What the Name Miaomada Means: “One Team”, and How a Small Company Works

ByKeiichiro Honda

“How do you even say Miaomada?”

People ask that the first time they see it. It’s pronounced mee-ah-oh-MAH-dah. Not a word you’d have run into before, and that’s fair, because it isn’t Japanese or English. It comes from Greek.

Miaomada Is Greek for “One Team”

Miaomada comes from the Greek μία ομάδα (Mia Omada), which translates as “one team”.

We chose it because it says exactly what we want to be, without dressing it up. A small group of people, each bringing what they’re best at, building something together. The sound and the meaning both fit well.

Not One Strong Individual, but One Team

Companies that make new things tend to get pictured as one outstanding person pulling everyone else along. We’re the opposite of that.

A handful of people, each bringing what they’re best at. Nobody’s charisma carries it. The team builds something good.

In a small company, one person leaving, or one person carrying something they aren’t built for, stops the whole thing. So what we value isn’t anyone standing out. It’s each person owning their own area, with the pieces fitting together: someone strong on engineering, someone strong on numbers, someone who can give the whole thing a look and a feel, someone who can talk to people overseas.

Nobody competes over titles, and everyone is answerable for their own area. That’s how we actually get a product built. However large we get, the name is a constant reminder of where we started and what we stand for as a team.

A Place Where People Use Their Strengths and Their Interests

More than anything, “one team” means everyone here enjoying their work. That’s the strongest wish I have for this company.

That comes down to each person working on what they’re good at and genuinely care about. When both are true, people learn faster on their own and what they make is better, not because they were told to, but because they wanted to and enjoyed it.

Just as important is knowing what to hand off. Meeting new people and going through numbers in detail are both things I’m not much good at, so I hand them over completely to the people here who are. Nobody carries everything alone. People cover each other’s weak spots with their own strengths.

And none of that works unless people feel safe speaking up. A team only becomes a real team once anyone, whatever their position, can say “I don’t think that’s right”.

We’re not there yet. But I want a company where everyone working here finds it enjoyable. That’s the company I’m building, and I haven’t let go of this conviction once.

“One Team” Runs From Building It to Getting It Out There

Getting a product out to people involves a string of completely different jobs.

First, building it. Engineering and development turn the dosing mechanism into a real thing, and design shapes how it looks and how it feels to use. Then comes getting it out there. Letting people know the product exists, and carrying it to whoever needs it. Accounting and the daily running of the company hold that up, and the work overseas widens where it can go. Take any one of those out, and it never reaches a customer.

Lately I’ve come to see how much that second half matters, getting it out there. Build the best thing you can, and if nobody knows it’s there, nobody’s day changes. So the work of telling people and delivering deserves the same energy as the work of building.

The First Product That Lived Up to the Name

Our first real product, the protein dispenser, is where “one team” became something you could hold.

Getting there took 19 prototypes. Try, break, try again. That kind of slow, unglamorous work is something only a small group can do. And the result was a dispenser that measures one serving of powdered protein accurately with each pull of the lever, built around a dosing mechanism registered as Japan Patent No. 7580860.

It isn’t one person’s invention. Everyone on the team, across engineering, prototyping, production, and design, finished it a piece at a time. What the name means is exactly how we build.

Still One Team From Here

Miaomada is a small company in Itabashi, Tokyo, started so we could compete on products of our own.

Protein was the starting point. In time we want all the different powders in a kitchen handled more accurately and more hygienically. And we’ll get there the same way, one step at a time, as a team, with nobody carrying it alone.

We aren’t trying to make something for everyone. People who enjoy this work and are good at it get together and build what we honestly think is good. We believe what comes out of that finds the people who feel the same way.

Better one good team than one strong individual. That’s what the name Miaomada has meant from the start, and it’s what we’re still building toward.

Related reading:

The ALENNE Protein Dispenser

The ALENNE Protein Dispenser is Miaomada’s flagship product: pour straight from the bag or tub into the hopper, pull the lever to measure your dose, and keep it on the counter as part of your daily routine.

One team built it. If it takes the daily protein measuring off your hands, that’s exactly what we built it for.

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