An Active Rugby Player Tried Starting a Startup 100% on His Own: Behind the Scenes of My Entrepreneurship
Nice to meet you. I am Rikuto Yamakawa, a professional rugby player.
Currently, while playing for Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo in League One, I am running a matching site that connects athletes with society.
Company registration, site construction, writing articles, creating sales materials, managing social media—I do it all by myself. I have no advisors, no co-founders, and I haven't outsourced anything.
In this note, I will write as honestly as possible about why an active rugby player started doing something like this, how I brought it to life, and what I am thinking about right now.
First, let's start with the results. What happened in 3 to 4 months?
I'll start with the numbers.
The idea was born in December 2025, and from there I built the site, registered the company, wrote articles, launched social media, and pursued sponsor sales.In 3 to 4 months, I secured 3 sponsors and 2 events, for a total of 5 contracts.I took them.
There are 22 registered athletes. There are quite a few famous players among them as well.
On X, despite having 278 followers, I get 60 to 160 likes every time. My first TikTok post reached 20,000 views.
All by myself, while still playing rugby actively.
“It really is possible”—that is my honest feeling right now. I will write about the story leading up to this, step by step.
I couldn't stand being able to see the future
I played baseball until junior high school. It was 'normal' to just walk that path in life. But in the latter half of my third year of junior high, I suddenly couldn't stand that 'normal' anymore.
Looking back now, I think it was just a rut. I grew to hate the idea of a life spent running on the same track.
So, I switched to rugby.
After graduating from university, I joined NTT Docomo and worked as a company employee while playing rugby as a corporate athlete. Docomo is a wonderful company. It's stable and the benefits are good.
But after two years, I could see where my life was heading. 'Working this much, for this much salary, and being at this level when I turn 40'—the moment I could predict my future, I couldn't imagine continuing to work at this company.
“If that's the case, it would be more fun to become an entrepreneur myself.”
People around me tried to stop me like crazy. They said, 'There are so many people who have started businesses and failed.'
But after talking to various entrepreneurs, I realized that even if it looks like a company has 'gone under' on the surface, sometimes they are just closing it down for tax purposes or strategic decisions.
The truth is, there aren't actually that many cases where businesses fail because they truly aren't working out.
People who tell you to 'give it up' don't necessarily know everything.
What I learned from business owners wasn't know-how, but the 'vibe'.
Even after moving from Docomo to Toshiba, I always had the feeling that I wanted to run my own business someday. So, I made sure to meet as many business owners as I could.
However, I didn't approach them by saying, 'Please let me hear your story.''Let's have a fun drink together.' That was it.
The reason is that I thought it was nonsense to ask a CEO, 'How do you do business?'
What I was paying attention to wasn't business know-how, but the 'demeanor' of the business owners. How they interact with people and what kind of atmosphere they create.
I had always thought that people who are good at interacting with others are better suited to be business owners than those who are just good at their jobs.
So, I would observe and learn from that atmosphere while drinking. That was the vibe.
My mindset shifted in New Zealand
However, I had one preconceived notion.'Rugby players should focus only on rugby. Business is something you do after you retire.'—This was the common sense I held.
That was turned upside down during my study abroad in New Zealand in the summer of 2024.
All Blacks players—the world's top-tier rugby players—were just normally working jobs outside of rugby. When I invited one to a cafe, they turned me down, saying, 'I can't go, I have work.'
'If that's the case, I can do it too.'
My mindset clicked into place. Since the world's top-level players are doing it, there's no reason I can't.
The trigger was a word from my wife. Starting from an estimate of 8 million yen
It wasn't that I was able to start moving immediately after returning to Japan; the trigger was my wife.
While preparing meals for me as an athlete, my wife said, 'Maybe I'll become a nutritionist.' But even if she got the qualification, she had no way to connect with athletes.
'If there were a platform to connect with athletes, I think it would definitely sell.'
The moment my wife said that, it clicked in my head. 'I can build that.' This was in December 2025.
When I got a quote for building the site, it was 8 million yen. I can't easily come up with 8 million from a professional rugby player's salary.
But instead of saying, 'Well, I guess I'll quit,' I thought, 'Well, I'll build it myself.'
My local friend's husband is the president of an IT company, and when I consulted him, he told me, 'There's a tool like this, so you can easily make a simple site right away.' I tried it, and I really could.
Site design, coding, designing member registration and login functions, implementing payment systems—I did it all myself using AI. The 8 million yen quote became almost zero..
