Ge Ge Ge no HENNGE
“What you can see is not everything”
[Toei Official] GeGeGe no Kitarō
Original Author: SHIGERU MIZUKI
Film Copyright: Film©2018 Toei Animation Co., Ltd.
1999
When I joined “Horizon Digital Enterprise, Inc.”(later renamed “HDE, Inc.”) as an accounting staff immediately after graduating from university in November 1999, the 3-years-old company had just switched the business domain from the internet server hardware to the server management software.
Software! Honestly speaking, I did recognize that significant shift after joining the company. During my short job hunting, I just found the very long company name featured in the economic magazine “Shibuya Venture Business Map” something column as an internet server hardware company in the university library. I think I couldn’t find the company name if it was shortened “HDE”, and it must have been a little bit harder for me to apply for an unusual software company(very rare in Japan at that time) job.
Anyway, I started my tech venture business journey with our 3 founders, 3 full-time staffs and tens of student part-timers (many of them joined after their graduation, and graduated) in Shibuya, Tokyo. Somehow the company network file server was called “kabenuri” for almost 10 years by the way :)
As the member of the startup, I have frequently changed my roles in the company one after another from the beginning until now: accounting, finance, legal, business planning, corporate design, back office management, recruiting, president office, global internship, globalization, corporate camera crew, corporate librarian, corporate random walker, internal audit, open lounge event coordinator, and so on. Our company moved office 4 times in my first 8 years. It was so hard to manage everything, but also very exciting and memorable.
2000
I left my parents’ home in Asagaya after I joined the company, and started to home-sharing with one of our colleagues @SEAN (and many of his univ friends!) in Kichijyoji from 2000 to 2002. Our house was called “Amaminami-tei” (天陽邸).
2009
After some company serious crises (generally same as other startups, I believe) in 10 years, we were slowly starting to understand something about business life cycles, industrial paradigm shift, and importance of random walking. Then, there came a new crisis: the Lehman collapse. A global financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. And our company also suffered from ”The Great Recession” for a couple of years. However, at that moment, I think we still had kept on trying many things.
2010
It’s a boy! My son Shuji was born in Sep 2010. Yes. Everything has changed.
2012–2014 (after The Tohoku earthquake on 11th March 2011)
You can check my old blog post for the HDE advent calendar blogs in 2014 here:
http://hde-advent.hatenablog.jp/entry/2014/12/12/000108
In my understanding, the “HENNKA”(transformation) above was one of the most beautiful marriages of our long-time learnings to practices.
2019
Again! We rename “HENNGE K. K.” to keep on changing, from Feb 2019. We are very excited about this HENNKA, and also very excited to continue to deliver the power of technology to the world. Thank you!
2020
→ I will put something in the future :) so please come back here next year!
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
- Dale Carnegie
This blog is the #3 of the twenty-five blogs that we are publishing daily, one blog each day from Jan 7th until 31st — written by twenty-five of our members, sharing topics regarding “Change” — to celebrate the official change of our new company name, from HDE to HENNGE on Feb 1st.
For more information about the change in our company name: https://www.hde.co.jp/en/about-us/trade-name-changed.html
