Interviewer: Where were you born?
Shota: I was born in Osaka, and lived there until my third year of high school. I don’t think I moved.
Interviewer: What kind of kid were you when you were in elementary school?
Shota: Well, I guess I was quite good with studying.
Interviewer: Did you take the junior high school entrance exam? Did you go to cram school from a very early age?
Shota: Yeah I took the exam. I went to cram school. In the first grade of elementary school, my father made me study, so I was able to do pretty well. I didn't go to a cram school for the entrance exam. But, when I was in 2nd grade, I took the national practice exam for 2nd grade, which had nothing to do with middle school entrance exams or anything, and I got a perfect score and came in first place nationally. There were only about 10 people with perfect scores, so I was at the top few ％ among tens of thousands of people. So it was like, yeah, whoa there we go. My parents kind of loosened up a little bit at that point but they still made me study, and from that point on, I went to a local cram school, like a typical countryside cram school, but I slept the whole time. We got to get a snack once an hour, so I slept for an hour just to eat that snack, then got back to sleep, and then ate the snack, repeating this process. I went there just so I could have a snack. But, even though I wasn’t listening to classes, I was always ranked as1st or 2nd in my grade.So in that cram school, everyone wanted to go to Chiben Wakayama, the top preparatory school in Wakayama prefecture, and since I got a relatively high rank there, I thought I would get in. And I started studying in 5th grade. But since my local school was in Minami-Osaka, it was full of Yankees(troubled teens in Japan), and they were very flashy, like “let’s go fight!” so I felt like it would be a bad idea to go to a school like that. Although I was good friends with them, I thought I should go to a serious cram school. And I started to look for a cram school on my own, and when I was in 4th grade, I inquired to my parents if I could go to that specific cram school. And in 5th grade, my parents thought I could still attend that cram school , but the cram school told us that it had already passed the enrollment period, but I took the entrance exam. It had Japanese and math and it was a test in which a normal student could not score even 10 points, but I got 60 for Japanese and 97 for math. So the cram school teacher was also surprised like whoa! so I entered the class feeling a little excited, but as I expected, I started from the bottom-ranked class. And that’s where I started studying hard.Eventually, I got accepted to both the Chiben Wakayama, and Osaka Seiko,which is the top school in Osaka. But since I started going to cram school around June of my 5th grade, which is a bit late for junior high school entrance exam students, it was quite a surprise. So yeah I slipped in Osaka Seiko, and somehow made it through.. At that time, I was really good at social studies. I was good in the order of social studies, science, math, and Japanese. I was very weak in Japanese, but my social study’s standard score was over 70. So I was ranked within the top 50 nationwide. I was also ranked around 70 in science, 65 in math, and 40 in Japanese. Everything was balanced there haha
Interviewer: Have you always been studying? Or have you had a lot of fun too?
Shota: I played around a lot until I was in the fourth grade. I played badminton every day. That's the kind of elementary student I was. . In middle school, I studied properly. My middle school didn't rank the exams by grade, but by class, and I started out 39th out of 49 students in my class, but I improved by 3 places with each test. Then I got to about 19th, which was in the middle, and that’s like the level where I could go to medical school or Kyoto University, and I was definitely on the line to go to Osaka University. And I wondered what to do, and around that time, I was being bullied, like in bukatsu(club activities), so I wanted to quit. To do that, I intentionally dropped my grades.. So, even though I got to 19th, I dropped back to about 45th and deliberately tried not to go to college. That was the three years of middle school.
As a club activity, I played basketball. My seniors, who are two years older than me, were quite fond of me. But when my senior, one year older, took over, they didn't like it. I would often get tripped over when I'm running normally, and basketball itself is a pretty tough sport. But I had even more stamina than normal people. I was first or second in my grade, so the seniors (one grade above me)were nothing special to be honest. That's why I thought it wouldn’t be a practice without putting stress on myself, so yeah, I just ran normally. But for the seniors, I was quite too fast, so they didn’t like it. Like you know how the upper floor of gymnasium’s quite narrow right? So they would constantly block my way, and if I tried to go through, they would talk to me and trip me over. I used to run with a senior second student, who was very fast, and at that time they couldn’t do anything, but when he retired, they suddenly started to block me, so yeah it was annoying.
