NGB / Product & Business Building / Japan ↔ U.S.

Idea.to MVP.to Scale.

NGB combines business development, community, design and AI-native engineering to turn an opportunity into a product people adopt — and a business that can grow.

// not prompting — operating
discover.frame(problem)
design.prototype(flow)
agents.build(full_stack)
human.gate(production)
users.learn(real_behavior)
ship.iterate(scale)
LIVERUN mobile app home screen
Live product
LIVERUN

Four strengths.
One outcome.

NGB connects four capabilities that are usually separated — because building the product is only part of building the business.

01

Business
Development

Identify the opportunity, shape the business model, build partnerships and execute across Japan and the U.S.

Harvard Business School network / U.S. ↔ Japan
Harvard Business School graduation
02

Community
Building

Adoption is only the beginning. Strong products give people a reason to participate, contribute and keep coming back.

Yelp + LIVERUN
LIVERUN team
03

Design

Design Thinking, customer discovery, rapid testing and UI/UX turn ambiguity into something teams can test before making major investments.

Design Thinking / Customer Discovery / UI/UX
Product and venture design work
04

AI-Native
Engineering

Hands-on engineering across mobile, backend, web, data and infrastructure — using AI agents to accelerate execution while people retain control over critical decisions.

Production, not prototypes
iOS + Android
Backend + Realtime
Web + Console
Data + Cloud
Commerce
Release + Ops
Human approval → production

AI
Engineering.

AI agents can dramatically accelerate engineering when they operate inside clear roles, shared knowledge, repeatable procedures and human approval gates.

Human greenlight / escalation gate
MobileFlutter · Swift · Kotlin · GPS · audio · deep links
DataMySQL · Firebase · migrations · integrity · live cutovers
BackendNode · Java · REST · realtime engines · jobs
InfrastructureAWS · Vultr · Docker · nginx · PM2 · TLS
WebVue · Vite · Astro · operator consoles
ReleaseApp Store · Play · subscriptions · incident recovery
AI AGENT
ORGrole context + living knowledge + rituals + gates
One accountable operator → full product engineering surface → production system
01

Live infrastructure

Cross-cloud database migration with a planned cutover and revert path around a live consumer service.

02

Realtime recovery

Event infrastructure designed to re-adopt in-flight customer events after a process restart rather than orphan them.

03

Revenue systems

Subscription entitlement recovery across App Store and Google Play flows, including self-healing on next launch.

04

Legacy forensics

Reverse-engineered undocumented production systems into living specifications grounded in code and live data.

Product development / end-to-end

Don't code the
wrong idea faster.

Observe
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Build
Ship
Learn
Scale

Design helps decide what should exist. Engineering makes it real. Community shows whether people care enough to return.

AI compresses the loop — research, design, implementation, testing, documentation and iteration can increasingly happen in parallel.

Community
at scale.

Regionalization / Community / Market entry

Growth that lasts comes from community — local community managers, user-generated content, partnerships and events that give people a reason to take part and keep returning.

Led Yelp's launch, localization and growth in Japan as Managing Director. Built the Japan organization and grew it through community managers, user-generated content and events rather than paid acquisition — making Japan one of Yelp's fastest-growing international markets, and second worldwide in photo uploads.

Yelp community event in Japan

Through live audio, LIVERUN built a mechanism where highly engaged participants naturally connected with one another and became motivated to share their experiences. By having trainers call participants by name, read their comments, and create a sense of togetherness, each workout became an experience worth sharing. Participants acted not as paid influencers, but as “community-based influencers” who voluntarily spread what they genuinely enjoyed and wanted to support, turning brand messages into trusted word of mouth.

LIVERUN videos posted by users and YouTubers

Design that
survives
reality.

Design Thinking / Customer discovery / Validation

Design Thinking, customer discovery and rapid testing turn an early idea into something a team can actually test — before the organization commits budget, people and reputation to it.

Worked with Mitsui & Co.'s senior leadership, including regular board-level engagement, on venture evaluation and the conditions a new business needs to survive inside a large corporation — bridging startup teams and a global enterprise across real differences in speed, risk tolerance and governance.

Working with Mitsui leadership

Through its work with Moon Creative Lab, Mitsui & Co.'s venture studio, NGB strengthened a practical approach to Design Thinking and new business creation. We help teams move quickly from customer interviews to simple prototypes, real-world testing, and repeated refinement — using clear KPIs to reduce uncertainty and build products and services people genuinely want to use.

Design Thinking workshop

Built to
keep people.

Product / Community / Retention

What decides whether a product becomes a business is whether people come back. Retention is built into the product, the community and the operating model from the start.

Founded LIVERUN and built it from zero through fundraising, product development, commercialization and profitability. More than 1.5 million cumulative participations, 71% one-year retention, and a community that independently organizes over 120 events a year — still growing eight years after launch.

LIVERUN team
JAL Honolulu Marathon

In its partnership with the JAL Honolulu Marathon, LIVERUN has gone beyond simply promoting the race by creating a community experience that builds excitement and engagement well before race day. In the fifth year of the “Run with the Spirit of Honolulu” program, 21 live sessions attracted 6,220 total participants, up 20% year over year, with 33% of the 1,167 unique participants joining the program for the first time. LIVERUN also expanded the experience through on-demand training, digital completion medals, an in-person yoga event in Honolulu, and bilingual running seminars. By combining digital and real-world experiences, LIVERUN helped turn the marathon from a one-day event into a longer journey of training, learning, community, and anticipation.

LIVERUN yoga event in Honolulu

Selected organizations we've worked with.

Mitsui & Co.
Yelp
Casio
Dole
HOKA
Konami
Wacoal
Descente
Osaka
Kyoto
AfterShokz
Mitsui & Co.
Yelp
Casio
Dole
HOKA
Konami
Wacoal
Descente
Osaka
Kyoto
AfterShokz
Selected organizations
Tomo Takada, founder of NGB
The operator behind NGB

Most careers specialize.
His didn't.

NGB is led by Tomo Takada, a founder-operator whose career has crossed business development, community, design and engineering — in both Japan and the United States.

Business Development / Community / Design / Engineering
Meet Tomo ↗

Find it.
Design it.
Build it.
Scale it.

One integrated path from an uncertain opportunity to a working product and a business that can grow.

Start a conversation ↗
NGB