From the IT bubble of the late 1990s to the present
The yardstick of two people who have worked and lived in the web production industry

The guest for this issue of "Meguru Measuring Ruler" is Satoshi Tanaka, CEO of Epyon Co., Ltd. , a company that specializes in web production and consulting. He has known Vice President Nagai for a long time and has been a friend who has felt the trends in the web industry while working together.
So, I would like to start with a message from Nagai to Tanaka-san.

About Tanaka-san

I have known Tanaka since the days when the web industry itself was in its infancy.

We were both young and jumped into this world with half enthusiasm. Every day was filled with things we'd never seen or done before, and we were filled with anxiety and excitement. It seems like almost 20 years have passed since then, but as we get older, our physiques will start to show (laughs).

If I had never met Mr. Tanaka and had the experience of working with him, I believe I would be working in a very different way now.
Tanaka-san is actually a worrier, and in reality, he cares a lot about the people around him, but he insists on what he wants to say, what he wants to do, and his stance no matter what. And because he is a big-mouth, he takes responsibility and gets results, so the people around him are convinced in the end.
Because Tanaka has continued to overcome one challenge at a time, I have absolute confidence that he will somehow accomplish anything.

I haven't had to call you much lately because I was in trouble, so I thought I'd hear an inspiring story that would give me a boost.

The two met in the midst of the Windows 95 boom, when the IT bubble was just beginning to inflate. Nagai, who had switched jobs to the web industry from another industry, met Tanaka Satoshi, a senior colleague who had joined the company six months earlier, despite being younger than him.

"At the time, Tanaka was in his early twenties and was a young man with a strong personality. No matter what time he showed up to work, he was there working. I remember asking him about it and he said, 'I have two days.' I got the impression that he was a powerful man, eager to learn the latest technology, and good at his job." (Nagai)

The company, where they had built a good relationship between seniors and juniors, began to suffer a decline in performance with the collapse of the IT bubble. Nagai and Tanaka started their own companies, together with the colleagues who would later become Monosus and Epyon, respectively.

"We used to go out drinking together a lot in the past, but not so much these days. We haven't really seen each other in the last year or two (laughs). So, today's interview is likely to start with, 'How are things going lately?'" (Nagai)

I want to remove the limiters that bind me and work to the point where I'm satisfied.

The interview began with them talking about their mutual acquaintances and other recent happenings. First, they talked about their recent work. Then, it became clear that Tanaka's outstanding work style has not changed since his 20s...

Nagai : How is work going these days?

Tanaka Epyon is in his seventh term and will be entering his eighth term next month, but last year and the year before, he had a lot of trouble both in his private and public life, and it made him think, "There really are bad luck periods..." He hasn't tried anything new in the past two years and has been spending them quietly.

However, during those tough times, we received a lot of help from our clients. Many people had seen our work style and attitude towards work up until that point, and reached out to help us. To be honest, I was so happy that I cried a little.

Nagai: Have you gotten over the tough times yet?

Tanaka: I made it through safely and have been devoting myself to work this year. However, having two years of quiet time allowed me to reassess my way of working, my attitude towards work, and my involvement with the company, and now I'm really enjoying my work.

Nagai: It's great to have fun at work.

Tanaka: That's great.

NagaiWhat do you mean by changes in how you work and interact with the company?

Tanaka : When I created Epyon, my strongest thought was that I wanted to cut my limiter and devote myself to my work. If you are within the framework of a company, you will often have to put up with time and cost constraints even if you want to do as much as you want.

I wanted to work without those kinds of limiters. But I've learned over the past few years that it's no good to expect employees to work in the same way.

Everyone has their own life and accepts the constraints of their work. I used to hate that, but now, as a player, I remove the limiter, but as a manager, I don't tell my employees to "remove the limiter". I think that's how we've been able to strike a good balance and become a good team.

Nagai : But are you still working without any restrictions? You're in your 40s now, right?

Tanaka is just 40 years old. In early spring, he did a certain project all by himself.
At first, the project was a system project, and we had a project manager, but this didn't work. I was put in the project manager position, and the external designer was doing a good job, but there was no web director, so I took over that role, and before I knew it, it was just me, a designer, a copywriter, and web production. It was pretty hard.

