{"id":97390,"date":"2017-05-16T11:22:39","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T02:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/?post_type=feature&p=97390&lang=en"},"modified":"2017-06-26T18:33:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T09:33:04","slug":"stephane-camus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/stephane-camus\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephane Camus"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, April 12 Fukuoka Now attended the launch event for Ikkyu Tea<\/a>, a Fukuoka-based company founded in March 2016 with the sole aim of selling Kyushu green tea and promoting the wider culture and cuisine of Kyushu to an international market. After the presentation we interviewed one of the four founders, Stephane Camus. We think our readers will enjoy hearing his story and hopefully find it inspiring to start their own business.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In Japan:<\/strong> 12 years
\nNationality:<\/strong> French
\nIdentity : <\/strong>Director \/ Ikkyu G.K.<\/p>\n

We obviously have to start with the presentation today. We\u2019re very impressed with the presentation on Ikkyu. It obviously wasn\u2019t built in a day.<\/strong>
\nNo. So, as with all projects on the internet, it started out with a small idea. It started when we (Aldo, Joelle and I) were coming back from aikido<\/em> together in the car, discussing how we should start a business in Japan. We thought ocha<\/em> was a good idea, because it\u2019s light and we like the product. The initial idea was solely for a site from which to sell green tea, but from there you have many possibilities. You could just buy tea from the supermarket and sell them on Ebay, or you could come up with a different idea. So step by step we tried to trim the idea, trying to decide what angle we could take. Of course, we went online and looked at other websites selling green tea, because there are some. In the beginning we were focused on cheap prices, and from our perspective this was a mistake because with tea you have to pay for the shipping. Handling the tea with shipping would be too expensive for us, and if you are paying ten or twenty dollars to ship something from Japan you want to buy a product that is worth it. So that\u2019s how we came up with the idea of having better quality tea, especially with the packaging we now have. I would add to that that I really enjoy working with my partners. They had already worked with growers in Chiran (Kagoshima) where they worked with tea makers, so they already had some contacts and knowledge, and were already familiar with high quality tea. Things have come together.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard a little bit about your background in business and specifically IT. Can you give us a brief summary?<\/strong>
\nYes, my first job was in France for an American company who later fired me and then hired me again the next day in their American office! So I moved to America and lived for five years in San Francisco. At the time, from my office, we could see a little startup called Google. This was in 2000 as I went there in 1998. We just thought it was an interesting name! So my work there was in computer trials and software testing. Although I enjoyed life in California, staying in the US for long term was not for me, so I quit my job and before going back to France, I took a long trip to Japan. And that\u2019s where I met my wife. We met on the train actually; I sat next to her and thought she was very nice and very good looking. I don\u2019t know what she thought of me at the time, but we married two years later in 2004 and I came to Japan in 2005. And so I\u2019ve been in Japan for over ten years now in Fukuoka. We had planned to marry and stay in France, but I hated my job, it was really bad, so I quit my job in France and the day after our wedding we moved to Japan.<\/p>\n

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And what did you do for work when you moved to Japan?<\/strong>
\nSo when I moved to Japan I was working for my cousin who has a business in France. I was working for him remotely and that was my first job here. The second job was opening a shop, which was maybe not the best idea I\u2019ve ever had in my life. But I had a little bit of money from working in America, so I opened a shop in Fukuoka. It went under water very quickly because I had no experience, nothing. But during that time my wife and I made a website for a business which sold table cloths, and actually that website is now working really well. So we had this experience of working in Japan in online shopping. I was actually surprised at how well it went and my job became working for Maison decor<\/a>. Meanwhile my wife was working for a company in Fukuoka, an IT company. The next thing, my brother, who is in France, was an antique dealer, and he suggested that we create a website for selling antiques in France. The idea is that you have this platform for selling, where all these antique sellers would come to sell their products. We started in 2009. This website, it\u2019s called Proantic.com<\/a>, is the biggest website in Europe for selling antiques. It has 800, almost 900 customers, and there are altogether 70,000 objects at any time on the site. So this is a French company owned by my brother and I. I did a lot for it, including making website and managing IT things like I do for Ikkyu now. With this idea, my brother wanted to gather everyone on the same page because many antique dealers have their own websites and if you\u2019re small on the internet nobody sees you. So we made this big thing and it worked. And when something works like this it\u2019s because you had a good idea and some talent, but mostly it\u2019s about luck. You\u2019re at the right place at the right time. We were in the right place at the right time, and this website became huge. My wife quit her job and she is now taking care of our business in Japan, Maison Deco.<\/p>\n

You already have two online businesses; what\u2019s unique about Ikkyu? What\u2019s different this time?<\/strong>
\nWhat is different this time is that there\u2019s more risk. We buy tea from the tea makers and in eight months we either need to sell it or throw it away. It\u2019s a perishable product so there is a risk that we didn\u2019t have with tablecloths because our business model was completely different, and it\u2019s not a risk we have with Proantic. Ikkyu is also different because it\u2019s all about exports, so it has to be an international business and we have to make content in English and make it accessible to as many people around the world as we can. Another difference is the network we have to develop with tea producers and investors. When I started with Proantic and Maison Decor, it was just about us and our products. Now we\u2019re trying to develop a global image for Kyushu involving such a wide range of people. We have today, at the presentation, shared our big ideas, but now we need to take it step by step. Chottozuttsu<\/em>, as the Japanese expression goes. And this is the way I like to work; yes, long term goals are important, but we need to focus on what we\u2019re doing right now. We have just launched our website, and now we need to make it alive, sharing it with people. These are our next steps.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What are you most proud of so far?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure I would use the word proud, but I would say I\u2019m most happy about working with people I get along with so well. Each of us has our own set of knowledge, expertise, and strengths. Aldo is a master of design and I know a lot about databases and customer experience, for example. It\u2019s in some ways very similar work to when I was testing software in America, working on the user interface. My understanding is that you should make it simple. Not too much text, but just clicking here or there and that\u2019s enough. So that\u2019s something I\u2019m really happy about; working with these people. Something I\u2019m proud of as well is the process of working with the tea producers. We go to out to visit them, meet their families, go out in the fields, and you can see the knowledge they have. It\u2019s really nice to enrich yourself with this knowledge, and it\u2019s a great pleasure for me to meet these people in these places. The day that we officially created the company with all the papers and receipts, I just felt so proud. Thinking \u2018wow, we made our own company in Japan\u2019.<\/p>\n

