Kotaro Marubayashi, CEO/Creative Director, Creema Inc.

Making the greatest number of people in the world happy! A business born from passion

■ Profile

Born in Yokohama in 1979. After graduating from Keio University, he worked at Septeni Holdings before founding Creema Inc. in 2009. He runs Creema, the largest handmade marketplace in Japan and Asia, and the creator festival Handmade in Japan Fest. His goal is to "invigorate people and the world through business done with love." His hobbies are DJing and watching professional wrestling.

Creema is one of Japan's largest handmade marketplaces. Its founder, President Marubayashi, says, "I want to establish a new, fair, huge economic sphere where truly good things don't go unsold." Behind this vision lies the doubts he felt about society while working as a musician, and his passionate feelings toward creators.

Ever since I was a child, I've always wondered, "What kind of job can make a lot of people happy?" I started out playing tennis. I started my musical career at around 15, and by the time I was a university student, I was working as a professional DJ and music producer. It was around this time that a turning point came, and I decided to aim to become a manager. I thought of university as a "time to invest in the future," and I was conscious of what I could do now to shape who I would be in 10 or 20 years' time, so I acted with that in mind.

■ Struggles as a professional musician

Ever since I was in junior high school, I've wanted to do a job that would make the most people in the world happy. I entered the music world because I love music, it gave me so much energy, and I believed I could have a positive impact on many people if I worked in an industry with such a large market. While I was still a student, I was determined to achieve results, and I was fortunate to receive a lot of work. However, I began to feel troubled by the gap between what I wanted to do and what I had to do. Then, I met a well-known businessman who was sponsoring an event I hosted, and when I told him my desire to use music to make the most people in the world happy, he told me, "In that case, you'd be suited to being a businessman or a politician." I couldn't understand his true meaning at the time, and after thinking about it for about a month, I came to the conclusion that becoming a businessman and starting various businesses would have the potential to make far more people happy than working as a solo musician. This prompted me to end all my music-related work and begin planning my career as a businessman.

■To improve my skills, I joined the company I felt least comfortable with.

I decided I needed to gain practical experience at a company, so I began my job search. During interviews, I declared, "I'll quit in three years to become a manager," and received job offers from over a dozen companies, including major corporations. I ultimately landed a job at a small internet advertising agency, which was a venture company with around 100 employees that relied heavily on cold calling. It was the company I personally felt was the hardest to get into. The reason I chose that company was because I felt I needed to "get stronger." While I had a strong sense of confidence in the creativity and planning skills I'd developed through my music career, I felt I clearly lacked the skills needed to succeed in the highly competitive business world. I pondered what I needed to achieve and came to the conclusion that I needed to "produce results in something I'm not good at."

■A flat space where talent doesn't get buried

When I was thinking about what kind of new business I should start, I had about 50 ideas, and one of them was the current Creema. When I was playing music, I saw people who had talent but gave up because they weren't recognized, and I wondered if there was some way to improve this ambiguous world where ability isn't quantified. I wondered if there was a way to create a place where creators could release their work to the world and have it recognized by someone around the world, without having to try hard to be liked by others. It was during this time that I came up with the idea of ​​a C to C system, and founded Creema.

■ Don't compromise your thoughts or beliefs

When we first started, brand loyalty was stronger than it is now, and buying creators' work was a fairly niche concept, so we struggled for two or three years without our service growing. More than 30 competitors entered the market, and to be honest, there were many times when I thought we might not make it. But we persisted and began to grow around the end of our third year. By continuing to "think deeper than anyone and execute more thoroughly than anyone," we had pulled far ahead of our competitors within six or seven years, and almost all companies, including large corporations, had withdrawn. I think our success stemmed from our continued focus on creating a great service, rather than relying on heavy advertising or heavy promotion. We continue to cherish our "creator-first" philosophy, as we did then, and we aim to provide a service where talented creators are properly recognized.

■Supporting creators' dreams

In the future, we would like to expand the "Creema economic zone" and develop services that can help creators in ways other than just buying and selling. Creators have a wide range of dreams and aspirations, not just making a living from their own work, such as "holding a solo exhibition overseas" or "moving to a foreign country and setting up an atelier." We would like to comprehensively support the activities of creators by responding to such challenges and aspirations.

■What kind of people do you want to work with?

I don't think it's much different from "what kind of friends you like." If your values ​​don't match and you only have the bare minimum of conversation, creativity and innovation won't occur. Ability and skills are important, but I want to work with people I like as people. Part of it is a feeling, but more specifically, someone who is "pure at heart, honest, and lives life to the fullest." I also think it's someone who has the habit and determination to "see something through to the end once they've decided to do it."

■Message to university students

As a university student, I want you to think of the time you spend job hunting as your best chance to think about your future plans. While it's important to listen to what your parents and society have to say, it's also important to have a vision of what you want to become and work backwards to figure out what you need to do to get there. Job hunting can be a difficult time because it's easy to compare yourself to others, but it's also a good time to get to the bottom of what you want to do with your life, so I hope you'll do your best.

Student newspaper WEB February 15, 2021 interview Toyo University 2nd year student Akane Isa