In a market environment that changes moment by moment, it’s not easy for companies to develop new products, services, and businesses. SEEDER Inc. supports corporate innovation by predicting the “future” of these changes.
In addition to running-alongside consulting services, the company also handles external professional talent matching, supporting companies in multi-faceted ways. The strength lies in “future insight” and “righteous indignation ideation” based on research data of advanced consumers called “tribes.” This time we asked Representative Director and President Kanji Murata about his passion for the business and future outlook.
Kanji Murata
Graduated from Ritsumeikan University’s Faculty of Business Administration. Joined SEEDATA Inc. and experienced creating financial statements for the establishment of a telecom subsidiary, fundraising support for pharmacy chains, and business plan creation through implementation support for electronics manufacturers. Became Representative Director and President of 4M Inc. in 2021, in charge of business development as an incubator. Took current position on February 9, 2022.
Sowing the “seed” of innovation in society and supporting the “people” who nurture it
——SEEDER Inc. was founded in 2015. Could you tell us the origin of the company name?
The core of our business is innovation support. The people who try to create that innovation, who try to materialize signs of innovation, can be likened to “people who sow seeds.” Wanting to focus on these “people who sow seeds” and “people who create the soil so the sown seeds grow well,” we combined “SEED” + “ER” (person).
——You took up the position of Representative Director and President of SEEDER Inc. from February 2023, concurrent with serving as Representative Director and President of parent company 4M Inc.
I worked as an intern at our predecessor company since my student days, joined as a new graduate in 2018, and handled “tribe research” (which I’ll explain later) and consulting for client product development and business development. After that, I launched 4M, which handles FAS (Financial Advisory Service), and worked on business development as an incubator. Since 2021, I’ve served as Representative Director and President of 4M.
Our previous president (now Director) Naoya Hayashi has been involved since the establishment of the predecessor company, handling consumer research in Asia and Asian market expansion support, but is currently working from overseas. Given these circumstances, for our company’s further growth, I took over as president overseeing the whole, while Hayashi as Director handles business and operational oversight—this is our role division.
——You said you worked as an intern from student days. Were you originally interested in business development?
No. My father is a tax accountant and worked as a management consultant supporting SMEs, and I thought I wanted to do that job too. So I went to graduate school, but I encountered our company and became interested in this business. That said, I started the internship because I thought the experience here would be useful for studying management consulting. I never imagined I would join and become president (laughs).
——You became president in your 20s. Was there pressure?
Members I’ve worked with for a long time, including Hayashi, are here. Since I shared the office and worked with them even before becoming president, I didn’t particularly feel pressure.
——How many employees do you currently have?
5 full-time employees, plus about 30 interns. Our hiring is basically through new graduate recruitment from interns, and we plan to hire one more next year. In addition, we sometimes commission external professional talent on contract.
Three businesses: data, consulting, and talent matching. Strengths are “future insight” and “righteous indignation ideation”
——Could you tell us about your business?
Our businesses are broadly divided into three: data service, consulting, and talent matching.
First, the data service business: we define advanced global consumers as “tribes” and uniquely research their behaviors and values. Tribes can be seen as people embodying current trends, and tribe data showing their trends suggests future changes in various fields. We provide this data and analysis reports through our online platform “SEEDATA lab.”
——Please tell us about your second business, consulting.
We basically provide running-alongside consulting services using the tribe data I mentioned to support client product development and business development. We also provide support for marketing strategy formulation, branding, business plan formulation, and overseas market expansion.
In this consulting business, we have two core capabilities and strengths. The first is “future insight.” We analyze tribe data from a micro perspective, predict how markets and consumers will change, and gain insight into near-future markets and consumer profiles 3-5 years ahead. Based on these insights, we work with clients to consider what products to make and what businesses will be in demand. This is the characteristic of our consulting.
The second is “righteous indignation ideation.” In general product development and business development, approaches inspired by consumer needs are common. However, in our modern mature society where many things and matters already overflow, many needs have already been materialized, making the discovery of unmaterialized needs itself difficult.
So at our company, we call thoughts that consumers feel toward worldly common sense—”shouldn’t it be more like this?” or “isn’t it better to think this way?”—emotions close to indignation, “righteous indignation,” and we take an approach inspired by this righteous indignation. We believe great hints for product and business development lie in the dissatisfaction with the current situation underlying righteous indignation and in what cannot be solved in today’s world.
Among consumers, tribes who have established their own philosophy and style and act actively with that will often take actions based on righteous indignation. We research these tribes to discover righteous indignation and apply it to consulting. This righteous indignation ideation from tribe research is also a major characteristic and strength.
——The third is the talent matching business.
Yes, a service called “JINCHI.” Our members are all experienced in product and business development, but we’re a small team, and we sometimes receive requests requiring specialized expertise such as new business development in countries where our knowledge is limited. So we have situations where it’s difficult to support many corporate projects with our team alone.
So we have external professional talent register as “gig partners,” and we operate a talent matching business that matches gig partners according to client needs and engages them as project members.
