Employee Spotlight: CTO Takeshi Torii | Building a Product That Helps Stores Grow Steadily — Aiming to Deliver a Service So Essential That Work Can't Go On Without It

Takeshi Torii serves as CTO at our company. Having spent many years working on TV-linked services, he shares his thoughts on what led him to take on the CTO role at StoreHero.

— First, could you tell us about your background?

After starting out at an ASP company gaining experience with web services, I moved to a creative agency where I worked on platform development for live events, web advertising, and TV-linked campaigns. I then joined a broadcasting-related company, where I accumulated experience in developing a general-purpose TV-linked platform, data broadcasting, event planning, and TV viewing log systems — before eventually joining StoreHero. My work has been primarily backend-focused, and I spent a long time directing and developing TV-linked services and event planning services.

— What made you decide to join StoreHero?

When I was considering this job change, I had a strong desire to find a company where employee happiness was the top priority. When I shared that with Kurose, he suggested that perhaps I should build that kind of company myself — and the fact that he was able to offer me a position that would make that possible was a huge factor. On top of that, the timing happened to bring together colleagues I had worked with in the past, which felt like a meaningful connection. I was also impressed that StoreHero was generating solid business results while having a future vision I could genuinely get behind — so I decided to join because I wanted to help scale the business further together.

— What is your mission at StoreHero?

First and foremost, I believe I'm being asked to build an engineering organization capable of creating great products. That foundation is what enables product growth, and the growth of everyone involved with that product is, in turn, what drives the company's growth.

— Could you walk us through a typical day for you?

Right now, since we're in a zero-to-one phase, I'm spending nearly all my time building new products. It's a cycle of designing, implementing, and reviewing — over and over. The more we discuss the new product I'm currently working on, the more convinced I become of its value, so I'm genuinely having a great time building it right now. Beyond that, I handle organizational and recruiting tasks, and in between I try to keep up with what's happening in the Shopify ecosystem.

— What values or principles guide you in your work?

When developing a service, I place great importance on identifying "who is truly experiencing the problem" and "what the real challenge actually is," then thinking from a technical perspective about how to deliver maximum value in response to that. At the same time, I also think about what kind of product would make the user experience overwhelmingly intuitive and easy to use. And when we actually manage to achieve both of those things — that's when it's truly rewarding. Having come from a broadcasting background, I've also internalized the importance of meeting deadlines. (laughs) And above all, I believe the people we work alongside matter most. My view is that you can't create a great product without a great team. I'm mindful of whether team members genuinely respect and trust one another, and whether they can communicate freely without hesitation — which is part of why we hold a weekly casual chat session within the development team. With all of that in mind, I'm currently focused on building an organization where members feel that this is simply a great environment to do engineering in.

— What kind of person do you think would be a great fit for StoreHero?

First of all, we're looking for someone who genuinely believes in our product. Within that, we want people who think flexibly and can engage in real, substantive discussion. Alignment with StoreHero's culture and vision is also important, I think. That said, since we haven't been able to share anything publicly about the new product yet, I'm hoping we'll be able to write about it in an article before too long.

— Are there any challenges you'd like to take on going forward?

I want to build a product where StoreHero becomes synonymous with commerce growth. My goal is to create a service that users want to interact with every day — something they'd say they can't do their job without. That's what I believe will make it the kind of service that truly fulfills its original purpose: helping stores grow steadily.

— On a lighter note, what do you enjoy doing in your personal life?

Spending time with my kids! My child has taken an interest in engineering as a career, so we've enrolled them in a coding school and we study programming together.