Even though he's President Nagai , he still has a very active personality.

Tanaka : What's more, the speed at which we work has increased. In terms of how we use our time, we used to work right up until the deadline, so we didn't have time to make improvements. But now, 80% of the work is finished a week before the deadline, so we have time to make small corrections. I think the quality of our work has improved.

Nagai: Isn't your stamina declining?

Tanaka : I'm not giving up. In fact, I've been blogging in parallel with my work since March this year, without taking a single day off. So, I still have plenty of energy. After blogging for about 10 minutes a day, I achieved 100,000 page views in 7 months. What's more, in April, it was selected as one of the " Best Ownd Sites-April 2016. "

Nagai blog?

Tanaka: At first, I tried out Ameba Ownd to check its functions and learn the techniques, and I used it to see how it worked. There are many things you can't understand until you actually input data. So, I thought I might as well write about my hobby, tropical fish, and the response was good.
Nowadays, in the web industry, people say "content first" and "content is important." So I thought, "I should do it myself." When consulting, I think the words "If you change it like this, you'll get this result" have a different persuasive power.

Tanaka's tropical fish blog "Everyday Kinba" ( https://epyon.amebaownd.com ) was selected as Best Ownd Sites-April 2016.

Nagai : You've always said that there are two days, Tanaka-san.

Tanaka : In that sense, I currently have three days in a day. The morning is my time. I don't do much work, just messing around with the fish tank and checking my emails. I don't go to the office until noon, and when I have to go outside, I do things like going outside and processing invoices in the office, and after 9 p.m. it's my production time. I work until 2 or 3 a.m. and then go home. That's the cycle.

Nagai: You don't feel stress?

Tanaka: It's hard work, but it's not stressful. Web work is stressful to begin with, isn't it? But once you get rid of the stress, it's just fun.
It's true that they work long hours, but I don't think they feel like they're being forced to work. If you're told to work 10 hours, and you've got 5 hours of work and 5 hours of fun, it'll be over in no time. That's how they might feel.

Starting a job without knowing the answer, but honing my instincts through projects

Tanaka's experience working with Nagai at an IT venture company built the foundation for who he is today. It was during the IT bubble. He shared some stories that may seem like a long time ago to people in their 20s today.

Nagai : Why did I feel that way?

Tanaka : Back when I worked with Mr. Nagai, there were too many negative examples. I was assigned projects by seniors who didn't take action themselves and superiors who didn't clearly present goals, and they were fine with assigning tasks, but they didn't give me any instructions. Looking back, the industry itself was in its infancy, and there were probably a lot of things that my seniors and superiors didn't understand. But there were still people waiting for results. I had to think for myself and output it...it was a repetition of that.

Thinking for yourself from as close to zero as possible, improving quality, and getting results. That was the case for the first few years I spent in the web world. Then I wondered, "Is this what this person is thinking?" My intuition was sharpened, and my ability to read the true intentions of others from their words and actions improved. Then, my work became fun, like a game.

Nagai: The feeling of having your wild instincts honed through a project is something that I don't really get to experience in my current work.

Tanaka :That's true, the situation in today's online world is different, so it may be quite difficult.

Nagai : But even back then you used to stay up all night a lot.

Tanaka: I was getting a lot of overtime pay, but I didn't have time to use it. I would stay up all night, drink at a bar, eat at a family restaurant, go back to the office and take a nap. There were times when I wondered how many forms I was making in a day. There were sales people lined up at my place with estimates and the form requests they wanted that day.

Nagai : It was clear who would do it and who wouldn't.

Tanaka: Some people suddenly quit, and at one point we were doing interviews every day. Looking back, it was a complete bubble. We got a lot of funding from venture capitalists, and we moved offices because we were expanding rapidly. From then on, the turnover was so intense that it was hard to tell whether someone was an employee or an external staff member...

Nagai: It was a strange time.

In Tanaka's case , everything we did was new to us, so it was fun if you want to call it that. There was no precedent or organization.

