Published

私たちは、泊まれる
ゲームをつくっている。

Visit a home inside a game — and if you like it, you can actually go stay there. For free. That is the platform we at KIBOU are building in Silicon Valley, starting small with 22 spaces across Japan and two in the San Francisco Bay Area. Games, real estate, recruiting: three things that seem unrelated. Why did we bring them together? Here is the whole picture of KIBOU, written for anyone who feels something is off about job hunting today.

なぜ、つくるのか

Every single person is this special. And yet so many young people lose confidence when measured against the world's idea of what is "right" and "correct." We believe that is simply wrong.

That is why KIBOU's mission is to build a world where special young people can shine just as they are.

The mechanism is simple: diversity multiplied by a sense of safety. You spend time in the home of a host whose upbringing and values differ from yours — under the same roof, sharing meals from the same pot. Google studied its own teams and arrived at "psychological safety," the state of being able to show your unguarded self; where it exists, people can stop keeping up appearances. Live with adults unlike you, in a place where you feel safe, and you learn in your bones that the world's yardstick is only one of countless yardsticks. That is when the strength to move forward as yourself — sonomanma, just as you are — comes back. What we mean by that word, we wrote here.

→ On the word "sonomanma."

Still, conviction alone does not run a system. Behind KIBOU are three designs.

裏側①——空き部屋が、開かない理由

Many people would love to use a spare room for someone else's benefit. But start down the road of running a licensed guesthouse and the up-front cost alone can reach some three million yen — and most people stop right there. Our founder once looked into it in Shibuya and hit the same wall.

KIBOU dissolves that hurdle by taking a different road: stays that cost nothing. Instead of renting the room out as a business, you open it to support a young person. So the up-front cost is zero, and no license to operate is required. Hosts receive a thank-you payment for writing thoughtful reviews of the students who stay. We are not paying for a room; we are thanking someone for watching over a young person. That difference is what opens doors that had stayed closed. We wrote about this in detail here.

→ Don't turn that room into a business.

裏側②——就活の「ミスマッチ」を、入社後まで追う

The recruiting industry's biggest problem is mismatched hiring. On a structure where revenue comes from placements, the force keeps pushing toward faster and more — and it is hard for anyone to stay responsible for whether a person actually thrives after joining. We see this as a problem of structure, not of the people inside it.

KIBOU does not end at the hire. We will keep checking in, at regular points, on whether each person is thriving after they join. What backs this up are the reviews hosts write about the students who stayed with them. What comes into view over two nights and three days under one roof never surfaces in a résumé or a thirty-minute interview. Whether a company is a place where someone's sonomanma self can shine — we keep confirming that together, over the long term.

裏側③——ゲームが、ぜんぶをつなぐ

What connects the two is a game with a warm world, in the spirit of Animal Crossing.

Before you go stay, you can experience the home inside the game. What time does this household wake up? How do meals work? House rules make many people so anxious that staying with others feels like a chore, so we made them something you absorb naturally through play. Only students who already know a host's home go to stay.

After the stay, a review arrives from the host. Then companies make offers to that person — to who they actually are. A letter arrives in the mailbox inside the game.

24の空間から、200万か所へ

Today we are starting from 24 spaces across Japan and the United States, but we believe the potential is anything but small. On Couchsurfing, an overseas platform, there are about 60,000 listings in Tokyo alone offering to host travelers for free. That many people are already willing to open their homes for nothing. If Tokyo alone holds this many — imagine the world.

So we have set ourselves a goal: growing the free places to stay to two million across the planet. A world where everyone can shine just as they are — we intend to go that far to build it. Silicon Valley, where we develop, is a place where you routinely watch small teams change the world. We are building with that same intent.

If something about job hunting or the recruiting industry has ever felt wrong to you, this story is for you. And if you love games, have a spare room, or dream of one day taking on the world — we would be glad if you came to know this story first.

* The Couchsurfing figure is an approximation based on listings on the platform.

A world where you shine just as you are.Come walk through
the entrance first.