iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Baribacoin was sold out at the toy store. So was Beyblade. Online, resold at double the price. Just a coin you flick with your finger. A kid with his own pocket money, buying what's popular. Who is that experience for now? letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/from-beigo...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

From Beigoma to Beyblade, One Year Later【Weekend Tokyo#054】

From Beigoma to Beyblade, One Year Later

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Japan's labor-shortage bankruptcies hit a record. Most weren't about finding people. They were about paying them. Meanwhile, I spent years in HR asking people to leave. When workers are sorted by who can afford them, what part of work falls through? letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/japan-is-r...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

Japan Is Running Out of Workers. I Have Been Letting People Go.【Workday Tokyo#058】

On the day labor-shortage bankruptcies hit a record

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A small ballpark in Tokyo is named after a haiku poet. He loved baseball, and kept writing about it from his sickbed. Older men watch strangers play from outside the fence. Where does the feeling around Japanese baseball come from? letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/the-poet-o...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

The Poet Outside the Fence【Weekend Tokyo#058】

Masaoka Shiki, a small ballpark in Ueno, and the floods of 1896

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Day 61 of #Shipaton2026 v1.3.6 approved — last update during the hackathon. Since August: early mornings, late nights, weekends. More features, more skins, first time on TikTok and YouTube. My first hackathon, genuinely fun. MyFes keeps going. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Day 60 of #Shipaton2026 v1.3.5 approved and live, way faster than expected — anonymous analytics so I can see where people get stuck. v1.3.6 submitted right after, fixing a display bug on Hype posters. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Day 59 of #Shipaton2026 Worked through the weekend, Devpost final check nearly done. Downloads are creeping up too. Submitted 1.3.5 today: anonymous in-app analytics, to see where people stop. My data used to end at the landing page. Fingers crossed for approval by Sep 30. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Day 58 of #Shipaton2026 The last update got through Apple review before the deadline. Finalized the Devpost growth section and submitted the Shipaton Showcase form. The hackathon gave me a deadline, not a finish line. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My first shipped app, seven updates during a hackathon, and one update that made it through Apple review right before the deadline — was genuinely worried it wouldn't make it in time. #Shipaton #Shipaton2026 #builinpublic

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Day56of #Shipaton2026 New feature: tap any artist's name on your lineup, go straight to their Spotify page. Live on web now, iOS pending Apple's review. Updated the Devpost submission with the latest numbers. Downloads are up 30% over two weeks. Small, but steadily climbing. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Day 55 of #Shipaton2026 Working on a new feature: linking artist names to Spotify pages. Spotify's API now needs Premium app-wide. Subscribed today, still waiting on it. In parallel, tested MusicBrainz as a free alternative — 94% accuracy verified. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton #SpotifyAPI

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

v1.3.3 is approved and live. The 9th photo skin, DUOTONE — a leaf photo converted into just two colors, deep green and cream. Different process from every skin before it. 9 photo skins total now: 1 free, 8 paid. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Day 47 of #Shipaton2026 A little over a month since I shipped on Aug 14. Since then: new features, submitted to Devpost early, opened TikTok/YouTube accounts, wrote about it. Shipping isn't the finish line — getting people to know and use it takes work in every direction. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Day 47 of #Shipaton2026 Approved for Apple's Small Business Program — commission dropped 30% to 15%. Two more photo skins went live today. Offer codes for all 7 are done. Submitted a 9th skin, DUOTONE — a new two-tone process, different from anything shipped so far. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Day 45 of #Shipaton2026 Two YouTube Shorts went live tonight, as scheduled. Split into "Create" and "Hype" — each shows what MyFes does in under 20 seconds, text-heavy, same format as the TikTok videos. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Second video is up: Hype. Beyond creating, you can react to festivals other people dreamed up. Someone built #Radiohead × #Beyoncé, and you say "I'd go" — or name what you'd pay. The fun is being understood: someone else gets why that lineup matters. youtube.com/shorts/HlHWd... #buildinpublic

youtube.com

MyFes — Hype: Name your price | Shipaton 2026

YouTube video by MyFes

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Feature video is up: Create. Put together any artists you want, on one poster. #KendrickLamar and #Drake will probably never share a stage. In the poster, they can. That's the fun — building the lineup you actually wanted to see. youtube.com/shorts/CPhSd... #MyFes #buildinpubic

youtube.com

MyFes — Create: Book whoever you want | Shipaton 2026

YouTube video by MyFes

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Day 45 of #Shipaton2026 Weekend work: submitted the next two photo skins for review. LIGHTHOUSE had a purchase bug on TestFlight that cost a day, but it's fixed and in. Offer codes for every skin are in progress. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Update: the ocean skin just went live. Day 42 of #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic apps.apple.com/jp/app/myfes...

