3. WHERE DID I
COME FROM?
1997: Came to Japan
2001: Graduated BSc, went to work as an SE
2002: Joined Yahoo! Japan, did email.
2006: Joined Amazon Japan, did marketing.
2007: Started MARIMORE, SMS service
2015: Changed to Xoxzo, telephony service
4. Founded
Mar 2007 with USD4000 capital (2 people)
More info here: https://info.xoxzo.com/
History
● Started as MARIMORE Inc in 2007
offering SMS services via email
● Pivoted to flagship service Xoxzo in Oct
2015, including company name change
Our people
A total of 10 people across 9 cities: All of us
work 100% remotely. Looks like everyone
enjoys it, but it’s not easy.
4
Company
Overview
6. What I do most of the time
● I try to talk to customers
● I help customers
● I make sure everyone can do their job better
● I design our product
● I develop our product
11. TODAY’S OBJECTIVES
● Intellectual enlightenment
● Making a difference for the audience and myself,
between us before and after
○ A connection, no matter how small, with you
12. I AM GOING TO SHARE
OUR IDEAS, VALUES AND BELIEVES
WITH YOU
23. VALUE 1
We remove complexity
Do what others do not want to do, so our customers can do things which is important to them
24. VALUE 2
We are transparent, or at least
consistentAdequate documentation
Explaining why something is done in a certain way, or at least the keeping things on the same pattern
25. VALUE 3
Make our customer’s data whole
“If I do this, I should be able to see that”
30. WHAT IS EMPOWERMENT
We empower our customers by solving their
problems
We empower ourselves by self-determination:
What is important to us, to our community and by
recognizing the resources available to us
Notice that I have not touched on technology at all
in the past few minutes: Human problems are not
resolved by technology. They are resolved by
humans.
1 in 3 people in the world do not have access to a decent toilet
de Saint Exupery was talking about designing planes
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. When two expeditions of scientists, financed by the Royal Academy, went forth to test my theory of relativity, I was convinced that their conclusions would tally with my hypothesis. I was not surprised when the eclipse of May 29, 1919, confirmed my intuitions. I would have been surprised if I had been wrong.”
Our product is our connection to our customer (or to anyone who cares about us anyway). We want to make that experience count.
For IaaS
Subway is 304km in total length, but Seoul’s is longest: 940km
She talked about empowerment in the community context, and not python per se. Programming is a tool that cultivates the activist mindset. She made specific efforts to talk and interact with the community: send hundreds of emails asking for help from people she has never met before.