Creating delight 
and brightness for
people through innovative business

Creating a Society that Looks Forward to Tomorrow’s Work: The Path to 10,000 Corporate Clients In Part 1 and Part 2, we brought you the story of President Nakashima’s origins as an entrepreneur, the rapid growth of “Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager”, and innovating the recruitment process with the use of AI. This third and final part is about how he overcame the trial of organizational management that started in his company’s founding days, his experience with humanoids at CES, the background of HR Cloud’s relationship with D-POPS GROUP, and his five year vision of connecting with a total of 10,000 corporate clients. ◆The “Biggest Crisis” in the First 5 Years Since Founding: Failure of Organizational Management Sugihara: As you enter your 13th year of operations, what was the biggest crisis you encountered in these past 12 years? Nakashima: Organizational management was a big wall. I started the company knowing almost nothing about management. Thankfully, there were many people who said, “I’ll work together with you” and joined the company, but then after they joined, I couldn’t manage them well at all. I was totally focused on external relations and paid no attention to my employees. Because of that, for the first five years, people kept joining and then quitting, which was heart-breaking. It was totally my fault, though. Sugihara: That was a bigger crisis than when you were 200 million yen in the red, wasn’t it? Nakashima: Yes. When it came to finances, we were able to just barely scrape by as long as I did sales and earned money, because we didn’t have so many employees. The people problem was more mentally and emotionally painful because the same thing kept happening again and again. The thing that caused the greatest change was shifting to culture-based hiring and changing our employee evaluation system to visualize how much they can grow if they work hard. These two things. The situation was beginning to settle down from the 2018 hiring season. My failure was not being able to transition from an individual player to a business manager. Sugihara: Culture fit and designing an evaluation system really are important. The 10 core values and credo displayed at the entrance to your office are all very easy to relate to. Were they made around that time? Nakashima: Yes, but a lot of them have changed since then. We set a management theme for the company every year. Last year’s theme was “Think Positively About the Future”, and the year before that was “One Team”. Many of those yearly themes are added to our credo. ◆100+ Employees: Transmitting Corporate Culture and Training the Next Generation of Executives Sugihara: I heard that 18 employees joined you this April, bringing the total number of your employees to over 100. When companies reach this scale, I think problems will start to appear with passing on corporate culture and maintaining a high speed. What are you doing to prevent those? Nakashima: Just as we were approaching 100 employees, we changed our management hierarchy from three levels to four levels. What I’m doing now is to hold training sessions every month to bring up our next generation of executives. I think that if the culture does not permeate well, the company mindset will eventually slow down. Therefore, I am training about 15 prospective managers on my corporate management philosophies. Sugihara: Do all the employees have opportunities to gather together? Nakashima: We have an award ceremony every month. The flow is a small award ceremony once a month, a big award ceremony once a quarter, and an even bigger award ceremony for the whole year. We hold the monthly award ceremony in this office, and then have a social gathering together afterwards. Sugihara: You reward employees with various types of jobs, right? Not just sales results? Nakashima: Yes, everyone has a chance to win an award. ◆Corporate Values of Honesty, Respect, and Challenge Sugihara: Your website lists ‘honesty’, ‘respect’, and ‘challenge’ as your corporate values. This is extremely similar to the D-POPS GROUP’s value of “Grow and learn together through sincerity, humility, and gratitude.” Please let us know your thoughts or impressions regarding this similarity. Nakashima: Since we have the vision of “creating a society that looks forward to tomorrow’s work,” we want to be a company that places our highest priority on achieving that vision. I want our employees to face their work seriously and enjoy it, and the things that are important for that are honesty, respect, and challenge. After all, if people don’t personally grow through their work, they won’t enjoy it. And in order to grow, they need honesty and humility, and they have to challenge themselves. Also, it is important from the company side to provide a place to take on challenges. Also, when it comes to respect, our company spans many areas like engineering, marketing, sales, customer success, and administration, which means horizontal collaboration is very important. So, we place great importance on giving each other proper respect. We decided on these three values with the sense that we are all working as a team. Sugihara: Listening to you speak made me feel that you are full of honesty and sincerity, and I think that value is communicated to your employees as well. Nakashima: Over the past three years, about 30 employees have joined as new graduates, and only one of them has quit. Sugihara: That is wonderful! Is there anything unique about your hiring criteria? Nakashima: I wouldn’t really call it a hiring criterion, but anyway, the biggest thing is to be teachable and open-minded. No matter how high their skills are and how well they can work, being teachable is the most important thing. ◆The Future of Humanoids Experienced at CES Sugihara: By the way, I heard that you visited CES at the beginning of the year as an observer. What global trends impressed you or caught your attention? Nakashima: Definitely the humanoids presented by Chinese companies. I felt firsthand that when AI is combined on top of robots, the world will change. There were also dog-shaped robots, and they could run amazingly fast. Since they are equipped with sensors and AI, it was too easy to picture them holding guns and being used for war. It is scary to imagine, but I figured this really is what the future might look like. In a broader sense, I could also see humanoids coming into play within the human resources industry. Many of our clients hire blue-collar workers, so in the current labor shortage, it seems like a business that proposes “What about using humanoids instead?” is not out of the question, so I plan to look more into that possibility. Sugihara: I heard you were accompanying D-POPS GROUP’s Chairman Semmoto and President Goto on that trip to CES. I also heard that you played golf with Chairman Semmoto after returning to Japan. What kind of impressions did you have through your interactions with these two veteran business managers? Nakashima: Chairman Semmoto’s words, “Anyway, do something unimaginably huge that benefits society,” really resonated inside me. Also, every time we meet, he asks, “How many years since you founded? What are your sales? How many employees?” and when I answer, he says, “No good at all, huh.” Every time that happens, I feel frustrated, but it always energizes me, too. On the other hand, there are