What is Suwaripocket?

"Carrying a bench in the city like a pocket."

Suwaripocket was born from such a thought.

When you are tired of walking.
When you want to think about something for a bit.
While waiting for someone.

A pocket is a place of peace of mind where you can always put your hands.
A small place where you can keep your precious things.

Suwaripocket is
A service where you can find such peace of mind in the city.

Whenever, wherever, you can sit immediately.
Just like taking it out of your pocket, you can take a break right now.

Collecting small places in the city.

And we are also conducting initiatives where your "desire to sit" becomes a trigger to energize the city.

Next, it will be a bit of a formal text, but I would like to touch on things that seem to be able to contribute socially through the service.

Suwaripocket's Mission and Values

Suwaripocket aims to find new value in the familiar existence of "benches in the city", improve individual lifestyles, and contribute to local communities.

Creating New Lifestyles with 3 "Places"

Refresh Place

We provide a place where you can take a breather when you are a little tired during shopping or moving. A little break becomes time to be released from daily busyness and refresh your mind and body.

Work Place

Proposing a new style of working on a bench for a change of pace, just like working in a cafe. Refining ideas on a park bench, or working relaxedly while listening to the chirping of birds. Realizing Workplace Anywhere.

Community Place

It can also be used as a place where connections with people are born, such as meeting friends or taking a break during a walk with children. Serendipitous encounters and exchanges with local people are born.

Suwaripocket hopes to add new color to your daily life through these 3 places. This is our mission.

Energizing the City and People! Social Contribution

Making Outings More Fun

The feeling of "Let's go because there is a bench where we can rest at the destination" becomes a trigger for new outings. Everyone's range of activities expands, bringing vitality to the city.

Supporting Local Shops

On the way to the bench, you might find wonderful cafes and shops you didn't know before. You can also enjoy takeout on the bench. Contributing to the revitalization of local shops.

When you think "Even if I go out, there is a place where I can relax", you feel somewhat relieved, don't you?

Suwaripocket is deepening the connection between the city and people while cherishing such warm feelings. This is our value.

Features of Suwaripocket

We walk and investigate benches all over the country one by one and make them into a database. Currently, the number of members is about 3,000, and the number of posted benches is about 5,000. We are growing steadily as "Japan's largest bench information infrastructure site".

There is also an interesting function called Suwari Card where you can get an original card when you check in at a bench.

In addition, we are conducting a new initiative called Suwari Marche to support local shops.

Service Operation Status

At Suwaripocket, we publish activity reports such as "Hidden spots that don't appear in guidebooks" found by actually walking in the city, and "Behind-the-scenes stories" of development and operation.

See behind-the-scenes and hidden spot introductions

Online Community

We also operate a Discord as a community limited to Suwari Members. We hope to liven up the service with everyone through activity reports, chats, events, etc. Anyone can participate for free from a smartphone or PC, so please feel free to join!

Join Discord

Thank you for your continued support

We would be happy if using Suwaripocket helps create a little healing and new discoveries in your daily life, and connections with the city.

By the way, you can enjoy takeout on a bench like this! (This is the admin)

We introduce many stylish benches found in the city on Instagram. Follow us!

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Suwaripocket Birth Story

From here, I will tell you the background of the birth of the service called Suwaripocket and its story. Please forgive me if it's a bit long. *Some chronologies of X tweets posted are slightly off, but the content and initiatives remain the same.

The Trigger

...One morning on a business trip, I suddenly felt sick on the station platform. I sat on a bench on the platform for a while, but since it was rush hour, there were many people passing by, and since it was a subway, the sound of trains echoed, so I couldn't rest at all.

Thinking "I just want to breathe the air above ground anyway", I managed to climb the narrow stairs of the subway aimlessly and went above ground. Since I couldn't sit on the ground, I just walked straight on the sidewalk in front of me. I don't remember how long I walked, but I saw a square with a flower bed on the right. There was a bench along the flower bed, and I sat there and rested for a while.

When my breathing settled down, I thought, "If I hadn't found this bench, I would have had no choice but to sit on the ground. But I might have felt worse worrying about the surroundings. A toilet was also an option, but during rush hour it's crowded and I can't rest slowly."

