An Announcement.
I resigned from Rakuten on June 30, 2026.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who has been involved with me until now.
To Mr. Mikitani, my superiors, my juniors, and the users.
I was able to come this far because I was supported by so many people.
Since this is a major milestone for me, I would like to write down my current feelings while looking back on the past.
For the past two years in particular, my days were completely immersed in Rakuten Mobile.
I made 400,000 posts on X.
I posted over 500 videos on YouTube in a single year.
I also sowed seeds on various other platforms.
As a result, the number of individual Rakuten Mobile lines I personally facilitated over the last two years is over 30,000 lines in total.
To everyone who signed up through me, thank you very much.
I have summarized what kind of person I am, what drove me to this point, the reasons for my resignation, and where I am headed in the future.
It is a bit long, but I would be grateful if you could stay with me.
The Past
"I want to work with Mr. Mikitani."
That is what I thought when I was a student. I was moved by the sight of a single entrepreneur seriously empowering Japan.
So, during my senior year of university, I applied to the Rakuten Group. However, I failed at the entry sheet stage.
My first job was at a certain bank. I was assigned to sales for insurance and securities.
However, I couldn't give up my desire to work with Mr. Mikitani, so I applied to the Rakuten Group again as a mid-career hire. I failed again.
To gain more strength, I chose Prudential Life Insurance as my second company.
(Note: While many are recruited via scouts, I was a volunteer who applied myself.)
There is basically no fixed salary there. If you don't secure a contract, your salary is 0 yen.
At first, I was incredibly anxious, so I just kept moving. I worked from 7:00 AM to 2:00 AM, 360 days a year. I did all the gritty work. Thanks to that, I saw some results (enough to meet MDRT standards).
Ruined by Bodybuilding
Let me change the subject slightly. Actually, I have been competing in bodybuilding contests for about 10 years.
I am the one on the far right!
I haven't achieved massive results, but I have continued to challenge myself with a certain level of determination.
However, during my time at Prudential, in a year I was preparing for a certain competition, I broke my body in the process.
Usually, my weight loss range is about 20kg, but for that specific competition, I needed to lose nearly 30kg.
In the final month before the competition, out of panic that I wouldn't make weight, I would wake up at 3:00 AM and do 4 hours of stair dashes.
From 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM, I would walk. From 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM, I would do walking lunges while carrying 30kg dumbbells in a backpack.
From waking up until this point, I would only consume water and amino acids. This is because fat burning is most efficient on an empty stomach.
Finally, around 12:00 PM, I would have my first meal: 200g of rice and 200g of chicken breast.
From 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, I trained at the gym. From 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM, I practiced posing. Then, my second meal was also 200g of rice and 200g of chicken breast. By 8:00 PM, I was already in bed.
Unable to sleep due to hunger and the pressure of the competition, I would toss and turn until 3:00 AM, and then the same day would start all over again.
Repeating this caused me to break down both mentally and physically.
I managed to compete and achieved the results I expected. However, that year, I voluntarily stopped all sales activities at Prudential for about four months to focus on the competition.
The scary thing about the insurance industry is that for many, once they stop, it is difficult to start moving again. I was one of them.
Insurance sales, including at Prudential, is truly tough. It is completely full commission. It is a world where you die if you don't get a contract. I couldn't withstand the pressure of having to do everything alone.
Changing Careers to Rakuten
So, I decided to change jobs again and applied to Rakuten once more. At that time, Rakuten was actively hiring due to the expansion of the mobile business, and by some miracle, I was hired. I think I was very lucky.
While I was happy to work with Mr. Mikitani, at the time, the sense of security from returning to being a regular employee and receiving a "fixed salary every month" was greater. Certainly, employees might not have much freedom, but at least their livelihood is guaranteed. For me, that was the easiest path.
Once again, I realized that the functions of a "salaryman" and a "company" are truly amazing.
- They cover PC costs, electricity, hotel stays, and meals on business trips.
- They pay social insurance and even provide housing subsidies.
- They bring wonderful encounters.
- You can study without paying tuition.
- You get paid just for gaining experience.
- They even provide opportunities to earn more money.
- By using the company's money, brand, and people, you can do work on a scale that is impossible for an individual.
There is no other system like it. Through my experience of becoming a "corpse" at Prudential, I felt the benefits I received at Rakuten deep in my bones. I spent my time at the company driven by the desire to repay Rakuten and Mr. Mikitani for saving me.
Activities at Rakuten
I will omit specific job details, but my broad mission was "Rakuten Mobile reaching 10 million lines" and "making Rakuten Mobile the number one carrier."
(Thanks to everyone, we reached 10 million lines in December 2025. Thank you very much to those who have signed up.)
