experience when changing jobs, you won't have much trouble, even moving to a major company.\n・However, ventures are a mixed bag, and with so many crappy companies out there, it's not easy for students to choose a good venture.\n\nThis is a question of career aspirations, so it's not a question of which is better or worse.\n\nOne story I once heard from a great business leader that really stuck in my memory was, \"People of the same age gather together at the milestones of 30, 35, and 40 years old, and when they are 30, the spotlight is on the CEOs of venture companies, but when they reach 40, the focus shifts to bureaucrats, the children of wealthy people, and people who have risen through the ranks of large companies.\"\n\nFor example, if you have successfully advanced in the ranks at a general trading company by the age of 40, you will have a great deal of authority and discretion in the way you do business. Of course, it will be difficult to beat a venture entrepreneur in terms of personal compensation, but in terms of the impact you can have on the industry, there is a high possibility that it will be much greater.\n\nIn short, the time scales are different, so it comes down to whether you can take the path of working for one company for 20 years from graduation and working your way up the ranks. On the other hand, if you want to start making an impact earlier, don't want to be promoted by seniority, and want to push your way up in a young organization, then a venture is the only choice. Companies are also fundamentally governed by the population pyramid, so companies with a younger founding history and average age definitely have a better foundation for young people to thrive.\n\nHowever, as I wrote at the beginning, there are now many paths from large companies to venture companies, and from venture companies to large companies, so I feel that the values ​​of \"going to a large company with the intention of making a living\" and \"if you go to a venture company as a new graduate, you won't be able to go to a large company\" are becoming outdated in the first place.\n\nRead books, meet people, and have new experiences.\nHow do you narrow down and select industries and companies from there?\n\nHumans can only think within the context of their knowledge and experience. It may seem obvious, but many people don't really understand it, but we can't even think about things we don't know.\n\nThere's a lot that university students don't know about the world. Even if you think you're knowledgeable, it's better to think that you know nothing about the world! Of course, I don't know anything either. That's why you need to learn and experience as much as you can.\n\nHave you heard of Tokyo Electron? As of June 19, 2024, it was ranked fourth in Japan by market capitalization, surpassing even the Sony Group. Do you know the top growth market company on the same day? It's Trial Holdings, which operates discount stores mainly in Kyushu.\n\nAs I've said many times before, what you don't know is outside of your life, and is the same as not existing. Naturally, the more you know about society, the more options you have. First, make an effort to learn as much as you can. Google and AI are much smarter than humans, but you can't even ask an AI about something you don't know, so it's better to have as much knowledge as possible.\n\nAnd there are only a limited number of ways to learn new things. You can either read books or meet people. So read lots of books and meet people. Being a student is a huge advantage because you have time and the ability to move around recklessly. This is an extremely powerful weapon that I can't emphasize enough, but it's too late to realize it after the fact.\n\nHowever, having a lot of knowledge and being all headstrong will not add depth to your life. As mentioned above, knowledge alone will not attract people. That is why you need to experience many things.\n\nMany people avoid things they have never experienced, and yet criticize them nonetheless. There are many things in the world that you can't understand unless you experience them, so it's best to try them first without being prejudiced. Try them out, and if they don't suit you, just stop. The more new experiences you have, the richer your life will be, and the more rare and valuable they will be in society.\n\nEat kalbi when you're young\nOn a slightly off-topic note, given my position, I am often asked, \"Is there anything that college students should do?\" and I always answer, \"Eat as much kalbi as you want.\"\n\nWhen I was a university student, I heard a senior who was in his 30s say, \"I can't eat kalbi or other fatty foods anymore these days,\" and I told him, \"No, no, that's a bit early lol,\" but the truth is, I really couldn't eat kalbi after I turned 30 either.\n\nThis was quite a shock to me, and it made me feel like I would never be able to enjoy such delicious kalbi again, and that I had lost something important for the rest of my life. Well, I've been hooked on Jiro lately, so I don't eat greasy food at all.\n\nIn reality, not being able to eat kalbi isn't a big deal (because skirt steak tastes better), but there are an infinite number of things that you can only appreciate when you're young.\n\nFor example, even if you wanted to go on a budget trip now, it would be quite difficult. You would never be able to experience the sort of experience where you grab all your remaining assets, 30,000 yen, and earn enough money for a return flight at a casino in Hong Kong, even if you wanted to.\n\nDIE WITH ZERO The ultimate rule for making life too rich\nwww.amazon.co.jp\n1,870 yen\n(As of 19:37, January 20, 2026. For details, click here.)\nBuy on Amazon.co.jp\nThere's a book I really like called \"DIE WITH ZERO.\" It's about leaving memories behind instead of money. There are so many experiences you can only have when you're young, so I recommend eating lots of kalbi (I'm sure you know, but it's a metaphor lol).\n\nInterview tips\nNow, as a break from the interview process, let me give you a tip on the secret to success in an interview: \"If you can make the interviewer feel comfortable talking, you win . \"\n\nBasically, communication is more pleasant when you are talking. Some people try hard to promote themselves, but this is a bad move unless what they have to say has a great impact or is interesting. The key is to go into an interview with the mindset of \"making the other person happy\" rather than \"getting the other person to acknowledge me.\"\n\nAsking \"Do you have any questions?\" and receiving \"No, nothing in particular\" is the worst thing you can do. The main point of the conversation is to ask questions, so it's a real shame to do it unexpectedly. Of course, asking questions that you can find out by looking them up is also a no-no.\n\nIt depends on the position of the interviewer, but the best question to ask is something like, \"I read your article, and it said the following, so I can imagine that it must have been difficult for you at the time. What was it actually like?\"\n\nIt's a triple combo of (1) showing that you've prepared in advance, (2) asking questions based on hypotheses, and (3) asking about hardship stories. If you ask questions like these, the interviewer will be happy to tell you about their own hardships, and talking about past hardships will make the interviewer feel good, making it easier to pass.\n\nOn the other hand, there are some interviewers who only talk about themselves. The interview is supposed to gather facts about the candidate's likelihood of success at the company, but the criterion for passing or failing the interview is whether or not the interviewer was comfortable speaking, so there is no way they can judge that.\n\n\nApparently, when you can really enjoy a conversation,\nit's proof that the other person is smarter than you.\n\n— Chris @ The man who FIREd at 26 (@kurikurisu4410) June 5, 2024\nJust as I was writing this, I came across this tweet. I don't know the facts, but the way it's put into words makes a lot of sense. The reason is that people with a high level of abstraction and understanding are basically speaking at a level that suits the other person, so they can't be serious. The fact that you can speak seriously is proof that the other person is also adapting to you.\n\nAn interview is ultimately a person-to-person interaction, so while it's good to \"appeal to your usefulness,\" you should also approach the interview with the mindset of \"building a relationship with the interviewer.\" Naturally, it goes without saying that it's best to greet and be clear-spoken, smile often, and use polite language.\n\nThere is no right answer in career\nI've written a lot about this, but by far the most important thing in job hunting is to truly accept that there is no right answer in your career (or in life) . You don't have to accept it, but it's enough to just understand that this is the case.\n\nThere is no causal relationship between excellence and happiness, but I think that talented but unhappy people have the trait of always searching for the right answer, and whether it's a career or a relationship, people who are always searching for the right answer suffer because there are no right answers in life.\n\nThe people around me who are doing well in their careers and relationships are \"people who have made the right decisions.\" And finally, people who take responsibility for their own lives because \"it's their own decision.\" People who understand that \"it's not the best, it's better.\"\n\nNo matter how much people say \"it's your own fault,\" in life you just have to play with the cards you're dealt, and keep choosing the better option. That's the kind of game it is, so I'm not saying it's bad, but it's pointless to hold grudges against the cards you've been dealt.\n\nWhether you call it the soul or the ego, each person has a core that they (should) value. However, that core is obscured by the opinions of many different people, and it becomes difficult to know what it is that you truly desire.\n\n\"My parents would probably be against it...\"\n\"My friends in my club would probably make fun of me if I worked at a place like this...\"\n\"It might be completely different from what the professor said...\"\n\nJob hunting is, so to speak, the first major decision you'll ever make in your life. Of course, it's going to be stressful. But the responsibility for your life can't be taken by anyone other than you, including your parents.\n\nHappiness in life is determined not by status, but by your stance. Whatever job you choose, the most important thing is to be satisfied with it and face life head-on with the determination that it will be the right choice.