2025-11-07

Business Log #1

Spreading "one message to the world" via Bonfillet

About this magazine

Starting today, I will be keeping a "Business Log" every Friday.

• What I am thinking about in my daily work

• What hypotheses I am forming and how I am acting on them

• What went well and what failed

I will leave these things as a log, almost exactly as they are.

The reason I have made this article paid is simple:

• I want to do this in a closed manner rather than as a public diary

• I want to write based on my true feelings, at a level where "only those who want to see it should see it"

That is why.
Therefore, it is not a so-called "how-to article," so you can just think of it as me sharing my raw notes for organizing my thoughts and read it with that in mind.

The two lines I am currently working on: MDX and EDX

My current business is largely driven by these two pillars.

• MDX (Merchandise DX)
  An area that started with merchandise manufacturing and wholesale.
  Through OEM, novelties, e-commerce, etc., I am on the side of making and delivering things.

• EDX (Education DX)
  DX related to education.
  The near-future sci-fi x learning project called "Road to 2112" is here.

This log is about "Bonfillet" on the MDX side.

What is Bonfillet?

Bonfillet is,

a fabric bracelet connected by parts that is sold as such.

• Pre-COVID:
  Started as a product to replace rubber bands
  -> Proposed to creators and live bands, and was going after a decent share

• COVID period:
  The event market died, so it was shelved for a while

• Currently:
  In the middle of redesigning the brand and sales strategy

As a product, it is just a bracelet.
However, I have deliberately decided to focus exclusively on,

• "connecting with parts"

• "connecting with messages"

and I am branding it by focusing only on that one point.

It may sound like a joke, but the sales pitch is quite simple.

There are various purposes, but I will omit them here as it would be long.
In this log, I will focus on "what I am doing now as a means."

First, a premise: It is no use looking only at the Japanese market

There is one fundamental premise,

Bonfillet was originally sold in contexts like

• creators

• live bands

. That is correct as a sales channel in Japan, but when thinking about "connecting" in a broader sense, I have a hypothesis that we could also take it to places like

• social issues

• political themes

• topics the whole world is currently paying attention to

as "message goods."

Therefore, redesigning it from the start with the premise of releasing it to the world is what this current move is about.

What I did this week (1): Building a 1-message e-commerce site

What I am doing is quite simple in terms of structure.

• Enter one message

• Choose the body color

• Choose the message color (text color)

• And with that, you can order one Bonfillet

—I am building a super simple e-commerce site that does just that.

The development side is roughly like this.

• Generating and fixing code using Codex + GPT-5

• From midway through, I transitioned to something like pair programming with GitHub Codespaces × GPT-5 format.

• Since errors are popping up everywhere, I'm building it while squashing them one by one.

Starting with Japanese and English first.
However, the specifications are built from the start with the

The actual tasks are just
1 message input → color selection → order,

I believe the important part is whether it was
built from the beginning with global sales in mind.

What I did this week (2): Organizing factory lines and logistics

Bonfillet manufacturing is done at a factory in Southern China that I have been dealing with for a long time.
It is a line that allows direct factory shipping via FedEx through Hong Kong.

No matter how much AI evolves,

• factory quirks,

• lot size intuition,

• delivery deadline realities,

• and tuning for inspection and packaging.

There are many parts of this **"reality of physical goods"** that you can't understand unless you are hands-on.
I feel this is a fairly clear advantage of mine.

I think that anxiety is something everyone in the design, web, and marketing fields goes through at least once, but in my case, thanks to the fact that I
eventually

I feel that I was in a
position that was easier to survive in than I had thought.

What I did this week (3): Mass-producing images and preparing for Pinterest

As for how to present the sales, the thing I am focusing on most right now is Pinterest.

Here is what I am doing.

• Utilizing Photoshop's NanoBanana and Gemini's generative AI to leverage

• Based on the Bonfillet photos I took previously,
  → using generative AI to swap colors and messages to mass-produce mock images

I am having GPT-5 create the source data for that.

• "100 variations of messages"

• "100 variations of colors"

I have it generate these two lists,
and then I feed them one by one into the Photoshop generation prompt.
With just this, I can create 100 visuals for now.

I intend to start by:

• Creating boards for each language

• Posting test content and observing the reactions

and attacking it from there.

Goal as a lecture: Creating a new "Wish Bracelet market"

This business log is also, in my mind, half "lecture notes."

As far as this Bonfillet is concerned, there is only one major goal.

Since it has only just begun, I am still in the trial-and-error phase regarding "how to open sales channels to the world."

• How to present it in short videos

• Designing a traffic flow centered on Pinterest

• Refining a simple one-message e-commerce service

This is the state of thinking while running right now.

The positioning of this magazine and what comes next

This note is the very first article.
I am writing this while hoping that if someone reads back through this magazine several years from now, they will be happy.

• To be honest, there is not much planning.

• Instead, I have decided on 'where to place the axis' and am making sure not to waver from it.

In this magazine,

• not only the parts that went well

• but also the failed decisions and the points where I messed up

I will write exactly as it is.

Compared to the 'proper new businesses' in the world,
it might look quite gritty and haphazard.

Even so,

I think it will be enough if this becomes a raw sample of that.

From now on, I will calmly build this up every Friday, so
I would be happy if you could come and take a look whenever you feel like it.

Thank you for your support.