Yuta Tsuruoka, an intern at a crowdfunding start-up, built a billion-dollar company after listening to a passing comment made by his mother. His mother, who ran a small store in rural Japan, said she wanted to set up her own online store, but did not know how.
“That was the start of it all," Tsuruoka (30) told Bloomberg. "We were in a world where people with no internet skills and no money, like my mom, couldn't imagine creating online businesses,” Tsuruoka said.
Tsuruoka, who was studying information technology in college, decided to develop software to help individuals and small businesses to create internet shops.
Base Inc., the company Tsuruoka established in 2012, has been a beneficiary of a rally in small-cap technology stocks in Japan as retail investors sought to pick winners in the pandemic. Even though its shares surged, analysts questioned its sustainability.
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The company provides services like helping people set up their online shop, including payment gateways and options where retailers can procure financing against their future sales. Base Inc. also has a shopping app that has about 7 million users.
Tsuruoka was fascinated by the success of companies like PayPal Holdings Inc. He said he started the company as a hobby. The company, however, went public only last year but got an unexpected boost from the COVID-19 pandemic, that had retailers in a rush to take businesses online. This push has led the company to be valued at $1.7 billion, even though its share value fell in October. More than 1.2 million shops are registered on Base.
Tsuruoka’s 15 per cent stake in the company is worth about $265 million.