\n\nIt's definitely more fun to be a working adult\nIt's often said that \"college life is the summer vacation of life,\" and I'm sure there are many people who have negative feelings about getting a job. However, I can say with certainty that life as a working adult after graduating from university is much more enjoyable.\n\nContent power is born from ups and downs, but if there were no ups and downs, it would be boring to just go through a long life aimlessly. Work is not easy to begin with, and there's no doubt that worrying about your career is an extremely painful time that forces you to reexamine your identity. But that's exactly why there is a reward at the end of hard work, and that's the nature of work.\n\nAnd careers are very long. I always think that \"a business person starts at age 35,\" and that's the kind of timeline you build your career on. It's not like the traditional six-year, three-year, three-year, four-year periods, but something you walk through over decades. If you have to work for a long period of time to make a living, then you might as well work as hard as you can, earn as much as you can, and enjoy your work as much as you can.\n\nYou'll have more money to spend, you'll understand yourself better, and you'll be able to do far more than you did as a student, so honestly, I can't believe I'm saying, \"My student days were the best.\" As long as you're growing, the present should always be the most fun part of life. When you think about it like that, doesn't it make you want to get out and start working hard in society as soon as possible?\n\nI sincerely hope that your first career will lead to a fulfilling first step in life!\n\n(Promotional Video) Natee is currently recruiting new graduates!\nThank you for reading this long article. I hope that it has touched at least one core of your heart.\n\nFrom here on, it's all about position talk and Natee's promotional time, so if you're the type of person who skips the end credits of movies, please feel free to close this section. By the way, I'm the type of person who thinks the true value of a movie lies in the end credits. So, please enjoy the end credits ().\n\nFirst of all, I believe that new businesses like startups can be broadly divided into booms and trends. My definition is that booms are temporary, while trends are irreversible and unchanging. Basically, a business can grow as long as it rides the trend, so the most important point in market selection is to capitalize on trends that will likely remain unchanged for 30 years .\n\nNatee is a company that currently collaborates with creators to support companies' social media marketing. We've grown by capitalizing on TikTok since 2018, when no one had yet realized its potential. \"Isn't TikTok just a boom?\" I've been asked this question 100 times since our founding, but two overwhelmingly strong and irreversible trends are (1) the videoization of online content and (2) the growing power of creators.\n\nimage\nAlthough the company's management has had its ups and downs, it is absolutely bullish on the trend, and I am confident that this business alone can grow beyond the 10 billion yen mark. In addition, Natee does not limit himself to this business, but seeks out market opportunities and continues to develop new businesses and M&A, aiming to one day grow into a great company like Recruit or CyberAgent.\n\nThe average age is about 29 years old, and the average annual salary is 6.26 million yen. The average age of those at the department manager level and above is also about 32 years old, which is extremely young compared to other companies, and we can promise that this is an environment full of growth opportunities for those who want to work hard while they are young and in the midst of new trends.\n\nAs we begin full-scale recruitment of new graduates, we have decided to hold this summer internship with two of Japan's leading creators! The two will act as special judges and provide constant feedback on the videos you plan, making this an amazing event that no other company has ever done. What's more, there will even be a cash prize for the winner (Yay! Generous!) .\n\n\nPlease feel free to apply, so if you are even slightly interested in creators, TikTok, videos, advertising, startups, great companies, etc., please feel free to apply!\n\nEnjoy the detours\nFinally, let me close this long note by sharing my personal thoughts. I absolutely love \"HUNTER×HUNTER\" and have read it so many times I can't even count how many times I've read it, but I especially love this Gin\n\n\"Enjoy a detour.\nThere are surely things more important than the things you want to become lying around there.\"\n\nI really love this line. It's become a guideline for my life. When I was asked to choose a license plate number for my car, I agonized over it and decided on 1784, because the height of the World Tree that Ging is telling Gon about is 1,784m. It's a young tree that has stopped growing. The World Tree that absorbs magma and grows even bigger by passing through the atmosphere. It seems like it will never stop, so I'll stop lol\n\nimage\nThe German poet Goethe said, \"One does not travel in order to arrive, but in order to travel.\" I am looking for someone who can enjoy the journey itself with me.\n\nThe only truly limited asset in life is time (= life). I truly believe that spending that time working long hours with people I don't like, with dead eyes, is a waste of my life.\n\nI would be very happy to work with friendly colleagues who are excited about the journey of providing value to society, working hard towards big goals, and enjoying their personal lives to the fullest.\n\nI would love for you to apply for an internship!"}
{"text": "Considering the current situation in the US and China, we reconsider the direction of social media, commerce, and creators\n\n28\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nSeptember 10, 2024 10:00\n\"Advertising is an extremely difficult job that requires the most brilliant minds and the most dedicated research and study.\" - Yoshida Hideo\n\nNice to meet you, I'm Kojima, the CEO of Natee Inc. Natee was founded in 2018 and was very unusual at the time in that we focused entirely on TikTok. Now, six years later, we have grown to around 80 employees and sales of nearly 2 billion yen.\n\nTikTok has now become a major social networking site (hereafter referred to as social media, in conjunction with the American term), but in 2018, it was very rare to find someone who believed in TikTok's potential. I was an engineer at BizReach (now Visional), and when I started my own company, I suddenly found myself passionately proclaiming, \"TikTok has incredible potential!\", and I'm sure the people around me were wondering what I was doing (laughs).\n\nHowever, it took a lot of research for me to reach this conclusion, and I take pride in being the person in Japan who knows the most about TikTok and thinks about it the most. I have summarized that story in the note below.\n\n\nI wrote this note two and a half years ago, at the end of February 2022. While I'm surprised at how quickly time has passed, I hope to share my thoughts as a person involved in the current situation in August 2024, regarding social media and the creator market that I'm facing.\n\nDrilling down into the advertising market again\nFirst of all, advertising expenditures in Japan as of 2023 will be 7.3 trillion yen. Although it has been depressed by COVID-19, the advertising market is basically designed to grow proportionally as GDP grows, so it will have grown by 122% in 10 years.\n\nimage\nSource: Telegraph\nThe breakdown is as follows: the four mass media (television, newspapers, magazines, and radio) account for just under 32%, internet advertising for just over 45%, and outdoor advertising and flyers for the remaining 23%.\n\nimage\nSource: Telegraph\nThe chart below shows the breakdown over time. Around 2019, when Natee founded the company, internet advertising surpassed television advertising, and by 2021 internet advertising was larger than all four media combined. This may seem obvious, but the gap is only widening.\n\nimage\nSource: CyberAgent\nNext, we'll look at the growth of the market that Natee is facing amidst this rapidly growing internet advertising. The social media market, which was just under 600 billion yen in 2020, is expected to triple to nearly 1.9 trillion yen by 2027. This makes sense, as advertising dollars are concentrated in places where people spend a lot of time.\n\nimage\nSource: Cyber ​​Buzz/Digital Infact\nThis is the market forecast for video advertising. The video advertising market, which was worth 550 billion yen in 2022, will exceed 1 trillion yen in 2027. This will increase by approximately 500 billion yen in five years, meaning that a new market of 100 billion yen will be created each year.\n\nimage\nSource: CyberAgent/Digital Infact research\nAmong these, the vertical video (short movie) advertising market is growing extremely strongly. Of course, it is still small so the growth rate will be high, but this too is expected to create a market of around 150 billion yen over the next five years.\n\nimage\nSource: CyberAgent/Digital Infact research\nFinally, a look at influencer marketing. The market was only worth 33.2 billion yen in 2020, but is predicted to quadruple to 130 billion yen in seven years.\n\nimage\nSource: Cyber ​​Buzz/Digital Infact\nBy drilling down from the top level, you should now have a good overview of the advertising market. Social media, video advertising, and influencer marketing, which are at the heart of Natee's business, are all experiencing a strong upward trend.\n\nThis is where it gets really important: we are still just at the beginning.\n\nI vividly remember that around 2014, emerging media outlets like NewsPicks were constantly saying, \"Television is obsolete, with only seven more years to go.\" However, if you actually check the answer, you'll see that television advertising spending hasn't fallen catastrophically in the 10 years since 2014, but has only been gradually declining. In particular, in a country like Japan, where the average age is high, change doesn't come drastically, but rather slowly.\n\nHowever, even if it is slow, trends are irreversible, so it is unlikely that television advertising budgets will ever trend upward again. Internet advertising spending will continue to grow, and within that, social media budgets will also continue to increase. CyberAgent was founded in 1998. Even now, 26 years later, the performance of its Internet Advertising Division continues to improve.