Episode 27 Fresh Start

Our challenge to “go beyond letters”　
New company launched with a team of basic research engineers

It was May 2009, one month after we decided to allocate approximately 44% of our shares to Keyence. Keyence made a proposal for the future treatment of JustSystems. They requested that we dissolve the team as they did not need the basic research.

It was a team led by Hatsuko, Managing Director. It was already decided that she herself would step down as Vice President. However, I wondered whether it would be a good idea to dissolve the JustSystems engineering team, which consisted of outstanding researchers, without taking any action. After discussing the matter with Hatsuko, we decided that she would leave JustSystems with the engineers to go independent.

As Chairman, I was to stay with JustSystems for the time being. The idea was to eventually join Hatsuko’s new company, which I vaguely thought would happen in a few years.

It was around the end of October when Hatsuko was preparing to establish a new company. As we proceeded to sort out the relationship between the new company and JustSystems, it turned out that it would be preferable for me to also leave JustSystems at the same time as Hatsuko.

For me, it didn’t matter either way. I had a budding desire to take on new challenges once again with Hatsuko and the engineers with whom I had built JustSystems together.

It was when Hatsuko and a team of engineers rented a preparatory office in Kamiyacho, Tokyo, to discuss the concept of a new company. I do not remember the details of the discussion, but the only thing that remains in my memory is that I found what everyone was discussing very interesting. I felt a strong desire to join them and take a new step forward.
Thus, I decided once again to start a new business with Hatsuko.

Initially, we had decided to name our new company “Gogassa”. The name is derived from Gogasha, a word that represents 10 raised to the power of 52, or an infinitely large number. It is said to represent the innumerable sands in India’s mighty Ganges River.

I thought it was a wonderful name for our new company as we pursue unlimited possibilities. In fact, we had already registered the company under this name.

However, when I mentioned the company name to the American who developed the concept base for the search system I mentioned in an earlier episode in Vancouver, Canada, his response was, “Excuse me? It’s like saying, ‘Go to the gas station'”, insisting that Gogassa sounds like “Go gas, ah!”

This led us to consider a new company name, and we came up with “MetaMoji”. “Meta” is a word that means “going beyond”. In other words, a company that “goes beyond letters”. JustSystems created Ichitaro, a revolutionary Japanese word processing software. With our next company, we will create something that goes beyond that. Having these thoughts, we came to establish “MetaMoJi,” with myself as President and Hatsuko as Managing director. It was a fresh start for both of us.

At the age of 60, my wife and I made a decision to embark on a new journey. So what would we do with our new company? We already had a solid idea. There is no end to what we want to do. However, we were destined to make a quick change of course after we encounter new technology.

In search of something more exciting….Hatsuko and I had discovered new possibilities, just as we had when we launched JustSystems at the age of 30 and introduced Japanese word processing software to this country.

Started a new business again with
my wife Hatsuko (middle of the front row)
(The author is the third from the left
in the front row, in 2010)