Honshu Takaoka, Chairman and CEO, Airweave Co., Ltd.

2025.02.26

Airweave has changed the way we sleep, and is taking on the world

Motokuni Takaoka, Chairman and CEO, Airweave Co., Ltd.

■Profile
Born in Nagoya in 1960. Graduated from the Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Nagoya University, and completed a Master's course at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Keio University, before joining Nippon Kouatsu Electric, run by his father. In 87, he completed a Master's course at Stanford University Graduate School. In 98, he became the President and Representative Director of Nippon Kouatsu Electric (currently a Director). In 2004, he took over the management of Chubu Chemical Machinery Works (now Airweave) from his uncle..

Born and raised in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Chairman and President Takaoka Motoshu took over his father's company and then, in order to revive his uncle's company that was on the verge of bankruptcy, used his existing technology to launch the bedding brand "airweave." We spoke with Takaoka, who continues to take on challenges both at home and abroad, drawing on his many years of experience.

I was born and raised in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. My father ran a local small-to-medium-sized power-related business with around 300 employees, so during my university years I spent every day thinking that one day I might get involved in my father's business.

■ A journey through learning and challenges during my student days

During my university days, I was a member of the golf club and spent every day at the golf course rather than attending classes. Although I majored in applied physics at the Faculty of Engineering, being surrounded by students who really loved physics made me realize that "I'm not really that good at physics," and I began to take an interest in business administration, a liberal arts field.

After graduating, I went on to Keio Business School, one of the few schools in Japan at the time where I could earn an MBA. However, most of my classmates were working adults seconded from their companies, so it was a challenging environment for a student like me. The amount of assignments was enormous, and there were days when I would study until 4am during those two years.

After graduating, I initially planned to find work in Tokyo, and after a period of job hunting, I was accepted to work at a think tank. However, my father was strongly opposed to this, and after much discussion, I decided to return to Nagoya and join Nippon Kouatsu Denki, a manufacturer of power distribution equipment for electric power companies run by my father. When I visited the company's human resources department to introduce myself, they immediately encouraged me to study abroad. Making use of my science background, I entered the Graduate School of Engineering at Stanford University, graduating in two years.

■ The path to the birth of Airweave

The power distribution equipment manufactured by Nippon Kotsu is used on approximately half of the utility poles in Japan. He became the company's president in 1998, and the serious manufacturing attitude he developed there is now being put to good use in airweave's business.

The idea for Airweave came about when, after taking over his uncle's company, which manufactured machines for making fishing line, he struggled to rebuild the business and realized that the resilience of the cushioning material he was manufacturing at the time could be applied to bedding.

The inspiration for this idea came from my own experience of suffering from whiplash when I was young. The low-resilience bedding that was widely available at the time did not relieve fatigue, and I began to think, "I want to create bedding that uses high-resilience cushioning material that provides firm support for the body." I thought that by utilizing the technology I had on hand in bedding, I could create new value and keep the company alive and growing.

Traditionally, most bedding has used urethane and springs, but we have developed a unique product that uses a completely new resin material called Air Fiber.

■ Utilizing the assets of our original business that supports social infrastructure to revolutionize sleep

The bedding industry has a long history, and there are already many established companies. To enter the market, new entrants must not simply improve their products, but must innovate to create new added value.

However, in the case of bedding, where there are few opportunities to compare the effects, few consumers are dissatisfied with existing products, so even though we think Airfiber is an innovation, customers do not demand it.

So we first created a mattress pad, which is an add-on product. Thin mattress pads require a relatively small amount of sales floor space. And because they are so thin, they can be sent by courier, so we were able to enter the business without having our own logistics operations. Also, since it was athletes who are sensitive to their bodies who first noticed the benefits of airweave, we aimed to create bedding that would be chosen by Olympic athletes who are particular about their sleep.

Later, the company was tasked with providing bedding for the athletes' village at the Tokyo Olympics, and developed bed mattresses that could be individually tailored to fit the athletes' body shapes. At last year's Paris Olympics, the company delivered bedding for approximately 16,000 beds on its own. Currently, its main product is a bed mattress that can be customized into three sections.

Traditional Japanese B2C companies sometimes sell different product lines in their physical stores and online shops, but we have designed our business in a way that allows customers to purchase the same products in both physical stores and online shops, similar to the approach used by European luxury brands such as Hermès and Chanel.

This meticulous branding and marketing led to the product becoming a hit, and these two pillars remain the most important aspects of our company to this day.

Airweave began business 1 years ago and has achieved sales of over 200 billion yen in Japan. Bedding is an essential product for society. Thanks to you, our products are used by a wide range of people, including top-class individuals, and have become well-known. We are proud to support people's health through our bedding.

Going forward, we would like to spread the message of our corporate philosophy, "Bringing quality to the world of sleep," all over the world. We are also focusing on expanding our products overseas, and we hope that by creating opportunities for our young employees to work overseas and taking on the challenge of working in regions where our brand is not yet known, they will broaden their horizons and grow.

■Message to university students

People cannot develop their abilities unless they set challenging goals and work towards them. And by developing their abilities, they meet and discover new people, broaden their horizons, and enrich their lives. Airweave is taking on the extraordinary challenge of providing bedding for the Olympics because it wants to develop its own abilities and evolve its products.

The important thing is to have a challenging spirit and to be honest and sincere. If you do this, you will be able to learn and grow when you fail.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on December 11, 2024 by Yurie Watanabe, a first-year student at Josai International University