A sailboat, a 1,000-mile journey, and a new business

Founder and CEO Haruumi Shiode of Nature.

Haruumi Shiode is a globe trotter and world lover. He is one of only a handful of Japanese students to go to Harvard Business School in the past few years, but it is his father who shaped him into the man he is today.

I’m on a boat

The ocean filled an endless horizon and the sound of waves softly caressed the side of the boat. It was the old man, his son, and the sea. Haruumi had taken a three month long journey with his father, across 1,000 miles to one of Japan’s smaller islands of Okinawa. The two planned to celebrate Haruumi’s graduation and his father’s retirement.

Photo credit: Pixabay.

The smell of salt lingered in the breeze that filled the sail, as nature nudged the ship along. “I was alone on the deck,” he remembers. “My father was sleeping in the cabin. It was only the two of us,” he smiles, “there was a full moon and the wind was steady.”

Father time

Haruumi’s relationship with his father has had a huge impact on his life. From technologist to businessman, he takes after the man in many ways.

When Haruumi was in middle school, his family had an old computer in the house. It was the kind with only a green display, on which you couldn’t do much but type documents or maybe hunt on a pixelated Oregon Trail.

One day, his father came home from his computer programming job. Haruumi was tinkering with the computer. “If you can make a kind of Space Invaders game with this computer,” said his father, “I will buy a new one.”

Haruumi hunkered down and started programming in Basic. Three months later, he completed a simple version of Space Invaders. True to his word, his father bought a new computer and the young boy began the process again in C.

This early interaction with computers eventually led him to pursue a degree in computer science, but the decision to jump into entrepreneurship stems from another childhood memory.

Photo credit: Pixabay.

The Sony Playstation had just come out. The platform was completely open and Haruumi’s father took the opportunity to launch a gaming business. One day, Haruumi came home to his father shouting, “Ready, go!” over and over again in the bathroom.

Scraping the earth

Becoming a pilgrim

Kick it like soccer