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Day 42 of #Shipaton2026 Three TikToks in. Billie Eilish is clearly outperforming the others — current, active artists seem to move faster than nostalgia acts. A new ocean-themed skin is in App Review. Two more built and ready to ship. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Day 41 of #Shipaton2026 Mostly backend work. Found a spam-like post disguised as a festival in Hype, deleted it, added a filter. Also learned: posting TikTok from a browser gets zero views. Posting from my phone fixed it instantly. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Day 40 of #Shipaton2026 Made a short video for TikTok. Almost went with a feature walkthrough. Killed it — the UI doesn't move enough to carry a video on its own. Stripped it down to a question, a poster, another question. Nothing else. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Day 39 of #Shipaton2026 Submitted to Devpost. The demo video I'd been poking at since late August finally came together. Two minutes, my own English narration on top. Next: more skins, a few short how-to videos. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Shaky Knees is next week. Here's the set I'd actually run if it were mine: #Turnstile and #TheStrokes headlining, with Jimmy Eat World, OK Go, Blood Orange and Minus the Bear. Who's on your version? Build yours and I'll tell you if I'd go. #ShakyKnees my-fes.vercel.app/f/8cb16516-b...

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Day 35 of #Shipaton2026 Demo video: audio done. Narration, captions, music, logo, somehow. Now the app screens. Recorded my iPhone via QuickTime, made the phone frame in Keynote. More tomorrow. Chip away over the weekend, maybe submit next week. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Day 32. BLUE NIGHT and OPEN AIR got approved and are live. Four photo-based skins now: THE ENTRANCE, RED ROOM, BLUE NIGHT, OPEN AIR. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Day 31. Submitted two new photo skins I'd been working on since the weekend — BLUE NIGHT and OPEN AIR. OPEN AIR uses a daytime photo. White text turned out unreadable on it, switched to dark navy. Also fixed a seam bug in the share images. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Why is it so easy to say “wanna do Mounjaro?” A diabetes drug becomes a verb. A reality show becomes a glow-up story. A 14-year-old’s thinness hits a record high. None of these started this year. New essay — link below. letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/the-word-t...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

The Word That Made a Medicine Casual【Weekend Tokyo#053】

A Name Easy to Say

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Day 26. Hype got approved and shipped. Wrote about it everywhere today — a note in Japanese, an X article and a LinkedIn post in English. Building a lineup alone is fun. But "would you pay to see this?" only becomes real once you show someone. That's what Hype is for. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Wrote a longer piece on LinkedIn about the feature I just shipped for MyFes: Hype. Building a festival lineup alone is fun. But "would you actually pay to see this?" only becomes real once you show someone. www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-... #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

linkedin.com

Would You Pay to See Radiohead and Beyoncé on the Same Bill?

A quick recap for anyone new here: MyFes lets you build the lineup for a music festival that doesn't exist, using artists you love, then share it. Here's what just got added.

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Day 25. Finally submitted the new update for review. "Hype" is the big one — prepped over summer break. Browse festivals other people made inside the app, react with "I'd go" if something catches your eye. Also added a home screen to choose between creating and browsing. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Tokyo's office vacancy rate just hit 1.5% — the lowest of any major city on earth. Everyone calls it a recovery story. It might actually be a story about who gets to be in the room when something can only be passed down face to face. And who doesn't. letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/what-can-o...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

What Can Only Be Passed On in Person【Workday Tokyo #052】

Tokyo's Lowest Vacancy Rate in the World, and Who Pays for It

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

A Japanese city’s ordinance made 27% “aware” of their phone use. Only 5% changed anything. A private app hit 1M downloads — no ordinance, just teens deciding on their own. Awareness isn’t the bottleneck. letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/nobody-is-...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

Nobody Is Treating Gaming Disorder. They're Just Selling Time Management.【Workday Tokyo #051】

I learned the name of Japan's leading addiction treatment center from my sixth-grader's summer homework.