About a week later, I suddenly remembered that time and thought, "Ah, probably there are people who were in trouble in the same way. Can I search for benches in the city on the net?"

But even looking at Google Map, there is no bench information, and above all, I don't know where benches are. That time I found it by chance, but...

Wouldn't it be convenient if there was a service that allows you to search for benches in the city!?

May 2017, started from here.

How to proceed?

I was enthusiastic about making it, but how should I make it? I mean, I'm a salaryman on weekdays, so I can only work on holidays, but can I realize it...? Moreover, I have no friends, just me alone...

Furthermore, since I am not an IT engineer, my knowledge of web and programming starts from zero. "...It would be different if I did it as a team, but isn't it too reckless for one person? It can't be used as a database unless there are at least 1,000 locations." My friend told me.

"Hmm, that's certainly true... It's hard just to count from 1 to 1,000 in my head."

Come to think of it, I was still in my 20s at this time.

Started Sitting Rest Area Search

Started with the service name below. "Sitting Rest Area Search" / sitdownplace.com

The reason is that a catchy name is hard to understand. It's a naming that looks a bit like the 2000s, but I thought it was important to convey the service content in one shot.

Anyway, I rented a rental server and started operating with WordPress. But there were many troubles!

• How do I link bench information to a map!?
• It takes more than 30 minutes to post one because I am typing in fixed bench information...

At times like this, it's the spirit of just Googling. I have no choice but to move my hands and do trial and error independently.

Since I am a salaryman on weekdays, I built it earnestly at McDonald's or Doutor until near the last train after work. On holidays, I carried my computer on my back and walked around looking for benches anyway.

Of course, I won't be discouraged even with 0 likes! Still, I continued doing it.

Achieved investigation of 1,000 benches in 1 year since start🎉 It was surprisingly fast. The first 200 locations were tough, but after that, I was able to investigate consistently. Once it becomes a habit, you can go. And after that, I continued to look for benches earnestly.

Started Nationwide Bench Survey

During Golden Week and Obon, I jumped on the Tokaido Shinkansen anyway and did a lot of field surveys.

The chronology is slightly off, but it looks like this.

I almost got heatstroke in the intense heat and my voice is dying lol

Rooftop benches are nice, aren't they? Relaxing on a bench calms you down, and suddenly solutions or good ideas come to mind.

Period of Hesitation

Not only being able to check benches, but also incorporated many functions. Route display, favorites, point system, themes, function to contact as a meeting place, etc.

But you know, no matter what I do, it doesn't grow (it doesn't go viral)

On weekdays, I had two computers, one company computer, and typed in bench data earnestly in the morning activity getting up at 5:00 am.

Also, arriving early in the morning at the business trip destination when there are few people and checking benches (chronology is off, but this continues from the beginning)

Furthermore, thinking it would be nice if it became even a little convenient, I also made a service where benches can be found by exchanging LINE messages. (I Googled how to make it a lot)

However... a feeling of emptiness suddenly came, wondering if there is any meaning in doing this activity.

Is it okay to pour the remaining resources of my 20s here... Even revenue is in the red with Shinkansen fees... I was about to burn out.

But providing it's useless even if I'm hazy, so I consulted a marketer for a fee about this service.

As a result, I received the following advice.

• It's not Instagrammable at all, and the content is not attractive.
• In the first place, it won't grow because there is no market for bench information.
• You should pivot to stylish cafe or restaurant information.

As a service, it was absolutely no good... But for some reason, a mysterious motivation came out saying "Alright then, let's do our best from here" lol (Because marketers can only analyze from existing markets and past analytics, so they wouldn't understand! Convincing myself with a strange theory lol)

Even after that, revenue was very severe, and I was working on UberEats to earn server fees.

But sometimes I receive support messages like the following, and somehow continued. Continuation is everything in anything!!

Creating Together with Everyone

Even if I say I'll do my best! It's an endless long road to keep looking for benches all over the country by myself... So I thought I would make it possible for users to post.

