Meet the founder of kammeko
Raphael (right) with his co-founder Apolline (left).
Looking for a change in career as well as scenery, Raphael Hodé, founder of kammeko, made his big move to Japan in 2015.
Upon visiting Japan on multiple occasions, he found that he resonated with the culture and the country’s approach to design. Raised in Paris, France with a background in marketing and communication, he quickly transitioned to digital design and innovation strategy. Before working exclusively on kammeko, he worked for “Designit,” a strategic consulting firm that performs at the intersection of design and strategy.
Raphael was born into a family passionate about sustainability and the conservation of the environment. His mother’s sensitivity to being eco-conscious is a trait that is clearly passed down to him. Raphael also shares his love for the ocean — in particular, surfing. He shares his first-hand experiences of frustration when encountering plastic bags in the water. Many little realizations throughout his life, along with observing stronger typhoons, flooding, and record breaking rainfall in Japan brought about by climate change, continue to validate and encourage him to be passionate about the environment and be an engine for change.
When it comes to how this translated into a career, Raphael shares, “there came a time when I had to ask myself what I wanted to spend most of my days doing. I love design and innovation, but I’ve always felt that this power of design can be used for different purposes. Personally, the more I can use this towards building a fair, inclusive, and sustainable society, the better. I think I just want to spend all my waking hours working toward that.”
What is kammeko?
Driven by one large, yet hopeful, mission to accelerate the transition towards a sustainable society, kammeko created its mobile phone app that emphasizes good design principles and user experience in order to help people live more eco-friendly lifestyles by highlighting education, playfulness, and financial incentives such as challenges, stamps, and rewards. Within the application, users are connected to kammeko’s 14 partners of sustainable businesses and stores. These include cafes, restaurants, organic small grocery shops, and concept shops, all of which are showcasing their sensitivity to the environment.
When visiting these partner shops and purchasing in environmentally friendly ways, kammeko users are rewarded stamps, which are used in exchange for financial rewards from said partner shops. At the same time, partner shops are brought forth into the spotlight for discovery by kammeko users, and thus are given an audience to celebrate their sustainability.
Along with the app, kammeko also offers design and innovation consulting for social entrepreneurs big and small, including startups. Raphael and his co-founder, Apolline Daimaru Coat, aim to use their professional expertise to apply design thinking and innovation through their consultation services. Ultimately, Raphael looks at consulting and training as means to create and establish a methodology for social innovation. He shares that in Japan, designing, which encompasses the building of companies, designing products, and the creating communication, could have more of an opportunity to thrive through collaboration, and working together with others in hopes of elevating the sustainably-minded community.
Demo of collecting stamps through scanning a QR code at participating stores.
Demo of challenges and reward system for practicing sustainable habits.
kammeko also looks to make a social contribution in educating younger professionals to design, develop, and create things with a sustainable mindset through internships. While this open model that highlights contribution and collaboration may be slower, or less dynamic, Raphael believes that it’s important to give back. He believes he learned a lot when he was early in his career, and by providing young professionals a place to train their skills, and learn to think more creatively in advocating for a mission, it can provide opportunities of growth for both kammeko and those that join the team.
So far, kammeko’s core team consists of Raphael and his co-founder Apolline. Additionally, kammeko is training a team of 14 volunteers with shared visions of the company. Raphael reflects, “We owe everything to them, they really make kammeko happen.”
The kammeko team at a social bonding event.
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To Raphael, the founding of kammeko is attributed to four factors. First, the way he chooses to live as a global-minded citizen and consumer. For the past 10 years, Raphael has become more aware of the impact his daily personal decisions have on the environment, and has actively pursued to live the most sustainable lifestyle. At the same time, he’s realized both the successful and difficult parts of living sustainability. Inspired by his own journey, both the positives and negatives he’s faced, he felt that many people may feel the same way, and that he could do something to help navigate these people.
The second factor comes from years of conversations with Apolline, about how they could use their professional skills - design, marketing, communication, and innovation strategy - towards sustainability. While both felt lucky to be touching upon sustainability subjects as part of their regular day jobs, they found themselves wanting more. Raphael felt that sustainability was not the center of his work as it should be: “I wanted it to be the focus of my job, I wanted to make sure that I dedicate my career to try and solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.”
While the Covid-19 pandemic brought on trying times, it also helped in incubating and accelerating the timeline of kammeko. All of a sudden, Raphael found himself at home, with extra time on his hands, and it became easy to work on a side project which would soon become what kammeko is today.