If AI hadn't developed this far, I don't think I would have done this business at all. I can only call it a stroke of timing.
An unexpected discovery—it wasn't 'companies' I wanted to connect with, but 'fans'
This might be the most important part of the story.
At first, I designed this service as a 'platform to connect athletes and companies.' I had this image of CSR representatives from companies coming to look for athletes.
But when I actually tried it, it was completely different.
I realized it after I started posting on X. Fans want to connect with athletes more than companies do.
Even company presidents often supported me as individual sports fans rather than as a company. It's much more common for the owner of a company to act on their own personal will to 'support this athlete' than for a large corporation's CSR department to move organizationally.
Come to think of it, it's natural; large corporations have complex decision-making processes, and even if a president is an employee, they might not actually have the decision-making power they seem to have.
This discovery changed the direction of the service.
I'm clarifying 'who pays the money' and changing how the service is presented so that fans can connect with athletes from their perspective. I notice things while doing it and immediately correct course. This is my style.
There's a reason for every SNS
The SNS I'm using now are X, TikTok, and Instagram. There isn't a single one I'm doing just because.
X is a 'place to watch my growth.' In the context of the 'oshi-katsu' (fan activity) market, I've designed it as an account where people can watch the growth of the company and myself together. I decided to post every day for a year. My rugby friends told me, 'It's embarrassing to do something like that,' but I'm doing it because there's a reason. And results are actually starting to show.
Instagram is 'my business card.' This is at the stage where I'm just now growing it. It's a place to show what kind of person the company representative is and build trust. I believe my own credibility is the most important thing when getting athletes to register.
TikTok is an 'algorithm laboratory.' I'm creating content in an interview format with rugby players who have decided to retire, and I'm collecting all the data on posting times and hashtags myself. My first post got 20,000 views. TikTok shows numbers more explicitly than Instagram, so it's suitable for research. I'll eventually expand what I've learned here to YouTube as well.
I wake up in the morning, go to practice, come home, do housework and family things, and then manage Instagram, manage X, tune the site, think of plans, write articles, manage TikTok... I'm running it all by myself.
Rugby and business are very similar.
I think management and rugby are incredibly similar.
To an outsider, athletes might just look like they are moving their bodies. But behind the scenes, everyone is thinking intensely about 'what should I do' and 'how can I win'.
You have resources like time, money, and physical strength, and the results change depending on how you allocate them at any given moment. Business is exactly the same.
Furthermore, there is no need to 'wait until you retire from rugby to start a business'.
In my case, it is precisely because I play rugby that my business works.
Because I have the 'active professional rugby player' label, any CEO will meet with me. Athletes trust me and sign up. Fans support me too.
Doing both makes both thrive. This is exactly what the New Zealand All Blacks players taught me.
I am often asked, 'When will you think about your second career?', but I find this question very difficult to answer.
The reason is that,no matter what you start, I think it is still your first career. You don't start something only after you quit rugby.
Right now, I am an active player while also running a business. If a second career is something for the future, then for me, that is 'now'.
I actually want to help minor sports
I will write down one thing I haven't really talked about.
What I really want to do is help athletes in minor sports. Athletes in major sports have the means to get sponsors and have name recognition.
But many athletes in minor sports are struggling just to continue their sport, and they don't even have the luxury of thinking about money.
As a practical matter, if I only targeted minor sports, it wouldn't work as a business. That's why I've made it 'for any athlete' for now.
But eventually, I want to create an environment where minor sports athletes can use this platform to properly secure sponsors and focus on their competition. That is the core idea behind this service.
The next three stages
I have a clear growth step in my mind.
Stage 1: Create a success story myself. I have achieved this. Three sponsors, two events. I have proven that it is 'possible'.
Phase 2: Getting other players to secure contracts. Once someone thinks, 'That player made money, so I can do it too,' the number of registered players should increase rapidly. A single success story creates a chain reaction.
Phase 3: Hosting sports events. We invite players to let children experience various sports. Companies can meet the players. Players can meet the companies. Children can enjoy sports. It is a design where everyone wins. Last year, I hosted an event individually in Hakodate, but this year, I will do it as a company.
Conclusion
It has been 3 to 4 months since I started. I have no intention of stopping now.
I will give my all to rugby, business, and time with my family.
If you would like, please follow me on X as well. I would be happy if you could witness the growth of my company and myself together.