times when he compliments me, saying, “That’s great!” and each time, I feel like working hard again. ◆The Reason for Receiving Investment from D-POPS GROUP Sugihara: For HR Cloud, which is looking to go public in the future, I guess there were many companies interested in investing. Why is it you chose to receive D-POPS GROUP’s investment, and is there anything that makes you particularly glad you received it? Nakashima: There are many. First, the reason I asked him was that President Goto had been supporting me since before I started my company. At the time of founding, my first business was a recruitment agency. President Goto asked me, “How much do you charge to find one person?” When I answered, “It is 800,000 yen,” he replied, “Well then, I’ll ask you to find us five people.” Things at that point were difficult, and money wasn’t circulating at all, so receiving 4 million yen really helped me run the business. And even now, I receive business management advice from President Goto one or two times a year. The advice I receive at those times always deeply touches my heart, and I have a huge debt of gratitude for how many times he helped me. I asked President Goto to invest in my company out of a desire to return that favor. Sugihara: So, it was an investment to return a favor, just as I hear from President Goto sometimes. Nakashima: That’s exactly what it was. I asked him because I wanted to pay him back for all he’s given me. We have not been able to go public yet, so I have not returned the favor completely, but I think I can if HR Cloud keeps growing well and goes public someday. ◆Identifying with the Venture Ecosystem: “I Want to Make Japan Stronger” Sugihara: D-POPS GROUP’s aim is “realizing a Venture Ecosystem”. Do you identify with any part of that? Nakashima: At the very basis of who I am is a desire to “make Japan stronger”. The reason is because I often heard stories about the war from my grandfather, and my grandfather’s younger brother was in a special attack unit, and I had the chance to read his diary that he kept from that time. That impression has stayed strong in my memory, so I definitely want to make Japan stronger. Because I want to make Japan stronger—and this is our thinking behind creating people who look forward to their jobs—that probably connects to this. In the end, I think startups will change Japan, so our Venture Ecosystem, which provides foundational support for these efforts, is something I totally believe in as a means of strengthening Japan. Sugihara: Chairman Semmoto often says this, too, but it is startups that have made Japan big up until now, isn’t it? It is really true that making startups strong and supporting them will certainly lead to making Japan stronger. ◆5-Year Vision: “10,000 Companies” and “Utilization of Big Data” Sugihara: Could you tell us about any new features or services you are preparing to accelerate growth further in the future? Where do you aim to be in 5 years? Nakashima: In five years, I want the number of companies using our system to exceed 10,000, and I want to develop a business that utilizes the big data we get from those 10,000 corporate clients. Because our recruitment platform is being used by 1,800 companies, a considerable amount of data is gathering, and I always get excited about developing an AI business which can put that data to even better use. I think we’re still lacking in the area of human resources necessary for us to get there, so I want to train our employees more thoroughly and create a company with an organizational culture and flexibility that are both strong. Sugihara: So then, your move to this office here in Kioicho last October was a step towards that vision, wasn’t it? Nakashima: The deciding factor for that move was our intention to increase loyalty, both inside and outside the company. Loyalty with customers, and loyalty with our own members. We hold social gatherings and user meetings here, and just last Friday, we invited a sushi chef and held a welcome party for our newly-joined employees. ◆A Message to Our Readers Sugihara: Finally, could you give a message to our readers? Nakashima: It is true for my management life as well, but I think I really could not do it by the power of one person alone. I have only been able to continue running this company until now thanks to the support of many people. We are still a small company, but we have been blessed with various close partners, so I think it is important to rely on what they have to offer, and to form more connections like those. And I think the Venture Ecosystem plays a part in that. I think it’ll be easier to grow if we can make good use of the opportunities we have there. Interview conducted by D-POPS GROUP’s advisor Genta Sugihara. HR Cloud Co., Ltd. Representative: President and CEO Yuki Nakashima Address: 7F Kioicho Park Bldg., 3-6 Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo Established: April 2014 Website: https://hr-cloud.co.jp/

Reducing HR Workload by 80%: Solving the Three Major Recruiting Problems of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises In Part 1, we heard why President Nakashima decided to become an entrepreneur, and the details of his journey to starting a company at age 27. In Part 2, we bring you the inside story behind the creation and surprising features of our main service, “Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager”, which innovates recruitment through DX (digital transformation). We also learn about the growth strategy that turned the COVID-19 pandemic into a tailwind for HR Cloud, and being at the forefront of AI utilization. ◆Creating a Service to Solve the Three Major Recruiting Problems of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Sugihara: You have a mission to become a platform provider in the human resources industry. Specifically, what kind of products do you offer, and for what kind of customers? Nakashima: At this point, we’re providing an AI recruiting agent service for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that want to hire five or more new graduates. SMEs have three main issues when it comes to recruitment: they cannot attract enough applicants, prospective candidates decline their offers, and they do not have enough dedicated staff. When I was working in sales at Rakuten and Gakujo, every time I talked with owners and HR managers of various SMEs, they all shared these same problems. There were almost no services in the world that could solve these problems directly. Therefore, we started with a recruitment agency business first, and that led to where we are today. Sugihara: So, in addition to recruitment agency services, you were also providing a service where robots and AI automate recruiting tasks. ◆Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager — A System that Reduces HR Work by 80% Sugihara: Could you tell us again about your main service, Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager? Nakashima: In most companies, HR staff manage recruitment using Excel or spreadsheets. They attract applicants using various platforms like Mynavi, Rikunabi, OfferBox, and other recruitment agencies, as I’m sure you know. They copy the gathered applicant information into an Excel spreadsheet, where they manage thousands of people; checking whether an invitation to an information session was sent, whether someone attended it, collecting questionnaires, sending invitations for the first