新しい資産運用体験の実現を目指すWealthParkには、様々なバックグラウンドやスキルを持つメンバーが集まっています。社員インタビューでは、それぞれのメンバーが日頃どの様な思いでWealthParkで働き、組織や事業に関わっているかをお届けしていきます。

第3弾は台湾出身のArthurさん。オーストラリア、中国、日本と、常に自らの選択で異なる環境に身を置き、変化を楽しみながら新しいチャレンジを続けるArhurさん。インタビューでは、彼の穏やかな雰囲気からは想像のつかない確固たる野心、そして不動産業への強い思いに迫りました。今回はシリーズ初の試みとして、英語でお届けします。

プロフィール
Arthur Liu

台湾・苗栗県出身。大学でジャーナリズムを専攻した後、オーストラリアに留学し、 Integrated Marketing Strategy（統合型マーケティング戦略）の修士号を取得。卒業後は台湾に戻り、マーケティング・スペシャリストとしてCASIO TAIWANに入社するも、不動産業へのキャリアチェンジを決意し、大手不動産ブローカーであるBlue Ocean（現在はCENTURY 21 Blue Ocean）に転職。同社の中国店舗の支店長に任命され、中国・成都市へ渡る。同社を退職して飲食業を立ち上げた後、WealthParkに参画する為、2018年3月から日本に移住。

Early Job History

― Could you share your job history before joining WealthPark?

I started my career as Marketing Specialist at CASIO TAIWAN, for which I worked for three years. After CASIO, I decided to aim for a real estate broker and joined Blue Ocean, one of the biggest oversea brokers selling Thailand properties, latterly cooperated with Taiwan Century 21. They assigned me Branch Manager in Chengdu, China. Chengdu branch, however, didn’t go smoothly as we expected. Chinese people actually were not interested in investing in properties in Southeast Asia at that time in contrast to the current trend. Our strategy probably were well ahead of the time. We eventually closed our business after 6 months and I left Blue Ocean.

― What did you do after that?

Instead of going back to Taiwan immediately, I started a new business with some fellows I met in Chengdu. We tried to introduce Taiwanese street snack to Chinese people. The dish is called Lu Wei, which is a kind of braise with everything such as meat, vegetables, fish ball, and noodles. it's delicious and very common in Taiwan. We had a confidence that Chinese people would like the taste and style. I went to some lessons to learn how to cook this properly, which I enjoyed.

― Have you always been interested in running food business?

To be honest, I didn't mind opening a food business specifically. For me, the purpose then was to establish my own business, from which I can make a profit. But the result was not good, and we decided to move on to e-commerce. There were a lot of apps growing in China, like Uber eats, and we used such platform to sell our products as obento targeting office workers. Although we had a good start, the success hasn’t continued for long due to the competitiveness of the market. Facing the shortage of funds, we decided to drop after 17 months. Looking back, I feel it was an important process for me to experience a failure.

Genuine Passion for Real Estate Business

― Then, you joined WealthPark in charge of broker relationship management as well as sales promotion activities of Japanese properties for potential clients. Why did you choose this company?

Because I really enjoy working in the real estate sector. I have genuine passion for that. Plus, I’ve never seen any companies doing property management using apps before, and I thought what WealthPark does has potential for a dynamic growth. I also got a feeling that I could be a good fit for the combination of a startup and real estate business.

Another reason is very simple: I can work in Japan. Coming back in Taiwan, I was looking at Singapore, Bangkok, or any other cities in Southeast Asia as my next working place. For several reasons, I’m more interested in working outside Taiwan rather than settling down in my home country. But I’ve never imagined that I would be able to work in Japan since I don't speak Japanese. So, when a headhunter contacted me telling, “There is an opportunity in Japan for you. Would you like to try?”, I just answered “Sure.” When I was a teenager I was quite obsessed with Japanese subculture such as dramas, singers, and manga (By the way, my favorite manga is “21st Century Boy”.), and I’ve been to Japan twice. The idea of working in Japan sounded exciting to me.

To make a long story short, after five rounds of skype interviews, which took six months as a total, I finally got an offer from WealthPark. That was November 2017, and I came to Japan in March 2018.

― Five rounds of skype interviews! That sounds a long process… Which of your skills you think appealed to WealthPark throughout those interviews?

They were looking for a person who has a real estate background as well as speaks fluently either Japanese or English, which I am qualified for. They also valued my mentality of being able to enjoy challenges, including the fact that I tried to start my own business even it was failed. I assume they saw potential in me that I can manage the instability associated with a startup company. In other words, I can embrace the uncertainty.

