Casual relations

At Cafetalk, we aspire to build a friendly and casual environment in which each of our members' voices are heard and valued regardless of their position and the number of years they have been on the job. Depending on the content, all Cafetalk staff members have the opportunity to take lead in our various ongoing projects. Our working environment allows each member to take advantage of their strengths and experiment with new things.

No restrictions on time nor place

Our team members at Cafetalk are working globally. Most of our members are located in Japan, but we also have staff in South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Canada, Indonesia and Sweden, which allows us to provide the best service round the clock to our users around the world. Our staff members work in various ways; some do well when working in groups, while others need more time for themselves to concentrate and work alone. While most of our members are based in Japan, almost everyone is working remotely, with the option to visit our shared office space in Tokyo.

Short weekly meetings with the whole team as well as project based regular meetings allow us to work together despite being apart. Casual online meetups with snacks and drinks also help us lighten the mood and reconnect as a team.

An inclusive team

Although Cafetalk was founded in Japan, our team is made up of staff members from diverse backgrounds. We have members from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, France, Indonesia and Brazil who all speak at least one language other than their native language, allowing our entire team to speak nine languages in total. With a team as diverse as our users - with people of all genders, ages and abilities, extroverts and introverts, parents, singles, and others - we all have different opinions, but we work together to achieve the best results.

At Cafetalk inclusivity is not just a mind-set, but something we put into action. Apart from hiring diverse members for our team, we do our best to establish a workplace that is mindful and respectful of everyone. Some examples include granting the same incentives that married employees receive to those in registered partnerships, adjusting working conditions to the unique living situations or physical abilities of our employees and creating an environment in which everyone can freely and openly express their identity.

We aren't afraid of failure

We believe that challenging ourselves, as well as experiencing failure, is the best way to learn and improve ourselves. Our experience in dealing with a constantly fluctuating and expanding user base has taught us to be flexible and to not fear taking risks to achieve better results. We all make mistakes. That is why we are always careful on forming a good and strong team relationship to minimize failure, while learning from each other to overcome obstacles.

Work life balance

Our team is eager to work together to give our users the best possible service, and to constantly improve user experience. However, we believe that having a feeling of fulfillment in our personal lives is crucial to working energetically. Our team members lead very different personal lives; some are raising children, some love to go on walks with their dogs, some love to go to concerts, some love to paint and travel, some love to work out or to play the piano, some feel joy in doing volunteer work, while some enjoy sports. No matter what your ideal life looks like, what's important is keeping a happy balance to make it achievable.

Customer first

Cafetalk is operated from the perspective of both the student and the tutor. We provide a service that allows people with busy lives to learn new things and improve themselves regardless of time and place. In order to cultivate a better understanding for the job, all team members are either learning something as a student or teaching something as a tutor.