\n\nWhen Visionary Minami came to give a company lecture last year, he gave us a passionate message: \"It takes 10 years to take on the challenge of changing the industry, and we're just at the starting line!\" It took 10 years to bring the concept of direct recruiting to Japan and get us to the starting line. I think he encouraged us, telling us that Natee hasn't even reached the starting line yet.\n\nThis is what the US and China are like\nMeanwhile, let's take a look at what is happening in the United States and China, the epitome of capitalism and the forefront of innovation.\n\nThe US\nis a country where internet advertising is highly developed. This shows the share of internet advertising in the US advertising market, which is expected to reach 70% of the total by 2023. In Japan, it is around 45%, so there is still room for growth.\n\nimage\nSource: Meltwater\nAnd here is a summary of the breakdown of internet advertising and its growth rate. Search advertising and social advertising are strong, just like in Japan, but what stands out is that connected TV and retail media are extremely strong. I have a feeling that retail media will also become popular in Japan, and I'm keeping a close eye on it, but I still feel that it will take some time.\n\nimage\nSource: Winterberry Group\nThere are several megatrends in the US advertising market, but the biggest wave seems to be generative AI, which will reduce the cost of generating content such as videos and images to the utmost and make them even more personalized. The fact that things are changing so rapidly and are so unpredictable is both exciting and difficult about this industry (laughs).\n\nIn China\n, e-commerce, rather than advertising, has developed to a different level. China's e-commerce market is by far the largest in the world, worth 3.4 trillion US dollars, or about 500 trillion yen. This is an astonishing figure, accounting for 52% of the world market share , and as a result, the e-commerce rate is also at a very high level.\n\nThis is a graph of the global e-commerce rate (2022). China's e-commerce rate is close to 50% (estimated to exceed 50% in 2024), while the US's is around 15%, so honestly, China, not the US, is by far the cutting edge of commerce.\n\nimage\neMarketer, June 2022\nAnd what's particularly noteworthy is the proportion of live commerce, which is estimated to exceed $1 trillion by 2026, accounting for a staggering 25% of the e-commerce market.\n\nimage\nECDB.com\nWhat's more, recently live commerce is no longer run by humans but by AI, so we're entering a world where it's hard to understand what's going on (laughs). The commerce scene in China is evolving in an incredible way.\n\nAI-generated influencers continue to earn money 24 hours a day: the latest developments in China's live commerce\nWhen watching live broadcasts in the middle of the night in China, you often see streamers enthusiastically promoting products.\nwww.technologyreview.jp\nOf course, looking at the past, it's clear that the situations in the US and China will not necessarily be reflected in Japan. Therefore, we need to calmly consider to what extent global trends exist and to what extent local adaptations are necessary, but I still think that understanding trends in the US and China (especially China) will be extremely useful in predicting Japan's future.\n\nAre you betting on an irreversible trend?\nI always say this, but I believe that businesses should be based on trends that will not change over the medium to long term, rather than aiming for a passing fad .\n\n\"TikTok is just a fad that will die out soon, right?\" I've been asked this question a hundred times since the company was founded, but everyone is confusing a fad with a trend. The trends that TikTok is based on are \"AI algorithms,\" \"the rise of individual creators,\" and \"(mainly vertical) video content.\"\n\n① AI algorithmAs\nI wrote in the note I shared at the beginning, I still vividly remember the excitement I felt when I first used TikTok, thinking, \"Wow, an AI-native service has finally been born!!!\"\n\nUntil then, the internet was an active one, where you searched for information yourself, clicked on articles or videos, and obtained it. With algorithms, AI automatically recommends things based on your preferences, so you don't have to think about it. Passive services are obviously stronger.\n\nFollowing TikTok, all social media platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, and X, have switched to AI algorithm feeds, no doubt because it simply delivers the content users want.\n\n② The Rise of Individual Creators\nThe Internet is a history of democratization. In the world of television, a single program is produced by a wide range of professionals, including producers, directors, ADs, scriptwriters, stage directors, talent, lighting technicians, microphone technicians, and editors. YouTube made this possible with just a PC, microphone, and camera. Now, amateurs can shoot, edit, and publish videos on their own.\n\nJustin Bieber's debut came when he was 12 years old, when his mother posted a random YouTube video to show his relatives. What was supposed to be just a home video went viral, racking up over 50 million views, and that's when his label heard about it. It's scary to think that in a time before YouTube, there could have been a time when that global superstar never even made his debut.\n\nTikTok has democratized things even further than YouTube, allowing people to express themselves with just their smartphones.\n\nTo digress a bit, we often hear in the news that \"generative AI threatens creators.\" However, in the long term, it will expand human creativity, and the total number of creators will undoubtedly continue to increase. It's exciting to think that the true Second Renaissance may begin after generative AI.\n\nOnce I start writing about creators, I get carried away, so I'll stop here, but I'll also include a note from 2021 in which I wrote down many of my thoughts.\n\n\n3) (Mainly vertical) video content.\nConsidering the history of the four-digit format, video will become more and more the main form of content on the internet. This is because there are far more people who watch television than people who read newspapers. Business people who read notes like this may be accustomed to dealing with text, but the overwhelming majority of content is video.\n\nEven I, who received books as birthday presents from the fourth grade of elementary school, have recently started watching YouTube more than reading books when studying. This goes without saying for people who don't normally read books.\n\nIt is safe to say that none of this is a passing fad, but rather an irreversible technological and social trend.\n\nSocial media is already complete\nAnother question I'm often asked is, \"What do you think the next TikTok will be?\"\n\nI strongly believe that a new dominant social media platform will not emerge, at least not until new devices are released .\n\nThere are four types of media: text, images, audio, and video. In the past, these would have been newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Social media has already been completed with X (Twitter), Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, and TikTok.\n\nNew image-free social networking site \"noplace\" captivates Gen Z - Nikkei\nUpon its public release in early July 2024, the app rose to the top of the US App Store rankings and became a hot topic.\nwww.nikkei.com\nI recently came across an article about how \"an app that aims to create authentic connections, which young people value,\" has reached number one in the US App Store rankings. Of course, there are other apps like Be Real that are popular among young people, but I think they are merely derivatives of existing social media, and it is highly unlikely that they will rise to the status of mainstream media like the ones I mentioned earlier.\n\nI think the next big thing will be social media in the 3D space of VR, but I don't think it will be widely adopted unless full-immersive devices like those in \"SAO (Sword Art Online)\" or \"Ready Player One\" cost around 10,000 to 20,000 yen.\n\nSmartphones equipped with generative AI will soon be available, and the impact of that will be even greater, resembling the worldview of the film \"Her,\" in which a person falls in love with an AI. However, in that case, the format of expression will remain the same as that of current smartphones, so it won't be the birth of a new social media platform.\n\nWhat will happen to social commerce?\nSo is there no new potential in such mature social media?\n\nThis article was published on August 26, 2024, and it reported that TikTok and Amazon would officially collaborate.\n\nTikTok partners with Amazon to make in-app shopping easier | 36Kr Japan | China's largest tech and startup media\nThe video-sharing app TikTok has recently partnered with Amazon.com, the world's largest e-commerce company.\n36kr.jp\nDouyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) originally only had media advertising expenses, but commerce sales have exploded in China and Southeast Asia, with GMV (gross merchandise volume) rising from $5.8 billion (approximately 820 billion yen) in 2019 to $756 billion (approximately 107 trillion yen) by 2025. The scale is so big that I had to check the numbers several times to make sure they were correct (laughs).\n\nimage\nECDM.com\nAs for TikTok Shop's GMV globally, Thailand takes the top share, followed by Vietnam, then Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Finally, the US and UK come in that order, so most of it is in Southeast Asia.\n\nimage\nECDM.com\nI've written about the situation in China, but social commerce is still in its infancy in Japan and is struggling. As mentioned above, China's e-commerce rate is far superior, and its logistics system is so advanced that even after a social purchase, the item is delivered seamlessly to your home. To be honest, the US can't possibly catch up, and it goes without saying that Japan can't either.\n\nHowever, attempts at social commerce are slowly beginning, and players such as Yutori are emerging in the apparel and cosmetics industries that are using social media to grow their brand accounts and increase sales. It's unlikely that things will turn out like China, so I think Japan will gradually develop a Japanese-style \"system for increasing sales via social media.\"\n\nThe long-awaited OMO (online-offline fusion)\nMany of Natee's clients are brand companies that are strong in retail rather than e-commerce.