― You sound like a person who never stops challenging.

Yeah, I’m that type of person, I think. If you don't step out of your comfort zone to take a chance, you'll always stay. I choose to leave my home country to study in Australia. I chose to leave CASIO TAIWAN to jump in a real estate business. I chose to work in Japan to experience a different side of real estate business. I always try to change where I am to challenge myself.

Role at WealthPark

― Could you share more details about your role at WealthPark?

Our department is divided into five areas: China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Singapore, and I manage Taiwan team. Each team’s main role is to get more Japanese properties respectively. We negotiate with local brokers to get them transferred their properties or clients to us so that we will manage them. For this purpose, our team flies to Taiwan regularly and discuss the deals with brokers based in there.

Indeed, this is a quite difficult task because current Taiwan market is dramatically shrinking. Not many people are buying Japanese properties compared to five or six years ago. On the other hand, we all know that brokers have lots of AUM (Assets Under Management), for example, about 200 to 300 properties for each broker. The key would be how to reach and negotiate with brokers.

― Have you already cultivated connections with brokers in Taiwan while you worked for Blue Ocean?

I knew some brokers selling Japanese properties in Taiwan, but I have barely contacted them since my previous products are Thailand properties. Therefore, I needed to create connections with brokers almost from scratch for WealthPark.

I started with finding potential brokers in Taiwan and contacted them one by one over a year. Some of them showed their interests in our service although they had never heard of us before. Also, there were a few brokers who had a negative impression on us. This is due to the past failure in our AUM management, which happened before I joined. I imagine that the speed of our expansion at that time was just too fast to take a good care of each property. The lack of human resources caused troubles, obviously. Then, I tried to improve our reputations to reconnect with the existing brokers while I explored new brokers.

Desire to Understand a Whole Process of Real Estate Business

― A former broker is now in a position to negotiate with brokers. Which side would you enjoy?

I was a broker only focusing on sales at Blue Ocean, and now I’m in charge of the management part at WealthPark. I actually consider myself as a salesperson, but I believe this management property experience in Japan can contribute to my future real estate career. If I go back to a broker side one day, for example, I can give owners more insights of the real estate business. Normally new owners, who tend to fantasize about having properties, don’t see the costs behind that. With property management perspective, I can fully convince owners to purchase properties and avoid the misunderstanding.

I am still in the middle of understanding a whole process of real estate business, and I’d like to get to know every step. For example, I'm very interested in sales process, taxation, and building management. I aim to complete my knowledges and skills in this field.

― Why were you intrigued by the real estate business in the first place?

When I left CASIO TAIWAN, I wanted to be a salesperson. Then, I thought that I want to sell the most expensive and difficult thing throughout people’s lives, which could be a house. After becoming a broker for Blue Ocean, my passion for the real estate business has been strengthened. I frequently got chances to fly to Bangkok to see properties, and those properties were just fascinating. I was dreaming about having a condominium like those one day, and eventually I bought one and sold it out. I needed to sell it when I transferred to China because it would be not easy to continuously rent it out. But anyway, the real estate business has been filled with excitements and dreams for me.

Future with WealtPark

― What do you think about the future for WealthPark?

I believe in the growth of WealthPark. IPO is one of my wishes, of course. If it's possible, I expect WealthPark to establish a branch in Taiwan. Although WealthPark is a startup, it has already survived for five years, which could be the most difficult time for startups, and we are actually moving to a stable phase.

We face some difficulties specific to startups even now, of course. For example, organizational changes happen quite often. Sometimes it's difficult to get the team adapted new rules, but we need to manage that anyway. The thing is I prefer working for a small or medium growing company. Such organization tends to be flat with no hierarchy, where things change quickly. For me, the routine work has no excitement, which means I need to cope with changes and challenges like we do now.

I feel I'm very lucky to join WealthPark. I really cherish this opportunity. They offered a position to me, a foreigner who doesn’t speak Japanese. I wish I could stay longer as possible as I can so that I’ll grow with WealthPark.

― Thank you so much for your time today.

インタビュアー
飯田 明 | Mei Iida
渉外法律事務所にてファイナンス・パラリーガルを務めた後、大学院留学を挟んで飲食業の世界へ。外資系チョコレート会社のDirector of Communicationsとして、HR/ブランディングを担当。現在はフリーランスに転向し、複数の会社とのプロジェクトを通じて、カフェのプロデュース事業や人事、国内外のダイニングイベントの企画・運営に携わっている。