An interview with SHIFT CEO Masaru Tange | Part 1: The 3 powerful common traits of successful entrepreneurs
January 13, 2023
With a vision toward “building a smart zero-waste society,” SHIFT Inc. (“SHIFT”) provides software quality assurance and testing solutions to businesses across many fields. Winning the first place at the “Securities Analysts’ Award for Excellence in Corporate Disclosure” in the emerging market category in 2019, SHIFT is a fast-growing company that gets the attention of many investment professionals. In this interview, SHIFT President and CEO Masaru Tange sat down with DIMENSION Business Producer Noriyuki Ito to talk about key traits most entrepreneurs have in common and how to create high-growth businesses.
The “dad instinct” that unfolds from early childhood
Q: If you could name 3 key characteristics in an entrepreneur, what would they be?
A: First and foremost, “business acumen.” Second, “the ability to fascinate others.” And lastly, “formative experiences.”
Masaru Tange (born 1974) obtained his degree from the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University in 2000. 5 years after joining INCS Inc. (now SOLIZE Corporation), he has turned an engineering consulting team that started off with only 3 members into a department of over 140 with annual sales hitting 5 billion yen. After his engagement as INCS Inc. consulting department head, he founded SHIFT Inc. in September 2005 and became SHIFT president and representative director. The firm was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) Mothers market in November 2014, and eventually moved to the TSE’s First Section in October 2019.
Q: Why are these qualities key for entrepreneurs?
A: I personally believe that “formative experiences” in my childhood days are what led me to be the person I am today as an entrepreneur. So how big an impact could these experiences have on founders? Take my case, for example. My very first formative experience was when I was playing in the sandbox at a daycare. There was a boy pouring sand on me. I said, “Don't throw sand!” and immediately pushed him over. He fell badly to the ground. It is imperative that I learned it is never OK to assault or bully someone for any reason.
When I was a first grader in elementary school, I went to a party where gifts were randomly exchanged and swapped within groups. I didn’t want to arrive with a gift that screamed boring, so I made a geometry net that can be folded to form an origami villa modeled after the one I saw in my mother’s magazine. As my friends saw it, they all said they wanted it more than any other gifts in the party. That's when I learned the importance of fascinating others.
And, when I was a 3rd grader, I planned my own birthday party and asked my parents to do the Charlie Chaplin-like “Mustache Dance” from the famous TV slapstick show called “It's 8 o’clock! Assemble everyone!” for my friends. They loved the performance so much.
Making someone else happy is a joy in and of itself.
The realization of “doing no harm to others,” “fascinating others,” and “making people happy” remains a central fixture of my personality today.
Q: What is the most “formative experience” that shapes your character as an entrepreneur or executive?
A: My “paternal instinct” in business was triggered by formative experiences with my troubled brother and his teenage behavior concerns. “I have to protect my parents,” thought a 6th grader.
The experience has shaped how I view everyone I get to know as my little child, even if they are older than me. I treat SHIFT employees like my extended family, and their children are like my grandkids. The reason why I choose a labor-intensive business – although that’s not so common these days – is rooted in that paternal instinct.
It is not an overstatement to say that SHIFT is where it is today because of the most formative experiences that shape my character.
Determine if now is the right time to start out the business
Q: What about “business acumen?”
A: Business is meaningless if you can’t pay your bills.
I disapprove 20-plus people starting a startup recklessly without giving it much serious thinking or careful consideration, especially when they have little to zero real-world experience in the field. Even in the United States, there are actually many people becoming a startup founder at 40-plus. VCs tend to show a bias toward investing in over-40-year-old founders, indeed.
Still, why are there people create a startup in their 20s? Because there are 0.1% genius entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg who dominate the world of the B2C market. Many wildly popular B2C services today originally come from formative experiences and business acumen of their founders.
Apparently, the probability of a B2C startup succeeding is, in fact, abysmally low. To increase the chances of success, startup founders should first sharpen their business sense and launch their business at the right time.
Q: You started your business when you were 30, right?
A: I had started off with B2C at the age of 30.
I was confident in my business sense, but I couldn’t gather a circle of ‘allies’ who are knowledgeable about the B2C space, partly because I worked for a B2B company in my 20s.
This also adds to the “power to fascinate” I mentioned earlier. If I were to go into B2C, I should have worked for B2C businesses in my 20s to build my network and knowledge.
Eventually, I pivoted from B2C to B2B services at age 34 as a result. SHIFT achieved its rapid growth by focusing on software testing service, which allows me to make the most of what I can do best in both aspects: business sense and “allies.”
Start a startup when your business sense becomes honed to a fine edge. Figuring out this timing will be a key turning point for entrepreneurs, I suppose.
Interviewer: Noriyuki Ito - DIMENSION Business Producer
Source (Japanese only): Link
Find more information about SHIFT Inc. here: Link
