The story of a salesperson who survived on drinking parties, then got an MBA and started a business after a single remark from their partner

Hello! I am Yukihiro Nakabayashi, the CEO of EXest Inc.

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Our company provides various services to connect people who otherwise would never have met, creating a world filled with WOW moments.

…Writing it like that makes me sound like someone thinking about very noble things (laughs).

When I was a student, I was truly a "degenerate college student." I was lucky if I went to university once a week, and I spent every single day playing soccer in my club or socializing (?) with friends.

At the TV station I joined out of a kind of fan-girl curiosity, my secret weapon for winning projects was drinking parties. I was one of those nameless salespeople living in the world of so-called "drinking party orders".

When I hear the interns working at our company talk about dreams like "I want to be involved in local regional revitalization in the future" or "I want to learn marketing through this internship," I am genuinely impressed, thinking, "They are so admirable..." (laughs).

Today, I will talk about the process of how I ended up launching a startup company.

"I want to start something new, but I don't have any impressive background 😮‍💨"

"People who get an MBA and become CEOs of startups must have had amazing backgrounds since they were students, right? 🤔"

I wrote this article hoping it might become a source of hope for those who feel they cannot take that first step in life. I would be very happy if you read it to the end.

The reason I entered the TV industry was, "Because writing entry sheets was a hassle"

I started my career as a salesperson at Hiroshima Television Corporation.

I focused my job hunting exclusively on TV stations.

The reason was simple: writing entry sheets was a hassle.

If you have ever gone through job hunting, you know how tough it is to write entry sheets, right? (laughs). Rather than rewriting similar content over and over, I thought I would just reuse what I wrote first.

The first company I applied to happened to be a TV station, so I applied to other companies where I could reuse that same entry sheet, and the one that picked me up was Hiroshima Television... that is how it happened.

(Though, being selfish and thinking I didn't want to go to a region I didn't know well, I only ended up applying to Nippon TV and the local Hiroshima TV station.)

Even thinking about it now, I don't really know why they picked me up... If I did the same interview again, I might get rejected this time (laughs). I was lucky.

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Well, I was assigned to the sales department of the Osaka branch of Hiroshima Television. My "secret weapon" for winning projects was, after all, drinking parties. I built human relationships at entertainment venues and connected them to my work.

Because we drank together yesterday, because we get along well

I spent my professional life as a so-called orthodox salesperson who received orders for reasons like that.

I really loved this sales style, and what's more, I was good at it.

For me, someone who had been jokingly called a "communication monster" since my student days because I was so good at getting along with people, this sales style really suited me.

I think I was valued as an "excellent" person among my peers... (or so I imagine).

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However, changes visited those smooth-sailing days.

I had been steadily improving my performance at the Osaka branch, but I was unable to return to the sports department I had hoped for when I joined the company. Instead of Hiroshima, I was ordered to transfer even further away to Tokyo.

The unexpected wall I hit there was... the cultural difference between Osaka and Tokyo.

To my surprise, my specialty of "getting orders through drinking parties" stopped working entirely.

When I invited clients to go out for a drink, I was coldly rebuffed with "Why do we need to go drinking when we haven't even done any work?"

A place where the only weapon I could say I had acquired was not valued at all.

I was feeling a bit anxious about the situation where I couldn't proceed with sales as I wanted.

My life began to change significantly because of a remark from my girlfriend at the time

At that time, when I was chatting with the girlfriend I was seeing, she said this to me.

"Even if I were to marry you, it would be impossible for me to move to your hometown, Hiroshima."

She is from Niigata and is currently a full-time employee working in Tokyo.

I could understand that it would be impossible for her to throw away her family home, her workplace, and everything else to move to a place where she had no ties or connections.

But it was still a shock. I could only reply, "But it's Hiroshima TV, so I'll eventually return to the headquarters in Hiroshima, right?"

She continued further.

"So, why don't you get an MBA and change jobs?"

MBA. MBA...? NBA? Basketball?

As a mere sales representative at a TV station, I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

I also had almost zero knowledge about an "MBA" being a graduate school for learning business and management.

No way, a mere sales person at a TV station getting an MBA?
I've never heard of anyone around me doing that...

I just brushed it off with a "Yeah, maybe," and ended the conversation for the time being.

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However, that evening, I casually picked up the Nikkei newspaper and saw an ad that read, "Waseda Business School Fall Enrollment Open." Apparently, you can earn an MBA by attending for one or two years.

"So this is an MBA!"

Without realizing it, my eyes were drawn to the enrollment guide.

At that point, there were only two weeks left until the entry sheet deadline.

