Nakano Yoshihisa, a 79-year-old entrepreneur, is a role model I am going to introduce in this blog post. I first came to know him via his book, and was deeply moved by his youthful energy to live everyday as a new journey to explore.
Who is Nakano Yoshihisa 中野善壽
Growing up in post-war years without parents, Nakano was used to living alone and making all decisions by himself. In his long decades of career, he had been in product planning, development, marketing, and new venture development for various department stores in both Japan and overseas. Despite not being able to speak any foreign languages, he moved to Hong Kong, New York and Paris to head the development of new Isetan stores during the bubble economy, and moved to Taiwan in the 90s. In the past decade, he was recruited twice to save two dying companies, by restructuring Terrada Warehouse and AKAO Resort in Atami. Both were facing existential crisis and needed a new direction to avoid being wiped out in debts and changing market conditions.
Nakano single-handedly reinvented Terrada from a warehouse company into a cultural developer, with gallery space that has mass appeal, and storage for high-value goods. In this process, the mundane industrial area around Terrada was redeveloped into a trendy art space in Tennozu, Tokyo. He is now actively working to turn around the AKAO Resort in Atami into a public art center and ultra-luxury resort. In doing so, he also hopes to revitalize the sleepy resort town of Atami into a place people will visit not just to relax, but to savor various cultural endeavors.
In addition, Nakano is an avid supporter for contemporary art and young artists. He has a mission to bridge upcoming artists to more people through everyday programs, so that art will stop being a luxury investment with high brow interpretation. For him, the value of art shouldn’t only be determined by experts such as curators and galleries, but by the heart of each person.
Nakano’s work style
Born in 1944, Nakano seems to defy age not just by how he dresses, but also his work style. His workday is dictated by brisk decision and execution that is reported to dazzle even the young staff he leads. In fact, he views the speed of making judgment calls a major responsibility of a CEO.
What is so inspiring about him is that for someone over 70, he is especially attracted to new challenges, and never blocked by fear of failure. For him, the only thing that matters is now, and anything you can do now is a step forward.
He actually welcomes and adapts to changes with delight and is keen to see things with new perspectives. For that to happen, he deliberately rejects to be tied down by roots, definitions, existing knowledge and forms. This causes him to escape the trap of loss aversion when reinventing a business, as he is not biased by the physical traits and status quo of existing objects. Instead, he always tries to see something’s underlying value to explore new opportunities and unleash the hidden potentials of a property.
Nakano values first hand data he collected in the field, as he proclaims that he is not data-driven, but depends on experiences honed by years of first hand observation and engagement with locals, and being sensitive to macro trends.
Nakano lived a nomad lifestyle before the pandemic, always on the move and splitting his time between Taiwan and Japan, where he lived in company-rent apartment. He subscribes to a minimalist lifestyle, without a home, car or substantial belongings. In fact, he prides himself for being able to live off a backpack and can establish a work base anywhere he goes, and would rather invest his income in nurturing young artists.
Projects where his characters shine
In one of his few interviews, he shares his business ethics as not winning by volume but by observing and learning from how the supposedly weak/small (e.g., rats) survive.
He is able to create value by visualizing the hidden strength of a place with on-site data, outside of P&L, and coming up with unique ways to add value to a place. This is not by focusing on the existing product, but standing on the ground and feeling what it has to offer. In this way, he successfully reframed the business and pricing models of Terrada and AKAO Hotel by not restricting its roles as “storage” or “hotel”, but something much bigger and desirable to modern needs. He is not afraid to change course immediately, or make drastic changes and to away from “what used to be”, “should” or heritage.
Warehouse Terrada
Terrada was a family business responsible for government storage of rice. It ran warehouses along waterways in Tokyo, relying on water transport that becomes obsolete in this modern era when trucking/flight rules. Sensing the dwindling business, the owner invited Nakano to take rein in 2011 to bring new life to the business.
