Always Choose Harder Ways; Singapore, Keio, then “Zenport”

Hi, Hiroya! How is it going these days? I’m gonna interview you today. Since you are gonna be a freshman in university, please introduce yourself and let me know your backgrounds.

- Well, I’m pretty good, it is super humid and hot in Tokyo these days though. My name is Hiroya Kawaguchi. I was born and grew up in Japan except 2.5 years in junior high school until today.

2.5 years? What do you mean by that?

- So, during the 2.5 years, I was in the international school in Singapore after the graduation of an elementary school. Now, I’m going to enter Keio University from this September. So, technically speaking, I’m not a high school student, nor a university student now haha. As I have been interested in many things, I’ve been involved a lot of activities: a head manager of the boys scout, an internship in refugees support organization and won the best prize of the JICA Essay Contest held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Also, I love to play and watch soccer and play violin, because I have been doing both of them since I was a young child as my hobbies.

I knew you are still a teenager and have studied abroad a few years, but I did NOT know you have done such a many things worth to do. I feel deep respect to you haha. So, after the graduation of Keio high school, what brought you to Zenport? Did you see other startups to do the internship, too?

- After the graduation, I had mainly 3 choices to do, part-time job, study at university and internship. And my decision was to work as an internship, learning new things and improving my self. I got 3 scouts from startups and one of them was Zenport. To tell the truth, at first, I was most interested in not Zenport, but a marketing company. The members including the CEO was good and the environment was also nice to learn marketing. However, I chose to work here, Zenport, because I could not do anything and I really felt stressed when I worked here as a trial one day, comparing the trial in the marketing company.

Yeah, Toshi-san (CEO of Zenport Inc.) always gives you a hard task at trial, haha. I got wrecked as well. But why was that the reason to decide us?

- This is my rule, but I always choose harder, more harsh and difficult choice, when I have to make a decision in my life. This is the core reason to come here. Also, I wanted to learn not only marketing, but also many other things that are essential as a business person, and the environment here is more diverse than the others, especially the members. Zenport met my requires the best.

Play a big part even in a small field for the growth of Zenport

You are very talented and wanted from so many companies. Cool man! Haha. I have the same rule that choose harder, more difficult choice when you get lost in the decision. That improves you in the end, right? So, what are you doing in Zenport now?

- I’m mainly handling the marketing things. We had had nothing, so I started using google adwords, analytics and making Zenport’s advertisements on website. Also, since I’m on the business side, I’m structuring the work flow of the sales side. For example, we go to the exhibition, get business cards, install the data on CRM tool, get appointments and go to sales, and customer service in row. Of course we are a startup and I’m one of the internship students, so I clean up the desks, distort the trash and water the plant… etc. I have many tasks at the same time, so it is hard, but I feel being able to handle many things at the same time efficiently recently.

Thanks to your work, we are now able to do sales more efficiently. I feel and hope the same thing that we, internship students, are improving our skills somehow. Then, from now on, what kind of work or experience do you want to do? It is also fine about your career.

- I’d like to improve my marketing skill more, handling the chaos and contributing the growth of Zenport. One of the best things to work in a startup is to be able to see the drastic growth of the company so I want to experience it. Also as my personal way, I feel the necessity and would like to learn the knowledge and experience as an engineer. Sooner or later, I’ll start studying programming.

If I were you, I would definitely start learning programming too. It will be worth to do. And let’s make it come true to see the big growth of Zenport! This is the final question. What kind of person do you want to work with or think we need now?

- I want to work with those who are able to see both the whole and partial part of the work at the same time, which means being able to go back and forth from tiny things to the big things. We are startup and still have many things to be handled at the same time every day. We need to grasp the good chaos and move it forward to proceed as fast as we can! Thank you!