About this episode

Midori Sato discusses her journey of building an organic food brand in Japan and the challenges she faced when entering the U.S. market.

She built one of Japan's leading organic food brands from a $2,000 investment at a Tokyo farmers market. Fourteen years later, she moved to New York with her daughter to start over — alone, in a language she taught herself, in a market she thought she understood. She didn't. To enter the U.S. market and position for an IPO, she hired three C-suite executives and built the structure she believed the next chapter required. Within a year, the overhead nearly bankrupted the company. The executives weren't the whole problem. The assumptions underneath the decision were — and she didn't see it until it had cost her a year. This conversation is about building in a market you don't fully understand yet, the cost of trusting a playbook past its expiration date, and the moment that actually kept her going. Better Than Butter: betterthanbutterusa.com Midori on Instagram: @midori_betterthan_butter Midori on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/midori-sato If you recognized something in this conversation — joesteele.com . Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. CHAPTERS 0:00 — She almost went bankrupt the next day 0:30 — From $2,000 to 3,000 stores 4:27 — The Silicon Valley trip…

People in this episode

Host: Joe Steele

Guest: Midori Sato

Topics covered

• business strategy
• market entry
• leadership challenges
• entrepreneurship
• organic food industry

Keywords

• organic food
• business failure
• C-suite executives
• market understanding
• entrepreneurial journey

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Better Than Butter, Decision State

Places: Japan, New York, Tokyo

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