[Why I Joined Teracy] My New Challenge to Bridge Japan and Silicon Valley

My first interaction with the Teracy team started through a random Twitter DM. Emo, the founder, reached out asking for advice on how to expand Teracy to Indonesia.

At the time, I had just exited my startup and was in that weird in-between stage — not fully resting, but not building anything new either.
I was exploring ideas, talking to founders, and figuring out what I wanted to work on next.

So when Emo messaged me, I said sure, let’s chat.
That first call turned out to be one of those unexpectedly good ones.

The team wasn’t just another “remote work app” startup.
You could tell they cared deeply about craft — how things looked, felt, and worked.
Every design detail felt intentional. Every choice seemed to come from people who genuinely loved building great products.

They’d been at it for five years, improving, iterating, and learning from users along the way. You don’t often see that kind of quiet persistence.

I left that call thinking, these people actually care.

Over the next few weeks, we kept talking.
About global expansion, about product culture in Japan,

About what it takes to bring an Asia-based product to the world.

Teracy’s team is mostly Japanese, and they had big global ambitions.
That’s where I felt I could contribute.

Having worked with teams in both Asia and the U.S., I’ve seen how different building cultures can be.

The Japanese way values precision, patience, and long-term craft.
The Silicon Valley way values speed, experimentation, and storytelling.
Both are powerful on their own, but combining them feels special.

Joining Teracy felt like a chance to do that. To learn the Japanese way of building things properly and thoughtfully, while adding what I’ve learned from San Francisco
— How to move fast, ship, and tell a story that resonates globally.

It also helped that I’m based in Asia.
The time zones work.
The cultural values line up.
Building trust and collaboration comes naturally.

Most of all, I joined
because I believe in what Teracy is trying to build.

Most remote tools today are built for efficiency.
But what people really miss isn’t the office — it’s the feeling of being together. The quiet comfort of sitting next to someone working on their own thing. The sense of presence, even without talking.

That’s what Teracy is trying to recreate.

For me, this is a new challenge worth taking on.
Helping an Asia-based startup go global.
Helping a small, obsessive team tell their story to the world.

And maybe, in the process,

shaping what the next generation of remote work can feel like.