News

※This article is also available as a podcast on Spotify , Apple Podcasts , Google Podcast / Amazon Music and Anchor ) (Japanese ONLY).

Today, I would like to write about what took me to start offline businesses.

Please refer to the article about how I founded A’ALDA from the previous job covered by NewsPicks.

【秘話】インドで動物病院を広げる、日本人起業家がいる(Japanese Only)

I think it was the summer of 2018, and while I was back at my parents’ house, I saw a stray cat lying in front of a parking lot. When I approached the cat, it hid in the bushes, “Shoo!” and threatened me. The cat was obviously severely injured, and I intuitively knew that leaving it alone would never save its life, so I managed to capture the cat using a net and other tools.

I immediately took it to a local veterinary clinic. The veterinarian told me, “I think it is almost impossible for him to survive if I would treat him, probably because he was run out by a car and its internal organs are damaged.”

And the vet offered me two options.

　(1) Return the cat to where it had been.
　(2) Go home and contact the public health center.

Frankly speaking, neither option (1) nor (2) was absolutely impossible for the cat. The cat was hemorrhaging blood and suffering terribly, and I thought I could only abandon it.

I asked the veterinarian if he could euthanize the cat. I wanted to release him from this endless suffering right now. The veterinarian agreed and performed the euthanasia procedure.

The cat was given an injection and soon after, it passed away peacefully and eternally in my hands. It was truly an instant. I still cannot forget the feeling and experience I had at that moment. After that, I took him to a pet crematorium for cremation. Although I could not save the life, I felt I had to do everything else I could. It was probably born as a stray cat, and since it was skinny, it had a hard time eating, and then it had an accident.

At the time, as I was growing the media business at PECO, I watched closely as the number of users increased from 1 million, 3 million, 5 million, and 10 million, but I realized how helpless I was not to save the life of the cat in front of me right now.

I began to strongly consider, “For whom and for what am I working?” I began to think strongly about this question. Is what I really want to do to give information through the media? Of course, there is great value in information dissemination. However, what I really wanted to do was to make as many pets and people happy and save lives as possible in a more realistic and closer way.

I would like to create “a society where people and pets can live happily together” with all A’ALDA members.

---