Ururu Co., Ltd. President and CEO Tomoya Hoshi

Using curiosity as our energy source, we continue to take on challenges on a global scale.

President and CEO of Ururu Co., Ltd.　Tomoya Hoshi(Hoshi Tomoya)

Ururu Co., Ltd. is a company that has achieved growth through its business utilizing home workers. With the vision of "solving labor shortages," it is a notable company that currently develops multiple SaaS services. However, before founding the company, President Hoshi had many experiences and difficulties. In this article, we spoke passionately with President Hoshi, who has such an unusual background, about Ururu's strengths and appeal.

Since high school, I've had a lot of part-time jobs, mainly newspaper delivery, and I really felt how hard it is to earn money. I was always trying out any part-time job that looked interesting, so I think I was a curious person even back then. I also had a strong desire to get out into the world as soon as possible, so I decided to graduate from high school instead of going to university. After that, I started working as a window cleaner in a building, attracted by the good hourly wage, but I gradually began to yearn for the idea of ​​working in a suit (laughs). I started looking for my next job in job magazines, and I found a job at a sales company.

The encounter that gave rise to the company name during a working holiday

The company I joined was a door-to-door sales company, where the promotion process was simple: "The more you sell, the higher your salary and rank." As a result, I was promoted to deputy manager at the age of 19, and my exposure to people and the scope of my work expanded. I also went on a working holiday out of curiosity, and it was an incredibly exciting experience. I spent a year in Australia, and the view of Ayers Rock is one I'll never forget. Located at the center of the Australian continent, Ayers Rock is a sacred place for the Australian Aborigines, who call it "Uluru." (Uluru is the Aboriginal name (in the Pitjantjatjara language); Ayers Rock, named by British explorers, is also a more widely known name - Wikipedia.) "We want our company to be at the center of the world," I said. With that in mind, we named our company "Ururu."

The decision to take on an MBO in my 20s

After returning to Japan, I got a job at a company that sold educational materials to housewives. At the time, the business simply sold educational materials, but I wanted to go beyond sales and add extra value to customers, so I started brokering jobs by providing after-sales support to those who purchased the products. However, the company's overall performance was poor, and the survival of the existing business was in jeopardy. So, my choice was to go independent through an MBO (management buyout). Of course, objectively speaking, other options may have been more reasonable and realistic. However, of the several options available, I decided to take the most difficult path. Perhaps my natural curiosity played a role here as well. As a result, although I faced many hardships and difficulties while running the company, we were able to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers in 2017 and continue to grow.

The CGS business model, which has evolved through constant change

We had been formulating a business plan even before the MBO. In particular, in 2007, there was a lot of talk about the baby boomer generation retiring, and the future labor shortage was becoming a problem. At the same time, internet services were beginning to become more common, and there was a movement to utilize them in business. "Labor shortage" was a social issue, "Internet" would be essential in the future to improve productivity, and "housewives" were the target of our existing business and would also be a source of labor for future labor creation. Combining these three keywords, we started a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) business that utilizes the labor force of housewives (home workers).
In our BPO business, we outsourced tasks such as data entry entrusted to us by companies to home-based workers, but the biggest problem was low profit margins and, above all, employee exhaustion. While the process of outsourcing went smoothly, there was a huge amount of work we had to do ourselves, such as thoroughly checking the outsourced work to ensure the quality was satisfactory to the company. "Far from resolving the labor shortage, this will only destroy us," we thought. Thinking this, we then turned to crowdsourcing. However, while our company was tasked with matching home-based workers with companies, there were few companies at the time willing to actively utilize home-based workers, and so it didn't go well.
Ultimately, we arrived at the CGS (Crowd Generated Service) business, which combines the BPO and crowdsourcing businesses. Until now, we had simply provided the labor power of our home-based workers to companies, but simply put, CGS is a business model that utilizes our home-based workers to increase profits by having many companies use our SaaS services. As a result, a variety of businesses have been born, including "NJSS," which searches bidding information in bulk; "En Photo," an online photo sales service for kindergartens and nursery schools; and "fondesk," which acts as the primary call forwarding service for companies and offices. We believe that these endeavors are possible only because we have a large number of home-based workers and have accumulated know-how on utilizing them through our BPO business.
Utilizing home workers also reduces labor costs. For example, if you employ a large number of temporary part-time workers all day, you would have to provide them with benefits other than salary, specifically transportation costs and a place to work. However, since home workers do not need to come into the office and there are no fixed costs, this allows for cost reductions. It has been said for a long time that human jobs will be replaced by AI and robots, but with the advancement of IT, there will be an increase in jobs that are valued solely for their human labor. In the future, I would like to promote the creation of a labor force other than housewives and further contribute to resolving labor shortages.

Message to university students

Our company values ​​corporate culture above all else. Because we view our employees as family, we aim to achieve our vision by pointing out things that might be difficult to point out and openly sharing our know-how. Each company has its own unique culture, and I believe each has its own unique character. That's why we seek out talent who truly fit into our culture, and I urge students to choose a company that truly fits them. I'm not sure how many students are aspiring to succeed in the business world, but I can say with certainty that academic background has absolutely no bearing. I'm living proof of this! (laughs) While student life is a time of intense input, once you enter the workforce, you'll be constantly producing output, even of things you don't know or have never done before. I believe that curiosity is the source of that energy, so use your diverse senses and enjoy growing while you do so.

Student Newspaper Online, May 24, 2023, Interview by Miyu Ito, 4th year student at Keio University