— Your company mainly focuses on digital content and event production. What led you to develop the video-based social networking app 'Wao!' set in Okinawa?

The idea for developing the app actually began with one staff member considering leaving the company. Through conversations with him, we started thinking, 'Maybe there’s a different way of working that suits him better.' That’s when the idea of the establishment of the Okinawa branch emerged. When setting up the Okinawa branch, we didn’t just want it to be an extension of the Tokyo office. Instead, we had a clear purpose: to create an environment where people in Okinawa who aspire to be designers can work on Tokyo-based projects.There was a strong desire to contribute to the development of local talent by providing a place where people in Okinawa could, while staying in their hometown, experience cutting-edge creative work from Tokyo and hone their skills.In fact, although many of the Okinawa staff had little experience at first, they’ve now grown to the point where they’re on par with our Tokyo team members. As we continued expanding our operations in Okinawa, we also began to think more deeply about how we could give back to the community. We often heard from young people in Okinawa that they were unsure of what they wanted to do in the future. That led us to ask ourselves: 'Isn’t there something fun we can offer to young people before they enter the workforce?' That question became the root inspiration for our app development.

The story of establishing the Okinawa branch for just one staff member deeply moved me and showed President Namamoto’s sincere care for people. It’s truly an honor that, through various connections, you entrusted Fignny with the app development this time. Once again, may I ask what was the decisive factor in choosing us as your development partner?

While considering several app development companies, we ultimately chose to work with Fignny. The introduction was the initial trigger, but what really convinced us was that more than anything, we felt a spirit of 'co-creation' with them. Typically, commissioned development tends to just follow predetermined specifications, but Fignny took the time to deeply understand our ideas and values, and actively participated in discussions.Even when our ideas occasionally ran wild, they managed the schedule and project progress firmly, guiding us toward the best possible outcome.This flexible and collaborative development style was exactly what we were looking for — and that’s what ultimately made our decision.

—Thank you. Next, could you share your evaluation of Fignny during this project?

What left the strongest impression during development with Fignny was that when we were expanding on our ideas—saying things like, 'It’d be nice if we could do this'—they didn’t just accept them passively. Instead, they identified contradictions within those ideas and guided us toward better directions.With a developer's professional perspective,they offered concrete advice like, 'These two features are hard to implement together, so it’s better to choose one.' That was incredibly helpful, and it gave us many valuable insights. Throughout the development process, they also gave us numerous thoughtful suggestions on usability—things we might not have noticed ourselves, such as fine details in the user interface, how content is displayed, and considerations behind the scenes. They precisely pointed out vague concerns like, 'If we do this, will it affect that?' using their server-side and frontend expertise. As a result, our questions became more focused over time, and the project moved forward smoothly. Additionally,everyone at Fignny had wonderful personalities, and we were especially impressed by their style of having the right expert show up exactly when needed, fulfill their role perfectly, and then quietly step back again.

—While not all our projects are like this, at Fignny we have a culture of shared skills and mutual support company-wide, based on a sense of community. I believe it all went well because you embraced that style and interacted with many of our engineers and designers.

The project manager overseeing the entire initiative was also extremely reliable. Even from our perspective as a team with in-house designers, we could see that they truly understood the unique traits of creative professionals and were able to bring out their best performance. Of course, as a creative company ourselves, we sometimes insisted on specific details in areas like design and motion direction — and we may have caused a bit of extra work as a result. Especially in the field of entertainment design,it was incredibly helpful to have the right experts join the team at just the right time, enabling close collaboration. We’re truly grateful for Fignny’s high technical expertise and their collaborative approach to building the product together with us.

—We’re truly honored to receive such praise. Hearing your words makes all of us on the team very happy. Now, regarding the app you built with us through this collaborative effort—how do you feel about its current state and impact so far?

It’s been about a year since the app was released, and to be honest, there have been both challenges and positive signs. At this point, awareness is still limited, so our first task is to get more people to use it. But this isn’t the kind of project where we’re aiming for instant success — if the app can take root in Okinawa and become part of the local culture, nothing would make us happier.An app not created by the local government becoming something beloved by the community— that, to me, is such a fascinating concept! In particular, when we launched the app, we held a dance video battle campaign that gained strong support from local dance schools and generated a lot of buzz. That experience made us realize how well the app connects with the dance scene. Right now, we’re also exploring improvements to make it more user-friendly and expand the kinds of activities it supports. Moving forward, we want to continue listening to our users and nurture the app as something that stays close to the daily lives of young people in Okinawa.

—Thank you. Hearing your thoughts really conveyed your passion for the app and your future vision. It’s once again clear to me how full of potential this project is. By the way, if you were to rate this project out of 100, how many points would you give it?

A perfect 100.That’s how I’d rate the experience. If we ever decide to develop a new app in the future, we wouldn’t hesitate to ask Fignny again. Overall, it was truly easy and enjoyable to work with them.

—We’re absolutely thrilled to hear you say 100 points! And 'easy to work with' is one of the highest compliments we can receive. We’ll continue to put our full effort into supporting this project moving forward.