Any notable success with starting a business in Japan?

How did you overcome any fear you had?

How did you meet the people who helped you the most?

How did you keep going when you wanted to give up?

Do you have any tips/advice for someone who is interested in working for themself?

4 comments
  1. 1. Everything is anxiety inducing to me. So, while I was anxious, there was also no time like the present, and it wouldn’t help me anyway. Cutting all the steps into smaller pieces helped too, so i wasn’t focusing on the entire goal of “start a business”. Slowly start up.
    The biggest fear would have to be money, of which I am useless, but my partner isn’t. So we learned to trust each other’s strengths and roll with it.

    2. My partner is my husband, so that helps.
    Beyond him, since we have an eikaiwa, it was actually our new students who helped the most.
    Our first student ever recommended we change the website (so we did – she was a web designer and knew her stuff) and she also pointed out a free accountant who gives advice while you get started, and then we will need to use him as our future accountant. My husband also met with a business advisor on her recommendation- also free. And no, I don’t know these peoples names, sorry.
    We also never did any advertising of our school, most of our new students come from the students we currently have recommending us on. We take care to value them, and they return the love.

    3. It’s still early days yet, so no giving up. It helps to split labour when one of us is tired (usually me) and to take the stress down a notch. Always remembering that this is OUR business, OUR dream and its supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, what can you do to get back into that state?

  2. We’re still building but we’ve had a few small successes. I will say that making a business is very much a team sport because you can’t possibly know everything you need to about every aspect. So it helps to try and meet as many people as possible. It’s also a long grind of constant problem solving, so keeping a long term perspective definitely helps.

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