With a lighthearted feeling of "I'll just try it out for practice," I went to a bookstore and bought an "MBA Vocabulary Book" published by the professors at Waseda Business School.

Armed only with momentum, I submitted an entry sheet that, looking back now, was quite vague in content.

However, unexpectedly, my entry sheet passed.

Furthermore, I also passed the subsequent written exam.

"Wait, I'm actually making it through..."

I remember feeling a sense of relief when the final interview, which I took while feeling rather anxious, didn't go very well, thinking, "Yeah, that makes sense, right?!"

The acceptance notice arriveda few days after I had contacted my girlfriend at Waseda Station on my way home right after the interview, telling her, "I think I failed!".

My MBA days, where I couldn't become an "honor student"

And so began my life of working while attending business school. The total time spent on work and school was about 14 hours every day. At its worst, it was around 18 hours. I honestly think to myself, I don't know how I managed to do it.

However, just because you are working hard doesn't mean you will be evaluated for it; that's not always the case.

To attend school, I had to leave the office by 5:00 PM every day, and I had no choice but to reduce things like drinking parties with clients.

From the perspective of people at the company, it might have looked like I had lost my enthusiasm for work or that I had become less sociable.

...As for my grades at the MBA program that I attended by "sacrificing" my work to that extent... Within a month of classes starting, I was painfully made to realize that I am below average in both knowledge and mental agility.

When you think about it, that's obvious, isn't it? Business school is a "narrow gate" where some people even spend a year as a ronin and bet their lives on attending.

The first period after I started attending was a series of failures. I was so embarrassed by my former self, who had acted a bit high and mighty as a TV station salesperson.

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But since I was paying money to attend in order to acquire weapons other than "drinking party sales," it would be meaningless if I couldn't assert myself in some way.

I realized that I had to acquire a "way of fighting for a fool".

That's when I noticed... the phenomenon where "smart people will pick up on whatever you say".

No matter how stupid the questions I asked were, they would interpret them in a positive way on their own, saying things like, "So you mean your question has this intention, right?" or "That's a deep question..." (laughs).

I thought, this is it!!

Taking advantage of this (sorry...), I made sure to sit in the front row of every class and be the first to raise my hand and ask a question.

Thinking about it now, I think this is also easy for the teachers who are teaching. It's easy to answer because they aren't asked difficult things, and it somehow softens the atmosphere.

When I did that every time, I gradually became known as "Oh, Nakabayashi-kun," and the perception among those around me that I was someone who takes action and creates momentum also became established.

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The greatest asset I found in business school, besides knowledge and connections, might be that I became aware of my own strengths and weaknesses.

The challenging spirit to become a first penguin of 0 to 1 and the character to soften the atmosphere are, I believe, my own "unbeatable" strengths that I cultivated through my sales experience at Hiroshima Television and my time at business school.

And conversely, being able to realize my own "lack of intelligence," which is a weakness, has also become a great asset. Because my pride was broken here, I was able to seriously think about "how to fight."

Finally, the master's thesis! I challenged myself with a new business, but for half a year, I was in a state of "no success, no failure".

Now, regarding graduate school, or business school. As graduation approaches, you are required to write a master's thesis.

I believe there are broadly two types of theses in business school: "academic" and "practical."

An academic thesis is one that delves deeply into past research to derive new discoveries.

A practical thesis is one that presents actual practice in the field as systematic knowledge.

I couldn't possibly write an academic thesis, so I was thinking of going with a practical one by process of elimination... but even when I tried to turn my experience at the TV station into a thesis, nothing particularly "worth sharing with the world" came to mind regarding the practical work at a TV station.

That was when I came up with the approach of launching a new business within the station myself and making that the subject of my thesis.

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What I set my sights on was the concept of crowdfunding, which had just emerged at the time and was gathering attention from the public.

I wondered if we could deploy the mechanism of "broadcasting ideas on the web and soliciting small amounts of support" in a way unique to a local TV station.

TV stations have two strengths.

One is the credibility a TV station has within the region.

The other is the ability to disseminate information that is closely tied to the local community.

I thought that by discovering attractive local projects and conveying them to many people through television, we could expand the circle of support.

Hiroshima's culture of mutual aid meeting new technology—I envisioned such a future and decided to take on the challenge of launching a crowdfunding platform business at Hiroshima Television.

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However, reality was not so sweet.

There were zero colleagues within the station who agreed with me.

On the contrary, the company's executives pointed out various risks, and to my surprise, the project did not move forward at all for six months.

Beyond the impatience of the business not progressing, I was also worried that I wouldn't be able to write my thesis and thus wouldn't be able to graduate from business school.

While feeling nervous inside, I continued my days of just "sowing seeds" by telling people around me about the business.

