Takamine Murahashi, President and CEO of M Mart Co., Ltd.

Offering high-quality products at low prices without complacency

■ Profile

Born in 1936, he started working in the restaurant business at the age of 20 and has managed around 20 restaurants.
In 2000, he founded M Mart Co., Ltd., an internet venture at the age of 64. He decided to start his own business because he found it difficult to find suppliers for ingredients, and although it was his first time using a PC or the internet, he felt he had no choice but to do it himself.
In 2018, at the age of 81, he listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers, making him famous as the oldest entrepreneur.

M Mart Co., Ltd. was founded in 2000 as an online wholesale market and went public in 2018. In the early days of the online business, what motivated CEO Murahashi was his desire to support food distribution. Even now, he continues to lead the way, always striving for better things, and we spoke to him about his work and his thoughts on human resources.

■Dropped out of high school for financial reasons

I was a leader among the kids from a young age. I lived in a place without an ocean, so I always wanted a swimming pool. So, we once dammed up a nearby river and made it into a pool so we could all swim together. The local farmers got mad at us. But I guess I've always been the type to do things on my own initiative.
Due to financial reasons, I had to take time off school to help out at home, but I didn't think of it as a hardship. I loved reading, and I often borrowed books from the temple and read them.
When I entered high school, it was just after the war, and left-wing ideology was strong. In this historical context, a strike took place within a month of my enrollment, and the school was closed.
I entered high school because I wanted to study, and I was a serious person, so I was very angry about this. So I went to the principal's office by myself and appealed to him directly, saying, "School is not for the principal, it is for the students." Thanks to this, I was able to negotiate well and the strike was ended.
Later, in my first year, I became the president of the newspaper club and also one of the chairpersons of the All Japan Student Newspaper Association. Although I was surrounded by older high school students and adults, I was originally a fearless person, so I was able to experience a wide variety of things. However, due to financial reasons, I ended up dropping out of high school.
Although my studies were my top priority, I thought that quitting school was inevitable. However, I had a very fulfilling high school life, and I believe that I was able to gain more experience than you would normally get in three years of school.

■An interesting job where interpersonal relationships influence it

After dropping out of high school, I was forced to join my father's company. All of my salary went to him (laughs). After that, I don't know what he saw in me, but I was transferred to the Tokyo branch in Kanda. I also attended night school for about six months. However, once I entered the workforce, I began to feel a strong desire to work more than study.
Then, the mining company I was working for went bankrupt. As I was thinking about what to do, I happened to find that a friend's mother ran a snack bar, and she let me work there part-time. I found the restaurant industry fascinating, where customers don't just come for the products or services, but are drawn to the "human relationships" that draw them in even without capital, and I became obsessed with it.

■ Foresight gained from reading

After that, while working on rebuilding and running restaurants, the thing I found most difficult was "purchasing." Sometimes the purchased products would be different from what was ordered, or they would be mixed up. I couldn't keep track of everything, and I couldn't change it. Also, even if I wanted to come up with a new menu item in the highly competitive restaurant industry, the people who delivered the products didn't necessarily know what they were. I thought, "If things continue like this, this industry will be in trouble. If I, a veteran, am having trouble, surely many people are having trouble."
That's when the idea of ​​"wholesale over the internet" came to mind. I love reading, so I knew from books that "the internet will be the age of the future." If we could do wholesaling over the internet, it would help young people too. With that in mind, I asked my son if he had a computer, and that was my first exposure to the world of computers and the internet. However, I already had plenty of knowledge about the food and beverage industry, so even though it was a new business, I didn't feel anxious at all.

■ Rapid self-transformation is the key to survival

In the world of the Internet, only about two companies doing the same business can survive. Also, because the world is changing so quickly, the only way to grow is to constantly reinvent ourselves.
Our strength is that we operate all of our systems in-house. When we entered this industry, there were already more than 10 companies in the internet wholesale business. However, we were the only one that operated our own systems.
The reason why we created our own system is that if we were to outsource the system construction to an external company, it would require initial costs of tens of millions of yen, and the time it would take to make corrections and improvements would incur additional costs of hundreds of millions of yen. This would mean higher outsourcing costs and ultimately make it difficult to turn a profit.
In that respect, because we were running all of our systems ourselves, we were able to make various improvements quickly and without incurring any costs. I think that was a major strength.

■ Cherish the "right heart"

It's really hard to overcome each obstacle that comes before you. However, I'm an optimistic person, so I believe that "what happens in the human world can be solved by the human world." If you think like that, you can overcome any obstacle. The sense of accomplishment you get after overcoming those obstacles is what makes your job worthwhile and what makes it fun.
It is also important to teach people to "have a good heart." Honest and straightforward people grow. People quickly fail when they become conceited. This belief is expressed in M ​​Mart's company motto: "Humility, Honesty, Gratitude."
Some companies take five or even ten years to go public, but we were able to go public just one and a half years after starting full-scale preparations.
This is because our company has always valued "the right mindset." Any management must be done correctly. I believe that the smooth completion of the listing review is due to the accumulation of management with the right mindset. Furthermore, being listed has further increased social trust in us.

■Message

I want young people to take more of an interest in politics. Currently, precisely because we live in a peaceful world, there is a strong tendency to think, "As long as I'm happy, it's fine." However, this peace was created by politics. I want people to think more about what we should do about the world in the future by looking at politics.
Even after you enter the workforce, studying is just as important as it was during your student days. Many people think that there is no incentive to study once you enter the workforce, but if you study after entering the workforce, you will reap great rewards.
If you want to change yourself, you have no choice but to change your habits. I hope you will take an interest in politics, not rest on your laurels in the world today, and make it a habit to constantly think about what kind of world you want to create.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on May 27, 2021 by Aki Kawanami, 4th year student at Tsuda University