selection phase…it takes a lot of effort and is very complicated. To make matters worse, they have to send emails or make phone calls to each person individually. After an interview evaluation, they have to ask the interviewer how it went, which creates back-and-forth communication. Recently, many interviews are held online, so once the interview schedule is confirmed, they have to issue and send an online URL...they have to do things like this for thousands of people. Sugihara: True, when you list it like that, it seems like a lot. How do you automate it? Nakashima: First, our system can be managed on the cloud, and it has strong automation features. Once applicant information is added to the interface, Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager automatically registers each applicant. Once registered, applicants are automatically invited to the information session. Furthermore, applicants receive that invitation on the LINE messaging app, so they can make a reservation by just tapping the LINE message. When they make a reservation, they receive detailed information about the session, and an online URL is also automatically issued. After the information session ends, the participants receive a questionnaire. On that questionnaire, if students press the button that indicates they want to proceed to the next selection phase, then the next selection invitation is also sent to their LINE. Students complete their reservation for the next selection phase on LINE, and the online URL is sent automatically. It is a system where everything runs without the HR staff doing anything. In fact, this service reduces HR work by 80%. For example, we interviewed one of our clients, BOLD INC., and they recruit 300 new graduates a year with only a single HR staff member. ☆Customer Success Story: BOLD INC. https://www.career-cloud.asia/lp/interview/bold (webpage in Japanese only) You could say that if they recruit 300 people, they must have around 1,000 applicants. That kind of scale would normally be impossible for one HR person. We also use this same service for our own mid-career hiring, and we hire 20 people a year with zero dedicated HR staff. However, there are some things that only HR personnel can do. Interviews and casual meetings are tasks that require a human touch. We built Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager with the hope that as it manages all of the other aspects through automatic processes, HR staff can focus on the tasks that only people can do. The above image depicts the various processes Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager takes care of automatically, from building an applicant pool and managing candidates to tracking the status of selection and follow-ups. ◆Why the Name “Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager” Sugihara: Speaking of which, you gave this service a great name! Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager emphasizes the “Mr. Manager” part, and your commercials also give off a highly-approachable impression. What kind of intention is behind this? Nakashima: Thanks! Large companies can use a cool name with foreign loan words, spend a lot of money on advertising, and then the general public will eventually catch onto the name…but we can’t possibly spend that much money. Therefore, I thought it was important that people can understand what the service does just by hearing it once, and that way, it can get popular organically. When people hear “Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager”, they can grasp that it’s an all-inclusive, recruitment management system. When the HR staff of various companies are talking with each other and they ask, “What system are you using?” Our clients can immediately answer, “We use Mr. Manager.” If our service’s name had a bunch of loan words, they might say, “Ahh, what was it called, again…?” (Translation note: this service’s original Japanese name is 採用一括かんりくん.) Sugihara: That’s a good point, now that you mention it. Was this your idea, President Nakashima? Nakashima: I have a close surfing buddy who is a senior business owner, and he does a lot for me. I often ask him questions about business management. When I was launching this service, I asked him, “What would be a good name for this service?” He responded, “How about something like, ‘Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager’?” He also gave me some valuable advice about my company’s name. It was originally “Roots”, but he advised me, “With a name like that, people won’t get what your company does, so why don’t you change it to something like ‘HR Cloud’?” Sugihara: I think you’re surrounded by wonderful senior business owners like that precisely because you have such a teachable personality. The fact that you immediately adopted his naming suggestions proves it beyond a doubt. ◆The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Turning Point — A Crucial Decision that Caught the Tailwind Sugihara: The number of active accounts for Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager has surpassed 1,800 companies. Were there any pivotal moments in reaching this point? Nakashima: First of all, the COVID era was a big one. Up until the pandemic, our service had only grown to about 100 companies. We were not putting much strength into sales, and at that time, we were still focusing on our recruitment agency business, so it pretty much stayed at around 100 companies. Then in 2020, when COVID-19 started spreading, companies reduced their hiring at first, but after that, they realized they still needed to hire, so hiring started to move again. The number of companies doing remote hiring began to increase because of the pandemic. When that happened, they realized they needed to manage recruitment on the cloud to do remote hiring. They started looking for a recruitment management system, and suddenly Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager started to get more and more inquiries. At that time, we saw our chance, so we hired a well-known actor to do commercials for us. That’s basically how it went, but there is also a background story. Actually, while doing the recruitment agency business, we had also been investing in our Mr. Manager system for a long time, so we were 200 million yen in debt. Then, just as we were in such a critical situation, COVID-19 came, and our sales from the recruitment agency business were cut in half. Things looked pretty bad. At that time, we were able to get a 200 million yen loan through the government’s safety net program. Then, inquiries for Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager started to increase, and I thought, “You know what, let’s bet big on this!”, and we put all of the borrowed 200 million yen towards advertising. For me, it was the biggest gamble of my life. In one year, the number of corporate buyers increased by about 300 all at once, and from there, it has now become 1,800 companies. We also placed advertisements on NewsPicks, and we’re running commercials again. In the past few months, companies are adopting this service at double the pace compared to last year. ◆The Forefront of AI Utilization — Recruiting DX Utilizing ChatGPT and Claude Sugihara: Since last year, you’ve been releasing multiple AI features. “AI Scout” for discovering potential candidates and “Attract AI” for following up with candidates. Is this part of a clear strategy? Nakashima: Oh, yes. It’s about