ABABA Inc. CEO Toshiki Kubo

Towards a society where not only results but also processes are valued

Representative Director and CEO of ABABA Inc.　久保駿貴　(Kubo Shunki)

■ Profile

Originally from Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, he graduated from the Faculty of Science at Okayama University. In his fourth year, he founded ABABA, a scouting service with the mission of "evaluating the job-hunting process." The service supports those who make it to the final interview with other companies by providing "cheers" instead of "negative emails" at the final interview, and hires those who make it to the final interview with other companies. He holds a teaching license and has received the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award and the SDGs Japan Prize. He also serves as a commentator on Tokyo MX's "Hori Jun Morning FLAG."

ABABA Inc. provides "ABABA," a direct recruiting service specializing in new graduates, which only job-hunting candidates who have progressed to the final interview stage can register with. We spoke to CEO Kubo Toshitaka, who aims to create a society where the job-hunting process, not just the results, is valued, about the company's founding, business development, and future goals.

■ Studying English conversation and backpacking abroad to broaden my horizons

I initially enrolled at Kansai University, but after two years there I transferred to Okayama University in my third year. This was because I wanted to study meteorology and weather, which I had always been interested in. At university, I joined the ESS club and participated in an English speech competition. Influenced by the stories of my club seniors, I also backpacked around Southeast Asia during my long holidays.

■Founded ABABA after two failures and seeing his friends

When I entered university, I didn't have a strong vision of running a company. Then, in my second year, the law on interpreter guides was revised in preparation for the Olympics. Previously, only qualified people could guide, but now anyone can do so without a license. So I thought, "It would be interesting to create a matching service for interpreter guides," and started a tip-based interpreter guide matching service. After that, the impact of COVID-19 meant that foreign tourists completely stopped coming, and I wasn't able to expand my business, but it was a good experience.
After that, I started a general incorporated association and provided a crowdfunding service for restaurants hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it was unable to differentiate itself from existing services and the service design was poor, so it too quietly closed down. Then, around June of my senior year of university, a close friend of mine failed the final interview at the company he wanted to work for and fell into a state close to depression. Seeing my friend's condition, I thought, "It would be nice if there was a service that would reward people for making it to the final interview," and so I started developing the current ABABA service.
The name ABABA comes from the fact that my friend actually said "Ababababa" (sent it to me on LINE) when he was rejected from the selection process, so I decided to use it as the company name so as not to forget the feelings of people in trouble (lol).

■ Turning "process" into added value and creating a cycle of human resources

ABABA is a service that matches companies with students who have made it to the final interview stage. Until now, if you failed the final selection process, the only result left was that you were "rejected." However, on the flip side, it can also be seen as a sign of excellence that you made it to the final selection stage. In other words, the rejection email sent when you are rejected becomes a kind of seal of approval. It's a win-win-win service: it reduces the burden on students who make the selection process, it allows other companies to quickly find talented students, and it ensures that the students' efforts and time are not wasted. This service also creates long-term human resource mobility.
Data sent to companies for new graduate recruitment is considered personal information, and is ultimately discarded. Once data is discarded, the relationship with those people is severed. However, if you use ABABA, the data can be stored for a time, so the relationship will not be severed. For companies, this creates the possibility that students who joined another company as new graduates may be reunited with that company as they grow, and for students, it creates a cycle in which they can reconnect with companies they are attached to and who made it to the final selection process.
Japan is currently experiencing a declining birthrate and an aging population, which has led to a major labor shortage. To address this issue, companies are starting to develop a culture of valuing former employees, and rather than simply viewing them as "people who have left the company," they are creating systems to maintain ties with them so that they can work together again somewhere. ABABA is a service that is in line with this trend.

■ Utilize appealing features that only students can offer

All sales efforts to get people to adopt ABABA's services were conducted on Twitter.
Because our service aims to help struggling job-hunters, when sending messages, we don't use templated texts, but write messages tailored to each individual, filled with our heart. When we first started the service, I was a student myself, so I made efforts such as appealing to people by saying, "I'm a student too, but I'm doing my best!" and researching a year's worth of Twitter posts from HR department staff to approach people who might respond to students' enthusiasm. We also monetize on a performance-based basis. To lower the barrier to entry, rather than charging a usage fee, we have introduced a system where companies receive a reward if they are able to hire a student, in the hopes that more companies will use the service.

■We want people who can see things positively on our team.

At ABABA, we want to work with people who can turn difficult times into positives. We're a venture company, but there are times when we have to work hard even when things are tough. People who make negative comments or badmouth others ruin the team atmosphere, so we want people who can think positively about everything. To identify such people, ABABA includes a "drinking party" in our interview process. Drinking parties are a great way to identify potential candidates, as people often make spontaneous remarks. We also want to tell job seekers that "there is always a way forward, even if you don't make it to the final interview," so we want people who can manage social media and advertise.

■ Create a company that can contribute to the country as a pioneering entrepreneur for local students

ABABA Inc. aims to create a trillion yen company in the future.
Toyota, a representative Japanese company, is said to have a market capitalization of 30 trillion yen, and I would like to create a company that can compete globally on a par with Toyota.
I'm from Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, and both of my parents are ordinary people with no business background. I believe that even someone with no prior experience of starting a business like me can do so because I was born in Japan and because my predecessors supported the Japanese economy. To contribute to Japan, the country that gave me the opportunity to start my own business, I would like to create a company worth over several trillion yen and pay taxes accordingly. I also want to create an environment that doesn't discourage entrepreneurs from starting their own businesses from regional universities. I don't think there are many student entrepreneurs like me who graduated from regional universities like Okayama University. Thankfully, my hometown uses me as a role model as a student entrepreneur from a regional university. However, while expectations are high, failure would cause trouble for the next generation of regional entrepreneurs, so I want to continue working hard until the end and avoid failure.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on December 14, 2023 by Ryusei Nishiyama, a fourth-year student at Musashino University