Seiji Nishimura Explains the Reason Behind His Extravagant Mansion

2024-12-10

Total construction cost: 3 billion yen!

What is the ambition of a businessman with a personal fortune of 30 billion yen?

The Rolls-Royce is a full custom order costing 80 million yen. The doors are designed to open like a temple gate, and the interior sofas provide the highest level of comfort! A dedicated chauffeur handles the driving. For everyday use, he typically drives personal cars such as an AMG or BMW. Additionally, the landscaping around his house cost approximately 130 million yen.

The custom Rolls-Royce, trees imported from South America costing 40 million yen, an infinity pool, and a 40 million yen golden slide create a mansion that seems as if a Hollywood celebrity resides in it. The owner is currently one of the most successful and well-known entrepreneurs in Japan.

“The typical ‘nouveau riche CEO’s bragging about their luxury mansion’ is the most straightforward stereotype, right? You know, making money from bad deeds, and the CEO likes gold… that kind of picture. So, I wanted to make a house that fits that picture perfectly,” says Seiji Nishimura (54), CEO of Excom Global, which runs businesses like Nishitan Clinic and Imoto’s Wi-Fi. In August of this year, Nishimura built a four-story mansion in an upscale residential area in Tokyo. The lavish mansion has become the focus of media attention.

“The total construction cost was about 3 billion yen, and it was around 1.2 million yen per tsubo (a traditional Japanese unit of area).”

In front of the entrance, there are a 40 million yen Parabollacho tree and olive trees imported from Argentina. His three luxury cars, including the full-custom 80 million yen Rolls-Royce and a 30 million yen Mercedes AMG, stand proudly in the parking lot.

Inside, the first floor features a spacious living room, a 7 million yen huge wine cellar, and expensive champagne and wines priced over 100,000 yen per bottle. The second and third floors contain bedrooms and a training gym built for 10 million yen, but the highlight is the rooftop pool on the fourth floor.

“The rooftop pool is an infinity pool with a view of Shibuya, and we spent 40 million yen on a golden slide. Additionally, there’s an outdoor bath with artificial carbonated spring water, a sauna, and a cold bath. While in the pool, I randomly thought it would be nice to see cherry blossoms, so I forced a weeping cherry tree to be planted during the final stages of construction.”

The sparkling chandeliers and the golden interiors of the elevator and toilets complete the ‘nouveau riche’ style mansion.

“The promotional effect of this house has been huge. Since the end of August, two prime-time television programs and one late-night program have already aired. The one-hour golden time program dedicated entirely to this house cost about 8 million yen for a 1-minute commercial. Influencers also introduced it, with 6 million views on TikTok and 1 million views on YouTube.”

**The True Face of an Astute Manager**

Seiji Nishimura is not a nouveau riche; he is an entrepreneur who achieved success through hard work and ingenuity. However, he reflects on a time in his youth when he was genuinely aiming to become a nouveau riche and was quite flashy.

“When I was in my 20s, I had a mindset of ‘I’m going to get big on my own.’ I lived in Roppongi Hills, drove a Ferrari, and partied in Ginza and Roppongi at night. I longed for that kind of life,” Nishimura recalls with a laugh.

Nishimura, who started his own business at 25 after working for a consulting company, didn’t immediately walk the path of success. His first venture, a voice mail business, didn’t take off, and within two years, he accumulated 70 million yen in debt. He went through a period of trial and error before the overseas Wi-Fi rental service, “Imoto’s Wi-Fi,” launched in 2012, became a huge success.

“Before ‘Imoto’s Wi-Fi,’ we mainly focused on B2B (business-to-business) services, but we shifted to B2C (consumer services), and that clicked and took off. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we took a massive hit. Sales plummeted by 98%, and I seriously thought about bankruptcy—those two words crossed my mind, and my body was shaking,” he says.

But Nishimura quickly saw an opportunity in the PCR testing business amid the pandemic.

