Hello. This is Sugimoto from the Monosasu website office.
I live in Kyoto and work as a writer.
This time, I crossed the Seto Inland Sea to visit the satellite office in Suo-Oshima to meet with Vice President Nagai-san, who I had always wanted to interview. The first time I spoke with Nagai-san was during an online meeting this spring. At that time, a word he casually let slip remained in the back of my mind. (If you are familiar with the following lines, please play them in Nagai-san's voice.)
"Well, I don't really have anything I want to do."
"There's nothing else to do but work."
When written down, it's a phrase with a slightly negative impression, isn't it? But for some reason, I thought, "This guy really loves his work," and I was curious to hear more about it. Another thing I thought was, "Maybe Mr. Nagai's view of work is something that the people at Monosus share in common?"
Then in June, when I visited the satellite office in Suo-Oshima together with Takita, the long-awaited interview began.
When I let go of the future I had envisioned, the world of the web was waiting for me
- How did your career begin, Mr. Nagai?
Nagai: I studied physics at university, and after graduating I joined a subsidiary of Hitachi that designs semiconductors. This was before the widespread use of the Internet, but Hitachi created the "Hitachi LAN" that connected its bases nationwide and exchanged data. I used the Hitachi LAN to create design support software that sent design data to factories and stored it in a database.
However, 90% of the employees were men, and at that time, it was acceptable for women not to do much programming work. I joined a project with 50 people, and as a sort of secretary for the project owner, I set up meetings with Hitachi's top people and prepared materials. Looking back now, I think I learned important things about moving the project forward by looking at those materials.
- How many years did you work at that company?
Nagai : About five years. As it is a traditional large company, the personnel system is seniority-based, so you can kind of tell what your position will be in 10 or 20 years. There was a woman who was a role model for a successful woman, who returned to work after giving birth and became a section manager. When I see such people, I think, "Ah, I wonder if I'll be sitting in that chair in 20 years' time too." As a young person, I got tired of seeing a stable future, so I quit the company.
- So you decided to give it all up. How old were you at the time?
Nagai : I was about 27 years old. At that time, I was thinking, "What do I want to do?" and I thought that hand-drawing signs for movies and train station advertisements would be good. I wondered what kind of work was somewhere between art and craftsmanship, and decided to become a designer. I studied at an advertising DTP school for six months and then started looking for a job, but there weren't many companies that would hire someone with no experience. Just when I started to feel anxious, thinking, "My savings are running out and I need to get a job," someone told me, "You can do design in the web," so I entered the web industry.
However, I felt a bit cheated (laughs). I joined the company as a designer, but ended up working as a programmer. The company wanted my knowledge and experience as a programmer. After 4-5 years, when I had reached a position like a programmer leader, the Internet bubble burst, and the company's key people suddenly quit, the business couldn't continue, and some people were even forced to quit. I quit the company because there was almost no work left.
Start a company to ease your sorrows
- At first, the web industry was quite cold towards you, Mr. Nagai.
Nagai -san? Then, a person who seemed to be the leader of the design team and the leader of the sales team, who had left the company at the same time, asked me, "Do you want to start a company together?" Since we had nothing to do, we decided to start a company together. However, two years after launching, on Monday morning after enjoying a company trip on the weekend and coming to work, the president called me and told me bluntly that he didn't want me to come anymore. Even though I was a founding member, it seems the president decided that we didn't share the same way of thinking.
It was a bolt from the blue, and it was a much bigger shock than when I had to quit my previous job. What's more, I had gotten divorced about six months prior to that, because I wanted to work harder at my job. It really felt like the ladder had been pulled out from under me. It happened in 2004, and I'll never forget it.
-- Well, I was exactly 33 years old, which is an unlucky age for a woman... Looking back now, I'm sure there were many crises in your life, but would this have been the biggest one?
Nagai: That may be true. At that time, I was so depressed that I couldn't get out of bed for about two weeks, but I guess humans get hungry sometimes. After I was depressed, I started a company to do something to ease my sadness. It seems strange now, but I didn't have the option of becoming a freelancer. I had never worked freelance before, but I had started a company, so I knew how to do it.
- That's the company that became Monosus.
Nagai : Yes. Eight points. It was a pun because it was eight points, so it looked like it would develop (laughs). But even though I started the company, I didn't have any work. I wondered how I could get work, and I turned my attention to job information sites. I figured that if they were recruiting people, there must be work, so I went around asking, "Can I get work on a contract basis?" It was terrible, though, the quality of the work. I was like, "I'll just do it."
- So there were a lot of jobs with tough fees and deadlines?
Nagai: Of course, placing orders with a company that had no track record or credibility meant that many people had no money or a lot of grievances. Eventually, people who had been torn apart by troubles at their previous jobs started asking me, "Mr. Nagai, if you're running a company, why don't you do some work for us?" and little by little, we started getting more work.