Then, in a certain year, Mr. Mikitani made a decision: a policy where "all Rakuten employees, regardless of their main job, would pursue individual Rakuten Mobile line acquisitions."
All employees would recommend Rakuten Mobile to family and friends or do flyering. Any means within the rules were allowed to achieve the goal. Although I had a different main job, I started moving toward acquiring individual lines outside of working hours to help the company even a little.
One method of sales that came to mind was: "Can't I spread Rakuten Mobile through SNS?"
There is a considerable risk for a company to have each employee sell Rakuten Mobile on SNS. Mr. Mikitani allowed it. So, I decided I had to do it. Although I had only been a lurker on X until then, I started posting about Rakuten Mobile on this account in March 2024, about two years ago.
I constantly ran PDCA cycles, and before I knew it, I had made 400,000 posts on X in two years. (By the way, I am the only person behind this X account.)
Behind the scenes, I posted an average of 40 long-form videos per month on YouTube. I sowed seeds on almost all major platforms, and eventually, I reached a point where I was facilitating over 3,000 Rakuten Mobile contracts per month through my channels.
In a typical mobile carrier shop, getting 100 lines a month is considered decent. Within that context, I was producing the results of 30 stores with just one employee's labor cost. (To be clear, there are various indirect costs, so it wasn't entirely my power alone, but I am expressing it simply.)
In the midst of this, I resigned from Rakuten. Why?
There are three reasons.
[Reason 1 for Resigning from Rakuten]
I thought I could maximize the number of Rakuten Mobile lines acquired by leaving Rakuten. As is common in large companies, because the organization is big, the interests of various people inside the company get entangled. To me, that felt like a shackle.
In my daily work, there were parts I felt were not essential. I thought it would be more rational to be on the outside rather than the inside to maximize my strengths. I wish I could have done that without resigning, but I couldn't make it happen due to my own lack of ability.
Also, I truly believe Rakuten Mobile is a great service and I love it from the bottom of my heart. That is why I don't want people for whom Rakuten Mobile isn't a good fit to sign up and have a bad experience. As an employee, there were situations where it was difficult to speak honestly. From now on, I want to talk about the challenges of Rakuten Mobile without any hesitation, things I couldn't say as an employee.
[Reason 2 for Resigning from Rakuten]
I felt that for corporate contracts, other major carriers are often better for the customer than Rakuten Mobile.
Since I started this account, I have probably been contacted by over 100 companies wanting to sign corporate contracts for Rakuten Mobile. However, I can say it now: I turned them all down.
There are two reasons:
1. Signal Issues
Rakuten Mobile's signal cannot be said to be better than other major carriers. Docomo, AU, and SoftBank have been building base stations for 20 or 30 years, while Rakuten hasn't even reached 10 years. While it has improved significantly, my honest feeling is that it still doesn't reach the level of other major carriers. While individuals might tolerate it, there are many cases where corporations cannot. At this stage, for corporate contracts with multiple lines, it may be better to choose a carrier with a stronger signal.
2. Pricing Issues
In corporate contracts, there are cases where other major carriers are cheaper than Rakuten Mobile. This is because every carrier can propose "negotiated contracts"—special plans not listed on the official website—for corporate multi-line contracts. Since mobile carriers are desperate for corporate customers, they sometimes offer plans even cheaper than existing contracts in a sort of "last-minute counter-offer." That is a negotiated contract. In these cases, the plan price often becomes cheaper than Rakuten Mobile.
I explain this mechanism in more detail in the following article:
How to Contract Corporate Mobile Phones Cheaply
Corporate owners, sole proprietors, and freelancers who have business phones should definitely read it. It might help reduce fixed communication costs.
By the way, there are various "dark sides" to the mobile industry. I have summarized them here:
The Dark Side of the Mobile Industry
[Reason 3 for Resigning from Rakuten]
Because I wanted to change the life insurance industry.
As I mentioned at the beginning, I was originally a salesman for Prudential Life. What I saw there was the darkness of the insurance industry. My family was also caught up in that darkness.
Let me tell you a bit about my father and mother.
When I was born, my parents joined an insurance policy from a major life insurer. The premium was about 20,000 yen each per month. They continued to pay it for 40 years.
Back when I was at Prudential, I asked them, "Do you understand the contents of your insurance?" Their answer was vague: "It seems to be a set of coverage and savings," or "I should get money back if I cancel."
Even so, they kept paying for 40 years just because "the agent is a nice person."
So, I checked my parents' insurance policies for the first time. It was a common product from a major life insurer. When I told them the actual contents, my mother was almost in tears.
Because after paying 20,000 yen every month for 40 years, the amount accumulated was only 500,000 yen. The total amount the two of them paid was about 19.2 million yen. My mother thought most of it would come back.
