top of page

The beginning

The training destination was a shop in Hokkaido.
The reason why? Was to enlighten " Hokkaido Ramen" in mainland of Japan.
The shop was chosen by a friend in a joint plan with incisively said, “Let's start a business and practice self-reliance”.
 

○ Failure at this point ○
・ I did not choose by myself → Synonymous with leaving fate to others
・ Entrepreneurship with friends → When my friend is crushed, everything comes again me; opposite, yes.
・ Motivation is ambiguous → did not forecast, suppose, the end.

What I did

At the training destination“education and training through actual work in the workplace”, which means  " OJT."
Training in Japan = may I receive salary?
Yes! I got 7,000 yen per day, “ from before opening to after closing" ; about 15 hours.
Some people may think that because they are on training, they can't afford money, because they're not professional.
It is a convenient word; training.
I also found that there are three people who independend from this restaurant in other prefectures.

Such days goes by, but for others, at first glance it seems to be lazy, but it is crazy hard when we are working.
Whether my work was bad, or the people who taught me was bad, or both (LoL) polite instruction of the beginning soon gradually gets harder.
No matter if there were customers or not we were cried out... I was happy when I could fall asleep late at night.

I sent enough information to my comrade about necessary items of a to z.
But something strange...
Because there is their life over there, I could understand that the reply was slow, but no one ask me, nor point out  error.


○ Failure at this point ○
・ No confirmation → very late to realizing mistake
・ No suspicion → Abandoned thinking

Affair

" The ladder" was removed, by comrade.
Exactly saying, "Come back anyway".
 
The process went as follows.
The investor said there was no money.
That's one of my comrade and principal Kawamoto (a pseudonym).
The reason was “debt repayment of son-in-law ”.

Miyamoto (a pseudonym), who was in contact with one of the other comrade came to Hokkaido.
There is a face and there is a point of contact with the training destination, so I couldn't go away.
The original plan was simple: “Learn know-how in 3 months, back and create our system” (laughs)

How did this happen?... I have no idea.
It was because I broke up with my comrade and decided to complete the original goal by myself.

Which way to go was the principal, Kawamoto? .
"He may have used the money really" "He may have lied because he wanted to cancel the relationship with the training destination"
So, what was no information to me was " any purpose to test if I am faithful...?"
Either way is ok to me now, but I understand that “people who are connected with great thoughts deceive people: no exception”.


○ Failure at this point ○
・ People are people → Suspicious is one of crisis management
・ One of the end came → I did not expect

Reopening

I felt lonely and thought about what I was doing.
It's a common tale.
Surely anyone could be.
I had a two-day break from the Ramen shop, and was able to re-organize my feelings.

I was angry at work even after reopening, but it was a little blown out.
I didn't think nervously too much.
Go on or step down? In my case, I stood on my willpower to keep going (laughs)

Here, the Ramen shop group of my training site opened stores in Hokkaido: expansion.
At the area about 100 km south from my site. The store opening method of the master = "inspiration of the master".
It is a depopulated area with a local city of 35,000 people.
The first month sales were 3 million JPY, but it falls from here usually.

The master opened another store.
This time 120 km north! Then, master told me, “No one to care it now, so you try it.”


○ Failure at this point ○
・I stood on my willpower → should take other option:like " take the profit" and escape to the mainland

End of training

Opening the new store 120 km north... It was completed only in 7 days!
To be exact, we renovated the shop which once it was Tai-yaki shop.
To be honest, it was so amazing.
There were no problems because it was “ all O.K" or both the owner and the construction side: in the super-cheap and super-empty construction, 
Surely the total amount was about 2 million JPY to renovate and open new Ramen shop.
A 20㎡ wooden construction: roadside store. There are apartment on the 2nd flour with parking lots for 7 cars, and a rental fee 40,000 JPY per month. 
It's in a depopulated area with a population of 43,000.

It was the first land I've ever been, but I knew how amazing: it was much snow.
The snow on the road is piled up on the shoulders of the road and vacant site, which is about 3 meters height.
I felt that I came to the end of the world.

I spent a year and three months here.
The first place of my " residence" was in the shop. I received 100,000 JPY from the master for cash register of in the shop.
The first work I did was to get a yellow page from a nearby phone box and look for a supplier on my mobile phone.
It's quite a tale about heroism...All are “serious stories”.

At first, I called a part-time worker who once was worker at that Tai-yaki shop, but it wasn't possible.
Who came after that was the daughter of the supplier.
Since then, connections with various people have expanded.
I thought people were warm, and my brother-comrades assist me from the distance of 120 kilometers each way and received support from various people.
I also had an experience like a “ savvy barter trader”. The ATM, which was deposited in 40 minutes on foot, was about 15 minutes on a bicycle purchased by mail order, and at last the master of the trainee lent me a car.
I felt like sense of conqueror of the district...after I got car and go around.
There is a feeling that we have advanced our way of transportation from foot to car...don't we?
At this time, I moved to an apartment just behind the Ramen shop.

There was a wall of 1,8 million to 2 million monthly sales, but it has come out and the daily sales have exceeded 100,000 JPY.
"Monthly sales 3.7 million" was about the eighth month later.

Here, there is a major milestone of " When do I finish under train work?"
In the future, I will continue to do business in this shop with “the name of this shop”, so it is very important to maintain a relationship with the training master.
Or, independent from the training master while maintaining the relationship with him...
However, from the point of view of the training master it is easy for him to take care of this store by maintaining the status quo.


○ Failure at this point ○
・Increase sales with manpower → No reproducibility that anyone can do
・I became a required person → I was tied up

bottom of page