eliminating HR tasks and turning them into hiring results. When we thought about what is necessary to solve the three main problems I mentioned earlier, we realized we must automate HR tasks, which are simply too numerous, using AI and robots. Also, regarding the problem of candidates declining offers, in the first place, HR staff should share proper feedback from interviews along with a warm, caring invitation to the next selection phase. However, most HR staff are too busy, so they cannot easily do it. AI replaces that. We developed this service by focusing on reducing HR work and raising applicants’ interest levels. Sugihara: Were you thinking about this before GenAI was really booming? Nakashima: In terms of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), our system was already one step ahead of other companies. We had many robot functions for automation. However, we had not started on AI at all. Technically, Mr. All-in-One Recruiting Manager sends data to Claude (Anthropic) or ChatGPT in prompt form, and displays the results. The core of this service is that we design those prompts ourselves, and we have the know-how to automatically generate warm messages specialized to lower the rate at which candidates reject offers. ~To be continued in Part 3~ Interview conducted by D-POPS GROUP’s advisor Genta Sugihara. HR Cloud Co., Ltd. Representative: President and CEO Yuki Nakashima Address: 7F Kioicho Park Bldg., 3-6 Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo Established: April 2014 Website: https://hr-cloud.co.jp/ Finally, in the third part of the interview, we discuss: ・Crisis and growth opportunities from creating organizational structure ・Experiencing the future at CES ・Relationship with D-POPS GROUP ・Similarities with a Venture Ecosystem ・And other topics Be sure to check it out here: https://d-pops-group.co.jp/en/column/hrcloud-part3/

Launching a Business with Unwavering Resolve: How Encounters During My Rakuten Days Helped Me Get through the Startup Phase D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd., made a corporate investment in HR Cloud Co., Ltd., a technological human resources company that promotes DX (digital transformation) of the recruiting process for small and medium-sized enterprises, primarily through their main service, “All-in-One Recruiting Manager”. In this three-part series, we will look at the path of President Yuki Nakashima, who achieved annual sales of 100 million yen within three years of founding his company and saw rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the future he is planning for HR Cloud. This article covers the origin of his decision to start a business at age 27, his time at Gakujo and then Rakuten leading up to founding his company, and the track he took to reach 100 million yen in just three years. (This interview was conducted in April 2026.) ◆“I’ll Start a Business at 27” – An Admiration for Executives Planted in Childhood Sugihara: First, could you tell us what led you to start HR Cloud 14 years ago? Nakashima: I had decided I would start my own business at 27. At that point, I hadn’t thought about the details, but I had set my goal: “To build a 100-million-yen company by the age of 30.” The reason for this is that when I was about 20, there was a senior colleague who took great care of me, and when he was around 32 or 33, he would often say the number “100 million”. I started to feel like I had to go beyond what he had done by the time I reached his age. While I was job-hunting, that goal of “100 million yen by 30” became quite clear in my mind. I figured it would take me three years to reach that amount of money, so then calculating backwards from that age, I decided that I would at least start my business by 27. Sugihara: Have you looked up to company presidents since you were a child? Nakashima: Yes, I did. Since I was a boy, I’ve really admired company presidents. An uncle of mine ran a company, and his lifestyle seemed very bold and cool to me. Also, for the first three years when I played youth baseball, the coach ran his own company, and he also had a very bold style. He would say, “Get some food, everyone!” and take the whole team to the chain restaurant Royal Host. My family was quite poor, so just being able to go to Royal Host was amazing, and on top of that, he would tell us, “Go ahead and invite your families, too.” Seeing that kind of person, I thought he was cool and I wanted to be like him. It’s like I had the dream of starting a business first, and then once I turned 20, the timing and the scale fell into place. ◆Starting from the Bottom at Gakujo and Rakuten – The Drive to Learn About Many Industries Sugihara: Did you have a specific plan for what kind of business you wanted to start? Nakashima: Not at all. Even at 27, I had absolutely no plan. The first company I joined, Gakujo, was a firm of about 300 employees working in human resources and advertising. I went with them because I wanted to work at a place where I could learn about many different industries and companies. I knew I wanted to start a business in the future, but honestly, I had no idea what to do. Even so, I figured if I wanted to get a close look at various industries and companies, the best way to do that would be a career in human resources or advertising. Since Gakujo did both, I joined them and had the chance to see many different companies. However, I only stayed there for two years. During that time, the IT industry hadn’t quite gotten big yet, and smartphones were just beginning to appear, but what I strongly felt was that I really needed to get more skilled in the IT field. I was living in Osaka at the time, but I also felt that to build a large company, I had to move to Tokyo. Sugihara: And then you changed jobs to Rakuten, right? Nakashima: Yes. I received an opportunity at that time and made the move. I had a desire to learn about various business models, and since Rakuten was a company that grew to 10,000 employees in just 10 years, I wanted to know more about their system. During my time at Rakuten, I got introduced to an increasing number of startup company presidents, and in fact, that was when I first met D-POPS GROUP’s President Goto. ◆“I Had Already Told Everyone” – A Decision Born from Cutting Off My Own Escape Route Sugihara: You started the company by yourself in 2014, right? Nakashima: Yes, I started it alone without any co-founders. Because my connections with various startup company leaders had grown during my time at Rakuten, I told all of them repeatedly, “I’m going to start my own business next spring. Please help me out as much as you can.” As it got closer to the end of the year, the prospect of starting a business the following spring became very frightening. I thought, “Maybe I don’t want to quit Rakuten after all,” ha ha. But I had already told everyone around me, so there was no turning back. Cutting off my own escape route allowed me to make the final decision. Sugihara: What did you do for your first office space? Nakashima: When I first launched my company, I borrowed a desk from HRteam. They are currently one of Japan’s top companies for placing new graduates. Their president said to me, “If you are going to found a company, you can use a desk here. In exchange, since we are going to start a human resources business, teach us how to do it.” So, in exchange for using their space, I shared various know-how about the HR business and worked