is a Japanese internet entrepreneur, founder and director until 2011 of the "paperboy" company, and founder of the "studygift" fundraising site. He stood for election as

governor of Tokyo The is the head of government of Tokyo. In 1943, upon the unification of Tokyo City and Tokyo Prefecture, the position of Governor was created. The current title was adopted in 1947 due to the enactment of the Local Autonomy Law. Overview The ...

in 2014, running an online campaign and obtaining 1.8% of the vote.

Early life

Ieiri was born in

Fukuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders S ...

. He dropped out of high school after less than a year and became a "''

hikikomori , also known as acute social withdrawal, is total withdrawal from society and seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. ''Hikikomori'' refers to both the phenomenon in general and the recluses themselves. ''Hikikomori'' ha ...

''" (shut-in), teaching himself computer programming and socializing on a

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...

using a computer he received as a middle school graduation gift. After working various jobs including delivering newspapers and graphic design, he started his first company, a web design and server rental firm called "paperboy & co."

Paperboy company

By the age of 27 he had built the company to have 72 employees and 850 million yen in annual revenue; at the age of 29, he became the youngest CEO to have a company listed on

JASDAQ , formerly the is one of the sections of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It was formerly an independent stock exchange. JASDAQ is not related to NASDAQ in the United States, but has operated an electronic trading system similar to NASDAQ. History In 1 ...

when Paperboy went public (). Ieiri resigned as a director of paperboy in March 2011.

Other enterprises

Ieiri branched out into several new businesses following the paperboy IPO, establishing a restaurant and cafe and setting up the "liverty" group of online content creators. In May 2012, at the request of two

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

students, he established an online platform called "studygift" to provide

crowd funding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...

for individuals' educational expenses. The site was quickly criticized by online commenters for its lack of clarity regarding the use of donated funds, the activity of the students listed on the site and the possibility that they would not actually return to school. In 2013, he led a campaign on Twitter to send donations to a new mother who could not pay the hospital bills for her child's birth without going into debt.

Candidate for governor of Tokyo

In 2014, Ieiri announced his candidacy for governor of Tokyo. He stated on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

that he would run if his tweet was retweeted 1,000 times, and achieved this milestone within 30 minutes; one of the retweeters was noted internet entrepreneur

Takafumi Horie is a Japanese entrepreneur who founded Livedoor, a website design operation that grew into a popular internet portal. After being arrested and charged with securities fraud in 2006, he severed all connections with the company. His trial began o ...

(who provided the 3 million yen deposit necessary for Ieiri to stand in the election). Ieiri ran an unorthodox campaign by Japanese standards, in which he raised \7.2 million in campaign funds by

and conducted

live streaming Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...

of his campaign headquarters. Instead of proposing his own policy platform, he set up an online platform to gather policy ideas from his supporters. He obtained 1.8% of the vote.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ieiri, Kazuma 1978 births Japanese chief executives Japanese company founders Living people Tokyo gubernatorial candidates