The story behind the formation of Monosus: "The passion we heard at Starbucks in Oimachi"
- When did you meet Mr. Hayashi (Monosus' CEO)?
Nagai: It was pretty soon after Eight Points was launched. We met through a friend's introduction. My first impression was, "I can't understand what you're talking about" (laughs). We were in such different industries that even when we went to meetings together, I thought, "We're speaking Japanese, but I don't know what we're talking about."
- At that time, you were also running a company called Rev Marketing. Why did you two decide to merge your companies to create Monosus?
Nagai : Mr. Hayashi's company didn't have a production department, so I think he thought it would be good to have someone who could produce. I'm not very good at marketing or getting work. However, I felt like I could do something if I took on any job, so I think it was beneficial for both of us. Also, I myself was getting tired of the hard work of having meetings during the day, producing at night, and then having another meeting the next day. I was obsessed with the idea of changing the way I work so that I could continue for a long time. But actually, it was even more difficult after the merger.
- I think working with someone is often not as easy as you think. Was there something about Mr. Hayashi that made you think, "I think I can work with this person?"
Nagai and Hayashi (a little younger) at a cherry blossom viewing party in 2010
Nagai: Before Hayashi -san, several people had asked me if I wanted to work with them, but while I was wondering, "It's not a bad idea, but what should I do?", the talk somehow died down. So why did I decide to work with Hayashi-san? I remember we talked at a Starbucks in Oimachi and decided on it.
However, since we proceeded without knowing what it meant to merge companies, there were some misunderstandings. For the first five years or so, it was difficult to survive, so I thought, "Wow, we might have failed." Eight Point was made the surviving company, so to be precise, we changed the president and the company name.
- Did you decide on the concept of "having a measuring stick, not one given to you by others or society," and the verb "monosasu" to refer to your activities, as well as the company name, together?
Nagai : No, that was decided by Mr. Hayashi. To be honest, I don't have a vision for what kind of company I want to make. I just brush it off like, "I want to make it a company that has my own standards," and "Oh, isn't that great?", so I don't think Mr. Hayashi is very enthusiastic about it (laughs).
Having a ruler to walk a path with no right answer
- Last night, when you were having dinner with the Suo-Oshima members, you said (drunk) "There is no single right answer. I can tell you what I think, but what's important is what you think for yourself." It sounded like Nagai was asking the members, "What do you think by your own standards?" While he said "Hayashi decided," Nagai himself also values "having his own standards" and is trying to share them with the members, right?
Suo-Oshima doesn't have many nighttime dining options, but you can easily come to a sushi restaurant. Sushi party at work.
Nagai : You said something good. I was drunk so I don't remember (laughs). I may have been influenced by Hayashi-san. After all, even though I'm the vice president, I'm also a middle manager, so if Monosus is going in that direction, I'd like to tell the members at every opportunity.
In fact, just because one method works well for a certain client, it doesn't mean it will work well for the next client. Even if you've been a web director for decades, there's always a path with no right answer, and you just have to believe that "this must be the best way" and forge ahead.
- Technology changes, and trends in the web industry change according to societal needs. One answer doesn't always work, so I think you're trying to teach us that it's important to find the best solution for yourself.
Nagai : After all, my own way of life is not the "royal road" that society says "this kind of life is happy," but I have inadvertently followed the path that I think is good. From a societal perspective, getting divorced and being excommunicated by the co-owner of the company I started together seems like a sad life, doesn't it? At the time, even my friends looked at me like, "Oh, that's tough, Nagai-san."
But even if it looked difficult to the outside, I was able to accept it like, "Well, I decided to do it." For example, if I had a friend who had a child and bought a house, I'd think, "Oh, that's great," but I personally thought, "I'm glad I have the life I have now," rather than that lifestyle. However, as friends who were following the traditional path would say things like, "That's tough," or "I feel sorry for you," the friends I hung out with changed, as expected.
- You rejected the conventional path that everyone would say was fine and that promised a stable future.
Nagai: In the end, it feels like I threw everything away.
- At that moment, we see Nagai-san using his oar to slam against the cliff on the continent and head out into the open sea.
Nagai: I'm not that cool (laughs). I was like, "I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore, I'm quitting!" Mr. Sakuyama (a Monosus executive) and I comforted each other by saying, "You can't compare which path you chose and which path you didn't choose. Once you've made your decision, you just have to try to make the path you chose as happy as possible." That's what I really think, even though I'm just pretending to be strong.
Nagai-san has chosen a path that is not the conventional one, and what followed was a move to Suo-Oshima. We would like to ask him more about that in the second part !
SUGIMOTO Kyoko
Freelance writer. Since autumn 2016, she has been serializing ``Kamiyama no Musumetachi'' in Hinagata, in which she interviews women who have moved to Kamiyama.