together with them to help launch their HR division. On the other hand, I was able to learn a lot of things I couldn’t learn at Rakuten, such as how to build and scale a company—the things unique to startups. I think that was a truly priceless opportunity. ◆Achieving Annual Sales of 100 Million Yen in Three Years – Born out of the “Mental Strength Cultivated Through Karate” Sugihara: Were you able to reach your goal of 100 million yen in three years? Nakashima: Yes, I achieved it during the third year. Sugihara: Achieving a goal you set for yourself is wonderful! The story behind how you started your business is profound. I really feel your sense of action and strength of will. I wonder, did you participate in any club activities during your student days? Nakashima: I did karate, and that is where I built my mental strength. I didn’t like to fight or feel pain, but I wanted to win, so I had to do it. I felt that conflict every time I entered a tournament. This spirit of finishing what is necessary, which I cultivated in karate, became my core foundation even during the difficult phases encountered after founding my company. Sugihara: You have a certain atmosphere of being calm on the surface but passionate about something on the inside, and now I can see that comes from your karate experience. By the way, in your greeting on your website, you mention that your father was a company employee who worked at the same firm for 40 years, from graduation until retirement. I imagine that becoming an entrepreneur was not exactly the usual in such an upbringing, but was your father supportive of you? Also, are there any books or words from business leaders that influenced you? Nakashima: My father always told me, “Don’t cause trouble for others.” Once my company took some shape, his words changed to “Respect other people.” Also, it’s not a book, but I used to read the blog of President Fujita from CyberAgent quite often back then. Actually, when I was going to switch jobs to work at Rakuten, I also had an interview at CyberAgent, but sadly, I didn’t get in, ha ha. Sugihara: True! In those days, everyone was reading President Fujita’s blog! We live in an era that allows anyone to learn through blogs and YouTube, so we can gain knowledge from various places, not just books. ~To be continued in Part 2~ Interview conducted by D-POPS GROUP’s advisor Genta Sugihara. HR Cloud Co., Ltd. Representative: President and CEO Yuki Nakashima Address: 7F Kioicho Park Bldg., 3-6 Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo Established: April 2014 Website: https://hr-cloud.co.jp/ Next, in the second part of the interview, we discuss: ・Their main service, “All-in-One Recruiting Manager” ・A big decision in the COVID era ・Digital transformation of recruitment using GenAI ・And other topics Be sure to check it out here: https://d-pops-group.co.jp/en/column/hrcloud-part2/

At D-POPS GROUP, our corporate mission is to multiply the number of growth companies (so-called “unicorn companies”) that will revolutionize society, and our core value is to grow and learn together through sincerity, humility, and gratitude. Last summer, Genta Sugihara, who serves as an advisor to this company, climbed Mt. Tate. The experience inspired him to set a personal goal: “Conquer all of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains while wearing our company’s iconic unicorn T-shirt.” Since then, he’s been steadily climbing mountains across the country in between his work commitments. In an effort to embody our value of growing and learning together, our goal for this series of articles is to reflect on the successes, failures, planning, preparation, judgment calls, and even crucial decisions to retreat that Advisor Sugihara experienced during his climbing journeys, and to draw parallels with startup management and organizational leadership. Both mountaineering and business management share a common thread: they require setting a target peak, creating a clear plan (strategy), preparing thoroughly, and moving forward step by step. We hope this series will be an inspiration for your own work and personal challenges. In this first installment, we will compare startup management to mountain climbing, focusing on the importance of having a vision and the preparation required to achieve it. 1. Define the Summit (Goal) to Climb: Challenges Without a Vision Won’t Last People often start walking to lose weight, or they might climb a small hill to get a view of the city while traveling. These are excellent forms of exercise for health or tourism. However, they aren’t quite what I would call a challenge. Once you complete a real challenge with a clearly defined peak or a specific set of mountains, you’ll have far greater joy, learn more lessons, and gain a deeper life experience in general. Startup management is very similar. If your only motivation is a vague desire to “become a CEO” or “get rich”, it will be difficult to bring up a major business that creates value for society. To establish a business, you must paint a clear vision and outline concrete goals. This applies not only to business owners but to all professionals and workers. Having a clear target, such as a specific career path or becoming an expert in a certain field, is what drives people to actively seek out the learning and experience necessary to achieve it. To share a personal story: until a year ago, I was just a casual hiker. I climbed low mountains like Mt. Takao or Mt. Oyama simply to burn some calories. However, last summer, I visited Toyama Prefecture for the first time and, without fully realizing how steep it would be, climbed the highest peak of Mt. Tate. That day changed my life. Exhausted and lightheaded from the thin oxygen, I finally reached the summit. Looking out at the 360-degree panoramic view of the surrounding peaks, a sudden wave of emotion hit me: “I want to challenge myself with even tougher mountains.” Then, one day, I came across a book titled Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains. I read it in one sitting, and when I finished, the entrepreneurial spirit inside me had been totally reignited. I established a clear goal for myself: “Summit all of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains by around 60 years old.” Note: Advisor Sugihara is 58 years old at the time of publishing.   (Pictured: the panoramic view from the summit of Oyama Peak on Mt. Tate, and the cover of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains that inspired my new goal) Since that day last August, I have been climbing steadily. As of writing this article, I have successfully reached 41 summits. When I started, I was a complete amateur and would end up exhausted even on low hills. Over time, however, my physical stamina built up, allowing me to take on higher and steeper peaks. While I still face plenty of challenges regarding my physical fitness and climbing technique, my passion only grows with every summit I reach. If I hadn’t set that specific goal of the 100 Famous Mountains, I am certain I wouldn’t have made it this far. Managing a startup company follows the exact same principle. The clearer the founding vision, the stronger the driving force becomes to make the necessary preparations and find the strength to face hardships. Furthermore, simply holding up your vision is not enough. To start moving people and organizations into action, you must apply that vision down into concrete, challenging, yet realistic targets, such as reaching a specific revenue target by year 20XX or securing a certain number of users by year 20YY. 2. Equipping Yourself with the Stamina and Skills Needed for Your Target Mountain: Capital and Key Differentiators If inexperienced beginners suddenly try to tackle the difficult peaks like Mt. Oku-Hotaka or Mt. Tsurugi, or a multi-day trek like Mt. Poroshiri, they will not only fail to reach the summit, but they will also put their lives in danger and ultimately place a massive burden on those around them. To stand on top of your target summit, you must build the appropriate physical stamina. You also need proper climbing techniques, such as knowing how to navigate rocky terrain or climb using chains. Attempting a climb without these preparations isn’t praised as courageous or bold; rather, it’s a display of immaturity and recklessness. Business professionals also require physical and mental stamina. However, in this context, I’d like to make a comparison from an entrepreneurial perspective. For a business, especially a newly-launched startup, one could consider its working capital to be equivalent to “stamina”. You might be able to start a small business through your personal savings alone. However, creating a large-scale business or a platform that solves social issues requires raising significant working capital. Even if you have outstanding skills or services, your business cannot survive if the funds run dry. Just as you need physical strength to challenge a high mountain, you need substantial funding to take on a major business venture. Planning your capital strategy and securing the necessary funds at exactly the right time is an extremely important job for any founder in the early stages of a startup. (Pictured on the left, rocky terrain on Mt. Aso; in the middle, rocky terrain on Mt. Hōken, near Mt. Kisokoma; on the right, chain-climbing sections of Mt. Ishizuchi, the highest peak in western Japan.) On the other hand, climbing skills correspond to “management ability” for an individual leader, and “key differentiators” for the company as a whole. Even if there is market demand, you cannot survive with products or services that other companies can easily imitate. Furthermore, if you are launching a service that offers entirely new value (i.e., climbing a steep mountain), you must possess something special and unprecedented that competitors cannot easily replicate. “That special something” differs depending on the business domain, product category, and individual company. However, the equivalent of acquiring the skills necessary to climb a high mountain for an early-stage startup is to discern, refine, and protect your unique strengths. 3. Carrying Only the Necessary Gear for Your Target Mountain: Assembling the Exact Resources Your Management Needs In mountaineering, it is crucial to prepare your equipment according to the specific mountain you are aiming for. A winter climb requires winter gear, and a rocky climb requires specialized rock gear. On top of that, there are many items you must pack just in case of emergencies: first-aid kits, personal medications, cold-weather apparel, rain gear, trail snacks, emergency rations, and more. Water is also an incredibly precious commodity on a mountain. However, having more gear is not always better. If you pack everything imaginable and your backpack ends up weighing dozens of kilograms, your body will not be able to carry the weight. There is simply no need to bring more gear than what is required for the level of the mountain you are climbing.   (Gear prepared for climbing three consecutive peaks.) When leading a startup company, securing management resources is one of the most critical challenges. A large portion of these resources consists of personnel. For a manufacturing business, this would also include factories and machinery. Beyond just people and equipment, internal systems and operational frameworks are also vital resources that support the business. R&D, sales, finance, legal, customer success, security: as a business grows, the number of things it needs to handle also increases. If you are in the manufacturing sector, capital investment becomes a necessity, and there will be times when you want to enlist the help of external experts to design your organizational systems. However, if you continue to hire, purchase, or outsource just because you want to, your working capital will quickly dry up. This is very much like draining your physical stamina during a climb by carrying a backpack that is far too heavy. A sense of balance is essential to securing resources that are “necessary and sufficient” for both the scale of the business you are operating and the goals you are aiming for. What early-stage startups need is not to have everything. Rather, what they need is to gather trusted individuals to sail in the same boat, building a lean, highly skilled team where everyone brings their own unique strengths to the table.     This concludes Part 1 of “Startup Management Lessons Inspired by Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains”. I myself am still only halfway toward my goal of conquering all of Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains. That is exactly why, rather than sharing a polished success story, I want to use this series to be as candid as possible about the hesitation, mistakes, decisions, and lessons I encounter along the way. By using this challenging goal as a framework, I hope to reflect on the mindsets and decision-making processes that apply directly to startup company management and organizational leadership. The next installment’s topic will be “Detailed Planning, Steady Execution”, in which we will explore the necessity of strategies and plans for achieving goals, balanced against the vital importance of steady, day-to-day work. D-POPS GROUP Advisor Genta Sugihara Note: Previously, we published an article titled “Mountaineering and Leadership”, but that was more summarized; this new series will dive into much greater detail along with my progress in climbing Japan’s 100 Famous Mountains. I will also be sharing photos as we go, so please enjoy. June 2025: Mt. Tate; August 2025: Mt. Ibuki, Mt. Mizugaki, Mt. Amagi, Mt. Tsukuba, Mt. Kinpu, Mt. Daibosatsu September 2025: Mt. Kisokoma, Mt. Kobushi, Mt. Daisetsu, Mt. Tokachi, Mt. Arashima, Mt. Kaikoma, Mt. Akagi

At D-POPS GROUP, we are aiming to realize a Venture Ecosystem, with the mission of “increasing the number of growing startup companies that will transform society”. We have expanded to 26 group companies and 35 investment companies (at the time of publication), widening the fields where people can take on new challenges. Please enjoy these pictures of the new members who are eager to carve out a new future together with us starting from this spring! D-POPS Corp. https://d-pops.co.jp/ GOOD CREW https://www.good-crew.co.jp/ Advancer.inc https://advancer.co.jp/ ☆Tokyo area ☆Kansai area ☆Kyushu area STAR CAREER CO., LTD https://star-career.co.jp/ opzt, Inc. https://opzt.net/ A&K.com Co., Ltd. https://www.a-kcom.co.jp/ PLUST.Co.,Ltd. https://www.plust.jp/ We wish all of our new colleagues a warm welcome and congratulations! We truly look forward to seeing you challenge yourselves and grow at your companies. Together with these new members, D-POPS GROUP will not stop growing and pursuing our vision. Thank you for your continued guidance and encouragement.

