The Japanese senior citizens who founded Jeeba knew they were making history when they coined their company motto: “Of the elderly, by the elderly and for the elderly”. By the time the 25 founder met one another in the mid 1990s, at a series of business-networking events hosted by the government of southern. Saga prefecture, many companies were making products for the elderly, the fastest growing demographic market in Japan. But those goods were not made by the elderly. All the Jeeba founders were older than 60 and believed they had a special insight into the needs of older consumers. In 1997, they launched Jeeba (the name means “old man and old woman) to build senior friendly bathtubs, toilets. They do not hire young people, and the oldest of their workers is 75. Annual sales are only $272,000, but senior director Kazuhiro Noda, 67, expects revenues to start growing soon as the company is putting more money and resources into sales development. He says: “There will be a lot more companies like ours.”
He’s probably right. Firms run by senior citizens are still a rarity. As a result, many of the rich world’s notions about old age are dying.