I was already over thirty years old, and with no money at hand, I was doing part-time physical labor to get by.
I was in the depths of disappointment and feared many times, “is this how I’m going to spend the rest of my life…?”

Eventually, after a year of living like that, I said to myself,
“I’m not someone who ends up like this. I’m going to stand up again and build a business!”
I made the decision to start up a business once again.

I knew that I needed to run a sustainable and stable business this time in order not to repeat the same mistakes.
I thought back on why I failed the last time and thought about what I should have done.

First, I realized that a business is only viable if there are repeat purchases, and that repeats don’t happen without satisfied customers.

I’m embarrassed to say, but last time I just sold things and didn’t care if the customers who bought them were satisfied with the products or not.
That’s why I got sales up at first, but was not able to get repeat orders.
I decided to put customer satisfaction first in my next business venture.

Secondly, I decided to only sell products and services that I could truly recommend.

Strong commitment is necessary in order to continue a business.
And I have learned from my experience that the source of this commitment is to get people to know about my products and services.
No matter how good you are at your job, it is difficult to sell a product that you don’t think is good.
For this reason, I decided to only sell products and services that I could truly recommend.

I considered businesses that fit these two policies from various angles.
At that time, the Internet was just starting to gain an enormous popularity, and it caught my attention. I wondered if it would be possible to use the technology of the Internet to create a system in which people in the mainland of Japan, like myself, could easily order delicious foods from Hokkaido.

I loved Hokkaido because of the TV drama Kita no Kuni Kara (From the North Country), and I had traveled there many times. I was positive that the delicious local products from Hokkaido would surely satisfy customers.

Consequently, I made up my mind to start an online shopping business that sells local products from Hokkaido. After a short preparation period, I moved to the Great North of Hokkaido, a land with which I had no friends or connections, with just two computers, all on my own, as a colonizer of the Heisei era.