“In 2019, we established ‘Nishitan Clinic,’ originally a beauty clinic, and we were one of the first to launch a PCR testing service. Instead of going to a testing site, customers could collect saliva at home with a kit and send it back for testing. During the peak, we generated 1 billion yen in sales per day, and our total revenue exceeded 17.6 billion yen, making a V-shaped recovery in less than a year.”

The commercials for “Nishitan Clinic” feature singer Hiroshi Go (69) and the comedy trio “3ji no Heroin” in glamorous outfits, singing and dancing wildly, while actor Eiichiro Funakoshi (64) and Hitomi Kuroki (64) repeat the phrase “Nishitan, Tan” in suspenseful drama-like settings.

**“My marketing theory is all about going for recognition. People feel more comfortable with products that are widely known, rather than those they’ve never heard of,”** Nishimura explains.

Nishimura’s strategy to go for recognition is thorough. While the commercials repeat the phrase “Nishitan, Tan,” they never explain the clinic’s services like beauty or diet support.

“By repeatedly hearing the words ‘Nishitan Clinic,’ there’s no need to explain the details of the services. If people remember the name, they’ll definitely look up the clinic online if they’re interested,” he says.

The result of this impact-driven approach is the use of famous celebrities in unique visuals and catchy songs, repeatedly playing the phrases “Nishitan” and “Imoto’s Wi-Fi.” However, due to the intense repetition, some viewers have expressed negative opinions, saying, “It’s annoying” or “I hate the repeated phrases.”

“In today’s world, where needs are diversified, it’s almost impossible to create a commercial that everyone will accept. If you make a commercial with impact, some people will dislike it. But if you focus on that, you’ll only end up with something mediocre,” Nishimura asserts.

Indeed, his strategy of ignoring universal appeal in favor of impactful commercials has paid off.

“The CM Research Institute ranks commercials every two weeks, and out of over 2,000 commercials, half don’t score any points. This means that half of the commercials don’t stay in people’s minds. If you’re so concerned about not having a bad image, you end up with a commercial that no one remembers, which is pointless.”

He believes that the existence of critics is a sign of high recognition. “When we aired the new ‘Nishitan’ commercial, if there were many anti-comments in the first three days on social media, I knew that commercial would become very popular.”

**New Business and Beyond**

As his business success grew, Nishimura’s values began to shift as well.

“Ultimately, if you focus only on money, when the company becomes a certain size, people start to fall away. It becomes ‘So, the CEO is all about money after all.’ Also, the birth of my child was a big turning point. Kids, they’re happier going for a walk in the park than eating at a fancy restaurant. That feeling of happiness, I started to really experience it. Of course, having money is better than not having it, but I’ve come to believe that as long as there are warm human relationships at work and at home, that’s what truly brings happiness.”

With his evolving perspective, Nishimura is now pushing forward with a new major business venture: **infertility treatment**. This idea has been in the works for about 10 years, and in June 2022, he began supporting the opening of the **Nishitan ART Clinic** in Shinjuku.

“As I began to understand the true meaning of happiness, I wanted to genuinely contribute to society. I realized that infertility treatment was the most socially meaningful business. When a new life is born, it marks the beginning of a family’s story. The weight of the ‘thank you’ that we receive is entirely different. There’s no better work than this. I want to fully commit the rest of my life to infertility treatment.”

For Nishimura, it’s not just about business success, but about contributing to society at large. At the same time, he is also committed to living his life in a way that reflects his values.

“When I was in college, I worked part-time at a funeral company. The number of attendees, their faces, their demeanor—funerals are a direct reflection of the life that person lived. There are funerals where many people come, and others where no one comes. So, when I die and they hold my funeral, I want as many people as possible to say, ‘Thank you, Nishimura.’ That’s the kind of life I want to lead.”

The next strategy, following his grand mansion and impactful commercials, is sure to surprise and astonish the public once again.

Parabolaccio: 40 million yen / Means drunkard’s tree in Spanish and derives from the fact that the swollen trunk of the tree looks like a drunkard’s belly.