The story of a homeless entrepreneur in Silicon Valley

Founder and CEO of Hack Jpn, Hikaru Tomura turned the palindrome age of 22 this year.

Hikaru Tomura was born the year Netscape was founded. He is a child of the internet who studied abroad in Canada at a young age and was among the first users of Facebook in Japan.

“No one was using using Facebook then. I would reach out to politicians and famous business people and they would accept my request.”

In high school, he envied young entrepreneurs in San Francisco with tens of thousands of Twitter followers to his measly 100. “Why is there such a difference?” he wondered.

“In Japan, we get good scores on paper, but we don’t show our value to the world,” he feels. “A test score is only bragging. I was so embarrassed when I saw what people my age were doing in Silicon Valley.”

Hikaru felt like he needed a change of environment. During his last year in high school he hitchhiked across Japan, interviewing over 500 politicians and business leaders.

“I learned that the most important thing is to hold onto your principles.” To the shock of his parents and teachers, Hikaru hopped off the “great school, great job” path so many still wish for in Japan and flew to California.

Hard floors

To brush up on his English skills and save some money, Hikaru started an English school in the Philippines, a travel agency, and a few other projects. In a number of months he saved up around US$50,000. He thought that would last about four years in America.

I thought this would be the hardest part of my life. If I could get through this, I could start something new.

“McDonald’s in Japan is 24 hours so I thought I could just stay there.” Hikaru was surprised when the American burger joint kicked him out at 10pm. He moped back to his community college campus.

“I was walking around and in the parking lot I found another student,” he remembers. “I don’t have a place to stay,” he pleaded. Hikaru was officially homeless.

The kind student housed Hikaru for a full month. He then bounced from place to place. “Another person let me stay on his couch for a few months.”

Hikaru grossly underestimated the money he would need in San Francisco. The fact that the yen jumped from 80 to the dollar to 120 didn’t help either.

Something new