午夜剧场

For me, entrepreneurship begins with sensing changes in the times, identifying problems, and redefining the contradictions within them. It has been a repetitive process of searching for solutions through a different frame of thinking than before.

Business opportunities lie at the boundaries of major changes in technology and the social environment. My first challenge was with Hangame Japan.

In 2000, with the arrival of the broadband era imminent, I founded Hangame Japan and distributed a wide variety of free games as a portal. However, while charging for each game creates a viable revenue model, it makes it difficult to attract people. Making them free attracts people, but revenue is scarce. To resolve this contradiction, I found a way to keep the games free while monetizing avatar items, growing it into Japan's number one game portal.

My next entrepreneurial challenge was Cocone. The essence of mobile is communication, and it is the most personalized device. Since a portal-like structure like that of a PC is not suitable, I added connection-like elements where individuals connect and focused on highly personalized character-based content. As a result, we were able to pioneer the CCP (Character Coordinating Play) genre, which is supported by many users.

Entrepreneurship has the power to change the world. The word "entrepreneurship" is not enough if it only means starting a company. The innovation required to give rise to that "enterprise" is what is important.

Creating something that has never existed before—whether it be a service, a product, or an organization—and making a positive impact on people and society: this is what it means to be an entrepreneur. To create unprecedented innovation, one must correctly define things and current problems, and search for solutions with flexible thinking and execution. Achieving financial results as a result is what entrepreneurship and the nature of a company should be.

It has been 20 years since the internet began to spread in Japan. Now, it has permeated our lives to the point where there is no boundary between online and offline. Recently, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a fusion of existing industries with new technologies such as AI, IoT, and O2O, has begun.

The world is being connected by an unprecedented amount of information and technology. It is precisely because we live in such an era that the value of entrepreneurship is increasing. Students of 午夜剧场! Let us venture forth with the spirit of entrepreneurship.