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Today's small bug find. Festivals with the new photo skins show the wrong background when someone opens the shared URL. The poster itself is fine. Forgot to register the new skins on the viewing page, so it falls back to a default. Fixing it when I'm back from break. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Day 18. v1.2 got approved! Had it set to auto-release, so it just went live on the store. All 8 templates are now free — 6 used to be paid. Also added two new photo-based skins (one free, one $1.99). Good timing too, heading into a short break starting today. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Day 17. Submitted v1.2 for review — all skins now free, plus two new photo-based ones. Taking a short break starting the day after tomorrow, so I set it to auto-release this time. If approved, it just goes live on its own. Fingers crossed. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Day 16. Already working on post-launch updates, hoping to roll things out in stages through late August and September. Today's piece: prepping new poster backgrounds. Might get to app-side work and submitting for review late tomorrow night. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

MyFes lets you build legendary festivals that never happened. Woodstock '69, if I'd been there. How much would I pay to see this? A lot. Would you pay to see this lineup? 🎸 #MyFes #JimiHendrix #JanisJoplin my-fes.vercel.app/f/d873fc5a-8... #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic #shipaton

MyFes festival poster: "Woodstock '69" headlined by Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, with The Who, Santana, Grateful Dead, and more.

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Day 15. Testing after launch, I noticed festivals I'd just created weren't showing up on the homepage or gallery, saved but not appearing. Turns out the pages were serving frozen HTML from build time. Fixed in about 30 minutes. Caught it early, glad about that. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

A magazine cover made me want to see Niemeyer's buildings. Indonesia's new capital is almost finished, and almost empty. Brasília took 60 years to fill in. Japan can't agree what its "sub-capital" is even for. Is a city more than its blueprint? letterfromtokyo.substack.com/p/a-city-not...

letterfromtokyo.substack.com

A City Not Built for Living【Weekend Tokyo#051】

I first saw Oscar Niemeyer’s buildings on the cover of the August 2013 issue of Casa BRUTUS, a Japanese design magazine.

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Day 14. Got a second rejection today and felt down… but sent back the info + a recording, and it got approved. MyFes is finally live! Just in time for Japan's biggest summer festivals. Can't make it to a festival this year? Build your own. apps.apple.com/app/myfes/id... #BuildInPublic #Shipaton

apps.apple.com

MyFes App - App Store

Download MyFes by MASARU TAKEI on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like MyFes.

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Day 13. Up early. 4:34am — review email. Rejected… but only procedural stuff (an IAP I forgot to submit). Nothing about the app. Fixed it all and resubmitted before my day job started. A reviewer had actually built a test festival in the app. It worked. #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Day 12. Used the weekend/holiday wait time to rework the LP homepage and the app icon. Was stuck on the visual direction for a while — finally found it. Once this actually ships, I want to write more about it somewhere. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

MyFes app icon — white "M FES" over a dark live-music photo of a singer's silhouette in red light.

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Day 12. No word from Apple review after 5 days, so I requested expedited review. Request itself got accepted right away — still waiting on the actual result though. Hoping it lands before Aug 14-15. If you're stuck waiting too, this might help. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

A Japanese radio show holds elections for the country’s favorite supermarket. The 2024 winner and the ninth-place chain are now owned by the same holding company. The listeners vote for stores.The profits merge somewhere else. What exactly is a supermarket vote for? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

open.substack.com

Japan's Favorite Supermarket, as Voted on the Radio, Now Lives Inside a Holding Company【Workday Tokyo #050】

What a 37,000-vote listener poll and a quarterly earnings report say about brand love, pricing power, and a new kind of M&A

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Day 9. No word from Apple review yet — probably slower over the weekend. Waiting around felt unproductive, so I built out the next update instead. Terms/privacy links, a report flow, duplicate artist prevention. Can't wait to get this out. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic #Shipaton @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Day 8. Realized my share cards were unreadable when shrunk in a timeline — text too small. Restructured them like a poster (title + headliners), bumped up font size. Shapes how sharing looks. Also dropped the "beta" label today. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Day 7. Fixed a landmine before launch — Supabase's free tier auto-pauses after a week of no traffic, silently killing shared URLs. Set up a daily ping to fix it. Also limited creation to app only. Web version is now for viewing, sharing, reacting. #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

AI is making some blue-collar jobs “unreplaceable.” So why can’t everyone reach them? Wrote about a licensing exam problem I found at an HVAC contractor in Isesaki, Japan — and what it says about the US “blue-collar billionaire” story. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

open.substack.com

The Wall Wasn't the Exam. It Was Finding the Time【Weekend Tokyo#050】

A Day Ends Before It Begins

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Masaru Takei @mtake1.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Day 5. Found it an unused feature was dragging in another one, crashing the app. Deleted it, rebuilt, tested on my phone. Made it through creating a poster with a fake lineup. Resubmitted for review. (Share doesn't save the image yet — fixing that next) #Shipaton2026 #BuildInPublic @revenuecat.com

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