In a few years, Nakano transformed Terrada into a cultural development company. The company campus in Tennozu that used to be a drab piece of industrial estate outside of major business areas, now becomes a premium art complex with hip shops, restaurants, galleries, museums and public art installations. Most importantly, its mini-storage now caters to the ultra rich clientile in Asia (storing antiques, wine collection, art pieces, etc.). He accomplished this by a refocus on what really matters. That includes: - cutting down Terrada’s business scope by 90%, selling most entities that are competing in red sea or unprofitable areas - reducing the workforce to 1/14 - increasing revenue 8x by creating high value-added businesses, and providing much higher utilization and unit price for existing real estate
ACAO Spa & Resort
Hotel New Akao in the hot spring town of Atami, like many older hotels built during the rapid growing economy era, was a big complex catering to company travel, group tour, and honeymoons. In the last decade, travel preferences has changed dramatically and both Atami and this type of hotel fell out of favor. Huge hotel complexes find it increasinly challenging to compete in when smaller, secluded and luxurious lodgings catering couples are prized instead.
In deep debt, Akao’s 3rd descendent owner approached Nakano to help saving his family business in 2021. Fresh off the rein of Terrada in 2019 (by passing the baton to a next generation), Nakano took the challenge by not just revitalizing an aging hotel but also a town that got bypassed by the new generation of tourists.
Staying in Akao and sensing what the land has to offer, he was thinking new ways to unleash the unique value provided by this piece of land, and add new value to it with novel activities. His first step is to rebrand it as ACAO Spa and Resort, and position it not as a hotel, but both a special venue in nature, and an art hub for both creator and patrons near the Kanto area. Art residency programs and grants were created to invite young artists to live in ACAO and create public art pieces to promote conversation with locals. By instilling young workforces, aging towns get fresh perspectives from outside and it is hoped that these young workers can bring in traffic from their existing network.
The other niche that Nakano sees is the beautiful nature surrounding ACAO, which can draw people from the Tokyo metropolitan area over for a weekend trip to refresh and revitalize their tired souls. By pivoting the land into healing gardens and beaches, I think Nakano has successfully extended the business from a red sea of mundane lodgings into something that speaks to the needs of modern city dwellers.
I see some similarity between his ideas for Terrada and AKAO Spa & Resort. In both places, he aimed to hone in a niche to create new and high revenue channels. At the same time, he drastically reduced/removed low-margin business functions that can also be done by others.
The reinvention of ACAO is ongoing and will have its first phase completed by 2027.
What I learnt from Nakano
The first thing I want to “lift” from Nakano as my mentor is his fast judgment and execution in business. At first glance, this can be seen as reckless and impatient. However, from his interviews and books, I come to the impression that he achieved this by a lifelong training of noting macro-trends and anything he encounters everyday, and making both small and large decisions independently to build up an intuition reserve.
The second trait I want to learn from is Nakano’s absence of bias or preconception. He has a fresh mind that is always open to new information and not afraid to change to new course immediately. He doesn’t stick to a specific plan, but trusts his intuition to change and adapt to the current situation. In comparison, how many times did we cling to our beliefs and insist to be right, even when reality poses multiple contradictions? This goes hand in hand with the previous point, that by being open, we are able to take in diverse perspectives that enrich our “toolbox” of mindsets. This rich toolbox allows us to evaluate a situation with more data and come to a decision faster.
Another thing that is valuable to a product person is to create empty space in your daily life, so you have surplus for any impromptu encounter. We usually pack our schedule too full in the pretense of being efficient and productive. But this easily makes our lives too predictable and dulls our sensitivity. Nakano schedules his day in 30/45 minute blocks and deliberately spaces out time for divergent thinking and just “allowing anything to happen”. As he proclaims, some of his exciting ideas and projects came from impromtu meetings with strangers during those “empty” hours.
Finally, I admire his light-hearted and minimalist lifestyle for being able to adapt and go live/work anywhere. For him, any place can be a home to maximize today to create a better future. His motto of I never ask what I desire to do, but just what I should accomplish today inspires me to shake off the morning blue I might have when I wake up, to ask the essential question of what I should do well today to fulfill my purpose. As he said in his book, Discard the illusion of yesterday and tomorrow! The day when you will be fully prepared will never come. Do it now!
Nakano shows that with passion for new challenges and the conscious development of business acumen everyday, retirement is never an attractive option. I think he is an inspiration not just for the elderly, but also for those who are overweighed by a fixed mindset in both professional and personal life.