From exclusive oolong imports to canned tea: entering drinks with no sugar (1981)

Perhaps it was never a product everyone would approve of

What stands out in this decision is that President Honjo Masanori has admitted he privately thought the thing could not possibly sell. He did not push it through out of conviction: the competitive necessity of having a product the majors did not have, and a ceiling on the loss — at worst about $1.4M (¥300m), because production was contracted out — filled in for the conviction he lacked. Judging a new business not by its chances of success but by how deep the wound would be if it failed can be read as one of the few forms of attack available to a newcomer without capital.

The moment when the founder-president backed down over the colour of the can has the same character. Admitting that the buyer lay outside his own understanding, he handed the judgement to younger instincts inside the company — an unusual thing in an owner-run firm. A new product everyone supports never becomes a big hit, Masanori later reflected. That ten of twelve directors were against it was evidence of a high probability of failure and, at the same time, evidence that the product stood far enough from the common sense of its day. How to measure that distance is a question companies launching new products still carry.