\n\nWhen social media promotion works well, products actually sell. We work with many leading companies in Japan and around the world, and we have received feedback in many cases such as, \"We've regained our No. 1 market share!\" and \"I never thought our POS would work like this!\"\n\nIn the first place, products sell because they are good, and we are merely helping with a small part of that promotion, but it seems clear that the probability and possibility that the success or failure of social advertising will have a direct impact on in-store sales is increasing day by day.\n\n[Kao x Don Quijote x Natee] Sales increase of up to 114%! Achieved by combining short movies with in-store announcements and signage\nPress release from Natee Co., Ltd. (July 20, 2023, 10:06 AM) [Kao x Don Quijote x Natee] Sales increase by up to 114%!\nprtimes.jp\nFor example, in this initiative, Kao's KATE teamed up with Taketaro, a well-known cosmetics creator, and Don Quijote also played Taketaro's TikTok videos and tried using Taketaro's voice recordings for in-store announcements.\n\nNot only did they run tie-up ads on social media, but they also designed in-store panels and in-store announcements, which gave consumers a consistent purchasing experience from online to offline, resulting in a successful case.\n\nThe concept of OMO was born in China in 2017, so you might be thinking, \"Why are you talking about OMO now?\", but I have a feeling it's finally starting to take off in earnest in Japan.\n\nIt is extremely moving to see such a young company taking on this central challenge together with leading brand companies in Japan and around the world, and we feel that the work is both rewarding and offers great potential for growth.\n\nWe are gathering people who can create a great company together.\nNatee is often seen as \"a company that grew by taking advantage of TikTok from its inception\" or \"a typical influencer marketing agency,\" but I hope I have been able to convey at least some of the dynamism of this market, which is full of change and has vast upside.\n\nIn this rapidly changing market, we want to deliver value to our customers and creators, achieve phenomenal growth, and become a great company.\n\nTo achieve this, we need an overwhelming number of colleagues. If you are interested in creating a market rather than following it, and if you want to create your own work rather than being given a job, we would love to work with you.\n\nHideo Yoshida, a master of advertising, once said, \"You should create your own work, not have it handed to you.\" Recruit's Ezoe also has a company motto of \"Create your own opportunities and use those opportunities to change yourself.\"\n\nI have personally experienced the rewarding experience of being able to compete for a long period of time in the middle of a new market, and it is difficult to put into words. The importance of being in an uptrend is also extremely important from a career perspective.\n\nIf you would like to grow together with a young and passionate organization, we have compiled a list of job openings, so please take a quick look.\n\nSearch results | AMBI is the place to go for scouting and job changes for young, high-career professionals\nSearch results page. AMBI is a job-hunting scouting service for young, high-career professionals. There are many jobs with an annual salary of over 5 million yen. Check your chances of success before applying.\nen-ambi.com\nWe are also recruiting for new AI-related businesses that are not listed here, so if you contact us on X or Facebook, we will meet you in person. Please feel free to send us a DM!"}
{"text": "\"We'll go bankrupt in six months...\" Now, two years have passed since that moment of despair, and I look back on it frankly.\n\n116\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nNovember 6, 2024 10:00\nNatee celebrated her 6th anniversary on November 1, 2024.\n\nThe cumulative amount of creator rebates announced annually has reached 2.2 billion yen, nearly double the amount in the fourth quarter of the sixth fiscal year. As a result, sales also significantly surpassed the previous Guinness World Record.\n\nimage\nTwo years ago, we announced a cumulative return of 500 million yen, so this is more than four times the amount in two years. It's still not a large amount, but we are proud that we have promoted a society where people can live based on their individuality and talents.\n\nHowever, the road has not always been smooth and has been full of thorns. Let me briefly look back on these two tumultuous years for Natee.\n\nThe fifth period in which the company announced that it would go bankrupt in six months.\nNatee completed its Series B round exactly two years ago in November, announcing that it had raised a total of 420 million yen in equity and debt.\n\nNatee raises approximately 420 million yen from Benesse Holdings and others. Leveraging its track record of supporting TikTok creators, it enters the virtual business.\nNatee Co., Ltd. Press Release (December 7, 2022, 9:00 AM): Natee receives approximately 4.5 billion yen in funding from Benesse Holdings and others.\nprtimes.jp\nAt the time, there was a high-energy atmosphere, with people saying things like, \"We'll grow three times as much next fiscal year! We'll also be aggressively pursuing new businesses!\" and I was sending out very aggressive messages both inside and outside the company.\n\nHowever, we only had a crude business plan and were unable to manage our finances, and it took about two months for the monthly accounting to be completed before we could see our business figures. Despite this, we were still able to hire around 6-8 people each month, start two new businesses, and assign our top sales executives to cross-departmental projects.\n\nAs a result, we made a clear management error that resulted in huge losses, and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy within six months, even though we had just raised funds. I still vividly remember how my blood ran cold when I saw the monthly trial balance sheet that was presented to me right after the department heads took a photo of the fundraising.\n\nAfter explaining the situation to the entire company, we were determined to make every possible cost cut. We even gave up on moving to a new office, which we had just applied for, and ended up canceling the water server that we had in the office. When I asked employees about this later, they told me things like, \"At the time, we even withheld train fares from our expense claims...\" I was a little happy that they had acted with the company in mind, but I also felt a great sense of guilt.\n\nBoth the avatar live streaming app and the publicly managed VTuber racing business that I was working on at the time were going to be shut down, so I struggled desperately to make every last yen in sales. It was all for the sake of survival.\n\nThe rule of coming to the office two days a week was changed to five days a week, and in addition, department managers and above held meetings on the weekends almost every week, and everyone fought together as one every day, just as if under a state of emergency. Naturally, everyone was exhausted, wondering when we would emerge from this long, dark tunnel, and a tense atmosphere pervaded the entire company, with many people becoming unwell. This situation continued for several months.\n\nHowever, thanks to our employees who persevered and continued to fight, the light at the end of the tunnel gradually began to appear, and within four months we were able to achieve a monthly profit.\n\nAlthough we incurred a 100 million yen deficit in the first quarter, we were able to recover the entire deficit in the second through fourth quarters and ultimately end the year in the black, all thanks to the members at the time. I am truly grateful.\n\nHowever, the price was very high. The sense of organizational effectiveness disappeared, and trust in management hit rock bottom. I also lost confidence as a manager, and to be honest, it was an incredibly difficult year. The period of recovery was nothing short of desperate, but once we got out of the tunnel, the days were emotionally hellish.\n\nI would ask myself, \"Why am I running a company when it's so painful?\" and turn a blind eye to reality. Every time I opened my mouth, I'd blame external factors, saying things like, \"The market environment is...\" Every time I think back, I fall into self-loathing for the lame things I said and the way I lived. Now I understand how you feel, Mitsui.\n\nimage\nSlam Dunk\nThe 6th term under the motto \"Stay Positive\"\nIn the midst of all this, several events occurred that made me realize that I was the one who needed to change the most (I may be able to write about this drama someday, once Natee is a little older), and with a renewed sense of determination, I was ready to fight again when the sixth season kicked off.\n\nAt that time, for some reason, the words \"Stay Positive\" just kept coming to mind, and although I'm not the type to have a slogan, I decided to announce it as the motto for the year at the kick-off of the 6th term.\n\nimage\nOnly about 1% of work is fun or goes well, and about 99% is annoying and difficult. But if you get discouraged, then the game is over. No matter what the situation, you should continue to take a stance that looks forward.\n\nThe word \"positive\" is completely different from \"optimistic.\" It originally comes from a Latin legal term meaning \"something definite decided by consensus,\" which was used in the opposite sense of \"natural.\" From there, it evolved to mean \"absolute,\" \"confident,\" and \"focused on constructive, positive things.\"\n\nBeing positive means taking an active and proactive stance towards your life. \"Stay Positive\" was a warning to myself that I would run my business with that stance.\n\nThe \"Stay Positive Committee\" was formed voluntarily by members who responded to the message, and they made a tremendous contribution to bringing the company to a positive mood. They created stay positive stamps, stickers, and trainers, and also put up stay positive posters all over the company. They also created a new annual award, the \"Best Stay Positive Award.\"\n\nimage\nI myself have also made a conscious effort to increase the number of drinking parties with employees, something I had almost never done before, so that as many people as possible can approach their work with a positive attitude (I ignore comments from employees that I'm just drinking). I think that by continuing to communicate like this for a year, the \"Stay Positive\" attitude has become quite widespread within the company.