Interviewer: Looking back now, was there a reason that made you decide to change your environment? There are a lot of people who get stuck in that kind of situation and can’t get out, right?
Shota: Well…I wonder why. Well there was a time when I thought I should suicide too. Hmm…what made me want to change my environment… I wonder what it is.. Well I was going through a lot of hardships, and things were getting tough, but as I talked with my parents, I kind of realized that just being alive is a blessing. Cuz you know, if you die, you’ll leave nothing behind. But if you're alive, no matter what options you have, you'll be able to do anything , but if you're dead, you can't do anything about it.
If you die, all options are closed to you, and you are left with only one choice(to die). That's when I began to search for my life, and that's when I met this one teacher. I was sitting in the faculty room with a dead eye, and he came up to me, so I told him that I wanted to die, that I’m tired, it's too hard. Then he told me that my current painful experience, though it may be painful now, and though it may be extremely painful now, there will be a time when I will be able to accept it. But it won't be now, and there is no way I can see that future now. He told me that this painful experience would one day become a power to help the socially vulnerables. And advised me to why not try all the options available now and experience everything. I did kinda understand him but not quite, but still felt reliable, so I decided to believe him, and joined the volunteer club. And I started volunteering in many fields.
Interviewer: By the way, did you enjoy the volunteer club? From 2nd year of middle school? What kind of volunteering did you do?
Shota: I basically did every volunteer other than working abroad. I did volunteer activities like meal distribution volunteer in Nishinari, like I went there many times. Also went to orphanages, nursing homes, helped the disabled people to get a job. I also collected bottle caps and made art, and also fundraised in a school festival to support the earthquake victims. Also did disaster relief volunteering, like after the Western Japan Heavy Rain happened, I went there as well. I also did the student council, so I did a lot of things there.
Interviewer: You were quite active, and then you took the high school entrance exam?
Shota: No, I didn't take the high school entrance exam (combined junior high and high school). I thought I'd be rejected, but I ended up passing with just one point. And just one point in one subject. And that was chemistry, so if I'd missed one point in chemistry, I wouldn't have gone to high school. if I'd missed eight credits, I was out,but I already missed six, and was very sure that I’ll miss another one. So I didn’t know why I wouldn’t get the phone call from my school..so I was like WHY lol.
Interviewer: As I listen to your life history, it seems like everything is gradually connected. Cuz like the volunteering was also derived from that painful experience, right? So looking back now, are you glad you had the experiences you had back then, I mean it’s truly not a “good” experience but still?
Shota: Yeah that's right, No matter what we do, no one becomes the first penguin(the fist one to start something). They don't raise their hands. But I always did everything that was given to me, so I was always a yes man. And even when I was asked to do something impossible I did it, like you know, there’s a thing called student debate right? It's held every year, and they invite people from various schools to have discussions. And I did participate from the 3rd grade(grade 9) of middle school, but when I became high school 1st grade(grade 10), they suddenly told me to manage that discussion group. I was the only one, the only one to operate the group, so I was like, for real? ButI literally gathered 80 people by myself, by using just friends, and asked them to help me, and gathered students from about 10 schools, listed everyone and sent them to my teacher and stuff. So I really felt I had done my best, but then, at the moment it started, I was asked to do something insane again. I was already tired at that time because I was preparing the whole time until the day before, but they told me to come to the podium and speak!! So I was like, "Eh?!" But. I came forward, and obviously I hadn't thought about anything, so I was like “well I'm sorry, but I hadn't thought about anything haha” So yeah, I got some experience speaking in front of people, and the fact that I was able to gather 80 people gave me confidence. So I wanted to try more things, and I started a student group and other activities, because I was like , "I can gather 80 people by myself 😎" So the hurdles and expectations towards myself became higher. The hurdles kept rising as the thought of “I could manage this much” gradually increased. Well you know, the activities of those student councils are nothing, if you think about it now, they're nothing compared to us now. But the timing that the expectation towards myself arose was that time in highschool. So, you know when there’s a time when we all need to decide the class representative right? But usually no one raises their hands for it. But like I wanted to go home asap so I always did those leader positions for them. Cuz you know, I wanted to go home already.
Interviewer: Other than the volunteering club did you do anything?
