Back to Contents of Issue: June 2000
by Kyoko Fujimoto. Photographs© by Janet Jarman |
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"I had a good time, and it was easy being a salary man," Ozawa says. "I joined the company because I thought I could get training, and it was good preparation for starting up my own business. They even paid for the training. I'm so sneaky!" Ozawa says he usually went home right after business hours. "Of course I went home on time. That's the best part of being a salary man. I went home and worked on my business plan." In a way, he still goes home right after business hours -- the difference is that business hours are now 24 hours a day. Bizseek is mainly a BtoC site. Users can either search the database for certain goods or enter what they need and receive quotes. Most of the registered sellers are businesses, but individual customers can also become sellers if somebody is searching for an item they have. The service was free, but Bizseek started charging a commission after it became a corporation last August. "I'm surprised how things are changing," he says about the Internet boom. "When I started doing this, there was no Mothers or Nasdaq Japan. In order to get funded I had to ask around and get kicked out and ignored by many investors. But now they come to us. It's amazing." "At the same time," he adds, as we head for a meeting with a real estate agent, "I sometimes wonder if this is right."
He really does seem to appreciate Nishikawa. When Ozawa gave a speech at the last Bit Style party in February, all he said was, "Thank you, Nishikawa-san!"
"What, you live here?" I ask. "I try to go home as much as possible," Ozawa says, "but he lives here." One system developer humbly raises his hand. "We're planning to move to a new office," Ozawa says. "Our board members are key players at the Bit Valley Association, and they want us to be closer." Ozawa usually has a monthly meeting with Nishikawa and Sonny Koike
(head of incubator Netyear and a Bizseek board member), whose
offices, of course, are in Shibuya. "I'm not the right type
to be in a hip place like Shibuya," he says. "But since we
needed to expand our office space anyway ..." |
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