Meet Matsumoto, the Inventor of TENGA Products
"My heart was saying: I want to create something that doesn’t exist, that needs to exist, that people will enjoy."
For those of you who have not already discovered TENGA, it is a premium Japanese male-oriented adult brand currently on the market. TENGA produces some of these most discreet and beautifully designed male masturbation cups and sleeves distributed now to over 40 countries. Matsumoto, the creator of TENGA products, originally graduated from a mechanics college and started his career tuning luxury and vintage cars and later worked as a car salesman. However, he could not negate the desire to create and spent his time outside of work trolling various types of stores from DIY, car accessories, to electronics stores researching products and one day stumbled into an adult store.
"I hadn’t been into one of these stores in years! I had always found sex toys to be funny so I thought I’d take a closer look. As I walked into the sex toy area though, I felt somewhat uncomfortable; There’s something wrong here...”
Matsumoto felt that what was so strong about products with the Made in Japan label was that there was a feeling of 'safety' in the quality of manufacturing, customer care and customer service following a purchase. However, he felt that this feeling of safety did not translate to adult products where often at the time the products had no company name, brand or even contact details and were usually very obscene. Something normal like masturbation only seemed to be catered to one very specific group and not to the everyday person.
"I believe pleasure products were originally made to relieve human needs; people need to eat, sleep and relieve sexual urges."
So, Matsumoto went forth starting from the bottom up to put all his efforts into creating various proto-types. Matsumoto recalls his humble beginnings when he would assimilate objects like a shampoo bottles for the SOFT TUBE cup prototype or toy hammers for what became the ROLLING HEAD cup prototype, or most of his materials would be purchased at the 100 Yen shops. He worked tirelessly throughout the day, until the morning hours for about a year and a half, developing his product and trying to get it out in the market. He reached the point where his funds were running low and he was not working any other job to keep him and his budding business afloat.
Then one day he received a call from the Soft on Demand Company to pitch his products. One year of product development and he had his first line of the TENGA standard Red Cup series ready for market. The original 50,000 pieces to be produced were already on reservation and he could not seem to keep up with the high demands from the second lot of production. TENGA exploded, even having an interview with Forbes Magazine, and featured in many domestic and international publications. This was the beginning of TENGA.
Matsumoto later went on to develop different versions such as a hard or soft cup which was inspired from the “Hard”, “Medium” and “Soft” bristles varieties of toothbrushes, or how beer has "Bitter" and "Light" options.
Matsumoto truly believed and strived towards creating an adult-toy that was well designed, well manufactured and that anyone could use. He strongly believed in creating a product that would make people happy.
"Everyone in this world regardless of background should be able to enjoy it and be happy."
And we are thankful Matsumoto did, because TENGA is one of the hottest and classiest male adult brands on the market today!
Max Black is definitely a big fan of not only TENGA but now also Tenga Iroha their female brand!
Sourced at: Tenga Interview