An Executive’s View on the Importance of Health in Avoiding Mistakes in Management, and a Message to Startups In this final installment of our three-part interview, we hear about Director Yamaguchi’s altruistic habits that paved the way for his numerous television appearances. He also shares priceless quotes from Soichiro Honda (the legendary founder of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., who frequented the high-level clinic where Director Yamaguchi was training) regarding the fundamental reason executives must remain healthy and the speed of executive decision-making. Finally, we discuss the parallels between a thriving Venture Ecosystem and Director Yamaguchi’s philosophy of looking at how a system connects overall. (This interview was conducted in March 2026.) See Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview here. ◆The Move to Aoyama-Itchome and the Spirit of Altruism that Led to Appearing on TV Sugihara: You have been running your chiropractic clinic in the Aoyama district for a quarter of a century now. Could you share the story of how you relocated to your current spot? Yamaguchi: Actually, I originally opened my practice in Shibuya. However, back in those days, the area around Tower Records in Shibuya had aggressive street hawkers who would even grab women by the arm to try and sell something to them. My patients would frequently give me feedback such as, “Today as well, I got intercepted twice on my way here,” or “The streets are so crowded, it’s not easy to walk down them.” I decided it was time to find a new location, and at the time, I noticed that areas like Omotesando and Gaienmae already had chiropractic clinics with active websites, but Aoyama-Itchome had none. I figured that if my existing Shibuya clientele used the Hanzomon subway line, switching to Aoyama-Itchome wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience. When I visited the neighborhood myself, I saw that the streets were wide enough, and in the year 2000, I officially relocated to Aoyama-Itchome. Shortly after, the Oedo Subway Line opened, making our accessibility even better. Around the same time, a number of major television networks besides NHK began setting up their offices in Minato Ward. Consequently, assistant directors from various TV programs started calling my clinic requesting research on chronic stiff shoulders and lower back pain. Instead of just giving them quick answers over the phone, I took the time to meticulously summarize my responses into Word documents, email them over, and even send out documents by post. Then suddenly, one of them asked, “Would you be willing to appear on TV?” That single moment became the catalyst for my appearances on a wide variety of television programs. Later on, he was promoted to a full director, and I asked him, “Why did you choose me out of all the practitioners in Tokyo?” He replied, “More than anyone else, you responded to me politely, putting together and mailing professional documents. I promised myself back then that the moment I was given my own show, you would be the very first person I called.” In the words of business philosopher Kazuo Inamori, this is the “spirit of altruism”. I didn’t do all that expecting something in return; simply treating that director with sincerity in my heart eventually came back to me in a much more impactful way. If I had approached the person while specifically looking to get something, it probably wouldn’t have turned out that way. When I share this story with the executives who visit my clinic, many of them say, “It’s the same with business management.” Many of them have experienced that rather than demanding to get something, doing something sincerely for another person is what ultimately results in receiving something in return. ◆Essential Reasons Why Business Leaders Must be Healthy, According to Soichiro Honda Yamaguchi: At the clinic where I trained, a lot of our regular clients were business executives. One particular story from that time is still being passed down to this day. It involves Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. I never met Mr. Honda face-to-face myself, but one of my senior colleagues was responsible for treating him. One day, my colleague asked him, “Mr. Honda, as the head of a massive corporation, you carry an immense workload. Yet you don’t seem to suffer from any specific pain or physical ailments. So, why do you make it a point to come here so regularly?” I was told Mr. Honda replied like this: “As the leader of a company, there’s no feeling like when business is going well and you’re blowing the trumpet to command everyone to advance. However, there are times when you must stop that advance, and you sound the trumpet to signal a retreat. If you don’t time that retreat well, you will severely damage the company. But unless you are in good health, you will not be able to sound the retreat accurately, and that is why I keep coming here.” This quote was passed down among my senior colleagues. It reminds us that for a business leader, staying healthy is not simply a matter of managing one’s physical condition, but rather, it is the very core of being able to correctly make important decisions. I heard another fascinating story about Mr. Honda. While the clinic’s director was treating him, the director mentioned that the car seats of that era (which were so soft that drivers would sink deeply into the cushion) were not good for the body. Mr. Honda said, “I see,” and left, and then the next day, a whole team of Honda engineers arrived at our clinic. Apparently, they sat down with the director and drafted a seat schematic. That prototype seat was immediately used in the next vehicle models they released. What amazed me most was how fast his decision-making ability was, and that when he realized “This would be a benefit for our drivers,” he put it into action by the next morning. I deeply felt the significance of having a leader who can move like that. ◆The Japan Posture Education Association – Spreading the Value of Alignment Globally Sugihara: While running your clinic in Aoyama for a quarter of a century, you have also been busy with various other activities. Could you tell us about your work with the Japan Posture Education Association? Yamaguchi: The goal of this association is to train people to understand the fundamental importance of posture and communicate it clearly to others. Our ultimate mission is to support both mind and body through proper