Hi, I’m Tomo.
I’ve spent the last decade-plus getting paid to explain complicated technology to humans — first at Heroku, then Stripe, then as a Staff Solutions Architect at Aiven, and now as a Customer Solutions Architect at Supabase. Along the way I somehow became the person who shows up early in a new market (Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, India) and tries to figure out what “good” looks like before anyone’s written it down.
My favorite career story: I grew one Japanese customer relationship from about $50K to $3M, mostly by refusing to stop asking “wait, why does this actually work the way it does?”
On the side, I founded Brightenly K.K., where I’ve been building a communications-centric CRM for freelancers and small businesses — which means I now get to experience the exact same technology-adoption problem from the other side of the table. Advising software companies is one thing; trying to get actual humans to pay for and use the thing you built is a very different, much humbler exercise.
This blog lives at the intersection of technology, business, customers, and Japan/APAC. I write about databases, developer platforms, AI, why certain infrastructure companies win and others quietly don’t, what it’s like being wedged between engineering and sales, and lessons (mostly expensive ones) from building Brightenly. Occasionally I’ll wander into travel, investing, or whatever I’m currently overthinking.
If you want to talk shop — or just tell me I got something wrong — reach out.