Please don't misunderstand; it wasn't a fraudulent product. It is a flagship product of major life insurers called "Account-type insurance." I explain the details of this content in this article:
The Dark Side of Personal Insurance
The root of the darkness in the insurance industry is that "the product proposed to the customer is determined by the high commission the salesman receives."
For example, Product A is a better fit for the customer. However, the commission for the salesman is larger for Product B. So, Product B is proposed. This kind of nonsense happens daily. For an insurance policy of about 20,000 yen a month, the salesman gets about 240,000 yen in commission. Depending on the product, there can be a difference of 50,000 to 500,000 yen in this commission. Behind the proposal handed to the customer, the salesman's cut is calculated in detail.
Honestly, the life insurance industry is far darker than the mobile industry. I was at Prudential myself, and I deeply regret that I wasn't able to make proposals that were truly for the customer's benefit.
Also, it is painful for me to say, but you should stop buying insurance from salesmen who can only sell their own company's insurance (=captive agents). This isn't about the good or evil of individual salesmen, but about the structure. I explain this in detail here:
The Dark Side of Personal Insurance
In conclusion, I recommend getting insurance from an "agency" that can handle products from multiple companies. There, it is best to get the insurance that fits you best from an excellent insurance agent who doesn't think about their own commission. Life insurance is not something you contract out of obligation. I hope more people can correctly choose what is truly necessary for their lives.
For these three reasons, I resigned from Rakuten.
My Fundamental Desire
I've talked about many things, but my consistent desire is "to reduce the number of people who lose money just because they don't know the right information."
For example, a 6,000 yen monthly phone bill becomes 2,000 yen by switching to Rakuten Mobile.
- 4,000 yen savings per month
- 48,000 yen savings per year
- 1,440,000 yen savings over 30 years
If you cut fixed costs like phone bills, you can use that money for more important things. In life insurance, if the products are similar, 3,000 yen a month is better than 10,000 yen.
I want you to reduce your phone bills and use your money for more important things in your one and only life. I want you to join life insurance correctly and protect yourself and your loved ones. That is my wish.
To Mr. Mikitani
Even as a CEO with tens of thousands of employees, Mr. Mikitani works harder than anyone, sweats, and takes command himself. I still think that sight is truly cool from the bottom of my heart.
Rakuten is a truly good company. The corporate philosophy of "Empowering people and society through innovation" is ingrained in all employees. I am convinced that its organizational strength represents Japan. I am proud to have worked here.
From now on, I intend to pull Rakuten up from the outside. During my time there, the maximum number of lines I personally facilitated in a single month was 3,213. After resigning, I will create a system to facilitate 10,000 lines every month by December 2026. I want to achieve Mr. Mikitani's mission of "Empowering people and society through innovation" together from the outside.
Finally
[If you would like to consult about corporate lines, I will connect you with a reliable agency]
While many agencies only handle specific carriers, the agency I trust handles all major carriers and their sub-brands for corporate lines. It is possible to make the best proposal according to the corporation's situation.
Consultations are accepted here:
【Inquiry】Regarding Corporate Mobile
It might help reduce fixed communication costs for corporations. By the way, sole proprietors and freelancers are also eligible.
For more details, please also see the detailed article on corporate mobile:
How to Contract Corporate Mobile Phones Cheaply
[Regarding insurance, if you would like to consult, I will connect you with a financial planner I trust from the bottom of my heart]
Consultations are accepted here:
For more details, please also check the detailed articles on personal and corporate insurance.
The Dark Side of Personal Insurance
The Dark Side of Corporate Insurance
If you "don't really understand your current contract," it might be good to consult as a sort of second opinion. According to the Life Insurance Association of Japan's "2024 National Survey on Life Insurance," the average annual premium per person is about 196,000 yen, or about 16,000 yen per month. Over a lifetime, that's 196,000 yen x 40 years = about 7.84 million yen. I think it's strange to "just keep paying somehow" or "keep paying because of a relationship with an agent" for that much money.
About the Future
I am starting from zero again. Even though I returned to being a salaryman because I lost to the fear of having no fixed salary during my Prudential days, I chose "independence" again. I don't know if this choice is correct right now. But for me, it is a positive decision.
A framework I value is: "When lost in a choice, think about what kind of memories you want to talk about when looking back at the present from decades in the future." There was an option to stay at Rakuten forever, but I think this choice is also very "me" and interesting.
Also, in my private life, I will face bodybuilding competition again. In about five years, I want to be able to enjoy boredom. Until then, I will work like a horse.
To everyone who has been involved with me, thank you very much. I look forward to working with you in the future.