Nagai: It was a time when no one knew the right answer, and no goal was clear. You just tried something, and it didn't work out... That was acceptable.

Tanaka : Because there was no Google yet. Whenever I was unsure about something technical, I would go to Shosen Book Mart (a bookstore) in Akihabara. There were a lot of internet-related books there, so I wondered if there were any hints.

Nagai
Until the early 2000s, it was faster and more accurate to get information from a bookstore than to search the Internet.

Tanaka : In the end, I left that company in 2002. I think Nagai-san had left before that.

Nagai: That's right.

Tanaka : One day, the president gathered the employees and said, "We might not be able to pay our salaries." I felt stupid and left the meeting in the middle of it. In the end, the company did not recover, so I went independent with four colleagues to take over the work of our client at the time, and then I started up Epyon again.

The Epyon office in Shinbashi. Currently, there are 6 employees.

The thorny road is better than the easy road. Making difficult choices is actually more fun.

The story begins with his connection to Monosus. He then goes on to talk about Tanaka's impressions of Monosus. We hope you enjoy this exchange between the two men, who met in their 20s and have been friends for nearly 20 years to this day.

Nagai: After I left that company, I participated in the launch of Monosus, and Tanaka-san had been helping me with my work since I was at the company before Epyon, right?

Tanaka: At first, Monosus didn't have any programmers. So I often helped out on the technical side. Nagai would call me and say, "I don't really understand, so please help me!" That's how the work would start.

Nagai: At the time, Monosus didn't have a coding factory yet, so we just did whatever projects came our way. We asked Tanaka for system projects.

Tanaka
After we created Epyon in 2010, we sometimes asked him to do coding, so we worked together in that way.

Nagai :Eventually, we stopped taking on many system-related projects, and we became estranged from each other in terms of work.

Tanaka: I was also a recluse during the great killing period (laughs). However, looking from the outside, I get the impression that the culture at Monosus changed around 2013.

Nagai : Whereabouts?

Tanaka : I think that you are expanding into areas other than the strength of Coding Factory, such as the Monosasu site that I am interviewing today, and also in Thailand. In particular, the way you are exposed to the outside world has changed.
I get the strong impression that the whole team, with Hayashi at the center, is pulling in the same direction, which is why I think the team is running smoothly.

Also, I know this is just me saying this, but I feel like Hayashi-san has both an idealistic boyish side and a realistic entrepreneurial side. And a little bit of a girl.

Nagai: Is that so?

Tanaka : Moreover, Monosus has people like Nagai who can properly listen to Hayashi's ideas. That's our current challenge. Because we don't have a catcher, I'm throwing the ball myself and catching it myself, which is a problem.
However, over the past year or two I've been able to identify the good things about the company and the things I would like to change, so I would like to start making new moves from next year onwards.

Nagai: What kind of things are you planning to start?

Tanaka : I want to work in sales.

Nagai
EC?

Tanaka : I'd be happy with the restaurant business, but I want to actually be involved with people and things. Naturally, I think it will be centered on the web, but I've been collaborating less with people outside recently, and I'd like to increase the number of times I meet strangers at the same time. Anyway, I want to pursue what I like and what I enjoy.

Once again, we would like to thank Monosas Nagai for his continued support.

Tanaka : Of course. But the reason I can't stop moving on and on like this is because of a word that Nagai-san said to me when I was about 23.

What was it, Nagai ?

Tanaka : I think it was when we were drinking at an izakaya, but in a rare situation where Nagai was listening to my love advice, he said, "You know, Tanaka, you love going down the thorny road, don't you? There are easier ways." That's the tendency in both love and work, so I thought, "That's true!" In fact, it's actually more fun to go the harder way in both cases.

The person who said that, Nagai, had forgotten about it until now...

Even I was nervous today . To be honest, I feel like Nagai-san can see right through me, so I'm not very good at it (laughs). I guess it's a big deal that he knows about me from my younger days. I can't say anything arrogant.

Nagai : No no, thank you very much for today.

(Interviewer: Kensaku Saguchi)