November 2022 Newsletter

↑After graduating university, I worked at a bank in Ohtemachi, Tokyo which is a financial district. 

↑d:matcha in Wazuka, the climate and the atmosphere is completely different from cities.

The CEO was the only staff member that had experience at small or medium sized enterprises when establishing d:matcha. The rest of the staff (excluding farmers) were from Recruit(the biggest HR company in Japan)  and I was from a bank company which are both known as large companies and it was our first time working at small, medium or venture companies.

One huge difference between large companies and venture companies is whether business contents are routine or not. Large companies already have rules, instructions and manuals beforehand. First we must obey the direction and we will be evaluated according to our performance. And, most big companies tend to dislike failure and mistakes.

Venture companies however do not have the manual to obey. Usually there is just a rough theme that is called Gain a profit and keep developing your skills. In order to succeed, we need to

1. Think on our own and suggest
2. Plan
3. Take action
4. Reflect on our action
5. Move on to improvement

Since it's a small number of staff,  we need to do most of the process on our own. There is no way we can spend money on market research and plan with a hired consultant because there is no budget for human resources and money.  All we can trust on is our own sensation, intuition and judgement on how to make our guests happy and make a profit.

It's their first time doing a small retail business. We were so used to the style of large companies so we didn’t know what to do at first and suffered in thinking and planning on our own and were afraid of failure. 

However, there are good abilities that we’ve earned from large companies. I for example was lucky to earn skills in finding out risks for quality and management. My experience in sales jobs also helped with communicating with customers. Both of these skills I earned when working at a banking company. When working at restaurant companies, we were able to learn from the company's business cases. What helped us out most was our mind to work hard along with many other staff in a competitive society.

In conclusion, abilities nurtured from large companies don't help out much in venture companies. Still, the experience of working with many people, getting used to general business helped us out on the outlook and point of view from a different angle. If I’m going to advise myself when d:matcha was just established, I would tell myself not to fear mistakes and keep trying new policies. I still remember at first it was very difficult to have a creative mind because I needed to get used to daily store business and new tasks. I must say it took me at least two years to get used to the venture company style.

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​​Structure of the new store（by Daiki.T）

Our construction for our new store next month is moving at a high rate.

It is very exciting to see the construction coming into shape every day. Our new store is surrounded by our own tea and rice farms and is located so everyone can enjoy the view from our cafe. We already have a plan to locate huge windows on the farm side that helps enjoy the view both on the first and second floor.

The new store’s location is in Yubune district which is famous for sugi(ceder) trees that are often used in wood construction. We’ve designed the building so that the construction is easy to see the sugi wood including the beams and ceiling. Many architects and carpenters helped us out with this new design and plan. For example, we have pillars thin but strong by having three joints from the ceiling.

 
（Unique pillar structure）

 
（Huge windows for the farm view）　

The southern side of the building is planned for solar panels. We want to reuse our electricity from nature as much as possible. Pheasants are the symbol for Wazuka which you can meet, including foxes. There are also deers but they are not welcome because they eat our tea leaves…　

It is very exciting to imagine what we can do that is viewable from our window like flower gardening and making soba.

 
（The view from outside where solar pannels are planned）

 
（Wild pheasants and foxes welcome you all!）　

Next to our new building used to be a sewing factory. The building had very heavy sewing machines on the second floor. There were also unused fabric cloth so the local ladies helped us recycle by changing them into curtains.

（Old fabric cutting machine）

 
（Curtains made from old fabric cloth）　

CEO
Daiki Tanaka