NEW BUSINESSESBORN OUT OF IDEAS
FROM YOUNGER
GENERATIONSDIALOGUE 04 K I M I H I R O K AT S U M I
YU S U K E M I Z U N O

YU T O T O M I TA
H I R O YA N A K A M U R A

New Businesses Created from the Ideas ofYounger Generations
Future Accelerator Gateway is a program through which members of younger
generations are invited to propose business ideas with the potential to change thefuture. Those ideas selected are refined over a period of roughly three months
through collaboration with the presidents of start-ups and employees of MARUIGROUP. The first iteration of this program was held over the period from December
2020 to March 2021. We met with two representatives of younger generations
who participated in this iteration of the program to hear about their experiencesin the program, what they learned from it, and the possibilities for the future.

Please refer to the following website for more information on Future Accelerator Gateway 2020 (in Japanese only).
www.0101maruigroup.co.jp/future/archive/001.html

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Futures Shaped by Program
Participants
Nakamura: It has been a while. In Future
Accelerator Gateway, I participated as aMARUI GROUP mentor in the Allesgoodteam led by Mr. Katsumi. Mr. Mizuno,
meanwhile, attended to all teams, offering valuable input as an entrepreneur
mentor. Today, I wanted to hear about
your perspectives on the program. Let’s
start by introducing ourselves. Would
you like to go first, Mr. Mizuno?
Mizuno: Sure. My name is Yusuke Mizuno.
I started an educational technology
venture company called Life is Tech in2010. This company teaches junior highand high school students about IT andcomputer programming. We are not onlyabout teaching, though. We have set amedium-term target of fostering 1.2
million innovators by 2025. By fosteringsuch innovators, we hope to cultivate acapacity to change society and support
people’s happiness. Life is Tech shares
MARUI GROUP’s vision: We want ourbusiness to contribute to a better society
for future generations.
Katsumi: I am Kimihiro Katsumi, CEO ofAllesgood. This company offers

ETHICAL SHUKATSU, a job-hunting
platform designed to introduce companies actively addressing climate change,poverty, and other social issues to students looking to work at such companies.
My decision to start such a company
was based on the struggles I personallyfaced finding a job. I had wanted tochoose a company from the perspectiveof social issues, but there was no effective means of searching for such companies at the time. This experience led
to the idea for ETHICAL SHUKATSU. I
like to think I am quick to act, and when
the idea sprung into my head, I immediately registered it as a company. It wasaround that time that I learned of theFuture Accelerator Gateway program,and I jumped on the opportunity.
Nakamura: I understand the ETHICALSHUKATSU platform is already inservice.
Katsumi: It has only been about threemonths since we launched the platform,
and we have just now reached the phaseat which we are identifying and addressing user issues. Our mission is to accelerate the move toward sustainability inindustry, in businesses. Human resources
are a crucial management resource. By

matching companies dedicated toresolving social issues and bettering thefuture with human resources who lookto do the same, we hope to foster innovators who can achieve the desirable
impacts advocated by Mr. Mizuno andMARUI GROUP.
Mizuno: Your presentation for the Future
Accelerator Gateway program was really
impressive, and you yourself have acertain appeal. At first, you seemed tolack the skills to implement the idea for
ETHICAL SHUKATSU, but the idea itself
was really good as it coincided withthe times.
Katsumi: Thank you. Despite your kindwords, it was not me, but Mr. Tomita’s
team that took first place.

Nakamura: That makes for a goodsegue; Mr. Tomita, would you like tointroduce yourself and explain yourbusiness idea and reason for participating in the Future Accelerator Gateway
program?
Tomita: Yes. My name is Yuto Tomita. I
am looking to develop a textbook distribution service for students who areunable to purchase textbooks due toeconomic reasons. In Japan, there iscurrently a move to digitize junior highand high school textbooks. I see noreason why we can’t do this for university textbooks, and I therefore plan todevelop a service that will allow for
textbooks to be viewed via a smartphone or computer. I found out about

Kimihiro Katsumi
Representative Director and CEO
Allesgood Inc.
Born in 1998, Kimihiro Katsumi founded
Allesgood Inc. in response to issues he saw
with the existing job-hunting process in Japan.
This company operates ETHICAL SHUKATSU,a more social issue-oriented version of a
LinkedIn-type platform designed to introduce
ethical companies seeking to resolve social
issues to talented students.

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Yuto Tomita

Nakamura: I was surprised by your swift
ability to transform your idea into an
implementable form. At MARUI GROUP,
it is a shared assumption that developing an app or some other productrequires a significant amount of timeand money.
Mizuno: Students can get it done in twoweeks (laughs). Companies tend to bepredisposed to underestimating theabilities of students, but they are often
impressed when they actually see themin action. A major benefit of youth is thefreedom that allows you to tackle challenges that large companies tend to shy
away from.

Born in 1999, Yuto Tomita acted as a programming
mentor at Life is Tech while he was in university. He
established iisa to develop a textbook distribution service
for university students, and he is currently working tocommercialize this service.

IT and Programming Skills That Help
Make Lives Better

experience taught me the importance oflooking forward when we fail.
Mizuno: If you had given up there, you
would have failed as an entrepreneur. I
made a point of speaking my mind withno concern about how you would react
to it. If you cannot respond appropriately
to criticism, you are not cut out to be anentrepreneur. People grow not with time,
but rather through an ongoing processof responding to criticism. You, Mr.
Katsumi, are here today because youwere able to respond appropriately tosuch criticism.
Tomita: I too took a very orthodox
approach toward the program. Luckily,
Mr. Mizuno helped me amend myapproach. There is a law that says digitized books cannot be borrowed or lent,so I was convinced that we would haveto distribute printed books. However,there was no way we could make thatprofitable. After struggling with thisquandary for about a month, Mr. Mizuno
told me that I should try and free myselfof preconceptions. He also suggested
that I start by making a product I could
show publishers. We made this productover the course of two weeks. I wasshocked at how many publishers were
now willing to take us seriously after wecame up with a product.

