Amazing people who supported Daiso Ep. 02 Masafumi Ishikawa

We started from scratch.

About 40 years ago, when we started as a mobile shop, we had nothing. Not even an order form. While we were selling on the road, we needed to order the items for sale the next day. We had many 10-yen coins and made phone calls from a public telephone. We read out a list of items: “Ten sets of clothespins, five draining baskets, and other items.” I thought it was inconvenient. That’s why I made an order form for everyone to use.

Used a half of the office space as my room.

The office in Fukuoka where I worked at that time had two floors: an office, a dining room, and a bathroom on the first floor, and a dormitory on the second floor. My room in the dormitory was very small, so I divided the office in half with an accordion curtain and used half as my room [laughter]. I placed a bed and a clothes chest there. As soon as I opened the curtain, I was in the office. That was what my life was like.

Pretend it is a club activity, then it becomes fun.

When I received my first bonus, I made T-shirts to wear to events and uniform jackets for part-time student workers. Once, about 20 of us went on a ski trip for three nights. We were like university students. The work was grueling, but if you pretend that it is a club activity then it becomes fun. I was often scolded by the former president [founder Hirotake Yano], but he usually allowed me to do whatever I wanted, so it was delightful.

INTERVIEW

We started from scratch.

Used a half of the office space as my room.

Pretend it is a club activity, then it becomes fun.