#2 The trigger was that incident a month before the proposal? How issues Inc. was founded
Opening
Hello everyone, good evening. This is “すたぽり”, a startup x policymaking podcast. This podcast is brought to you by myself, Tatsunori Hirota, founder of issues, Inc. which is working on digital transformation of policymaking process. This time we recorded on January 9th, 2023. The title of the podcast is “#2 The trigger was that incident a month before the proposal? How issues Inc. was founded”.
listeners’ corner
First of all, I would like to introduce a few comments from people who listened to #1 the other day. Her radio name is Neko Bus-san, and she has been a friend of mine since my college days. She said, “I heard you! It’s interesting because it’s from someone I know, so there are parts I know and parts I don’t! I was surprised to hear you lost minus 15kg. And I didn’t know that it is good to have co-founders with different characters and skills, but it was interesting to think about myself and my husband how we as a couple would do. I look forward to hearing more from you!” Thank you very much for your message! It makes me happy to receive this kind of feedback, and simply knowing that people are listening motivates me to do my best for the next delivery. It was great to hear about Neko Bus-san’s recent situation through this message, thank you very much.
The next message is from a former colleague and podcaster, Mr. M. “I listened to your podcast すたぽり!! It was interesting, as I didn’t know you’re crazy about cats. And next time, would you like to collaborate in podcast somewhere convenient for you, Mr. Hirota?” Thank you very much, and I am very happy to receive your invitation for a collaborative delivery. We are planning to distribute a few pieces of content at first, but after that, I hope we can actively collaborate to distribute more.
They are both old friends, and I am glad that we were able to learn about a side of each other that we had not known before. I will continue to introduce listeners’ corner in the future. I feel that it would be very lonely and difficult to continue if I don’t get any response, so I would be very happy if you could let me know what you think of it. I would appreciate it if you could contact me by (1) posting on Twitter with #すたぽり, (2) voice message on Anchor, (3) letter on stand.fm, or (4) message me on Facebook if you are my friend. Thank you in advance.
Background of the founding of issues Inc.
In the previous #1, I sent you a self-introduction. In #2, I will send you the background of the founding story of issues Inc. Some of you listening to this podcast may be interested in starting a business but have not taken the first step. I think this will be helpful for those people. For those who are interested in issues Inc., I think it will solve the mystery of why we are doing startups in such a maniacal area.
That incident = “保育園落ちた日本死ね”
This time, “The trigger was that incident a month before the proposal?” is the title of this podcast. What I mean by “that incident” is the “保育園落ちた日本死ね” incident.
As some of you may remember, in 2016, an anonymous blog in which a mother who was on the waiting list for a childcare center posted her heartrending cry became a big buzz on the internet. It was eventually picked up by the Diet and became a major push for the subsequent policy of measures for children on waiting lists.
I actually proposed to my wife in March 2016, one month after this incident. To briefly introduce the story of the proposal, it was a month before I gave my wife a bouquet of 108 roses and a microphone performance after a jazz concert at a jazz restaurant in Yokohama.
My wife is such a hard worker working as a government official. Our family is about to have children, but we had been talking since that time about how we both wanted to balance work and childcare. So when I read that blog, I began to think a few years from now we may be saying, “保育園落ちた日本死ね”, and I felt a sense of crisis. At that time, I decided that my second entrepreneurial venture would be a business that would solve issues for our future couple, and I proposed to her on that basis.
I went to “Florence” to study in preparation for launching a babysitting business.
At the time, I was very shortsighted and started working toward the launch of a babysitting business with the simple thought, “If there are not enough daycare centers and there are children on waiting lists, why not do something like babysitting? However, I knew nothing about the childcare industry, so I changed jobs to Florence, a non-profit organization within the childcare industry, for one year to study.
As I mentioned before, my main job at Florence was to set up a public-private partnership project called “Kodomo Takushoku” (Children’s Home Delivered Meals), and I was also allowed to work as a childcare worker after obtaining my certification. I also interviewed about 30 to 40 mothers raising children in my private time. As I was testing these hypotheses, I realized that it would be very difficult to succeed in the babysitting business that I had originally planned. I think this was around April 2018.
I had to devote myself to changing direction, and I had two hints at that time.
One was that among the problems that came up during interviews with mothers raising children, there were many that could not be solved without a change in policy. However, as a matter of course, they were ordinary citizens and had no idea how to make the policies realized.
Another reason was Mr. Komazaki, the representative of Florence, whose activity on facebook. He has been very active in lobbying, and as part of that effort, he has been asking people who agree with the policies he proposes to contact their local legislators via e-mail or phone and let them know that they would like this policy to be implemented. However, there was an interesting gap here: only one person commented that they had actually tried contacting their local councilors in response to Mr. Komazaki’s request. On the other hand, when Mr. Komazaki called for signatures on change.org, an online petition site, 100,000 signatures were easily collected. I thought it would be interesting if we could fill this gap with a product, which is how we came up with the idea for issues Inc.
After a year of hypothesis testing, we released the service.
To be honest, at the time, I didn’t think it would turn into a business. But it sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try and started hypothesis testing.
After retiring from Florence, I assisted several companies as a sole proprietor, while at the same time conducting interviews with a total of more than 100 people, including legislators, mothers raising children, and lobbyists. I also tried to actually promote four policy advocacy projects with low-code and no-code.
We got a good response, so we released the service called “issues” in March 2019.
Closing
So far, I’ve broadcasted about “The trigger was that incident a month before the proposal? How issues Inc. was founded”. The project started as an extension of my desire for our family to live happily, which is something we all feel.
If you found this interesting, please follow this channel. We would also be happy if you could send us your impressions or topics you would like us to cover, and we would appreciate it if you could send them to us by posting “#すたぽり” on Twitter, by voice message on Anchor, by letter on stand.fm, or if you are a friend, by Facebook Messenger, etc. So that’s it for today, thank you very much.