And what have the biggest challenges been so far?<\/strong>
\nThe biggest challenge is probably time management. You need time to think, time to develop, time to take care of your various businesses. So managing the time is hard. More specifically on Ikkyu, my biggest challenge now is to produce content for the magazine site, and also creating links to our website so Ikkyu will become more visible. It\u2019s okay, because we\u2019ve only just started, but I know how it is to run a website and I want to have more visibility so this is the challenge we\u2019re really working on now.<\/p>\n

The site was launched recently. What\u2019s the next stage?<\/strong>
\nThe next stage will be to add tea ware. Now we\u2019re selling tea, the next things we want to sell are teapots, cups, and things like that. We do have some now, but they\u2019re not necessarily local to Kyushu. So we want to find tea ware makers whose products we can sell on the website, because we really want to develop this network within Kyushu and share it internationally. There\u2019s also this possibility of business in restaurants. Fukuoka is definitely one of the main food capitals of Japan alongside Tokyo, and you hear about it on the radio and read articles about it often. So we are maybe in the right place at the right time. Part of the challenge is to reach people working in this restaurant industry who will use their influence and share the products they have discovered in Kyushu more widely. And hopefully green tea will be a part of that.<\/p>\n

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So you said that you\u2019ve been in Fukuoka for 11 years and you were very proud to establish your company Ikkyu here. Tell me, what is Fukuoka like as a place to live and a place to do business?<\/strong>
\nThe main thing about Fukuoka is \u2018sumi yasui<\/em>\u2019, it\u2019s easy to live in. It\u2019s a city that has everything, in my opinion. If you compare it to Tokyo, it\u2019s a village, it\u2019s very small. But Fukuoka is a dynamic place and you can feel it. For example, when the sinkhole opened in front of Hakata station I was seeing articles about it posted by friends around the world. The way that Fukuoka was able to fix it so quickly was incredible. Fukuoka was able to turn something negative into a super positive image. Looking at that, I could see the dynamic of the city as I experience it right now. Fukuoka is one of the rare cities in Japan whose population is still rising. I think it\u2019s also the second biggest student city, after Kyoto, in Japan, so there really is a healthy dynamic. Where I live is a little bit sad, because we still have rice fields but one after another they have houses built on them. It\u2019s a bit of a shame. But on the other hand, Fukuoka is alive. As a place to do business, Fukuoka is often compared to Seattle, which is a link they are really pushing at the moment. I think this is a smart image to adopt, having had experience of the growth in places like Seattle and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Any advice for foreigners interested to setting up a business here?<\/strong>
\nOne thing I would say is don\u2019t do what I did: if you\u2019re coming to Japan go to a Japanese school and learn Japanese for at least six months. I didn\u2019t do it because I was too busy, too lazy. I always had a good reason not to do it. I do speak Japanese now, but it\u2019s not very good and I\u2019m not proud of this. Many foreigners are like this and learning Japanese is very hard, but it\u2019s important. When someone is coming specifically to Fukuoka, I would also say buy a bicycle and cycle around. It\u2019s not all about Tenjin or Daimyo; you should explore everywhere. Try to expand your physical boundaries and move around the city more, it\u2019s definitely worth it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What do you do in your spare time when you\u2019re not working?<\/strong>
\nI try to do a lot of things when I\u2019m not working. I look after our four cats, which is way too many cats. I do a lot of aikido<\/em> as well. People coming to Fukuoka should know that you have one of the greatest aikido<\/em> masters, Suganama-sensei, living here in Fukuoka. Many people move here specifically to train with him. He\u2019s really one of the greatest men I\u2019ve ever met. I also do a lot of kyudo<\/em> with my wife, which I love. Doing these things helps keep me in touch with Japanese culture, particularly kyudo which has very few foreigners participating in it. For me it\u2019s a very interesting way to learn about Japanese people. I also have a bicycle, which I love to ride around the city and spend some time thinking on.<\/p>\n

In closing, is there anything more you would like readers to know about the Ikkyu project?<\/strong>
\nI would tell them that, if you\u2019re interested in green tea, you should try to get information about the different types available and find a Japanese person who is willing to explain how to make it properly. That\u2019s a very important point because the way you make green tea will affect the product drastically. Someone who has knowledge of the method will make three completely different cups of tea with the same water. The first time I had this experience I was amazed, I couldn\u2019t believe it. It\u2019s like a punch inside your face, in a good way. Somewhere to go to try tea made properly is Yorozu. It\u2019s a great place to take friends or family visiting you in Fukuoka. You will ask if they\u2019ve ever had tea before, to which they will probably reply \u2018yes\u2019. But the answer is \u2018no\u2019; before you have tried tea from Yorozu, you have never drunk tea.<\/p>\n

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\nYou can find out more about Ikkyu by visiting the Ikkyu Tea<\/a> website. You can also read about Ikkyu’s launch here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s our pleasure to introduce the many interesting non-Japanese living in and around Fukuoka. If you know of someone whose activities might be of interest to other readers, please\u00a0let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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