posture, contributing to a long-lived, healthy society. While almost everyone knows that posture is important, it’s actually difficult to explain in an accessible way why it matters, what’s wrong with having bad posture, and how to correct it. To address this, we established the formal qualifications of “Posture Education Advisor” and “Posture Education Instructor”, and we train people in attaining them. We also host seminars tailored to interested parties as well as to those aiming to become educators. ◆Lectures at the Open University of Japan: The Secret Behind a Course So Popular, It’s Lottery-Based Sugihara: Something else you’ve been doing for many years is teaching at the Open University of Japan. What kind of audience are your courses geared toward, and what are they about? Yamaguchi: Initially, I taught a course titled “Posture and Health”. Later on, I handed that class over to a younger instructor from our association, and now I teach a course titled “Building an Undefeatable Body with the Study of Posture”. Not many students of the Open University of Japan are pursuing a college degree; most of them are after personal and social enrichment. A lot of them are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, you know. My course doesn’t include any aspect of chiropractic medicine at all. Sugihara: So it’s designed for those from the general public who seek enrichment. It must be very popular. Yamaguchi: Somehow, enrollment has to be determined by a lottery system every single time. It has become one of the most highly attended courses at the Open University of Japan. Before the pandemic, there were even students who would fly in from places like Hokkaido and Kyushu just to attend. Because it’s structured as an intensive course with eight modules on Saturdays and Sundays, out-of-town students can attend on weekends while staying one night in a hotel. Simply hearing stories of such dedication is enough to make us instructors even more motivated to give the lectures our absolute best. ◆Venture Ecosystem and Chiropractic Philosophy: Resonating With Making Big-Picture Connections Sugihara: At D-POPS GROUP, our aim is to realize a Venture Ecosystem through integrating “Real World × Technology × Synergy”. We are building a platform where companies both within and outside our group are supported not just through funding, but through sales cross-promotion, talent recruitment, etc. Do you feel like any of these have something in common with your initiatives, or are there any points you particularly resonate with? Yamaguchi: Where I deeply resonate with your vision is looking at the overall flow and connections, rather than focusing on a single, isolated part. For us chiropractors, too, if a patient bumps their elbow and experiences numbness in their pinky finger, for example, we don’t just treat the pinky; we analyze their posture overall to figure out why that happened. Similarly, for stiff shoulders, we look beyond the shoulders themselves, checking the height of their computer monitor, their chair’s position, and their environment in general to help their shoulders get better. I feel like where your perspective aligns with mine is the way we look at something through its connections. Sugihara: The part you said about improving the overall flow is really true. During our company’s regular board meetings, the executives from all of our group companies give their progress reports, and then afterwards, they have a second meeting where they share their concerns and dilemmas, and discuss their ideas and experiences with each other. We also maintain the same kind of relationship with companies outside our immediate group, which are members of our Venture Ecosystem through our corporate investments. It’s never just about the money; we co-pitch to clients, introduce human resources, and connect them with key customers. That is exactly what it means to improve the flow within an ecosystem. And while we’ve been talking, I think that’s really similar to healthy blood circulation. Yamaguchi: Blood circulation gets hindered by the physical fatigue of supporting the body’s own weight, but it’s also affected by mental, neurological exhaustion. While you can reduce physical fatigue simply by exercising, in the case of mental fatigue, you can stimulate serotonin production, boost creativity, and stabilize your feelings by being emotionally moved or laughing deeply, or even by taking a slow morning walk in the sunlight, synchronizing your breath with your stride. You can see why so many business leaders go on walks in the morning. I suggest not wearing sunglasses for your morning walks, unless your eyes have some medical condition that won’t allow it. When direct sunlight enters your eyes, it dramatically increases serotonin secretion. This fact is thoroughly verified by scientific researchers. ◆A Message to Our Readers: The Greatest Doctor Is Inside Your Own Body Sugihara: To bring our interview to a close, do you have a final message for our readers? Yamaguchi: I urge everyone to invest in their bodies and their health. After all, your health is directly linked to your business performance. Where do you think the world’s greatest doctor resides? At a famous university hospital? The truth is, the best doctor in the world lives inside your own body. The moment something goes wrong, your body alerts the brain, and the brain immediately sends corrective measures back to the body. Your autonomic nervous system is responsible for this. Most of the autonomic nerves travel through your spine to your organs and limbs. In other words, your spine’s health is extremely important to your whole body’s health. Furthermore, your spine and your posture are equal. If your posture gets out of shape, your spine will also get out of shape. Therefore, keeping good posture is connected to maintaining your autonomic nervous system. Once again, if you don’t keep moving your joints, you won’t be able to. If your body remains continuously slouched, it will gradually lose the ability to straighten out entirely. That is exactly why you must make a conscious, daily effort to move. Your investment in your health is an investment in the success of your business. I sincerely hope these insights offer some support to you all. Thank you very much. Interview conducted by D-POPS GROUP’s advisor Genta Sugihara. Aoyama-Itchome Chiropractic Clinic Director: Hiroshi Yamaguchi Address: 740 Win Aoyama, 2-2-15 Minamiaoyama, Minato, Tokyo Website: https://aoyama1.jp/