Efforts to solve biofuels and food problems in developing countries.
Euglena Co., Ltd. continues to take on challenges with a venture mind even after becoming a listed company.
Looking back on the founding period, Mitsuru Izumo, President and CEO, says, "I don't know the future, but I just wanted to start moving." "It's okay to fail, so let's try it first." I heard the thought behind that message.
What is the "failure" that Euglena
As an environmental company, he talks about his attitude as a company aiming for social good.
February 17, 2006.
Currently connected from the transfer details where the numbers have almost disappeared
-Book "I decided to save the world with Euglena. 』(Diamond) also describes the hardships during the founding period.
I have a clear file that I always carry in my bag 365 days a year. As I wrote in the book, the transfer details at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (currently Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ) Roppongi Branch are at the top.
It contains the date of February 17, 2006, when I bought back the shares that had been invested in Livedoor from my savings. Since it is a thermal paper, most of the numbers written at that time have disappeared.
And, as I introduced in the book, I also put the fax received from the customer who lived in Osaka prefecture at the beginning of the establishment in the clear file. The first one I received in 2006. When I couldn't see the future at all, I received the message "I feel better with Euglena" and "I want you to do your best". I don't know how much I was encouraged.
-Six years later, in 2012, Euglena was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Did you expect the company to grow so quickly?
I didn't expect it at all.
When I made the transfer that day at the bank, I thought it would take more time to get into the current state. After the livedoor shock, I was wondering if I could really continue my business. "It doesn't matter if it takes 10 or 20 years. I want to steadily increase the number of customers and friends and reach Bangladesh for my entire life." I was sitting on the sofa on the second floor of the bank and thinking so.
For a while, the business situation of the company was severe and I could not afford to go to Bangladesh. However, it went public six years later, and in 2013, the following year, I began to think that I could finally go to Bangladesh.
Everything is fast and I am surprised myself. If I had imagined that there would be such a future, I wouldn't have hesitated to transfer money at the bank until 15:00.
Ask the customer rather than think. Move your hands to experiment and ask Euglena
―I was impressed by how you met the founding members Kengo Suzuki and Takuyuki Fukumoto (both of whom are currently Executive Officer) and how you overcame them afterward.
I still have the same relationship with the founding members. I'm really grateful for the relationship. However, what is considered common sense in the world and the order of "entrances and exits of things" that I think are always the opposite.
For example, people often ask me, "Why did you start a business with three wonderful friends, Suzuki and Fukumoto?" And "I also want to find such a wonderful friend and start a business." But I think it's different. While there are many people in the world, I didn't meet Suzuki and Fukumoto separately as "nice people" and "not nice people". It may sound paradoxical, but I, Suzuki, and Fukumoto didn't know if it would be best for Euglena
I'm not sure, but it started to move. That is the fact.
Euglena wasn't born because you met three people, but that you're connected to the present just because you took the first step?
I agree. I don't know about the future, but I think this is the result of the action I took to get started.
Many people say, "Think carefully before you act." Trying to reduce the chances of failure by thinking, or increase the probability of success. I don't think it makes any sense. People who say, "I don't know, so I can't move" cannot succeed.
You might think this because my background is life science, but human design drawings are almost the same. There are only four types of genomes, "ATCG". It is lined up as 23 sets and 46 blueprints. And it is the same up to "9 to the 6th power".
Even though the blueprints are the same, there is absolutely no difference between "this person is smart" and "this person is good". The important thing is whether to take action. Those who can become a Living National Treasure may have to think carefully. But many are not living national treasures. Don't you think you have to try it to see if it works?
Mass culture of Euglena was finally realized by repeating experiments. I approached the company 500 times with a wonderful partner, ITOCHU, and finally met after repeated failures.
Ask the customer rather than think. Move your hands to experiment and ask Euglena. I think that's the only thing.
Let's do it first from the meeting
-Isn't the attitude of continuing to act without fear of failure indispensable for Euglena to maintain its venture mindset?
That's what I think. If you try something unknown and get 50 points for the first time, it's a really great achievement. For example, children grow up by falling and stumbling many times until they can walk for the first time. From the beginning, no one tells a child, "Why can't I walk?" In the same sense, I see people who challenge.
Euglena has colleagues who sympathize with it.
New graduate members who say, "I only received Euglena to solve social issues," and mid-career members from various companies who say, "I want to work for Euglena They are really the best friends, but I'm a little worried that there are many serious and smart people.
-Are you worried about the large number of "serious and smart people"?
This is just my intuition, with no evidence, but the smarter people are more afraid of failure. To put it differently, the smarter people think. Of course, I know I'm smart and I'm trying to find a better way. However, most of the things that happen in a company are "faster to try".
When three ABC proposals come up for the achievement of a certain goal, everyone will start a meeting. "A is 64 percent, B is 75 percent, C is a one-shot reversal but there is a 5 percent chance. What do you do?" So in most cases I choose B.
But I think, "I don't have to have a meeting, so let's do A first." If A doesn't work, challenge B, if it doesn't work, challenge C, and if you fail, you can learn from it. There is no need for a comparison meeting. It's better to have a meeting that reports, "I didn't try it."
I have to experiment, study, and fail
-Is President Izumo himself still learning from his mistakes?
If I repeat it without fear of failure, I will think that everything is a "failure" (laughs). You can only see the good points of things.
If it's raining when you book a fine dining restaurant and go out fashionably, you might think you don't like it. But maybe because I'm from the Faculty of Agriculture, I think "some farmers have been waiting for the rain. It's a rain of grace." Even rain doesn't want to harass people who go to restaurants. I just take it negatively.
I was once told by some interview that "I understand the story of rain, but I wasn't happy with the crowded train I got on today." At that time, I seriously answered, "It's like putting in a sauna with a massage for a ticket of several hundred yen." I was very surprised (laughs). Whether it's raining on a date or a crowded train, you can change your perspective by changing the perspective.
-It may be important to have an attitude that does not simply regard the event in front of you as a "failure."
Many people take the word "failure" negatively, but I think there are some who confuse "failure" with "Risk" in English. "Failure" is the opposite of "success", that is, failure. "Risk" means "I don't know what will happen". It's easy to think that "high risk" is negative, but in reality it means "there is a possibility of success, but I don't know what will happen."
Even if I try something and get a different result than I expected, I still feel that "Yes, this is happening, it's interesting!" Others may say it's a failure, but for me it's a "success" to come across unexpected results.
Professor Shinya Yamanaka, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and Professor Hiroshi Amano, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, all said, "I have to experiment and research anyway." Then we have to experiment, study and fail more. Euglena wants to be a company that can keep an eye on it.
Sentence: Shinsuke Tada
President of Euglena Co., Ltd.
Mitsuru Izumo
Joined Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in 2002 after graduating from Komaba Toho Junior and Senior High School and Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tokyo. Euglena Co., Ltd. in 2005 and became president. In December of the same year, we succeeded in mass-culturing edible outdoor mass of the Euglena
Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (Davos Conference) won the 1st Japan Venture Award "Prime Minister's Award" (2015). In his book, "I decided to save the world with Euglena. (Shogakukan Shinshosha).