It has been almost four years since I founded SOPHOLA.
At the earliest stage, the most difficult part was the lack of credibility.
Calling new clients for business appointments, dealing with financial institutions, and getting any support from local authorities resulted in all terrible things. Every day we wondered, “Is our business not needed in Nagano Prefecture?” At the same time, I was gradually losing confidence and self-esteem gained through my tangible achievements at relatively renown companies like IREP, Hakuhodo, and Rakuten in Japan. Honestly speaking, I was totally devastated that I was not good enough not only as an entrepreneur/manager but also as a business-person.

Facing my own true ability with no company recognition behind my back, I quickly decided that I had no choice but to create credibility as an individual/company and have been doing so for the past four years. (Please refer to my past blogs to see how I have created credibility! (laugh)) Do we have enough credibility now?  Nah, but we will continue to be conscious of how to enhance it as an individual/company as I engage in various activities. Although it will be a small part of that, we decided to make it known that we are a “certified partner of Google/Amazon advertising” just in case. (I don’t really care about this kind of accreditation if I belong to an established company:))

・SOPHOLA: Certified as a Google Partner for 2022
https://sophola.jp/en/news/google_partner_2022/
・SOPHOLA: Certified as an Amazon Ads Partner for 2022

SOPHOLA: Certified as Amazon Ads Partner

What will lead to the credibility of the company, even if only a little, is to share these little company updates and to continue to respond sincerely to existing customers and partners…. Anyway, we’ll keep this in mind and keep on doing what we are doing!

Masaki “Mark” Iino
Founder & CEO
SOPHOLA, Inc
P.S. Pointing his finger at some object, my son often now asks, “Who is this?”
I’m very much inspired by his constant attitude of learning;)