This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.
The following is a text archive from the CHANGE by ONE JAPAN application support session held on June 8. Three speakers — Akutsu, Nakamura, and Matsuzaka — shared their experiences as corporate founders and intrapreneurs. A panel discussion followed, covering what it concretely takes to build new businesses inside large organizations. This report was originally written by a participant from ONE X.
CHANGE has produced over 200 intrapreneurs in its first two years. The goal for the next eight years is to produce 10,000 intrapreneurs annually. All of it traces back to ONE JAPAN and the conviction that individuals inside large companies can change the world around them.
Akutsu: "The Secrets of Launching a New Business"
TTG-SENSE
Akutsu came from a railway company background. He now leads TTG-SENSE, a company building unmanned payment systems — cashierless checkout solutions combining tracking, point-of-sale, and store operations into an integrated suite. The work is oriented toward making fully autonomous convenience stores a real option for operators facing labor shortages.
His summary of how he got there: "I was doing what was in front of me as hard as I could, and I ended up here."
Building Before the Market Exists
When you are working on something that has no precedent — where there is no established market to measure against — the way to resolve uncertainty is to build a small version and observe the actual response. Not to theorize about whether the market exists, but to create something and read the feedback in real time.
Akutsu: "The first solution is to build something. Build while sensing the response, and keep shaping it. The first step is to build something small."
On failure: "The important thing is to try without fear of failure. Small successes — things you figured out yourself — give you the energy to keep going. There's nothing to worry about."
On the concern that "I'm a specialist, not a generalist — maybe new business isn't for me":
"You don't need to go looking for something completely outside your existing domain. Your current area of expertise is fine. Think about the problems you actually feel in the work you're already doing."
This is worth emphasizing: the most actionable new business opportunities are usually embedded in the work you are already closest to.
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Nakamura: "Passion and Persistence"
The Condominium Community Problem
Nakamura's business began with a personal experience: life in a condominium where residents were essentially strangers to each other. He built a platform combining digital tools (a resident-only app) and physical programming (events, shared activities) to cultivate a moderate, comfortable community feeling — close enough to be supportive, loose enough to feel voluntary.
His core principle: "It all starts from 'this seems interesting' and 'this doesn't seem right.' Don't ignore either one."
On Persistence
Nakamura was unusually direct about his own history: nothing he has ever tried worked on the first attempt. Rejections, failures, reapplications. He has accumulated more of those than most. And his current position exists because of that accumulation, not in spite of it.
Three principles he has carried through:
- Do not delegate ownership of your direction to someone else
- When you break, don't quit
- Hold your own convictions
"I am not particularly talented," he said more than once. "What I do is take more time than others. If what takes someone else one hour takes me three, I'll spend four. If what others accomplish in a year takes me three years, I'll take three years."
On sustaining motivation: "There are times when the fire almost goes out. When that happens, I come to places like this. I can't relight the fire alone — I need to be around people who carry their own fire."
The most memorable line of the session: "If this is the first time you've considered it, come. If it's your fourth time, it still matters. The first step produces the fourth step. Whatever step you're on — take it."
Matsuzaka: "Realizing What You Want While Contributing to the Company"
Developmental Screening in Malaysia
Matsuzaka, from McCann Erikson, pursued what he called secondment entrepreneurship — building a new business formally connected to the parent company rather than breaking away from it entirely.
His discovery: when he lived in Malaysia, standard developmental screening for children was essentially unavailable. A proper assessment previously cost approximately 30,000 yen per session, and there were only five or six qualified specialists in the entire country. He developed a service that delivers developmental screening digitally for 3,900 yen per assessment, built in partnership with universities and coordinated with government health systems. The work required full commitment over a sustained period in a foreign country, navigating institutional relationships he had never navigated before.
"New business is a one-on-one fight with no excuses. If the company you're at doesn't support it, transfer to one that does, or start something yourself, or use a secondment structure. Commit fully."
On team building in a cross-cultural context: "The first priority is 1-on-1s. The second is to genuinely respect the local culture. As a Japanese person working in Malaysia, I had to maintain the awareness that I was there because they allowed me to be."
On navigating internal approval: "I thought about how to make 'no' impossible. As someone in my thirties, I had access to things senior leadership couldn't easily touch — so I framed the new business as solving the decision-makers' own challenges while solving the market problem. It worked."
Panel Discussion: Intrapreneurship as a Career
Why Internal Entrepreneurship?
Matsuzaka: "ONE JAPAN stimulated me, and I started as a supporter of other members. I found a theme I wanted to pursue deeply, and entrepreneurship turned out to be the best path for that particular theme."
Nakamura: "Scaling the business required using the company's assets. I also genuinely like Asahi Kasei, and I thought this could make the company better."
Akutsu: "I never intended to become a corporate entrepreneur or a CEO. I was just doing what I wanted to do, and this is where that took me. I was never told to stop, and I was actually supported — for which I'm grateful."
Practical Advice on Getting Proposals Approved
Nakamura: "Three things. First, make sure the direction you want to go actually aligns with the company's stated vision and strategy. Second, study how your executive stakeholders think — what kinds of presentations they like, what formats resonate with them, what visual language they respond to — and copy it completely. Third, go to each key decision-maker individually before the formal presentation. Purpose justifies any method. That is the approach."
Matsuzaka: "Figure out how to make 'no' unavailable as a response. Frame the proposal so that approving it also solves a problem the decision-maker already has."
Akutsu: "Become the expert on the thing you want to do. Other people will challenge you with knowledge — you need the ability to respond. And your materials matter — they have to communicate accurately, not just impressively."
Final Words for Prospective Applicants
Nakamura: "This might be your first time considering it, or your fourth. It doesn't matter. You almost certainly won't succeed on the first attempt. But the first attempt makes the fourth possible. Take the step."
Matsuzaka: "If you're hesitating, submit the application. If you're going to apply, do it fully. Commit completely. Full commitment is what makes progress happen."
A second-term finalist, Sakamoto-san (from Zojirushi), closed the session by sharing his work on hydration technology for athletes — a project that began with his observation that many athletes were not hydrating optimally despite the importance of performance nutrition. The observation turned into a business because he committed to pursuing it rather than filing it away.
Reflection
The through-line across all three speakers: none of them planned the path they ended up on. Akutsu simply did the work in front of him. Nakamura kept moving after every rejection. Matsuzaka committed fully in an environment where most people would not have. What they share is not a particular talent for entrepreneurship — it is a willingness to take the next step regardless of uncertainty, and to stay moving rather than stop to assess whether the circumstances are favorable.
The cumulative effect of small, consistent actions is what CHANGE is built around. The environment is there. The only question is whether you step into it.
This event report was produced by TIMEWELL.
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