I Founded a Company to Make "Ah, They Understood" an Everyday Experience

It Turned Out I Was the Alien

In kindergarten, I couldn’t join in when everyone played together. Sent outside, I would just pedal my tricycle in endless circles around the yard.

At my elementary school entrance ceremony, I chased a butterfly that fluttered past my eyes and simply walked right out of the gymnasium.

Once, wanting to see if you could really start a fire with a magnifying glass, I spent an entire lunch break focusing sunlight onto a pile of fallen leaves. It turned into a small blaze.

In my mind, every single action made sense. There was something I wanted to do, and I simply took the fastest route toward it. But looking back from the outside, I’m sure I seemed like a completely unpredictable child.

By the fourth grade, nobody invited me to play anymore.

So I buried myself in books on behavioral psychology at the library. Gaze direction, gestures, the timing of pauses. Ways to read people’s unspoken feelings from the outside. By the time I reached the sixth grade, I was trusted enough to serve as class president.

Yet I was constantly exhausted. Reading people’s expressions, choosing words that wouldn’t disrupt the atmosphere. Speaking that way meant conversations ended without my real thoughts ever being conveyed.

Wasn’t there a more natural way to get your feelings across? Ever since I was a child, that question never left me.

I Heard the Audience Catch Its Breath

I had been taking piano lessons since I was five, influenced by my mother, who taught middle school music. Playing the piano was fun. But on stage, I was always alone.

In the sixth grade, at a local junior orchestra concert, I heard a trumpet fanfare.

This is it, I thought. Speaking to all kinds of people through sound, creating a single piece of music together. Feelings words alone could never capture would surely get through. As soon as I got home, I begged my grandparents to buy me a trumpet.

The trumpet, however, wouldn’t make a sound. Even after four months in my middle school brass band, I still couldn’t produce a tone. People around me laughed.

I broke down the sheet music for our assigned piece into two-measure chunks. Only when I could play them five times in a row without a single mistake did I move to the next two measures. Once I reached the end, I regrouped them into four-measure chunks and started over from the beginning. I did nothing else for the entire summer vacation.

Winter of my second year in high school. At a Christmas concert packed to capacity with 2,000 people, I played a solo.

Blinded by the spotlight, I couldn’t see a thing in the audience. The moment I sounded the first note, I heard the entire hall catch its breath.

No words were needed. There was no need to read anyone’s expression.

Yearning to experience that sense of oneness again, I chose to pursue music.

That Moment Never Came Again

In my first winter as a trumpet major at an arts university, a trivial misunderstanding with a professor led to me being treated as if I didn’t exist within the department. It went on for months, and the rumors that spread back then followed me until the day I quit music.

Once again, I went back to living my life reading people’s expressions. Even while playing, my mind was busy calculating: “What do they think of me right now?” Smiling on the outside, collapsing as soon as I got home. Days when I couldn’t get out of bed stretched on, and I began seeing a psychiatrist.

At age 28, I was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Honestly, I was relieved. A name had finally been given to the difference between myself and others that I had felt for so long.

After graduating, I spent about four years working for an instrument manufacturer to promote musical instruments. While continuing to play professionally, I also considered studying abroad and taught at schools.

Even so, that feeling from the winter of my second year of high school never returned.

In 2020, Everything Ground to a Halt

In April 2020, the state of emergency canceled every performance. As a freelance player, my income dropped to zero.

Could work really vanish so easily? Clinging to music like this, I wouldn’t survive.

I joined Recruit as a corporate sales representative for recruitment advertising. Knowing only the music world, I wanted to throw myself into the midst of diverse people. Speaking with a different business owner every day was refreshing.

Yet here, too, my words didn’t get through. People hung up the moment I stated my company name. Even when I managed to meet someone, they’d say, “I’m not the decision-maker, so just leave your materials.” And when I finally met the person who made the decisions, I could only propose solutions within the boundaries of company-designated tools.

The Code Never Betrayed Me

Tired of compiling cold-calling lists, I taught myself Python for web scraping. All I wanted was to automate tedious tasks. But before I knew it, I was researching what Python could do practically every day. That was when I encountered the GPT-3 paper.

I proposed an AI concierge through the company’s internal new business initiative. The proposal was rejected in the first round. People told me it was “just a pipe dream.”

About six months later, ChatGPT came out.

I went back to study programming properly at G’s ACADEMY FUKUOKA.

With code, you can give tangible shape to what you envision, exactly as it is. Even when an error occurs, unlike tangled human relationships, there is always a clear cause. And what you build actually solves someone’s problem.

Every day, you can build up small moments of “it got through.” A feeling I could never find again in music was right here.

Cor. Means “Heart” in Latin

The six months after leaving Recruit were truly agonizing. Borrowed money ran out quickly, and I had to part with my cherished instruments. Going to networking events only brought more business cards.

If that was the case, I decided to become the one speaking.

In December 2023, I gave my first presentation at an Engineer Cafe lightning talk event. My voice cracked, and my hands trembled. In that same month, I founded Cor.Inc. Cor. means “heart” in Latin.

For the next year, I continued giving lightning talks somewhere every single week. Having a deadline meant building something new every week. And presenting what I built in front of people. In March 2025, at an AI-driven development study session in Tokyo, I spoke before an audience of about 2,000 people, including online participants. From there, inquiries about work began to come in.

Verifying “Whether It Is Truly So”

AI has expanded my potential. It made it possible for me to build from end to end on my own.

However, if you proceed while taking an AI’s answers for granted, you can easily end up running in circles. That is why I now pause and verify. I read primary sources. I measure things myself.

Grift is an in-house product born from this very mindset. Resumes can be embellished. Evidence cannot. That is why we don’t assign scores; we only present verifiable facts. The judgment is left to humans.

Our local LLMs that keep confidential data from leaking outside stem from the exact same principle. Because in real workplaces, things stall simply because people don’t know whether it is safe to hand confidential data over to an external AI.

Starting First by Listening

I know the pain of words failing to reach people.

That is why Cor. never jumps straight into building. First, we listen to find out where things are stuck. If necessary, we will tell you, “Don’t build it yet.”

I want to accumulate those small moments of realization—“Ah, it finally got through”—in our work, and in our everyday lives.

That is why I, a former trumpet player, run an AI company.

References

This story is based on the following articles I have published on note:

• The Story of an Asperger’s Trumpet Player Who Went Through Recruit and Founded an Engineering Business 【Why me】 - January 1, 2024. A look back from childhood to starting the business.
• Why I, an Entrepreneur with a Musician’s Background, Don’t Run a Music-Related Business - October 1, 2025. “Communication beyond words” and the origin of the company’s name.
• How Life Changed Drastically After a Desperate, Inexperienced Engineer-CEO Gave “Weekly Lightning Talks” for a Year - June 7, 2025. The first presentation and a year of weekly lightning talks.
• All you need is actuals — When I Stopped the AI Loop, Things Began Moving Forward - August 17, 2026. A story about learning to verify AI answers for myself.