1. The Direct Message
A direct message arrived on LinkedIn from an HR representative at a blockchain startup. It was in English.
The company was building products on decentralized technology and was looking to fill a senior engineering position. The message said they had found my profile and wanted to talk.
Messages like these are not unusual. But this one felt different. I read it and immediately thought, "This is interesting." The tech stack looked familiar. Distributed systems, cryptography, consensus algorithms — all of these overlapped with the component technologies I had published on zenn.dev.
2. After Maui
The timing of this message matters. It came after the experience in Maui.
The Lahaina fire of August 2023. Witnessing a historic town vanish overnight changed something inside me. The weight of "things that are lost" became something I understood not intellectually but physically. That became the origin of TokiStorage.
But at the same time, that experience forged resilience. After learning what is truly frightening in life, the fear of career choices disappeared. Going through a selection process in English, negotiating as an equal with an overseas company — I might have hesitated before. But after Lahaina, it was not frightening.
3. Everything in English
The entire selection process was in English. From the initial message, through the casual interview, technical Q&A, and culture-fit conversations with the team.
What matters here is that I am a native Japanese speaker in the purest sense. Not a returnee from abroad. No study-abroad experience. I did spend multiple stays in Maui with my family in 2025, but the foundation of my English was built domestically before that. Yet I progressed through a selection process with an overseas startup in English, engaged in technical discussions, and ultimately declined on my own terms.
English proficiency does not develop overnight. But the moment I stopped pursuing "perfect English," things became dramatically easier. What communication requires is not grammatical precision but clarity of thought. If you can accurately convey what you think, what you propose, and what you question, minor grammatical imperfections do not matter.
This is especially true for technical English. Architecture discussions, code reviews, explaining design decisions — these are conversations in the language of logic, and logic grants no native-speaker advantage.
4. The Blockchain Sample
As the process advanced, I was asked to build a sample project and present a demo. A small application running on a blockchain, to demonstrate technical capability.
Honestly, it would have been easy. The component technologies I had published on zenn.dev — smart contracts, distributed ledgers, consensus mechanisms — could be assembled into a demo-grade product in a matter of days.
But before moving my hands, I paused.
5. The Post-Blockchain Conviction
In my mind, TokiStorage is "post-blockchain."
The problems blockchain set out to solve — tamper-proof records, distributed storage, guaranteeing trust — TokiStorage solves through different means. Quartz glass is physically tamper-proof. Three-layer distributed storage guarantees trust not through consensus algorithms but through independence of failure modes. The National Diet Library carries a longer track record of institutional permanence than any blockchain network.
Precisely because I understand blockchain's technical elements, I can see its limits. A network dependent on consensus becomes fragile when participants dwindle. The energy cost of mining, scalability constraints, the theoretical risk of a 51% attack. On a thousand-year timescale, blockchain was not sufficient.
That is why I chose quartz glass. Permanence guaranteed by physical law alone, requiring no servers, no network, no electricity. This is not the "next step" beyond blockchain but an "alternative answer" — a more fundamental approach to the same goal blockchain was reaching for.
6. A Native Japanese Speaker's Path to English
I want to document how I built my English ability, for those walking the same road.
There was nothing special about the process. What was special was that I did not stop.
Read technical documentation in English. Ask questions on Stack Overflow in English. Write GitHub Issues in English. It is slow at first. But because technical English has a limited vocabulary, speed catches up within six months. Reading and writing are covered.
The real problem is pronunciation. The primary reason Japanese speakers' English fails to communicate is neither vocabulary nor grammar — it is pronunciation. I attacked this relentlessly.
I used ELSA Speak Speech Analyzer to correct pronunciation at the phoneme level. The AI scores every single sound, making invisible habits visible. Distinguishing th from s, l from r, v from b. Rebuilding sounds that do not exist in Japanese, starting from mouth shape and tongue position.
Repetitive training with Google Gemini was equally effective. Pick a topic, speak in English, listen to the response, speak again. The kind of repetitive drilling that feels awkward with a human partner becomes limitless with AI. I also used OpenAI's text-to-speech to listen to model pronunciation on repeat, ingraining the rhythm and intonation of spoken English into my body. Listen to native speech, then raise the fidelity of your imitation. This is the work of acquiring English as a spoken language — something no grammar textbook can teach.
Another principle I adopted was radical simplification. Two-word expressions — "Sounds good." "Makes sense." "Let's proceed." "Not quite." "Almost there." — I trained myself to convey intent precisely through short phrases like these. The longer the sentence you attempt, the more it falls apart. Keep it short, keep it accurate, convey only the intent. I am convinced this is the most efficient English strategy for a native Japanese speaker.
Above all, mastering the basics. "Can I ...?" to ask permission. "Could you ...?" to make a request. "I'd like to ..." to express intent. "What do you think about ...?" to solicit an opinion. The actions required in a business setting — asking, requesting, proposing, confirming — are almost entirely covered by these few patterns. Drilling these basics until they become reflexive is far more practical than memorizing sophisticated expressions. In an interview or a meeting, what you ultimately need is "ask permission," "convey a request," and "confirm understanding." When the template for each is wired into your body, conversation flows.
Conversation is a different muscle. But for technical discussions, preparation covers 80% of the ground. Practicing how to explain your architecture in English, preparing answers to anticipated questions in English. The remaining 20% is real-time judgment — which is the same skill in any language.
The most important turning point was the mental shift from "being able to use English" to "working in English." English is not the objective; it is a tool. Better to focus on what you build with the tool than to obsess over perfecting the tool itself. An imperfect tool works perfectly well when what you want to build is clear.
English proficiency is not a question of perfection.
It is a question of clarity in what you want to convey.
7. The Choice to Decline
I had the technical skill to build the sample project. I had the English to pass the selection. The resilience forged after Maui left no room for hesitation.
But I declined.
The reason is simple. TokiStorage is more interesting.
I chose to shape my own conviction rather than implement someone else's vision at a blockchain startup. Because it was technically easy, the choice was all the clearer. Not "I can, therefore I do" but "I can, yet I choose not to" — the ability to make that judgment is, I believe, the change that Maui brought.
The dialogue with the headhunter was not wasted. The fact that I could pass a selection process in English confirmed my market value. The experience of engaging in technical discussion on equal footing with an overseas startup became the foundation of confidence for taking TokiStorage global.
And above all, the very ability to decline is a freedom that a zero-burn-rate business structure affords. When there is no need to take the next job to survive, you can choose only what you truly want to do.
Having options and choosing not to exercise them
are two sides of the same freedom.
"I can, but I choose not to" is
fundamentally different from "I cannot."
What creates that difference is the accumulation of skill, language, and resilience.