\n\nMy advisor, who has been helping me, has also started saying to me, \"For the past few months you've looked listless and dead, but now you've grown a lot. You look really good.\"\n\nAs a result, we were able to achieve Guinness records for both sales and profits in the sixth fiscal year.\n\nAnd I think the biggest change in the 6th term was not just the results, but also the emergence of new initiatives. At the beginning of the year, we launched an agency called WOWs, which brought in artists such as the Oompa Loompas, who are hugely popular among junior and senior high school students, and YUMEKI, who is well-known from Nihon Project, and we were able to significantly exceed the goals of our initial business plan.\n\nSome creators have even seen their monthly income increase 370 times, so I'm very happy to be able to work closely with them again, and I would like to create even more creator-driven initiatives in the future.\n\nAlthough it has not been announced yet, we have also launched an AI subsidiary with a very small team consisting of myself, Director Asato, new graduates, and contract staff, and both of our founding executives are committed to the project.\n\nThere are voices asking, \"Are you sure it's okay to start another new business?\" (I certainly have those voices in my mind), but although we still have a long way to go, our budget management system is pretty well put together and cash is steadily building up, so we're going to take on the challenge while controlling the risks so as not to repeat the same mistake again.\n\nThe 7th term will be a \"solid\"\nNow that the 7th term has become an organization with a Stay Positive mindset, we have decided to adopt the slogan \"United.\"\n\nimage\nAs the number of people, departments, businesses, and companies increased, it felt like everyone was working separately and trying to optimize things individually. Information sharing was not working well, and communication costs were increasing. At this point, we started holding \"unified meetings\" for department managers and above in September.\n\nWhen Mr. Soyama from CyberAgent came to Natee to give a lecture some time ago, he said, \"As long as an organization is growing, there will never be an end to organizational troubles! In fact, they will only get bigger. But that's normal!!\"\n\nAs multiple movements emerge, many conflicts like the ones listed below will inevitably arise.\n\nSales vs. Delivery\n\nDivision vs. Corporate\n\nManagement vs. Business\n\nExisting business vs. new business\n\nVeterans vs. Newbies\n\nThe old way vs. a better way\n\nHistory vs. Future\n\nWe make mistakes in decision-making, the number of people increases and it becomes chaotic, and individual optimization also increases, which puts stress on the whole. At times like these, we are \"united\" in the sense that we should look outward and become a team rather than looking inward and becoming conflicted.\n\nAnd yesterday, we announced that Azumaya-san, the youngest acting director at Hakuhodo, has joined us as COO. He has steadily grown his department while cultivating new clients from scratch within Hakuhodo, and he has significantly expanded Natee's capabilities, which were previously only seen as a \"TikTok shop\" and \"a company that specializes in short movies.\"\n\nFormer Hakuhodo employee Mitsutoshi Higashitani appointed COO of Natee\nNatee Inc. Press Release (November 5, 2024, 10:00 AM): Former Hakuhodo employee Mitsutoshi Higashitani appointed COO of Natee\nprtimes.jp\nNatee's greatest feature is that we do business directly with leading brand companies in Japan and around the world. Because we do business directly, we can make proposals that take the brand and end user into serious consideration, and we believe that because we do business directly, we can fully convey the appeal of creators. Naturally, the level of proposals and delivery required is high, and we are working hard to return value, but we will continue to contribute even more to our results, led by Azumaya.\n\nIn addition to Azumaya, many other department managers from listed companies and startups, as well as enthusiastic and committed young people, have joined the company, further deepening its talent base.\n\nFor the sake of our customers, creators, and society, we will unite and return value to the world, not just within the company.\n\nLook forward and commit\nI still feel sad and sorry for the employees, prospective employees, and contract workers who were inconvenienced during the management crisis. I don't intend to end this as a heroic story of how we bounced back from that. That experience still pierces my heart, but I will continue to look forward and grow Natee.\n\nNatee will be taking on many challenges in the 7th term. However, we are extremely short on team members to do so. If you are even slightly interested in \"startups,\" \"creators,\" \"social media marketing,\" \"AI mutants,\" \"great companies,\" \"making humanity talented,\" or any of these, please let us know!\n\nWe look forward to seeing Natee in the 7th term. Go for Great Company!"}
{"text": "The story of how WOWs, a new type of agency that doesn't restrict creators, was launched\n\n53\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nJanuary 30, 2024 05:00\nNatee Inc. announced today the establishment of the creator agency WOWs.\n\nNatee Inc. Establishes WOWs, a New Type of Agency that Doesn't Bind Creators\nNatee Inc. Press Release (January 30, 2024, 10:00 AM) Natee Inc., \"A new way to create content that doesn't restrict creators\"\nprtimes.jp\nOur company was originally founded five years ago as a TikTok creator agency, but we actually closed the agency three years ago, and now we are a company that acts as an intermediary between advertisers and creators and engages in creator co-creation marketing.\n\nThis will be a bit of a long story, including some old stories, about why Natee is reopening his agency and what kind of agency he wants to make it, but I hope that it will convey to everyone in the creative industry the reality of a startup that has been pursuing its mission of ``turning humanity into talent'' for five years, as well as Natee's new challenge.\n\n\"We're making a TikTok version of UUUM\"\nNatee was founded in November 2018.\n\nEver since my university days, I have wanted to create a society where individuality and talent can thrive, and YouTubers, who pursue what they love and what they're good at and share that, have gained many fans, are the perfect embodiment of that way of life.\n\nAs proof of this, UUUM, which created a network of YouTubers, experienced rapid growth and was one of the top five startups between 2013 and 2018, with a market capitalization exceeding 100 billion yen. As MCNs (multi-channel networks) became a major global trend, UUUM was at the forefront of this trend.\n\nHowever, when I started Natee, I felt it was too late to get into YouTube, and since the time would surely come when the next platform would be born, I spent a lot of time researching what that would be. By closely watching the trends in technology and users, it became clear to me that TikTok would become popular in Japan as well.\n\n\nThings moved quickly from there, and we decided on our target: \"We're going to create a TikTok version of UUUM.\" We studied UUUM, thinking that we wanted to be like UUUM, and we wanted to trace what UUUM had done on TikTok.\n\nOne of the reasons UUUM was the sole winner in the YouTube world is that they built a creator network with overwhelming speed in the early days. We followed their example and aimed to become the largest agency in Japan, so we reached out to creators with large followings on TikTok.\n\nAlthough TikTok's demographic has expanded, at the time, its creators were mostly teenagers. Creating at a sensitive age meant all sorts of worries, and those worries always came at night. Until I was able to hire a creator manager, I spent my days talking on the phone with creators at night in a rundown apartment that didn't even have a shower head.\n\nThanks to the hard work of our scouting team, we were able to successfully sign around 150 creators and issue a press release on January 10, 2020, announcing that we were the largest TikTok agency in Japan. That was exactly four years ago.\n\nNatee Co., Ltd., which operates an agency with a total of approximately 15 million followers, has signed an official MCN contract with TikTok!\nPress release from Natee Co., Ltd. (January 10, 2020, 11:01 AM) A company that operates an office with a total of approximately 15 million followers.\nprtimes.jp\nThe agency had some pretty well-known creators on its roster, and it got off to a spectacular start, hosting in-house events with hundreds of people, such as the Natee Xmas Collection.\n\nimage\n\"When will I receive the project?\"\nOn the other hand, at that time, advertisers still had a strong view of TikTok as a medium, thinking, \"It's just a video with high school girls dancing, right?\"\n\nAlthough there were more opportunities for people to listen to my story in order to gather information, it was extremely rare for it to actually progress to a project, and we went through a period of about a year and a half where we had no projects and no sales.\n\nStarting a B2B business comes with a double whammy: not being able to get leads and not having any examples. It's simply impossible to get an appointment with an unknown company offering an obscure service. Even if you do get an appointment, you can't get an order because there are no examples.\n\nAs a result, creators started asking me every day, \"Don't you have any projects?\"\n\nAnother problem was that creators had a wide range of interests. Many of the creators at the time were young, and many were amateurs who found TikTok fun and ended up growing their accounts more than they expected.\n\nAs a result, we received a lot of requests from people who wanted to be models, people who wanted to be comedians, people who just wanted to do it as a hobby, people who wanted to make money, people who wanted to walk the runway, people who wanted to become artists, and so on, but at the time, Natee, which was a fledgling startup, had very little to offer.\n\nAlthough it got off to a spectacular start, it was unable to provide any value to creators, and the frustration of not only the creators but also the managers who worked with them only grew with each passing day.\n\n\"If we continue running the office like this, no one will be happy.\"\n\nWith this in mind, I decided to leave the office. I felt extremely guilty about closing down the office that I started, talked about my dreams, and invited people to join. The employees had all gathered because they wanted to run the office, so they only had negative reactions to my decision, and the atmosphere in the office felt like a funeral.