SpeakBuddy Inc. CEO Takeshi Tateishi

I want to compete in the field where I have the most passion

Representative Director and CEO of SpeakBuddy Inc.　Takeshi Tateishi(Strong Tateishi)

■ Profile

While studying at Keio University, he was the youngest person at the time to pass the second stage of the Certified Public Accountant exam. He worked at a foreign investment bank, assisting listed companies with fundraising and advising on M&A, and was also stationed in Hong Kong. When he was offered a job, his TOEIC score was only 280, so he struggled to reach the level of English required for the job, but this experience led to the development of his current service. He currently has a perfect TOEIC score and EIKEN Grade 1.

SpeakBuddy, the AI ​​English conversation app, has been downloaded over 300 million times and reached the top of the App Store education rankings. Takeshi Tateishi, who hated English and couldn't speak it at all since he was in junior high school, explains why he decided to develop an English conversation app. He says it was his own experience of failure and the passion that was born from it.

■The youngest person in history to pass the CPA exam

During high school, I barely studied at all because I was an internal transfer student, but after entering university, I spent a lot of time studying to become a certified public accountant. What prompted me to do this was when, in my third year of high school, the company my father ran went bankrupt and my life turned upside down. I realized that from now on I had to earn my own money, so I went to the bookstore and read through job guidebooks, searching for a job where I could earn money and produce results through my own efforts. That's how I found business consulting. I learned that an accountant qualification would be an advantage to become a business consultant, so I decided to go to the Faculty of Commerce.

I started studying for my accountant qualification in the winter of my first year of university, studying 14 hours a day, even deleting my friends' contacts from my cell phone and unplugging my television because they were distracting me. In my third year of university, my efforts finally paid off. I became the youngest person ever to pass the accountant exam. Up until then, I had been promoted from my primary school and hadn't studied much, but it was at this point that I first believed, "I can do it if I try."

■The turning point in my life was my experience with a serious illness

After graduating from university, I got a job at a foreign investment bank. However, because it was a foreign company, I needed to know English to do my job. However, as I mentioned earlier, I had hardly studied English in middle and high school, so on top of the already hard work, I really struggled with English.

A major turning point in my life was when I suffered a serious illness in my mid-twenties. I'm now fully recovered, but at the time I was told there was a possibility of sudden death, which made me reflect on my life. I was satisfied that I was able to do what I wanted and achieve results, but when I found myself on the brink of death, I suddenly wondered, "Was there any meaning to my birth in this world?" I couldn't answer that question with a clear yes. If the surgery was successful and I lived, I wanted to do something useful for the world. I wanted to make an impact on society in that way. That's why I decided to start my own business.

■A friend's comment led to the development of an English learning app

Once I decided to start a business, I wondered what kind of service I should develop. I had always thought, "Shouldn't there be a service like this in the world?" and had come up with a number of ideas. Then, a friend who returned from overseas suggested that I create an English app. However, I have always hated English. I was adamant that I would never learn English. In fact, when I was working for a foreign company, I studied hard despite my inferiority complex about not being able to speak it.

But I thought I might as well give it a try, and when I started making an app, ideas just started pouring out of me. The English learning app I created as an amateur became Apple's App of the Year in 2014, coming in second only to Minecraft. Seeing the user reaction, I was amazed at how many people wanted to learn English, and at the same time, I realized just how passionate I was about language learning.

Over the next few years, I added more features and released several other apps. However, although each was a hit, I never heard anyone say, "Now I can speak English!" I wanted to help people who, like me, were trying hard to learn English but were struggling to speak it. If that was the case, I felt I had to create something even more groundbreaking, something that would have a bigger impact. With that single-minded goal, I once again put my efforts into developing an app, and the new AI English conversation app, "SpeakBuddy," was born.

■ Language learning taught by AI, not by people

I spent a tremendous amount of time and money—5000 hours and over 500 million yen—studying English. That's why I strongly believed in the need for a service that would help people learn and master English more efficiently. However, when I first proposed an AI English conversation app, I encountered a lot of opposition from those around me. Speech recognition technology was still in its infancy, and it wasn't yet at a level where I could have smooth conversations. However, having previously worked in IT at a financial institution, I was convinced that the fields of speech recognition and AI would continue to evolve rapidly. Above all, I wanted to help people who wanted to improve their English. I found online English lessons and other English lessons with human instructors inefficient, as they were expensive, difficult to schedule, and required time to check the English level when the instructor changed. Making mistakes can be embarrassing and stressful. In that respect, working with an AI is more relaxed. As a company that supports language acquisition, SpeakBuddy aims to create a society where learning is done by AI, not by people. Going forward, I would like to continue working on developing AI English conversation that can converse so fluently that it is indistinguishable from humans, and can learn languages ​​more efficiently and effectively than humans.

■Message to university students

When choosing your own career, I think it's very important not only to be able to earn money, but also to be able to work on something you are passionate about. Are you familiar with the concept of "ikigai"? It is the idea that people can feel a sense of purpose in life when four things come together: "what you're good at," "what you love," "what society needs," and "being paid." At first, I also thought about money first, but I strongly feel that the business I am currently working on brings all four of these together. I hope that you will find something that you are passionate about through your student life.

Interview with Student Newspaper Online on March 23, 2024 by Sophia University third-year student, Himari Shirasaka