Creating the Global Standard for EC Growth | Taku Sasaya
Taku Sasaya is the co-founding COO of StoreHero, who started the company together with CEO Kurose in 2019. Captivated from a young age by the idea of "creating something valuable" and building a business with a global vision, Sasaya shares the story of StoreHero's founding and his outlook for the future.
Lessons Learned from a Failed New Business Launch
— Tell us about your journey leading up to founding StoreHero.
It all started when a senior student recommended me to a part-time engineering job near Hongo-sanchome, close to our university, where I learned programming for the first time. After that, at an engineering intern event, I was invited to intern at a company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section. Through conversations with the president and the lead product developers, I found the idea of creating something truly valuable genuinely exciting — I began to feel the importance and the appeal of it. I had originally planned to go to graduate school and pursue a career in research, but that encounter changed my perspective entirely.
I then took a leave of absence from university and worked not as an intern but as a contract employee, where I was put in charge of launching a new business. The venture didn't ultimately succeed, but I'm deeply grateful that they gave a young and inexperienced person like me such an opportunity — it's an experience I still hope to repay someday.
Afterward, while working at another company, I met our CEO Kurose. I was already aware of Shopify at the time and felt strongly about its potential, so as Kurose and I talked, our thinking aligned fairly quickly and we decided to build something together.
Having gone through that earlier new business launch, I fully understood how difficult it was — but it also made me more determined than ever to create something valuable, and fast. I was confident that taking on the Shopify space with Kurose was the area where I could produce the most output. I had no hesitation in making that decision.
Two Years That Flew By Since Founding
— Looking back on the two years since founding StoreHero, what comes to mind?
The first year was largely a process of feeling our way forward — constantly trying different things and pushing ahead. We hadn't yet defined a clear direction, and there was an urgency to nail it down, but having Shopify as our core focus was undeniably the right call. We could feel firsthand how demand for it was growing in the market. Being able to iterate and experiment so much during that period was also a real asset.
Then as we entered the second year, with our first full-time employee Tsuda joining, the pace of growth felt truly rapid. The company itself transformed and moved forward. New members continued to join after that, and the pace of change has only accelerated. It really felt like two years that just flew by.
What Sets Us Apart When Doing Business With the World in Mind
— What do you keep in mind as you lead the engineering team?
The thing I personally feel we need to be intentional about right now is communication.
As a society, we all went through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way we work changed significantly — remote work brought its share of challenges along with it. We started to encounter things we hadn't noticed before: slight differences in interpretation, small misalignments in understanding. I see real room for improvement there.
In person, nuances in tone or casual conversation naturally resolved a lot of these issues — but that's become harder to replicate remotely. We're actively experimenting with solutions, and I've placed communicating effectively in a remote environment near the top of our priority list. I'm convinced it will become a genuine competitive advantage as we take our business more global, and that's one of the challenges we're embracing head-on.
— What kind of people are you looking for?
There are many talented engineers in the world, and we'd love to welcome a wide range of people. But looking at where StoreHero is right now as a company, what we especially need at this stage are people whose vision is aligned with StoreHero's growth. The company is changing and growing at a rapid pace. Roles and responsibilities shift as we evolve, so people who can move flexibly with that and actually enjoy the change will find this a really exciting environment. On the flip side, someone who says "I only want to do this one specific thing" may find it difficult — for both sides. If you're someone who wants to do whatever it takes for the company to grow, this is exactly the phase to dive in and thrive. I think the people who will excel here are those who can think broadly about the team as a whole while still engaging deeply with their own area of expertise.
Toward the Global Standard for EC Growth
— Finally, what's your vision for the future?
In the near term, we're focused on launching our flagship app. Building the global standard for EC growth — I believe that's something genuinely worth pursuing, and the app launch will be a major step toward that goal. On top of that, we're already building a track record in overseas growth support, and we want to accelerate that further. We want to take the app itself global aggressively. Our near-term focus is clear: increasing opportunities for growth support not just in Japan, but internationally.