\n\nHowever, if I believe that going in this direction is the right direction, it is the job of a leader to put aside personal feelings and move towards the destination. I decided that I couldn't look back, so I trusted my own decision and moved forward.\n\nThree years ago, I focused on working with clients.\nLooking back at that time, I always had this thought in my mind: \"I never thought TikTok's advertising use would not progress this much.\" No matter how you look at it, smartphone content is shifting to short movies, and I couldn't shake the frustration of wondering why it wasn't happening when users were actually so enthusiastic about it.\n\nAs an aside, there is an anecdote about how after developing the DSP, FreakOut's Honda realized that he had to do the SSP side as well, so he personally invested in the SSP and improved it as well.\n\n\"Because the DSP business cannot be run on its own, Honda proposed to several advertising companies in which he had personal investments that they start an SSP. FreakOut developed and provided Japan's first DSP, and by collaborating with SSP operators, Japan's RTB market was launched.\"\n\nFrom the history of FreakOut Holdings Inc.\nThe chicken-and-egg problem of demand and supply is extremely difficult, but at the time I believed that focusing on the supply side (advertisers) was the best way to give back to creators.\n\nDespite the double whammy of having no leads and no case studies, we were blessed with one connection after another, and case studies were born. One of the most epoch-making cases was a TikTok promotion handled by Natee, where we were able to clear out three years' worth of inventory. The success of \"selling shelves with TikTok\" gave us a huge boost of confidence.\n\nOnce we have a number of examples, the chances of success in business negotiations increase dramatically. It is extremely difficult to get to this point, but we have been blessed with clients who are willing to take on the challenge with us, which has allowed us to get this far.\n\nThree years have passed since we left the agency, and we have given back a total of about 1.4 billion yen to creators. In the past year alone, that amounted to 760 million yen. Of course, this is a very small amount compared to our ideal goal, but we are also proud that it is proof of our unique way of life, which has earned us 1.4 billion yen that would not have been possible without us.\n\nIt's an undeniable fact that this is a way to give back to creators that was only possible because we've been working directly with clients. However, we still wanted to restart an agency that thinks from the creator's perspective, and after several discussions, we thought there might be something we could do now, so we launched WOWs, a \"new type of agency that doesn't restrict creators . \"\n\nWhat kind of office will it be?\nHaving been involved in this creator market for a little over five years, I have come to see many things, and many things have changed in those five years.\n\nThe biggest change is that the momentum for creators to go independent is reaching new record highs every year. In the past, agencies had a very strong influence over the media (TV), so you had to join an agency to appear in the media, but now that individuals have their own media outlets on social media, there is less need to join an agency.\n\nIn addition, there have been a series of scandals involving large agencies that have been in the news recently, and from the creator's perspective, the past few years have seen not only the benefits of joining a large agency, but also the risk of being caught up in the consequences.\n\nHowever, it is also true that there are limits to what an individual can do. Creators who are particularly not good at dealing with companies have no choice but to join an agency for projects and support, as they find it difficult to respond to the large number of inquiries from companies, unable to negotiate because they don't know the appropriate price, and unable to manage schedules even if they receive an order, and unable to resolve problems on their own when they arise.\n\nOnce they joined the agency, we heard from creators that they were being charged YouTube AdSense even though they didn't get many projects or support, that they had to check with the agency more often and that their activities were restricted, and that the contents of the contract were different from the reality and that they were being charged a large commission on projects.\n\nThe basic concept of WOWs is \"a new type of agency that doesn't restrict creators .\" We intend to eliminate all restrictions that are out of date, avoid overly expanding the agency's functions, and limit the value we can provide.\n\nSpecifically, we act as a point of contact for projects, support the production of project videos, and handle tedious back-office tasks like taxes and contracts. In other words, don't expect much else from us at the moment. But I think that's how creators and agencies can build a healthy relationship as business partners.\n\nWe also believe that Natee running an agency will be of great significance not only to creators, but also to advertisers and casting agencies, as we are a company that has worked with advertisers with the goal of \"projects that actually generate sales,\" and we believe that we can create an agency with a high level of understanding and progress regarding projects.\n\nTalent humanity.\nNatee recently released a generative AI development support service for contact centers, but generative AI is currently primarily used in the context of improving productivity. In Japan, where there will be a severe labor shortage in the future, improving corporate productivity using AI is essential, and I believe it has great social significance.\n\nNatee Inc. launches \"Generative AI Development Support Service\" specializing in contact centers\nNatee Co., Ltd. Press Release (January 25, 2024, 10:00 AM) Natee Co., Ltd. Launches \"Generation\" Service, Specializing in Contact Centers\nprtimes.jp\nOn the other hand, it is not at all likely that creators will be replaced by generative AI any time soon. Rather, technology will undoubtedly give birth to new creative ideas and further accelerate the creator economy. This is because the history of the internet is one of empowering individuals.\n\nThe name of our agency, WOWs, was chosen with the intention of bringing lots of WOWs (surprises) to the world, as the name suggests.\n\nI think creators are a bundle of WOW. They create content with originality that ordinary people would never think of, and they captivate people. Personally, I have always admired creators, and naturally, I respect them.\n\nI don't want creators, who are a bundle of potential, to waste their precious time on such troublesome things. I want them to spend more time interacting with their viewers and fans, and with their content. And I want them to deliver lots of WOW to the world. Natee's new agency is committed to supporting such creators!"}
{"text": "The vivid frustration and chaos of a startup COO whose pride as a \"reputable person at Recruit\" was completely shattered and who had to start from scratch\n\n54\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nKojima Ryoken_Representative of Natee\nDecember 7, 2022 04:00\nMy name is Kojima and I am the representative of Natee Co., Ltd.\n\nToday, we announced that we have raised 420 million yen in Series B funding.\n\nWe have also launched a special website that contains our thoughts, but we also wanted to share the honest opinions of the management team, so we are bringing you an interview with Asato, Natee's co-founder, current COO, and a friend of mine from college.\n\n\nGo to the fundraising website\nI was actually planning to publish an article he wrote, but it didn't turn out very well (lol), so I thought I'd present it in the form of an interview.\n\nI believe this is an excellent article for people who think things like, \"I work hard, but I still feel frustrated,\" \"I want to take on challenges with more passionate colleagues,\" or \"I want to break out of my shell and devote myself more seriously to my work.\"\n\nNo matter how it looks from the outside, it's always muddy and chaotic inside the frenzy of startups, and I hope to give you a glimpse of that. It's a whopping 10,000 characters long, but I'm sure you'll find yourself reading all the way to the end before you know it!\n\n\ntable of contents\nWhy did you decide to join Natee?\nWhat was it like after you joined?\nHow did you grow it from there?\nWhat are your thoughts on this funding and announcement?\nIs there anything you would say to yourself four years ago?\nEditor's Note\nWhy did you decide to join Natee?\nI joined Recruit Career as a new graduate, and my first and second years were tough, lacking in merit and frustration. But in my third year, I was able to shed some steam. For example, I created an overseas internship for a client that had never been done before, providing students with an opportunity to experience the thrill of the experience. It was a time when I was able to work on a broader scope than I had in the previous two years.\n\nEven within the company, I felt that my performance, work attitude, and my message had a positive influence on my department, which consisted of 70 people at the time. I sent messages to all 70 people every day, encouraging them to work hard on their tasks. My juniors followed suit, and seeing this motivated my more senior colleagues to work harder in sales. I felt like I was at the center of the business and organization, not just as a group, but as a division in the Kansai region. I\n\nsaw my job as a way to give back to the department that nurtured me and improve the atmosphere and perspective of the department. That was my mission, and it was during my third year. As a result, I became a regular recipient of in-house awards and was even nominated for national awards. I received company recognition, with people saying, \"You've become quite a notable presence among your peers.\" I was definitely on a winning streak.\n\nAs mentioned above, October 2018 to March 2019 was the period when I was at my peak. It was during this time that I received an invitation from my friend from college, Kojima, to join me in starting a startup. I think it was February 2019. Honestly, I had no intention of changing jobs when I received the call.\n\nThat said, I'd objectively made a leap forward in my third year, after two years of struggling to do the work I was facing due to a lack of skill. I was beginning to feel conflicted about my career: should I continue on this path and become a manager early, or take on a new challenge?