1 min read
The Meaning Of Omotenashi
If you've been to Japan, there's a good chance you came home trying to describe something you couldn't quite name.
The way a stranger went out of their way for you. The meal that felt like it was made specifically for you. The sense that someone had already considered what you might need before you even arrived. You felt looked after in a way that was easy to receive, because it was never about performance. It was just how things were done.
That feeling has a name. Omotenashi (oh-moh-teh-NAH-shee).
It's a Japanese way of caring for people. Quiet, genuine, given freely without expecting anything back. I'm Japanese Canadian, sansei, third generation. I didn't learn this from a book. I watched it. Every New Year's Day, my mom spent days cooking for over sixty people. My father, always the generous host. Just because that's who they were. It was never taught as a lesson. It was just lived.
When I started withinUs, I didn't have a business playbook. I had this.
In the early days, every order that went out the door included a small origami crane, folded by my mom - by hand, at home, for every single customer. In Japan, a crane symbolizes longevity, good fortune, and devotion. She didn't need to explain that. She just folded them.
As the business has grown, we cannot put one in every order. But my mom, now 80, still folds them at home. They go into special orders, milestone moments, the small gestures that take longer to make than they do to notice. They matter anyway.
That is omotenashi. You do not stop doing the thing because it got harder.
Early on in the business, I was encouraged to add bovine collagen to our product line. Cheaper to source, easier to produce, higher margins, faster growth. The advice made sense on paper. I wasn't interested. The sourcing concerned me, and it simply wasn't good enough for the people trusting us with their health. We knew competition would come. We stayed true anyway.
It was never about fast or cheap. It was always about the long game.
That thinking is really about paying attention. Knowing someone has trusted you for almost a decade, and making sure they feel that. Not through a promotion. Just a genuine moment of thank you, we see you, we're glad you're here. That's the part that can't be automated.
We're not the loudest brand in the room. We're the one that actually thought of you.