Shota: Yeah, when I was in my second year of high school, I came up with a plan called "Nationwide High School Student Live Satellite Broadcast" which is a live satellite broadcast of high school students all over the country. I think there were 22 prefectures,where we would set up venues in each prefecture, hold them all at the same time, and host them online as well. The project was to discuss education, community development, and politics with high school students only. About 120 to 130 people participated in the project, which was sometimes covered by local newspapers. This became a memory of my senior year in high school. There were no tools like zoom or skype at that time. Those things were crap. I think I did well as a high school student in those days. It was then that I began to develop an interest in sound operations and event management. When I first came up with the idea for this project, I recruited participants on Facebook and was suddenly able to gather 50 people. I was like damn 50 people!?, but I was convinced that with 50 management members, we could gather three people each, and that would be enough to organize the event. I couldn’t pay those management members because I only had one month from the time I put out the call for applications to the day to hold the event. So I asked the management members of each community to rent the venue for free. And the event, which became the talk of the town, was visited by city council members and the local newspaper. I honestly think it’s amazing that I was able to do this without money. So that gave me confidence that I could do anything, and this experience became a great value to me.
Interviewer: So, then after that, you took the university entrance exams?
Shota: Yes. But I met a lot of people. Because I wanted to expand my network, I talked to a lot of business people when I was in high school. But, I guess the level of the people I met at that time wasn't that high. So since then, I have gradually learned how to look at adults. Sometimes I would think “oh this adult is a little off”, and that’s like the time I realized that not all adults are reliable or great. You know some people are quite dishonest. But yeah, from about the second year of high school, I thought that it would be interesting to run my own company.
Interviewer: Did you have any kind of dreams in elementary school, middle school, or high school?
Shota: Yeah I had. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a scientist. When I found out there was such a thing as a Nobel Prize, I wanted to take it, haha. I had that until I was in the sixth grade(grade 6). Then, my grandfather died when I was in sixth grade, and I thought I would pursue science until the first or second grade(grade 8) of junior high school, but when I was in the third grade and had to choose my career, I asked myself, "What do I want to do?". I remembered the cool image of my late grandfather continuing to run his company at that time. He started his company when he was 20 years old, but you know, it took 10 million yen to start a stock company back then. He was a man who started his company at the age of 20 in such an era and ran it until his death at the age of 74. I was very close with him and he had high expectations for me, so he was super happy when I got into the top school in Osaka. So, yeah, I was influenced by him, and decided to study humanities when I needed to choose my career path in the third year of junior high school. So yeah I wanted to become a scientist before but decided to pursue something totally different. Yeah it hasn’t changed till now and I’m still thinking about running a company, and I’m even thinking about founding one this year. Cuz my grandfather founded the company at the age of 20 as well and I don't think it’s that difficult for me.
Interviewer: Let’s go back to the topic for a moment. How was the exam itself?
Shota: I actually applied for Keio SFC twice through the AO system, but failed both times. I didn’t know much about SFC at that time since I lived in the west, but my teacher told me that a person like me should go there. I happened to hear from that teacher that SFC students were doing joint research with companies. There was a time when Enoshima Electric Railway and SFC students collaborated on some project, and my teacher somehow saw the promotion for that, and informed me about it. So I thought it sounded like an interesting school and applied. But until then, I had no intention of going to college. At that top high school I was attending in Osaka, everyone thought that going to college was the norm, but I thought there was no point in going to college. I thought it made no sense to make a choice from options that were only available in the place called “college” where everyone else went. Still, I managed to find a good option for myself. The choices were to go to Keio SFC, Tokyo University, or a newly established university. But with my academic ability at the time, Tokyo University was not an option, and I did not want to waste a year. And for SFC, I was motivated by the fact that I was not accepted in the AO exam and took a different form of entrance exam. I studied hard in mathematics for only three months and took the general exam. Many people told me that SFC dropping someone like me in the AO entrance exam was not right. Cuz you know I play a role like a hub that unconsciously connects people, and yet they dropped me, so yeah maybe they have a bad taste. And that’s why I personally think SFC should change the current form of AO examination.
Interviewer: How should it change?
Shota: Well those who come with a sense of purpose may create a certain value, but the value within the university is not limited to running through academic specialties, but also to leaving an impact on society with the friends they meet. So SFC should not devalue such people, and should not be blind to the competencies and unconscious talents that these people possess. So that’s why I think the AO interview is still important as it is now, but the application screening should be open to all. Since many people will be taking the test, there’s a need to set some criteria to filter, but we cannot judge them just by their motives for applying. So yeah, in other words, I think a form of communication is fine, and it should be chat-based. And I think that would be more interesting as well.