\n\nAmidst these worries, I read Son's book, and I immediately felt a difference in my standards when I saw how he ran his company from a 300-year-old perspective. I also picked up a book about Sakamoto Ryoma, whom Son admired, and stayed up all night over the New Year's holiday, engrossed in \"Ryoma ga Yuku.\" Watching the life of Sakamoto Ryoma, who fled his domain at age 26 to try to change Japan, I, a 25-year-old at the time, remember thinking, \"I want to gain more experience in making decisions in life!\" I still remember how I spent the New Year thinking about this. I\n\ndecided to broaden my horizons by traveling overseas once a month, and then I received a message from Kojima: \"Natee has firmly established its direction, and after just a 15-minute teleconference, we've secured procurement.\" In 2019, I began to consider three options: aim for promotion at Recruit with standards that would earn me a company-wide award, start my own business, or work with Kojima.\n\nUntil around March 2019, my strongest desire was to rebuild our Kansai sales department. While my mentor was still with the company, I decided, \"I want to make this guy a man,\" and our team's performance rose to the top of the nation, and we entered April of my fourth year. As I mentioned earlier, the owner, who operates globally, told me, \"I want to make a bold global hiring move, even assigning new graduates to India, to revitalize the company and drive its next growth.\" If I committed myself to this job, I could make a huge impact on the client, and it would also be a global-scale project for me, so I was incredibly excited about it. I proposed,\n\n\"I want to see for myself whether people who want to gain real-world experience really want to go to India,\" negotiated with the owner and the company, and secured a ticket to travel to India during Golden Week. At the time, I was determined to stay at Recruit and work on this global hiring project and shape the growth of young employees.\n\nBut I always had a sense of unease about myself, wondering, \"Is that really enough?\" Even though I was working at Recruit, I wasn't 100% satisfied. While I was certainly happy to receive recognition, I didn't feel particularly happy, and I still felt a sense of discomfort about my career.\n\nMeanwhile, I wholeheartedly sympathized with Natee's mission to \"Talent Humanity!\" and thought it was a great idea. I also knew I didn't have the skills to build a business, so starting my own business would just be like being an independent contractor. Various options were circling my mind.\n\nThen, on a plane to India, I happened to see \"The Greatest Showman,\" a film about the founder of the circus. I was so moved, it's a silly story, but that's what made me decide to join Natee. The main character, Barnum, puts people like \"bearded women\" and \"little men,\" who were looked down upon by society, on stage and turns them into big stars. Seeing him and hearing the song \"This Is Me\" from the film made me truly realize, \" I want to create an explosion of individuality and talent.\" Also, this incident after I arrived in India didn't necessarily confirm my decision to change jobs, but I was riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by a random, mild-Dekina-like student intern who said things like, \"I graduated from college among a billion people in India. I have the right to use a billion resources.\" It made me realize how vast the world is, even though I was doing a job with a little influence on society at Recruit. Asking about my peers' grades and all that kind of stuff makes me realize how self-determined my own meaning is. Also, when I visited another slum, I saw a child from a poor community wearing a TikTok T-shirt. Even if I indulge in self-satisfaction as a Recruit employee media representative, I have little influence on major trends in the world. On the other hand, seeing a child from an Indian slum wearing a TikTok T-shirt really made me realize the difference in influence. In short, I was freed from the spell of meaning imposed by large corporations. It made me realize how pathetic it was to think about what was going on among my peers. I even asked about their grades and things like that. So I decided to join Natee, returned to Japan, and told my manager I was quitting on the first day after the Golden Week holidays. After that, reality and everyday life awaited me, but I had weekly interviews with the executive officer, the department manager two days after that, and then another department manager.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI was constantly being told, \"The landscape you see is completely different depending on whether you make it to managerial status at Recruit,\" \"Can you really say you've done your best? There's a difference between realizing your goals and dreaming about them.\" \"Side hustles are commonplace these days, so why not start with a side hustle?\" \"I understand you want to create a world where individuals thrive, but is TikTok the right way to climb the ladder for you?\" To top it off, my manager asked me, \"Why don't you stay and work with me, even if it's just for the global recruitment project?\n\n\" Every time we talked, I would sometimes think, \"Maybe I should try my hand at Recruit after all,\" or, \"If I work hard this year, can't I change roles and do something more akin to management?\" I also had a huge sense of obligation, like, \"Am I really going to turn my back on the people who've helped me so much and make them cry?\" To be honest, I was really wavering.\n\nI was frankly talking to Kojima about this, and he told me , \"If you're going to try your hand at management, your job is to make decisions without knowing what the right answer is. It's your life, so you should make those kinds of decisions for yourself.\"\n\nWhen I returned from India, I thought I could move forward as long as I made the decision, but when I returned to Japan, some people were forced to break promises they'd made before, and some even cried because they thought it was the wrong timing. Looking back, I realized that I was able to make the decision, but not be able to turn it down.\n\nSo, when I reconsidered what was better, I realized that the world was changing, I had a vision of the world I wanted to live in, and Natee offered an environment where I could achieve that. (If I tried and failed, that was fine, but) I couldn't just not try. I\n\nmade up my mind again, and told the people who had been negotiating my resignation, \"I can't do it after all. I'm incredibly happy, but I'm getting off the ship now.\" Honestly, things went pretty quickly from there. Finally, the executive who'd been looking after me since I graduated came from Tokyo to Osaka on his day off for a meeting. He said, \"Six months ago, you said you wanted to do this kind of work,\" but I told him, \"I've decided anyway,\" and the hour-long meeting ended in less than 40 minutes, and I decided to resign.\n\nEven now, there are executives I can't face, as if we had parted ways on bad terms. Honestly, it's painful to think about it sometimes, but I've now come to accept that this is what a decision is. Make a decision and then cut it off. You can't always live your own life, and I've often thought recently that living your own life means accepting all obligations, both obligations and omissions. We were\n\nfinally ready to start Natee, and Kojima and I decided on the stock ratio. Rather than just splitting it evenly, we looked at various examples and consulted with Kaneko-san of East Ventures, who had decided to invest at the time, and we started with a clear difference between our shares. At the time, we had absolutely no money to invest, so after we reached a final agreement over the phone, I immediately borrowed 1 million yen from Aiful and transferred it directly to the company. I felt like this is what it feels like to have no way out. All that was left was to get going.\n\nWhat was it like after you joined?\nBefore I left Recruit, I worked at Recruit in Osaka on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and at Natee in Tokyo on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. When I came to Tokyo, I would stay at Kojima's house or a super public bathhouse, then take the last train on Sundays or the first train on Mondays back to Osaka to work at Recruit. I was pretty exhausted.\n\nIt's a funny story, but during that time, I didn't have anyone on my side (laughs). At Recruit, people would half-jokingly say, \"You're still here!\" and at Natee, they'd ask me, \"When are you starting?\" I felt like I didn't belong for several months.\n\nFirst, I decided to talk to various people about how to move the business forward. I looked through my acquaintances in Tokyo, their business cards, and Facebook pages to make appointments and spend time figuring out what I needed to do to make this business profitable. Since it was in the advertising domain, I went to visit some of my friends from university who had gone to Dentsu. I also made appointments with people in high positions, like Morichi (Chikako Morimoto), who still supports me today.\n\nTo be honest, I was proud of the fact that \"I was someone who was highly evaluated at Recruit.\" I had an amazing impression that venture company managers and BizDev people were able to work as jacks of all trades. I thought I could be like that too, so I thought I would try anything, but in reality, the market wasn't warmed up and there were hardly any projects available. When I had a one-on-one with a talent manager from when I was working at an agency at the time, he would always ask me, \"When are you going to get work?\" and while I thought, \"You should get some too,\" I couldn't bring myself to say it, so I just decided to guarantee the amount of work for the time being.\n\nIn my second term, I hired more people and for the first time had my own team under my command. At the time, I made a huge mistake with my management style, which assumed everyone should do what I told them to do and that my path was always the right one.\n\nIn reality, what I did at Recruit was figure out how to run on the rails laid out for me. I had a wealth of knowledge and a reliable network, and I was playing a game where I was told to use those resources to achieve 120% more than the previous year. Even though the rules were completely different, I often thought I was better than the average venture company, that I could do it.