One Year After Leaving Trinity, and What Stayed the Same

May 1, 2026. For the wider world it may be May Day or the middle of Golden Week, with various meanings, but for me it is a very significant, important milestone.

May 1, 2006. Twenty years ago today, I founded Trinity Corporation with just three people. From there I ran it continuously for about twenty years.

May 1, 2025. On this day last year I graduated from that company, sold my shares, and brought it to a close.

Hossy.org

The First Step, Once Again | Blogs | Hossy.orgHossy.org is an announcement that after leaving Trinity, Hossy will share his experiences via a blog and podcast.[AI summary]

As you can see, May 1 is a date that means a lot to me. From May 1 last year until today it has been exactly one year. This time I will write about what has “changed” and what has “not changed” in this past year compared to the previous twenty years.

The Day the “Entrepreneurial Brain” Stopped

There have been many changes. But the biggest was a change in my mind.

For the twenty years I ran Trinity, I literally thought about the company 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I don’t remember when I was asleep, but while awake I poured almost all my time into Trinity. From the moment I woke up: today’s tasks, this month’s numbers, next fiscal year’s strategy, hiring, product development, relationships with partners. A task list for Trinity was always running in my head and it never stopped.

That stopped abruptly on the day I graduated.

For the first few days, to be honest, there was an indescribable blankness. It might sound like a sense of liberation, but it felt closer to an engine that had been running for twenty years suddenly cutting out. Even when I woke up, there was no need to think about Trinity. It’s not that I wasn’t allowed to think about it, but even if I did there was nothing I could do anymore. That fact of “being unable to do anything” was somewhat unsettling at first.

However, after a few more days something else began to fill that blank: new ideas, things I had been curious about, people I wanted to meet, things I wanted to try. Maybe the engine hadn’t stopped so much as the fuel had been replaced.

Giving Up All Rights

When leaving Trinity I transferred the business in a way that left me with no rights to intervene. I sold my shares and completely relinquished any role in management.

This was an intentional choice. If I remained in a half-hearted way, it would make things difficult for the people who took over. If the former founder stays on as a shareholder or lingers nearby with the title of advisor, the dynamic of “the previous CEO says to do it this way” inevitably arises. I believed that would be negative for both those taking over and for the company’s growth, so I stepped away cleanly.

So over the past year I have completely refrained from telling the management who took over Trinity “you should do this” or “you should do that.” I sometimes see Trinity’s new product information on social media, and I hear people around me talk about recent Trinity news. Each time I feel a little conflicted. But that’s different from wanting to meddle. It’s closer to watching something I raised walk away from my hands. I’m not sure if “letting go of a child” is the right expression, but it’s that kind of emotion.

As many of you may know, Trinity has continued to grow steadily even without me. It may even be accelerating its growth. I watch over it with a little sadness and a great deal of pride.

Hossy.org

Podcast “Real Management” Episode 4 “The Reality of Graduation” is about stock transfer | Blogs | Hossy.orgThe podcast “Real Management” features an explanatory article in Episode 4 discussing the background of the stock transfer and business succession.[AI summary]

From Decision-Maker to Supporter

Now that my involvement with Trinity became zero, what I originally planned to do was use my time more freely: for example, play music or read novels. I’ve always really liked novels, but after starting the company I rarely had time to read anything other than technical or professional books needed for work.

Hossy.org

Having Become a Free Person: Things I Want to Try From Now On | Blogs | Hossy.orgAn article outlining the post-Trinity wrap-up of residual work, the redistribution of activities at Eureka Studio, the policy for resuming hobbies, and future outlook.[AI summary]

However, in reality I hardly had any time to spend leisurely during this past year.

Right now I am supporting the management of an acquaintance’s company and advancing several new projects in parallel. In the end, days of doing nothing and immersing myself in hobbies did not arrive.

I will introduce the management support in detail soon, but because a longtime acquaintance’s company was in trouble, I am helping with overall management and sales. Naturally the CEO is someone else, and the person who makes the final decisions is also different. I am strictly in a supporting role.

