
A Story Of Starting A Business In Japan - cmod
http://behere.asia/making-it-in-japan
======
patio11
_From my understanding, lawyers working with non-Japanese-speaking clients
charge a premium._

This is true for essentially all professional services in Japan (and,
relatedly, can be true for renting depending on how one goes about that), and
it is not driven entirely by costs. Partly, this is simply "You require
something which is _much_ harder to deliver than standard services; this
restricts your labor pool by > 98% here; deal with the increased price."
Partly there exists a bit of rent-seeking behavior that might be politely
termed "the English tax."

You will occasionally find service providers who quote the English tax rate
even when the assumption is services will not actually be provided in English.
I'm generally polite when asking for the literate professional rate precisely
once. (It is sometimes called out on an obvious line item on the invoice; it
is often more subtle.)

~~~
noobermin
Isn't it the same for any foreigner in any country? The US tries to be
multicultural in some respects but not being able to speak English hampers you
quite a bit too.

~~~
patio11
Suppose you are in the United States and your last name is Tanaka. You
interview an accountant and ask for a proposal for bookkeeping and accounting
for your software company. Suppose the accountant comes back with a proposal
which quotes you including a line item for Japanese translation. (This is
quite unlikely, but roll with it.)

You tell the accountant "Uh, thanks, but: we'll be working together in
English." "Oh yes, that's good, we don't really speak Japanese." "Why are you
quoting for Japanese translation then?" "To cover our increase costs of
dealing with you." "So you... expected to hire an external translator?" "Well,
no, more of an aggravational cost sort of issue rather than a direct cost sort
of issue."

This would be cause for an absolutely nuclear reaction from the client in the
US. In Japan, it's Tuesday.

~~~
raleighm
Fortunately not my Tuesdays in Japan. I've been here seven years and never
seen behavior like that. Sorry you've had such bad experiences.

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po
If you're reading this and are in Tokyo already you should come out to the
Hacker News Tokyo reader meetup. It's a great place to find cofounders, talk
shop and discuss these kinds of issues. We hold them once a month.

You can sign up here and you'll get notified about the next one when it gets
scheduled:

[https://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp/](https://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp/)

 _edit_ If you're not in Tokyo I know there's one in kansai too:
[http://hnkansai.org](http://hnkansai.org)

~~~
romanovtexas
I hope there's one in Fukuoka too, really miss the Tokyo meetup scene here.

~~~
laurieg
There's no Hacker News meetups but there are a few general programmer meetups
that might be of interest to you.

If you are interested come to the meetup on Wednesday nights in AIP Cafe,
Daimyo.

~~~
romanovtexas
Wow, thank you so much for this; didn' t know it existed!

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mikekchar
I haven't read the whole article, but it looks interesting. A couple of
pointers/tips, though: The way expenses and depreciation are handled between
godo kaisha and kabushiki gaisha are different. Make sure you understand those
differences before you choose your path. There are advantages and
disadvantages. The absolute first thing to do _before_ you even see a lawyer
is to find a good tax accountant.

If you are American (or if you are a citizen of a country with similar tax
laws), it is _very_ important to talk to someone who understands the
intricacies of how the IRS works. I'm Canadian, so I don't know the details,
but ownership of a foreign company can incur significant responsibilities with
the IRS. The easiest way around this if you have a Japanese spouse is to have
your spouse own the company. Again, see a tax accountant.

Finally, if you have a Japanese spouse who is dependent on you for income,
then it is incredibly useful to have them be the CEO and president of the
company. Income splitting in Japan is not legal. If you hire your spouse, they
have to work for the company exclusively and get paid an amount representative
of their position. It turns out, though, that the president of the company has
no defined salary range and no defined duties. This is exceptionally useful.

In my company, my wife is both CEO and president. She has to work exclusively
for the company, but I didn't really imagine that she would be very busy. As
it turned out, though, even though I am fairly good at Japanese, having my
wife handle all the business affairs has been incredibly useful. She can do
everything twice as fast as me. Also, people we need to talk to are much more
comfortable knowing that there is a Japanese person there would can navigate
any language/cultural issues that might crop up. Dealing with the bank,
government officials, etc, etc is just hugely easier and more efficient.

~~~
android521
The downside is that if your relationship goes sour, your wife owns your
company.

~~~
mikekchar
No. She's an employee (just like me). The share holders own the company.

Edit: Sorry. I think I misinterpreted what you were referring to. Yes, in the
case that your spouse owns the company, they will own the company if you
split. However, Japanese family law is pretty liberal when it comes to
splitting assets anyway (Not entirely sure how it works for foreigners because
they will get ousted from the family registry and family law will not apply to
them). Basically, splitting up in Japan is tricky no matter what you do, so it
is reasonable to exercise caution.

------
hardwaresofton
As a solo founder that's currently living in japan, wanted to let everyone
know that this post is long, accurate, and a good representation of what it
takes to start a business in Japan.

There's a lot that could be said about Japanese culture that was left out
(probably for the best, brevity wise), and my path was slightly different, but
this was a great read.

For those here looking for good consultation as far as lawyers in japan, check
out:

[http://www.juridique.jp/profile_en.html](http://www.juridique.jp/profile_en.html)

They personally helped me incorporate, prices are reasonable in my experience,
and their advice has been outstanding.

------
sparkzilla
Once thing not mentioned here is that starting a business is usually a major
commitment to staying somewhere, and you may not want to be prepared to make
that kind of years-long commitment to a particular place. Sure, it's all
exciting at first, but you may not like it long-term. I ran a successful
publishing business in Japan, which kept me interested and happy, but it was a
huge challenge to get the company to the stage where we could sell and leave.
Problems multiply if your business does not do well. You may be stuck with
tons of debt, in a foreign country, with very little support. Start small,
make sure you have customers, and grow safely.

