Ryo Kikuchi is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ZeBrand, an A.I. powered brand identity creation platform serving 40,000+ small businesses and startups worldwide. A visionary by nature, Ryo Kikuchi embarked on his entrepreneurial journey at Morisawa Inc., the leading international typeface foundry, where he served as Chief Innovation Director and developed expertise in new business development, customer acquisitions, and intrapreneurship. His drive and passion led him to form MORISAWA BRAND NEW Lab in 2017, an internal team dedicated to exploring new and emerging ideas that inform and challenge the current state of the font industry. His latest brainchild is ZeBrand, a web based and A.I. generated branding tool. As its director and founder, Ryo has led his team from product conception and development, to launching and revealing ZeBrand at SXSW in 2019. Ryo holds an MBA from NUCB Business School in addition to spending time at the Rhode Island School of Design as a research fellow under the leadership of John Maeda, the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design in the U.S.; and the EDHEC Business School in France. He has recently been featured in various media outlets including Entrepreneur, A/D/O by MINI, Forbes Japan, Global Cosmetic Industry, TheSiliconReview, and NHK (the sole public broadcaster in Japan).
Where did you grow up? How did your upbringing influence your career?
I grew up in Japan, but my turning point was my study abroad experience at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I studied graphic design and digital media as a research fellow at Rhode Island School of Design, under the leadership of John Maeda, the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design. I learned what makes great art by creating something from inception to completion. I also learned what makes a design by taking one idea and moving it forward exponentially. I have focused on learning how to go from “0” to “1” by creating unique and completely new art projects, that express my own perspective and imagination. Believing that my own unique perspective can bring new value to the world is my life’s purpose. At the Final Critique after my presentation, John and other professors told me “One person can change the world — and you can be that person.” That comment inspired me to focus on using my talents and vision for the benefit of the collective, and shifted my purview towards how I can contribute to the world.
What do you see as the biggest challenge in your market?
The idea of ZeBrand occurred to me three years ago when I was researching brand design in the U.S. There, I noticed an overwhelming need for branding in the startup world, but I realized that many early-stage startups do not have the time, resources, or the budget to hire a professional branding agency. Left to their own devices, many business owners are lost as to where to begin. As a former intrapreneur who has gone through a similar challenge with building my own team, I felt that there was potential in this space, and it was worth supporting. That is why we have made ZeBrand, to support startups and small businesses that do not have expert knowledge or skills in branding but are passionate about bringing their visions to life. ZeBrand uses a proprietary algorithm to generate results based on aggregated branding data inputs, including type of industry, mission(s) and vision(s), and the personality of the company. It then generates appropriate brand elements including color, typography, imagery, slogan ideas, layout and brand values.
We assist not only by providing them with visual assets to brand themselves efficiently and quickly, but also by training their mindset to define their company’s long-term vision and core values. We hope our services will be the go-to partner or platform for those who have yet to realize the potential of their brands’ complete identity. We also envision ZeBrand becoming a platform for teams to collectively use for collaborative brand development as well as maintaining internal alignment on mission, vision, and core values.
How do you continue to educate yourself?
We have 5 core values for ZeBrand, and my team and I will grow and thrive based on those core values.
1) Brand New Value: have the courage to create something out of nothing. I constantly strive to continue creating something completely new through trial and error, to bring new value to our world.
2) Having Fun: Continuously create everything with a sense of playfulness and joy. Discipline is necessary to see a vision through, but don’t forget to have fun. I am constantly challenging myself to grow by fulfilling my role, responsibilities, and missions in the organization. To me, the challenge is part of the fun.
3) Growth Mindset: Having unprecedented goals that no one has ever created or achieved in the past, I am constantly trying new things and open to inspiration in unexpected places to achieve greater breakthroughs.
4) Respectful Communication: From teammates to partners to our customers, we are always reminded to have respect and treat each other with dignity. I also constantly remind myself to trust my co-workers and challenge myself to grow by asking quality questions of my team to clarify and solidify our mutual trust and respect.
5) User Appreciation: we put our users happiness first, as we constantly appreciate our customers and users. We also understand that our growth means our customers happiness, and this keeps us thriving to continue learning and growing on a constant basis.
What role do partnerships and relationships play in your career?
I chose my path as an intraprenuer rather than an entrepreneur. Partnerships and relationships play a crucial role in entrepreneurial growth. The past organization I belonged to had ninety-five years to its history, and there have been all sorts of relationships and partnerships within that organization throughout the process of giving birth to ZeBrand. On the flipside, I have also witnessed inefficiencies, where certain relationships and partnerships created barriers to innovation. But because of this, I wanted to lead the organization into its path of innovation, by challenging the status quo to change the way people around me thought about things. I took my path as an intraprenuer as my career choice, because I wanted to be an entrepreneur who could bring change within an organization. I wanted to be an entrepreneur who could bring a change to the organization. In order to create a new value proposition, we need to respect the traditional ways of doing things, cultures, and customs, while pioneering progressive ways of doing things with strong visions and beliefs, and achieving solid results as a business.
True or false? Hard work solves almost anything. Tell us why you feel this way.
False. In Japan, where I am from, there are many people that work overtime to show their supervisors that they are working very hard. Ever since I came to the U.S. to study abroad in 2012, and learned the way people work in this country, I learned that the working style in Japan was completely wrong. I learned that work quality and efficiency is far more important than hours of work. Rather than showing how busy you are, I have learned that being able to work efficiently within your working hours was a lot more important. I also learned that it is important to maintain work/life balance, which leads to greater work efficiencies and performance. I believe it is integral to increase the quality of work as well as your quality of life. If your goal cannot be attained within a given amount of time, I believe it is important that one learns from this, and takes it as a great opportunity to learn how to work more efficiently so there is no constant hamster wheel of hard work.
What achievement are you most proud of?
My achievement that I am most proud of is founding ZeBrand with a team that I respect and trust, completely. There are many teams and companies that are successful with providing one core service, but it is hard to find a team who can bring such value that enriches our existing services. Our global team at ZeBrand has great talents, skills, vision, values, and the mutual trust to be able to provide services with great values. We are constantly growing as a team with focus on the “We” and not “Me,” and I am very proud of our team.
What’s next in your career?
With our vision of “Brand Your Way” I would like to continue to create new value within the branding market and continue to actualize my vision. I would like to make branding accessible to all people with various backgrounds and budgets, and to create a world where people are able to freely express who they are as a business, and can successfully profit from the unique brand that is there’s and there’s alone. Innovation cannot happen with only one person. I believe entrepreneurs with a strong sense of purpose and commitment to pursue their vision will eventually lead and change the world.
What advice do you have for our readers?
Especially in these challenging times, ask yourself, “What do you really want to do?” This is a very important question I received from my mentor almost every day when I was studying at RISD. I think it is important to reflect inwardly, and ask yourself what you really want to do, and what kind of life mission and purpose you want to fulfill; and then to pursue those purposes and visions. Even if you don’t know what your visions are, you can work with people whose visions really resonate with you. If you and your teams are fully committed to fulfill your life purpose, it will lead to great inspirations as you pursue your path.