This is more difficult than I imagined.

For twenty years I was the final decision-maker. Once I decided “this is the way,” all that remained was to run with everything I had. Even if the decision was wrong, it was my responsibility and I could correct course myself. But in the role of a supporter, the final judgment is entrusted to others. Even in situations where I might choose differently, if I speak too much I deprive them of their decision-making ability, and I’m not in a position to bear the ultimate responsibility. That said, staying silent would make the support meaningless, so you must also say hard things.

Measuring that distance, to be honest, is the part I’ve struggled with the most. There is certainly the frustration I mentioned earlier. At the same time there is also the freshness of stepping into areas I hadn’t been involved in before. What I did for about twenty years as a manager can be put to use in other ways. That has been a more interesting discovery than I expected.

I once wrote that I wanted to continue being useful to someone in some way, and being able to actually do that was a great opportunity.

Hossy.org

Having Become a Free Person: Things I Want to Try From Now On | Blogs | Hossy.orgAn article outlining the post-Trinity wrap-up of residual work, the redistribution of activities at Eureka Studio, the policy for resuming hobbies, and future outlook.[AI summary]

The Unchanging Roots

From here I will talk about what hasn’t changed.

After all, the spirit to try something new has not changed at all. What I was most strongly reminded of this year is that this impulse is at the root of who I am.

This hasn’t changed since the Trinity days. From then on, if something I wanted didn’t exist, I thought I’d make it myself. If I wanted a particular case or accessory for a smartphone, we’d make it ourselves. We even made a smartphone itself—thinking “I want something like this rather than an iPhone”—which resulted in the NuAns NEO smartphone. Those were the twenty years I continued doing that.

Even in my new activities after leaving Trinity, the underpinning is the same. Things I want or places I want, or things I believe should be a certain way, are not actually that way. I want to change that unfortunate state. The attitude of shaping things to match my ideals, including the places I envision, has not fundamentally changed.

Regarding the new projects mentioned in the “changed” section, there are some I can unveil this year and others I expect to unveil around next year. There is still little I can publicly write, but both are challenges to the current situation where “things should be like this but are not.” I’ll write more when they take shape, but essentially it may look like I’ve changed, yet I haven’t.

When the projects are opened, people who know me will probably feel that I really haven’t changed after all. Look forward to it.

A Year of Choosing “Things You Can Only Do Now”

Looking back, this past year was completely different from before. That said, it wasn’t something I disliked.

Many of the things I said I would do beforehand I haven’t done yet. Conversely, I’m doing things now that I couldn’t have imagined at the time. I judged that reading books, watching movies, and traveling could wait a little longer. Instead, I decided to throw myself into “things that can only be done now.” The fifty-year-old “bucho” who was at the company when I became a working adult was the archetypal big, imposing older gentleman, but I believe I haven’t become that yet. I’ll do the leisurely things once the engine starts to wear and I no longer run as smoothly.

As a result, I did not choose a retirement life of merely taking it easy. Or rather, I don’t think I could have chosen that. If something appears before me that I want to make or change, I can’t help but get involved. I have come to recognize again that that may be the essence of who I am.

Hossy.org

At the Start of 2026. Beyond a Turning Point, Toward a New Step. | Blogs | Hossy.orgHossy.org is an introductory article reporting on leaving Trinity, a look back at 2025, and the resumption of the podcast.[AI summary]

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
— Steve Jobs
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
— Steve Jobs

★

One year after being released from twenty years of running the company. Many things have changed. The fuel that powers the engine in my head has been replaced, my role has shifted, and the way I spend my days has changed. Still, I feel the things that haven’t changed have been more significant to me.

I want to create things, break through adversity, and give shape to my ideals. That impulse alone hasn’t changed at all since the day the three of us founded the company twenty years ago. I don’t know what the next year will bring. But the policy of putting everything into what can only be done now will remain unchanged.