But how can I make it possible for users to post!? Post via email?

So at first, I was retyping information received via email or LINE manually, but my resources were completely insufficient...

Anyway, I Googled and researched a lot, and managed to finish it in the form of a posting form. (If you become a Suwari Member who can register for free easily, you can post benches. Currently still recruiting!)

Then, surprisingly. Bench information gradually gathered!

Little by little, by little, benches from various regions gathered! Thanks to the kind Suwari Members who post 😊

We are still recruiting posts!

And I also made a system called Suwari Card where you can collect cards by checking in at benches across the country you visited.

I think it's interesting because your own original card is issued. If a bench is gone when you visit, by reviewing it, I wonder if we can maintain the freshness of information together. Click here for details about Suwari Cards!

Possibility of Benches

I thought benches are not just for sitting. Looking like an old existence, I realized that it is actually an existence that captures demand wonderfully according to trends. I thought about a few ways our service could provide value from a different perspective.

1 Place 1 Task In modern times where we tend to do this and that, by escaping from multitasking and concentrating on things, time performance might be good as a result. This can also be easily realized with a bench (even in the city center)

Workplace Anywhere Even though it's a world where you can do various things with just one computer, aren't you bound to your home, workplace, or cafe conversely? Let's select a place more freely and work or create. You can realize it with a bench (there are thousands of benches even in Tokyo)

Let's enjoy takeout Since it has become the era of takeout, it's fresh and fun to eat things bought at shops in the city on a bench.

Let's make time to zone out Because it's the era of time performance, why not dare to set up time to zone out? Even if you cram information into your head earnestly, you cannot utilize it unless you organize, tag, and process it, right?

There is something called "Default Mode Network" in the neural activity of the brain that performs such processing. This is known to become active when doing nothing or being absent-minded.

Also, the process of deepening self-understanding by ruminating on experiences and introspecting is also important. A bench where you can suddenly zone out in the city. I think it will be a valuable time for yourself.

Went Viral for the First Time

I haven't posted the tweet (especially since I haven't got permission...), but a famous person introduced our service, and it was retweeted 2,200 times with 360,000 impressions.

Thank you for using it! It was the first viral in 6 years of operation. And I was interviewed for the first time (Thank you workmill!)

Image Source: https://workmill.jp/jp/webzine/sitdownplace-20240905/

But around that time, overtime exceeded 80h in a certain large project, and I was exhausted myself and couldn't be very active (Regrettable!)

Since Then

To date, I am still proceeding with field surveys without change, and I have investigated 3,463 locations by myself. I investigated benches in Hokkaido for the first time, and also visited Kyushu.

But not only that, the remaining thousands of locations are survey data by "Suwari Members", so it really helps a lot.

I am also continuing development every day, not just investigation, so that it becomes a service that is easy to use as much as possible.

As expected, the WordPress site became heavy, and looking ahead to future application, I rebuilt it based on React.

But since it's self-taught & one-person construction, honestly speaking, it's hell... UI/UX, front-end, back-end, operation, etc. If I were an experienced person in the IT industry, it would be different, but my main business is non-IT, and I thought "Eh, isn't it impossible to complete it alone?" many times. Specifically, a state where I have to think about 10 things to implement one function.

Days when programming was painful continued for 4 months. I think the ToDo list probably exceeded hundreds of items. For the first time in programming, I was about to give up saying "Maybe it's impossible anymore...".

But unless I manage to accomplish it, I cannot continue to provide a service that is difficult for users to use. If you can view this page, it means it is completed. (Still unbelievable)

But when there are people who use it, I feel like doing my best!

Finally

Thank you for reading this far.

If there are people who support this project, we would appreciate it if you could register as a personal sponsor (there are also benefits to use the service advantageously)

スポンサーについてはコチラ

I will do my best on SNS too! Please follow Instagram and TikTok where we introduce wonderful benches in the city.

Actually, I am also a city walking YouTuber, and casually introduce benches from the promotion of this service and the cityscape.

There are also character goods of this service secretly. There are also goods that can only be obtained here, so please take a look if you like.

Then, let's meet on a bench somewhere!