entrepreneur

By Terrie Lloyd

What type of company is best when starting up in Japan and how much capital should it have?

Probably the two most common questions asked by foreign CEOs wanting to establish a presence in Japan are what type of corporate structure they should use and what the capitalization should be.

Michael AlfantBy Darius Jones

When opportunity knocked Michael Alfant took notice, building success from scratch not once, but twice.

By Michael Condon

J@pan Inc takes a look at some of Tokyo’s most exciting Internet innovators:

Kristopher Tate, Eric Young, Andrew Smith Lewis, Taisuke Fukuno, Marc Wesseling, Michael Sheetal

Vincenzo LufinoBy Simon Shida

Now that IT has become such an integral part of business activity, it is important to find the right IT solutions for your business. We talk to Ecotech Japan—a company that can offer just that.

Terrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd -- The apparent lack of desire by Japanese youth to become entrepreneurs. -- There is much that can be done, and in fact, is being done, to encourage entrepreneurship as a career. Ranging from universities to tax breaks for venture capital, there are many changes taking place in Japanese society as the authorities start to realize they have to do something. A quick look through the METI website lists many press releases on what the government is doing to support new business owners.

By Hugh Ashton -- Surviving entrepreneurs tell us about turbulent times -- Any successful business has faced pitfalls along the way, but for entrepreneurs and small-to-medium sized companies, these mistakes can prove fatal. Those who have survived tell us their story.

By Peter Harris -- Tokyo diamond broker Mark Willis and his unique business model of serving the expat community -- Like so many long-term residents in Japan, Mark Hiroshi Willis’ first job here, back in 1991, was teaching English. Although he enjoyed the job, Willis was a qualified gemologist and had always known that his professional future lay with diamonds.

By Dave Mori, President of the Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo -- How being a duck out of water can actually help you succeed -- When I first moved to Japan just 6 years ago, I was dismayed to discover that many of my Japanese friends didn’t know what an entrepreneur was. As a student I had heard compelling tales of Japan’s terrific entrepreneurial growth in post-war Japan and I couldn’t understand how entrepreneurship had seemingly disappeared from the Japanese way of life.

Tim WilliamsBy Chris Betros -- Tim Williams of ValueCommerce fame speaks about his new venture -- New Zealander Tim Williams, struck gold with Internet marketing company ValueCommerce, and is now launching his latest venture—an online wine and lifestyle portal.

In the last of our profiles of people who have become successful in Japan without speaking fluent Japanese, we cover entrepreneurs. Now I realize that I've skipped R&D professionals, English professors, golf course designers, sports coaches, priests, and no doubt a slew of other professions. However, I hope that by picking up on multinational executives, Geeks, and now entrepreneurs, that I have been able to establish a pattern for creating a successful career despite some obvious handicaps - a pattern that not only works in Japan but also in other countries as well.