Interviewer: At the time you entered college, it was right around the time of the COVID epidemic, right? Did you have any goals or decisions that you made back then to go through the pandemic?
Shota: At first I thought, “I can't meet people!” but I thought it was okay because I made some interesting friends. Originally, I was a connector who organized events online and was active on Facebook, so I wanted to continue to be that kind of person. I wanted to be a connector who connects people, and I thought society needs people like that as well. So, I wanted to act so that people would not lose the opportunity to meet each other.
Interviewer: Did you have something where you were able to feel like you were immersed into it during your first year of university?
Shota: I guess I was in various organizations at the time. Like KBC and Inochi, and stuff, but yeah I was doing too much and it was tough but I guess it was fine.
Interviewer: What did you do in KBC?
Shota: Even though I had never done it before, I created a program from scratch that would turn student entrepreneurs into seed-stage startups and turn aspiring entrepreneurs into entrepreneurs.
Interviewer: Was there any change in your second year of university compared to your first year?
Shota: Yes, I made two friends who I think would be my lifelong friends. I made friends who would definitely come when I died and I would definitely go if they die. I have become such good friends with them that I would definitely go to their weddings, play with their children if they have any, and even provide for their families if they pass away. I think the biggest change in my sophomore year of college is that I made such good friends.
Interviewer: Where did you meet them?
Shota: I met them in KBC. They are the executive members of KBC. It’s Goran and Takuma. We even planned a trip to Okinawa this morning and paid for lodging and flights without Takuma's consent lol
Interviewer: How did you come to have such a relationship with those two?
Shota: I think we got along well because we overcame the tough KBC activities. With everyone quitting because of COVID, we had a tough time in our activities. We ran a group of 60 people with just the 3 of us, and we did it all from the beginning. We committed about 2000 hours in one year.
Interviewer: What was the most difficult thing?
Shota: It was difficult to get members to engage. We tried various tools such as lines and slack, but didn’t workout. So we didn't track people who left, and we couldn’t shift to a face-to-face format until the end. But we changed a large, uncoordinated organization into a small, cohesive one. To use an analogy, a ship with 100 people on board that was sinking was turned into a ship with 30 people on board.
Interviewer: Do you feel like the executives of KBC have already retired and the ship has been handed over to the next generation?
Shota: yes
Interviewer: It's probably your third year now, but do you have any aspirations for the future?
Shota: Well, I wanted to create a company with annual sales of 200 million to 300 million yen. I'd like to run a company worth between 100 million and 500 million yen with about 5 people. So, I’m thinking that taking a leave of absence would not be a bad idea, and if things have calmed down to a certain extent, I might go to graduate school. I want to spend my time running a company while going to graduate school and being commissioned to do various tasks. To this end, I would like to do consulting for young people and increase sales like an advertising agency. I also want to create overseas promotions related to the travel industry. I would like to run a company that offers long-term promotion.
Interviewer: With the two people you mentioned earlier?
Shota: I would like to work with those two people, either as directors or outside directors. I would be willing to give them a certain amount of shares.
Interviewer: You said you were also interested in decentralization and Bitcoin, right? Why is that?
Shota: Yes, right, I'm currently helping out with something like an entrepreneur share house, so I started studying Bitcoin, and I think it would be good if research groups and other communities like that were decentralized. You know It's like a bank, like banking 2.0. The money transfer and trust part is just an accessory, and will become more and more prevalent in the world. It is a loss not to know about this and it is worthwhile to teach others about it. That is why I think it is worth studying. I can make 20 million yen in sales just by doing this, and I want to do consulting as well as advertising.
Interviewer: Just one last question: What is Japan to you?
Shota: Hmm, what is Japan for me… well, Japan clearly has more of what might be called its own “normal” than other countries. It is a country with a strong sense of homogeneity and commonality brought about by this. If we can stimulate that part of the country, the country itself has the potential to develop. There are many points that people can relate to and resonate with. This is why people tend to criticize politicians and others at once, but if we look at it the other way around, this is a country where a good movement can spread a positive influence.
Interviewer: Interesting, I’m looking forward to it. Thank you!
Shota: Thank you!