The last contribution to the launch of kammeko came from accidentally stumbling across an United Nations development Program innovation contest called Youth Co:Lad. The contest was open to SDG-correlated startup ideas, even those in very early stages. With just a rough idea somewhere on Raphael’s computer, at a whim of the moment, he decided to try and apply, ultimately getting to the final stage. This experience inherently pushed Raphael to work on kammeko, and by the end, he felt a need to try to take it and see where it could go. At this time, he decided to leave “Designit” and pursue kammeko full-time.
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kammeko’s mission is to accelerate the transformation towards a sustainable society, relying on digital innovation and good design to do so. kammeko does this by opening the world of sustainability to users as well as helping other organizations. Raphael believes there is a misconception around social impact having an “end” to it. To Raphael, there is no end goal, because he believes that society can always be more sustainable and there is always more to be improved.
Despite not having a clear-cut end in mind, a milestone he has set is the point at which responsible consumption becomes mainstream in Japan. “Right now it’s a few people doing a little sustainable acts, and I’ll feel fulfilled when consuming responsibly is what most people do, most of the time. Essentially, change the reality of a few people doing a little to most people doing a lot.”
He knows this is no easy task, but what he ultimately hopes to do is to jump-start the transformation towards a brighter future, starting by adding little drops into the ocean at a time, so to speak. After all, we need to start somewhere, somehow, even if immediate results may be seemingly insignificant for now.
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While the original mission to empower people to live more eco-conscious lifestyles hasn't changed — and has no plans to change — kammeko had to undergo quite a few iterations. For instance, the additional incorporation of a consulting branch at kammeko was an expansion not previously expected during initial ideation. Even in the midst of making adjustments to the revenue stream or business model, Raphael claims that the core mission will never change.
As of now, kammeko is in beta stage as a mobile web product. Raphael shares that the team has primarily been focusing on the process of developing and perfecting the application over marketing and user acquisition. The team continuously works to modify the application in ways where the interface is smooth, user friendly, and prompts users to truly live more environmentally by focusing on the value proposition.
Despite the heavy focus on polishing and developing the application, kammeko has not forgotten the importance of PR and marketing campaigns. Several media sources have picked up kammeko’s story, creating some noise and buzz for the new company. kammeko and their sustainable business partners have also managed to establish a win-win situation when it comes to promotional efforts by promoting one another on platforms and to customers. Raphael has also pitched kammeko with great success at numerous events within the social innovation community in Tokyo at “Social Innovation Japan.” Raphael shares his contentment as these activities have allowed kammeko to gain enough traction to test their product and hypothesis in order to see what is working and what is not.
“Our approach has always been to not drag many users to a clunky product, but rather to get enough users to work with them in making the product better. Then, we can have a more organic and reasonable acquisition strategy where we can grow our user base hand-in-hand with growing our product and its quality, where the two are collaborative and not disassociated from another.”
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While incorporation of kammeko in August and official launch of the app in November last year were two large milestones reached for Raphael and his team, it was also a point of realization that many original ideas of the design and user experience of kammeko failed to work. Now, they continue to iterate and make changes in hopes of releasing an updated version in the upcoming months that may likely take kammeko down another unexplored path.
Raphael shares that kammeko has also had conversations with large organizations in industries such as real estate, banking, and retail to look at potential collaborations. However, due to the majority of focus and resources being used to perfect kammeko’s application, Raphael felt they lacked the bandwidth to begin the conversation for larger collaborations. For every attempt, he confesses that it would take more effort then they could afford, so these collaborations sit at a pause until further notice. However, the fact that there is opportunity already for kammeko to have these discussions tell of a promising future.
kammeko is still in the process of building their partnerships and efforts in Tokyo, and he believes that the usefulness of their services relies on the number of stores they can introduce to users. As such, the focus lies in recruiting sustainable stores in a restricted geographic area, allowing for a concentrated batch of stores with sustainable options to discover.
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While other countries, such as those in the EU or that of the United States, may be more driven by science and numbers, Raphael realized that Japan approaches sustainability and empowerment quite differently. The Japanese market is more receptive to playfulness and gamification techniques, and therefore kammeko’s focus emphasizes visual and emotional factors. Raphael believes that the Japanese market needs a platform like kammeko as he considers Japan’s situation to be one where people’s awareness and willingness to take action are at a different pace than other countries.
