Do What You Want to Do Right, and Results Will Follow | Mai Oshiro
Mai Oshiro's main mission is store development. With an unconventional background — a fine arts degree combined with experience in HR, accounting, and general affairs — we sat down with her to learn about store development and life at the company.
— Tell us about your background.
After graduating from university, I worked as a non-regular employee at IT companies such as LINE and a company that operated a travel review site, while taking short-term study abroad trips in between. During that time, I transferred into the correspondence program at Musashino Art University as a third-year student and graduated on schedule. After graduation, I joined a translation and interpretation coordination company as a full-time employee, where I gained experience in accounting, HR, and general affairs. As I worked, I felt that my individual contributions were somewhat invisible in that kind of role, so I began to feel a strong desire to be involved in "creating things" — work where I could leave a more tangible mark. I started studying programming while still employed, then made the move to an engineer staffing company, completed three months of programming training, and just as I was about to be placed at my first assignment, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Even so, by winter I had secured a placement and successfully began working in development. That role involved making updates to an already-running site, so I was looking for an opportunity to be involved from scratch — from zero to one — and that's when I discovered StoreHero.
If You Want to Try Something, Just Try It
— What made you decide to join StoreHero?
When I joined in April 2020, StoreHero was a brand-new company, but after speaking with CEO Kurose and Director Sasaya, I decided to come on board. Of course, the appeal of being involved in building things from the ground up — zero to one — through store development was a big factor, but I also resonated with both of their shared vision of building a casual, fun company with a sense of humor.
— You were the second employee to join after the founders. Did that give you any hesitation?
It was the first time I'd joined a company with so few employees, so I think most people would feel a bit intimidated. But I'm the type who thinks, "If I try it and it doesn't work out, that's fine — if I want to do it, I should just go for it." The size of the company wasn't really something I worried about. (laughs)
— How has it actually been since joining?
There's a lot to do and a lot to learn at an early-stage startup, so it certainly has its challenging aspects — but I'm genuinely satisfied with the strong sense of growth I get from the work. At my previous job, it was hard to feel like I was actually making something, but now I have the fulfilling experience of handling multiple store builds and being involved in real creation.
Also, the gap between how Kurose and Sasaya came across during my pre-hire interviews and how they are to actually work with was almost nonexistent, which I think is a great thing.
Aiming to Make StoreHero Synonymous with Shopify
— What does your role at the company involve?
My main focus is building stores from scratch, along with handling updates to stores post-launch and conducting research. I work alongside the Growth Partners and collaborate with the development team on the technical side of things. While coding itself is something I do solo, I frequently collaborate with the team for things like requirements definition and discussing technical customizations.
Recently, I had the experience of pushing ahead on multiple store builds all at once — and honestly, it was tough. (laughs)
But going through that experience gave me a lot of confidence, and I think it was one of those moments where I really felt myself growing.
— Having built so many stores, what do you find most compelling about Shopify?
First and foremost, Shopify's strength is that it comes with a solid, reliable foundation. And the greatest appeal on top of that is the freedom to customize however you like. Looking back, I didn't have much experience in store development when I started, but I'm actually surprised by how well things went. (laughs) The benefit of having that foundation already in place was huge, of course, but I think the key was how quickly I got comfortable working within that foundation. In that sense, being able to work on a large number of projects early on was really valuable.
— What are your goals going forward?
Something I've started working on and want to continue developing is "sectionization" — building reusable, modular sections. Thanks to the support we've provided to so many clients, I've started to get a better sense of patterns in what clients are looking for. So I've begun working on getting ahead of those needs and offering services proactively, and I want to make that a solid part of what we do.
On the company level, I'd love to see StoreHero grow to the point where "Shopify" and "StoreHero" become synonymous. Right now, we're still a company that's known mostly to those in the know, so I want to support more and more clients, which in turn will raise our service quality and expand recognition of our track record.
Also, we have so many things we want to do but not nearly enough people yet — so I'm really looking forward to new teammates joining us soon!