Even though I had traveled to Hokkaido many times before, I was a complete stranger to the place, so I didn’t know anyone there at all.
Therefore, I had to develop relationships with suppliers from scratch.

I called every company I could find, told them I was going to start up a business, and asked if I could stock their products.
Most companies refused to work with me because I did not have any track record.

Even so, after making calls to about 100 companies, three or four of them finally decided to support me by supplying their products.

I promised those companies that I would definitely succeed,
because I would never stop until I did.

Then I bought a textbook, followed it to set up my own website, and started selling specialties from Hokkaido such as crabs, melons, and Jingisukan mutton on the Internet.

However, it was quite a struggle at first.
Sales for the first month were about 20,000 yen (my first customer was my friend Suzuki).
It took me six months to achieve monthly sales of over 100,000 yen.

Of course, you can’t live on 100,000 yen a month.
I was still doing part-time physical labor during the day.

Online shopping itself was not yet widespread among the general public at the time.
I was always anxious about whether or not online shopping would really become popular,
and whether I should really go in this direction or not.

Then, about a year later, when I managed to get my business off the ground,
I fell victim to a confidence trick scam because of my own naivety, and I lost all my money.

However, I told myself,

“I had promised my suppliers that I would never stop until I succeeded, so I couldn’t let this kind of thing get me down.
While it was true that I had been robbed of my money, I hadn’t lost any of my hope, knowledge, and experience.
No scammer could rob me of my hope.”

I had no time to complain about past failures, so I threw myself into my work, trying to challenge myself to move forward, even if it meant taking one step at a time.

Many other difficult events happened at that time as well,
and it was the song Yell by Kobukuro that encouraged me at that time.

♪Now you’re starting out on a journey, following a distant road
　Like a proud hero,
　somewhere on that road where the wind doesn’t blow
　Someone is looking for you, someone is waiting for you
　Someday you’ll see with your own eyes the visions you dreamed

Whenever this song was played on the radio, I used to identify myself with the main character in the lyrics.
Even now, I remember those days when I hear that song.