Currently, 200-300 gig partners are registered. For registration, we conduct entry sheet selection, interviews, and practical tests to confirm they have skills and knowledge that can realize the innovation support we provide. They also acquire our know-how regarding tribe data research, future insight, and righteous indignation ideation. Matching is done by our staff after thoroughly understanding client challenges.
What’s important is the mindset of not being bound by existing common sense and trying to catch one step ahead of change
——This time you’re recruiting talent for the consulting business.
Basically, we want to entrust client running-alongside support. Understanding the client’s challenges, designing and proposing appropriate projects based on those challenges, and executing contracted projects—this series of work is what we’d ask you to handle.
——What kind of talent are you seeking?
Of course, we require skills in project management collaborating with several members, skills in project execution such as planning and research, and marketing knowledge. There are also situations where sales-like ability is needed in proposing projects. In addition, the mindset to be able to engage with interest in changes in society and people’s thinking, and to be active in considering things at the level of society and life, is also important.
What’s particularly important is the mindset of not being bound by existing common sense. You can’t create new things by just having ideas in line with world common sense from quantitative survey data. You focus on the righteous indignation of advanced consumers and aren’t averse to looking at things from multiple angles. We want most the mindset and energy to support creating innovation from a kind of anger called righteous indignation—it’s no exaggeration to say so.
——The mindset of wanting to challenge new things seems necessary too.
The “trend-chasing” (mi-haa) spirit is very important. For example, those with broad interests like “I want to try various trending things” would have good compatibility with tribe research data. The speed of change in our times keeps increasing, and we must always look one step ahead. It’s challenging work, but also interesting. I think our environment suits those who can enjoy that interest.
——Could you tell us points about “what’s interesting about working at your company”?
First, you have many opportunities to encounter new things and slightly unusual aspects of the world through tribe data. In consulting work, we often conduct tribe research, and the opportunity to hear advanced consumers’ raw voices is also good stimulation.
Also, our clients are diverse. Since we handle much support for new product and business development, we get many requests from Japanese manufacturers, but the markets we handle in projects aren’t limited to Japan—we sometimes support development of products expanding overseas. Clients who contact us interested in future insight using tribe data are often challenging and enthusiastic. We’re certainly blessed with opportunities to advance cutting-edge projects with such clients.
Aiming for an organization that supports many innovations through diverse partnerships
——How does your team work?
Basically flexible. Each member handles client projects, and we need to move according to project situations and client schedules, so each freely arranges their schedule. You can work at the office or choose to work remotely. Actually, more than half of members work remotely.
——How many projects does each person handle?
On average 3-4. In times when projects increase like fiscal year-end or busy seasons, it can be 5-6. Project scale and duration vary. Projects involving research and delivering results take 1-2 months. Projects with proper analysis and business or product development proposals take 3-3.5 months. Projects involving product development with clients based on research and verifying user demand can extend to 6-9 months.
——Please tell us your future outlook.
For client support, our members basically handle project management and bring in interns or gig partners as needed. That is, the relationship is “the SEEDER organization and external partners.” However, going forward, we want to develop into a “one team” organization where we and gig partners operate as one, enabling support for more diverse clients and a wider range of innovators.
For example, we might also ask gig partners to handle project management. We can also envision forms where we help with cases acquired by gig partners working as freelancers or running their own companies, and proceed together. By realizing such diverse partnerships, I think we can broaden the areas we can support.
Currently, utilization of advanced technologies like AI is also progressing, and entry barriers are lowering in areas like simple reporting. However, our strength is not just being able to do data-based future insight, but having the mindset to think about clients’ ideal future and create together with clients, running alongside.
To further enhance that strength, we want to update our organization with the help of gig partners and provide innovation support beyond mere consulting. That’s our thinking. We hope to have people who understand this and have the enthusiasm to actively commit join us.
[Interview Postscript]
From President Murata’s talk, I was strongly intellectually stimulated by the unique approach of converting “righteous indignation” into energy to create innovation. The stance of materializing signs of the future through researching advanced consumers “tribes” is truly the pinnacle of creative consulting. For those with a “trend-chasing spirit” who can question existing common sense and enjoy one step ahead of change, no environment is more stimulating.
What I felt through the interview was the spirit of “one team” carving new values into society together with external partners. Precisely because of the AI era, the mindset of drawing clients’ ideal future together and staying close becomes the greatest weapon, going beyond mere reports. Even “anger” can be turned into seeds for new businesses. We hope those with such passionate determination will jump into this one-of-a-kind field.
ConsulNext / Senior Consultant
Masahito Tsukada
SEEDER Inc. Company Information
| Company Name | SEEDER Inc. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | Under 30 | ||
| Work Location | Binary Kita-Aoyama Bldg. 10F, 3-6-19 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo | ||
| Industry | Operating company | ||
| Company Overview | – Product development and business development consulting – Consumer data distribution service “SEEDATA lab” – General talent matching service “JINCHI” | ||
