Impetus

Why I Started This Business

I’m always asked that when I meet people – not what the business is and what services we provide, but what made me start a business. I will try to answer as best I can.

As a college student, I knew nothing of the working world, and I was most fortunate to be hired by Cyber Agent, Inc., itself newly founded.

I worked furiously, single-mindedly, doing whatever was in front of me, just hoping to be recognized. It was rewarding to work with amiable colleagues, united in an effort to build the company with our own hands. Seeing the numbers unfold – the growth of the company month by month – I felt both challenged and fulfilled.

It was then that my husband decided to go to the U.S. in pursuit of an MBA. I had to decide whether to quit my job and go with him, or stay in Japan and live apart. After anguished deliberation, I selected to remain in Japan. I liked what I was doing and I felt I had a responsibility to the company; I could not just abandon it. But after a year of living separately, I realized I wanted to be with my husband. So I quitted and went to the U. S. in 2005.

I found my life in America – a housewife with no children in a foreign country – quite boring. Everything was different from when I was working, and I had so much extra time. I could not help but ask myself seriously: “What can I do with my time and energy? For what I am living?” It had been easier having a pile of tasks in front of me, getting them done with a sense of accomplishment, than pondering, now, the meaning of life. Previously, I had avoided thinking about such things – life, work, what they meant – finding enough vindication in the fact that I was busy. At this point, however, I was finding it difficult to go on without an answer to the question: “For what I am living?”

With time on my hands and to distract myself, I sat in classes at my husband’s business school. People were talking about changing the world – and they were serious! I was awed to see important matters discussed at such a global level. Business school seemed to be a world where I could surely not keep up. Yet I surprised myself in understanding the lectures better than I had expected, and I gradually came to think: “I could do this, too.” I do not mean that I thought myself particularly clever or special, but that, if I had the chance to take on that kind of challenge, and if I tackled it to the best of my ability, I could probably accomplish something. But then, if I thought so, why wasn’t I doing it? I realized I had often decided my own potential, or limit, and applied the brakes.

At that point I knew that what I wanted, since I would live my life only once, was to do something good for society – not one time, but until I die. And not just something. I would do my best – all that I could do – to be useful to people. Transborders is the result. This is why I started the business, why I work. I would appreciate your understanding and support.