Katsumi: IT and digital technologies
have made it easier for a single person,
even a student, to take action to resolve
social issues. ETHICAL SHUKATSU is adigital job-hunting platform that matches
companies with students. If we had tomatch people in the same way without IT
and digital technologies, it would besuper expensive.
Tomita: I agree. Launching a business orservice is something that has been
made much more accessible thanks toIT and digital technologies. The idea ofjust starting with a prototype is still
applicable today, and it would not be
an exaggeration to say that this type ofthinking changed my life.
Nakamura: The MARUI GROUP employees that took part in Future Accelerator
Gateway as mentors felt the same. We
realized that we too could make something new. In fact, after the program, I
made an app for the new business Ioversee. I surveyed and interviewed
customers while showing this app. The
response was 100% different from theones I was used to getting with paper
proposals.
Mizuno: This is what digital transformation means. People learn programming
to make products, and those products
have the potential to change someone’s
life for the better or to lead to theNEW BUSINESSES BORN OUT OF IDEAS
FROM YOUNGER GENERATIONS

Future Accelerator Gateway because mytwo teammates and I were working as
mentors for junior high and high school
students at Life is Tech. We decided that
we wanted to try to create something,
and this led to our decision to enter theprogram.
Nakamura: How far has your service
come along?
Tomita: At the moment, we are working
with a university accelerator program tobuild connections with publishers. Ourservice is dependent upon the cooperation of the publishers who hold thecopyrights to the books we hope todigitize and distribute. However, there
are many people in publishing who still
are averse to digitizing books. Even if
we are able to launch this service, thefirst issue we will need to address willbe the fact that a large number of students lack the credit cards necessary
to use subscription services. In theFuture Accelerator Gateway program,
we advanced discussion based on theassumption that we would be collaborating with MARUI GROUP. This gave rise tothe ideas of linking the service to EPOS
cards or issuing prepaid cards that could
be used with the service.

Freedom of Youth
Katsumi: Aside from missing out on firstplace, there is something else that reallystuck with me from the program. Twodays before the final presentation, I had
the chance to give a preliminary presentation to Mr. Mizuno. At the same time,
we had already received a contract forour service from a customer, and we hada rough date of when we would start torecord sales. I was therefore sure that
we would get first place. However, Mr.
Mizuno said our preliminary presentation was “boring.”
Mizuno: I don’t recall saying that (everyone laughs).
Nakamura: From my standpoint as amentor, I thought “this is bad.” However,when we looked back at the presentation materials, I could see what you weretalking about. The presentation looked
like one that a major company would doto try and secure a budget. It really wasboring. The problem could be traced
back to us, the members of the teamfrom MARUI GROUP. Based on our own
preconceptions, we had suggested thatthe presentation be made more logical.
Katsumi: I cannot remember a time
when I have felt more unnerved. Then,Mr. Mizuno told me that the presentation
just didn’t seem like me. It was then thatit hit me. I had focused so much on
rational explanations that I had inadvertently stripped the passion out of thepresentation. We completely reworked
the presentation over the next two days
to better communicate our passion. ThisYusuke Mizuno
Representative Director and CEO
Life is Tech, Inc.
Yusuke Mizuno was born in Hokkaido in 1982. During
his time at graduate school, Mizuno spent two years
as a part-time physics teacher at a high school. Aftercompleting the graduate program, he joined a humanresource consulting firm. It was in July 2010 thatMizuno founded Life is Tech, Inc., and this company
formed a capital alliance with MARUI GROUP in 2019.
Through this company he started up Life is Tech!, aprogramming and IT camp and education programfor junior high and high school students that employs
the IT education methods used in Silicon Valley.

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creation of more convenient services. InJapan, information technology will
become a required course for highschool students in April 2022, and it isslated to show up on the shared firstphase university entrance exam in 2025.
This means that a future in which all
students will have basic programming
knowledge when they join the workforce
is not far off. Programming will becomea basic work skill just like English.
Katsumi: The part of participating inFuture Accelerator Gateway I am mostthankful for was the opportunity to hear
about the feelings and success stories
of people who are truly committed tochanging the world like Mr. Mizuno andPresident Aoi. In the future, I hope to use
what I have learned to help junior highand high school students with a similar
drive to chase their ambitions.
Mizuno: I hope you will do just that.
Junior high and high school students are
generally not moved by the words ofadults. This is why Life is Tech employs
mentors in their 20s to teach students.
Rather than being taught by a 40-something with teaching skills, learning fromsomeone in their 20s, who seems cooland relatable, is more valuable in termsof changing a student’s life. This is true
even if the mentor lacks teaching skills.

Hiroya Nakamura
Co-Creative Media and Business Management Officer
D2C & Co. Inc.
Hiroya Nakamura joined MARUI GROUP in 2015, and in2020, he was charged with overseeing a new business as
the co-creative media and business management officerof D2C & Co. Inc. He has also been involved in the launchand operation of 5PM Journal, Japan’s first D2C brandcuration website (in Japanese only).
5pmjournal.com/

Nakamura: Future Accelerator Gateway
is a program brimming with potential. It
creates businesses that we would havenever imagined. I see the possibility for
us to change the future of MARUIGROUP through synergies with thesebusinesses. I also want to increase thenumber of co-creative partners we haveamong younger generations, like you
two. The more such partners we have,the more force we will have propelling us
toward our desired impact.

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