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At that time, someone I knew from a major advertising agency reached out and asked, "Why don't we move this project forward together?"

So there really are people who agree with me!!

It’s strange, or perhaps just pragmatic, but as soon as support appeared, the company suddenly took a positive stance, and things progressed rapidly.

That is how “TV de Funding Hiroshima” was created.

Once the project was finally released, I started receiving contact one after another from people I had never even met before.

While spending busy days coordinating with various parties, I suddenly thought to myself:

“Maybe I could actually make a go of this if I started a business.”

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In that moment.

I felt as if a possibility I had never imagined before was spreading out right in front of me.

Of course, I felt anxious about throwing away a stable life at a TV station to jump into an unknown world. In fact, it is extremely rare for someone to choose the path of entrepreneurship from a TV station.

But, the idea that my actions would be directly evaluated, and above all, that the excitement would last, made this direction seem interesting.

Maybe I really do want to move in this direction after all.

That feeling grew, and I finally decided to resign from the TV station upon completing business school. That was in 2015.

I got cocky and quit. I learned about the "world" in Silicon Valley

……or so I wrote, making it sound all glamorous.

To be honest, at the time, I was completely carried away.

But, I mean, how could I help it!

While balancing business school and working at a TV station, I was receiving consistent evaluations for my performance in both... or so I like to think!

At the TV station, I was able to move forward with projects I had planned myself, and I was even receiving recognition for them!

I'm amazing! Please forgive me for feeling like, 'I'm invincible!' (laughs).

But, when I calmed down and thought about it, although I had quit on impulse, 'TV de Funding' belonged to Hiroshima Television. It wasn't my business. In other words, at that time, I wasn't an 'up-and-coming entrepreneur,' but rather just an unemployed person.

This is bad.

Because of that, my next challenge was to think about what kind of business I should launch as an individual.

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However, I was never someone who had a grand vision like, 'I want to accomplish this in my life!' Ideas for a startup don't just come down to me like that.

So, the method I chose was 'meeting people'.

And specifically, I thought I would expand my own horizons by meeting people who were doing the kind of 'entrepreneurship I admire.'

So, where I headed was... Silicon Valley in the United States.

Yes, that Silicon Valley, the home of renowned companies like Google, Apple, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Oracle, and the center of cutting-edge technology and innovation.

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What I thought after going there was that it was a place where things move at an incredible speed.

The reason for that is probably because they truly believe from the bottom of their hearts that 'we will change the world.'

Normally, you might be laughed at for saying, 'Changing the world, what a pipe dream...', but companies like Google, Apple, and Meta have actually changed the world.

It was a period where I strongly felt, 'I want to work with these kinds of values and in this environment, and I want to change the world too.'

From there, the 'shape' of the business that would eventually lead to the current EXest began to emerge.

Even if it's an unexpected path, if it's a 'good path' with good people, you won't have any regrets.

Come to think of it, my life has been truly "lightweight."

For instance, I was born in the countryside of Hiroshima to a strict family where both parents were teachers. To avoid tarnishing the image of "the Nakabayashi family's child," I spent my elementary and junior high school days acting as a "super honor student" every single day.

I was so excellent (laughs) that my parents might have hoped I would become a doctor or a lawyer.

However, the path I chose was in the humanities. The reason I chose it was because Muroi-san from the drama "Bayside Shakedown," which was popular when I was in high school, looked cool (laughs).

"I want to be like Muroi-san! So, should I become a police officer?!" I thought. My parents didn't particularly object, and I even accidentally passed the university entrance exam.

After that, I got a job at Hiroshima Television because "it was a company where I could reuse my entry sheet," and I got my MBA because "my girlfriend told me to."

I have walked a path of accumulated coincidences where I could barely feel any will of my own.

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But now, I think it was better this way.

Unexpected paths open up while trying to meet the expectations of the people you love that you meet along the way.

And moving forward on those paths with the curiosity of "that looks interesting".

I think my current life is the result of those accumulations.

Even without holding up stiff philosophies or grand ambitions, it is enough if I can make the person in front of me feel a little happy. I have vaguely thought throughout my career that such an accumulation of trivial actions might, before I know it, change someone's life.

My company, EXest, was launched through such an accumulation.

What we are creating is a platform that generates "encounters" and "connections" between people.

I now believe that the grand ambition of "changing the world" that I saw in Silicon Valley ultimately begins with small encounters between individuals.

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…And so, today, I have shared the journey of how I, Nakabayashi, who was once just an ordinary salesperson, obtained an MBA and started a business.

Thank you to everyone who has read this far.

I would be happy if you would take an interest in the future of EXest as well!

Click here for the EXest website and various services!

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