Sanrio was founded by Shintaro Tsuji as the Yamanashi Silk Company in 1960, using 1 million yen in capital. In 1962, Tsuji expanded his enterprise from silk to rubber sandals with flowers painted on them.[9] Tsuji noted the profits gained by simply adding a cute design to the sandals and hired cartoonists to design cute characters for his merchandise in response.[9] In 1973 the company was officially