\n\nIn reality, all I could do was go and meet people and sell, but I misjudged my own abilities, which ultimately led to the exhaustion of the entire organization. I realized that it was all down to pride. At the same time, I didn't want to expose myself like that. I thought that if I, who was far from a jack-of-all-trades and actually couldn't do anything, was at the top of the company, my colleagues wouldn't follow me and we wouldn't be able to hire anyone. Even though I was the leader, I tried to make myself look bigger. As expected, the results weren't coming.\n\nThe gap between me and the people who joined Natee just kept getting wider. When I stubbornly stuck to my own way and found that others couldn't keep up and results weren't improving, I couldn't acknowledge my shortcomings and work together to resolve them. Concerned about what would happen if I did the same thing again, I distanced myself, leaving the business operations to others and deciding to focus on sales to feed the company. I didn't meet with my team members and just kept creating work. It was a difficult time.\n\nAs a result, a major organizational problem arose at the end of the fiscal year, and the organization lost trust in Asato Taisho. All the things I had been ignoring became apparent, revealing a huge gap between me and my team members. I often wondered, \"Can this really be fixed?\" The end of the second fiscal year was when I was faced with the reality that rather than trying to fix things, I would have to start the company over from scratch.\n\nThere are two things I clearly remember being told by Mr. Kumagai of Akatsuki Heart Driven Fund, who had invested in Natee since its first year. First, he told me, \"We'll put entrepreneurs first and be on your side,\" which really saved me and reminded me that it's ultimately the management that should be steering the company forward. Second, he\n\npointed out, \"If a big problem occurs in an organization of this size, isn't it because there wasn't enough dialogue at the core?\" This made me realize that I wasn't having enough conversations with my coworkers and that I wasn't having enough opportunities to talk about myself. This was an important realization for me as I rebuild the company from scratch.\n\nHow did you grow it from there?\nMy third term was a year in which I truly felt the organization was revitalized through delegation of authority, dialogue, and recruitment. Together with Kojima, I held two-on-one meetings with all employees, explaining, \"I'm determined to rebuild the company once again. If you still want to stay, please do so.\" To those who stayed, I apologized for the mistakes of my previous approach and promised to change my ways. I also appointed members who were around 23-25 ​​years old at the time as managers, and changed my approach so that I could spend more time on top appointments and leveraging my strengths.\n\nOnce I changed my approach, I felt the business and organization gradually become more united. Up until my second term, I didn't spend much time interacting with everyone, but in my third term, I made a conscious effort to speak up, with the motto \"If in doubt, speak up.\" We spent time sharing everyone's backgrounds and thoughts as team building, sharing what kind of lives they had lived and what kind of lives they wanted to live, so that we could compete based on our strengths. By repeating this process every day, we gradually came to understand each other, built trust, and created a system in which we could leverage each other's strengths.\n\nJust as positive results began to emerge, new members joined the team, able to communicate with others while considering overall optimization and understanding management's intentions. This improved the organization and relationships, resulting in more stable growth than before. This led to the creation of deep relationships with customers, a major turning point in TikTok's popularity, and ultimately a year of recovery for the company. However,\n\nthat's all in hindsight; there were many challenges along the way. One thing I realized again was the difficulty of running the entire business through conversations with my manager. Throughout my second year, my activities were sales-focused, focused more on securing work than on overseeing the business. In my third year, I did a lot of sales, but when I looked at the business and considered how to bring together a dozen or so people, I realized I wasn't very good at strategy, and my manager sometimes gave me feedback like, \"So you're asking me to do everything?\" I\n\nwas often forced to make decisions involving others, such as what to keep and what to discard. Honestly, I had no idea how to grow the business as an organization. Because I had no idea, I had no choice but to think about it together with everyone, but ultimately, I had no choice but to make decisions based on my own ignorance. Becoming an entrepreneur faced huge obstacles. Also,\n\nI'm not naturally the type to take a deep interest in people and engage in dialogue, so I had a lot of conflicts. I clashed with people with completely different strengths, and I experienced the difficulties of interpersonal relationships, discussing each other's strengths and weaknesses and methods, and trying to understand each other. There were many junior members, so I wondered how much I should ask of them. My manager, who had promised to \"take it all on!\", collapsed from overwork. My poor management skills caused trouble for the team.\n\nEven in such situations, I couldn't turn a blind eye, so it was a year that forced me to accept them as they were and think about what I should do next. \"I'm so clumsy,\" I thought every day, every day. It was frustrating. I constantly felt that I couldn't improve the company unless I overcame that. I also\n\nfelt incredibly frustrated. I constantly realized that improving performance was so difficult. We want to \"Turn Humanity into Talent\" and make a world-changing impact, but it's been so difficult and slow to grow our business, and yet I can't do anything alone, so I wonder how to work with others, and I'm constantly tormented by the gap between what I want to be and what is actually happening.\n\nBut it was around this time that I realized that our business is truly a solution, and that the power of creators is connected to the business growth of the brand, and that this is connected to value for creators. While I felt that my own abilities were lacking, I was glad that we finished in the black, and we were on trend with our business plan until the first half of the fourth fiscal year, so I felt like I passed the mark and that we weren't going in the wrong direction.\n\nOn the other hand, in the second half of the fourth fiscal year, it became clear that I was agonizing over whether my approach was right, and the P/L showed my business owner's report card. In reality, I was slow to delegate authority, but more fundamentally, it was due to my hesitation. I hadn't made decisions that would move the entire company forward, and I was hesitant.\n\nBecause of various management failures in the second fiscal year, I wanted to make the most of everyone and ensure their motivation. I didn't realize it in the third fiscal year because performance was going well with that approach, but in order to achieve our target growth rate, I should have asked everyone to make a daily commitment, setting standards for each individual, praising and scolding certain people, and so on. Instead, I thought I'd have to shoulder the hardships myself in the end, not making requests, being hesitant, and not making the same mistakes I made in the second fiscal year. I regret not making any major decisions, and I deeply regret that.\n\nEven though we had talented people on the team, we weren't able to fully utilize them. We were more focused on their condition and motivation than results, which delayed the operations and service development necessary to produce results. The business didn't grow as expected, but everyone was still pushing themselves to their limits, and a vicious spiral began. I couldn't properly understand reality, and in my own final attempt to do something, I narrowed my perspective on the ground. It took me a long time to face the reality of what was happening, and I ended up spending a painful six months. I\n\nwas too lenient, which was the flip side of making huge management mistakes by making demands in the second term. When you start worrying about how people will react rather than results, everything becomes rigid. It was only by confronting the fact that the business wasn't growing and experiencing the pain that I was able to properly reject myself.\n\nWhat are your thoughts on this funding and announcement?\nTypically, when a company raises funds, it's confident in its growth potential and needs to use cool PR phrases to attract more people. However, to be honest, I can't get into that kind of festive mood.\n\nThe market is growing, and I'm proud to have talented colleagues within the company, but there's a sense of stagnation within the company. I want to break through this. To do so, I need to discard all thoughts about the company growing, becoming more like a company, or having routine operations. Instead, I recognize that this is the time to take the necessary steps to maximize the company's overall results for the long term and break through with my colleagues so that we can make an impact. I'm\n\nnot simply looking to hire more people; I'm prepared to start a startup from scratch with colleagues who are serious about working with me to bring the company to a breakthrough toward its mission. Regardless of whether we raise funds or not, I believe the most important thing for this company to achieve its mission is to gather colleagues who are serious about taking on the challenge.\n\nOur current business lacks appropriate strategic planning, organizational structure, and systems, which is why I want to recruit people who can make the company their own and overcome these challenges together. My colleagues are also in the midst of reform, making requests to each other for the sake of overall company results and realizing our mission. I want to work with people who are excited about this growth plateau and are willing to put their heart and soul into it, and I think this will be quite refreshing for people from large companies. Even if you have experience in management or pride yourself on growing the business, I think this will be a very refreshing environment.\n\nI want to once again delegate authority, demand results, and create a great company together. If you're ready to devote your life to revolutionizing your career, why not join us?"}