Kazuki Kamada Reflects on His Connection with Top YouTubers

HIKAKIN’s beatboxing: “This is it!

If I hadn’t met HIKAKIN, I wonder what I would be doing now.

(Laughs)” smiles Kazuki Kamata, 40, founder of UUUM. UUUM” is the industry’s largest management company with many YouTube stars. Many famous YouTubers belong to the company, including YouTube pioneer HIKAKIN, who boasts a total of approximately 28 million subscribers, as well as Hajime Shacho (approximately 17 million subscribers) and Fischer’s (approximately 11 million subscribers). Last year, Mr. Kamata stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Directors. We went to meet him to get to know his true face.

We found Mr. Kamata’s new office in Azabudai Hills (Minato Ward), a new landmark in Tokyo.

I was able to create UUUM, a company that symbolizes the times, because I was trained in my 20s as a corporate employee of Hikari Tsushin,” he said. There is no doubt about that.”

Mr. Kamata said at the beginning of his speech.

One day in 2011, when he was in charge of cell phone sales, HIKAKIN appeared as a guest at a customer service contest. At the time, he was posting videos on YouTube while working at a supermarket.

YouTuber. …… sounds interesting.”

Kamata later rose to become the youngest executive officer at Hikari Tsushin, but left the company with a view to starting his own business. He started a small company and was searching for a new business. Then, in 2001, he happened to run into HIKAKIN again at a party. On the night he saw HIKAKIN beatboxing again, Mr. Kamata had a feeling that “This is it! He felt that he had found it.

A few days later, Mr. Kamata met with HIKAKIN and asked him, “What is a YouTuber? How do you make a living? What is a YouTuber? At that time, he was desperate to materialize the thoughts he had in the back of his mind.

Become the number one job you want to be!

Let’s do business related to YouTubers!

Mr. Kamata and his employees watched YouTube every day at his office in Harajuku, and went to meet with the YouTube stars with the most subscribers in order of number of subscribers.

They had a lot of work from agencies, but they were having a hard time processing it all. That’s when the idea of creating an office to serve as a window for their work came about.

In 2002, the company moved to Roppongi Hills (Minato-ku). The company signed contracts with top-class YouTubers one after another, and its business quickly grew. ……

The hardest thing for me was that people didn’t understand the term “YouTube. At the time, there was still no market, so I believed that creating a market and gaining an overwhelming share of the market, and repeating this process would expand the size of the company.

While engaged in sales activities, Mr. Kamata also worked hard to educate the public.

I felt that I had found the gemstones, the people who would overflow in the future, and I was aware of their influence. However, it was still difficult to find a way to communicate this to as many people as possible.

In 2008, YouTube became the number one job that elementary school students wanted to become.

I was happy. It was a moment when all the work we had done paid off. It was a great experience for me to create a new profession.

It has been exactly one year since Mr. Kamata graduated from UUUM. He is currently in the process of setting up various projects, but what did he and his ally HIKAKIN say about his “graduation?

On June 27 last year, which was the anniversary of the founding of UUUM, I invited HIKAKIN to my room and talked with him. I told him that I was thinking of graduating from UUUM, and he said something like, ‘I’m sad, but it’s your life, Kamata-san. Even though he and I have different goals, I feel that we have climbed the mountain together.

Mr. Kamata smiled a little sadly as he said this.

From the October 11, 2024 issue of FRIDAY