Asking for a friend.
So, I’m a language student who’s also working part time in Tokyo. I’ve already got a standing job offer with a company including work visa for after I finished school.
I have this friend back home, and he would like nothing more than to move to Japan as well. He’s trying to figure out a way to do this, and has been looking at the 1 year start up visa offered by cities such as Shibuya.
He’s one guy, works in media production, skilled at what he does, and although he’s young, already has a pretty decent work track record. Being one guy though, he won’t easily be able to meet the minimum funds required for the regular business manager visa, but he can save up more than enough money to get by for a year or two and set up a company.
Luckily, media production and consulting isn’t something with a lot of overhead costs, especially when one already owns all the hardware.
So, is this something that’s possible/realistic for a guy to do, or is it a pipe dream?
2 comments
>So, is this something that’s possible/realistic for a guy to do, or is it a pipe dream?
As someone who works in the media sphere (though not through the startup visa): It’s *possible*, but honestly not particularly likely.
Even for the startup visa, he will need to show ***some*** money up front. If nothing else, the Shibuya visa requires you to show a rental contract and some form of proof you’ll be able to pay for said rental contract.
Money aside… It’s going to be an uphill battle. Does your friend speak *any* Japanese? There isn’t really any demand for non-Japanese-speaking media folks here. The startup visas generally require that you start a business on the *Japanese* market. So “I’m going to start a media business that caters to clients outside Japan” won’t really fly. Unless your friend speaks very fluent Japanese he’s going to find it almost impossible to work with Japanese clients.
*Maybe* if he’s world-class at what he does he could get away with less Japanese, but… If he was that good he wouldn’t need to ask Reddit, because he would have a huge list of industry contacts to call upon.
> Luckily, media production and consulting isn’t something with a lot of overhead costs,
For when he switches to the business manager visa, doesn’t his business need to employ a couple of locals full-time? So there’s at least the overhead costs of a couple of employees.