“I hope to accelerate these behavioral changes given Japan’s niche preferences, when it comes to digital products and design, by working to create kammeko to fit the needs specifically for Japanese people and the market.”
Raphael has also observed the fascinating ways that Japan adopts new innovations and ideas. Whatever the industry may be, he sees a pattern where Japan tends to act slowly and stagnantly in the beginning, but as things begin to be operational, the country goes through a rapid transformation. This differs from other countries, which he believes, have more regular adoption curves. He hopes that right now, “We’re building a very strong foundation, and change is still marginal, but I really believe that in a few years from today, Japan can operate a massive transformation that could be spectacular and even inspire other countries; that’s my hope at least and what I’m working with.”
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While starting a company is no easy task, Raphael shares the wide web of support that exists within the social innovation ecosystem in Tokyo. Social Innovation Japan has been tremendously helpful in providing opportunities for social startups such as kammeko. They were able to encourage and present the community of internationally, socially-minded, creative entrepreneurs in Japan. Raphael and kammeko have continuously worked to communicate and collaborate with people and organizations of this community, like the application Mamoru, to exchange ideas and best practices with various peers and mentors. These social innovation startups have created a community built on the notion of uplifting support among each other in hopes of elevating all of their missions in creating a better society.
Beyond that, Raphael shares that while he has clear expertise in professional skills such as design, strategy, and marketing, he had never had the experience of incorporating and running a company. That’s when he found “Miho and Roger from Startup Work, who have been so helpful and I basically couldn’t have done it without their help. They helped a lot with the paperwork, with understanding the ins and outs, constraints and everything… we’ve also really benefited from the organizing they do to run seminars and training.”
While founding a startup is crippled with hurdles and barriers, finding these support systems, as Raphael did, to help navigate the journey is vital for success. The communities and individuals of Japan exist, and are ready to help.
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While building a sustainable society is no easy task and involves governments, large companies, and other institutions to cooperate, Raphael believes that the individual level of impact matters just as much. If individuals move to focus on actions and behaviors that even they can do, those very small daily actions can create a positive impact. The mindset is based on conscious and careful consideration with what you do. For example, being careful about choosing produce or cosmetics that are produced organically and sustainably, using bamboo toothbrushes over plastic ones, and even bringing your own cup for coffee to-go, all are fairly simple tasks and decisions that are very possible to do. Even plant-based diets, which at first seems like a daunting concept, can be possible. Individuals can reduce their animal product consumption without incorporating a complete and strict plant based diet, and can make large impacts by just switching out just a few meals a week. These little actions may seem insignificant, and Raphael understands that. kammeko aims to showcase that simple and consistent behaviors for a long period of time can harbor large impacts, where a collective of conscious individuals have the opportunity to have a voice to impact the big change makers like governments to follow suit.
Every lifestyle change, regardless of whether or not it has to do with an eco-friendly lifestyle, seems exciting from the outside and draws in people to try, but keeping that lifestyle change is the hardest hurdle. Raphael believes that, while in the beginning it is common to find the change hard and difficult to keep the excitement up, once you get through the initial adjustment phase and start the transformation, many people realize it is no longer painful and conscientious, but rather natural and enjoyable.
Raphael wants to give people that boost to overcome the initial struggles until it becomes a pleasurable way of living life.
“I like my life better now than when I was less responsible. I think my food tastes better, the things I have are nicer, I love the way I feel, and think overall my quality of life is better. It’s not a sacrifice in the long-term, so we want to help people through the initial transformation that seems hard and empower them enough so it becomes natural, normal, and something they love doing.”
With the topic of environmentalism clouded with much sacrificial vocabulary — “give up this, reduce that, say no to this” — he believes it overshadows the great things that come with choosing to be sustainable. There is much to gain, healthier lives to live, better alignment with personal core values, and lives can transform in a much more positive sense. At kammeko, Raphael and team hope to change the narrative by taking the negative vocabulary around the environment that fixates exclusively on the issues and all that is wrong and flip the script and make it positive, exciting, empowering, and hopeful. Raphael wants users to know that “many people are doing it too, you’re not alone, and this social aspect is extremely important. We want to partner with communities, existing groups of people, who live in this way and connect to create a supportive ecosystem around sustainable living.”
The kammeko team hopes to dispel the apprehensions that often come with eco-friendly living through building a strong community of like-minded individuals.
Support kammeko’s mission in sustainable living by getting involved today!