------
grabcocque
Japan's population is expected to collapse over the next few deacades, and
that population will be increasingly past retirement age.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/03/japans-
demogra...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/03/japans-demography)

So you're gonna need to give serious thought to where you're planning to get
employees from.

~~~
mjolk
> So you're gonna need to give serious thought to where you're planning to get
> employees from.

As well as the tax burden for supporting the aging portion of the population
(similar to considerations of basing a company in Florida, Maine, Vermont,
Pennsylvania, or other high-percentage elderly population US state).

~~~
Arizhel
That won't happen in Florida. Florida is very right-wing and low-tax. Any
older people unable to support themselves there will be left out in the cold
(by the state government at least).

------
archseer
I'm currently going through the same process for a business investor visa.
However, my lawyer claims that immigation office changed the requirements this
december to also require at least one (can be part-time) employee (other than
yourself). Apparently this is something not stated anywhere, but a whim of the
immigration office... Can anyone confirm?

~~~
patio11
Individual regional immigration offices and the individual clerks at them have
pretty substantial latitude with regards to how they interpret the
regulations. Another similar issue is how much salary you need to have to
"self-sponsor" one of the professional visas (which is a thing which isn't
really anticipated in the written regulations per se but can be finangled out
of Immigration). The amount can, depending on the whims of the examining
clerk, be "3 million yen", "300k yen per month", "at least as much as a
Japanese person in your line of work", "enough to not be a burden on the
public purse", "at or above the average income in this prefecture", etc.

(I will pause to say that if you'd trust an HN comment over the advice of your
lawyer it is time to get a new lawyer.)

~~~
archseer
My lawyer... is very japanese-esque inflexible. No other lawyer (or friends
that recently acquired the same visa) mentioned this new requirement; but the
lawyer refuses to check with the immigration office.

~~~
raleighm
Sounds like you need a new lawyer.

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unknownsavage
I've always been interesting in doing this in Japan, this is without a doubt
the best resource I've ever seen on the matter. Well done to the author,
thanks for writing this up.

------
agibsonccc
I'm based in Tokyo now. It took me a while to find a good immigration firm.
All I can say: I moved here from SF and it has worked out quite well for me. I
run an enterprise company though. Part of what got me to move here was JETRO.
If you are looking to start a startup in japan, they've been very helpful for
us: [http://jetro.go.jp/usa/topics/companies-chosen-global-
innova...](http://jetro.go.jp/usa/topics/companies-chosen-global-innovation-
centers-subsidy-announced.html)

One caveat is we're enterprise though. Consumer will be harder.

We broke in to japan by hiring someone and having them help us start a
subsidary. I moved here using that subsidary. It should be possible to do
something similar for others.

~~~
AdventurerSen
I ran a Wordpress shop several years ago and tried to use the subsidiary route
with advice from JETRO too. While the lady was very friendly and helpful, I
kept getting a 'you don't make enough money, this is a waste of time' vibe
from her.

If you're large enough and raking in enough money, they'd probably be more
helpful.

------
makx
Something similar, with focus on exchange students:

[http://marui-plugin.blogspot.jp/2016/11/starting-company-
as-...](http://marui-plugin.blogspot.jp/2016/11/starting-company-as-foreign-
student-in.html)

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linkregister
I'm not sure if the author submitted this, but she should consider changing
the favicon to something other than the default SquareSpace one. It can be
done in the site settings.

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mazmaz
This is gold

------
sogen
Visa cost: ¥5M Y

~~~
Cyph0n
What? Why would anyone migrate to Japan then? You'd think that they'd have
started relaxing the requirements, given the low birthrates and shrinking
labor pool.

~~~
mantas
They kinda don't give a shit about that birthrate and declining population
thing. Instead they aim for post-labour era with robots and not much manual
labour.

In addition to that, they already have lots of young people who can't find
solid jobs. For the last 20-ish years they economy doesn't grow. Big companies
usually keep their old employees for a really long time, but don't grow. Thus
youth don't have positions to fill. Importing population wouldn't help much,
most of their companies are export based.

~~~
jstandard
As someone with close friends in Japanese government (Ministries), I can tell
you they do care VERY much about about their declining birthrate and stagnant
economy.

~~~
jpatokal
...they're just unwilling to actually _do_ anything about it. Allow
immigration? Make it possible for women to have careers after childbirth? Stop
funding increasingly ridiculous infrastructure boondoggles and give tax cuts
to consumers instead of zaibatsu? Hire and promote based on talent, not
seniority and what school you graduated from? Nope nope, it's all too
muzukashii.

I've been visiting Japan regularly for 20 years now. To a first approximation,
_nothing_ about the fundamentals above has changed.

~~~
laurieg
What do you mean by "allow immigration"? If you have a degree and a job you
can come work and live in Japan. Japanese immigration is not that restrictive.
My native country, the UK, has far more hoops to jump through to get
permission to work.

The social changes are a much bigger challenge. If your family sees you as a
bad mother for working while raising children then financial incentives and
back to work schemes will only get you so far.

~~~
mantas
I guess he mean poor immigrants vs rich expats. The only relatively poor
immigration they welcome is ESL teachers. Aside from that.. If you can make it
in Japan, you can live well anywhere else.

There's very little of euro/us style poor 3rd world kind of immigration. Even
if one would get a visa, they'd have a really really hard time finding a job.
Strip club bouncers is very limited market.

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deeteecee
lol i have to like natto to start a business there?

