Articles

How foreign companies actually get started here: sales channels, agents, setting up a base.

1. 01What a Japan entity must file each year

   Every statutory filing a Japanese subsidiary owes each year, in two tracks: people, and office and facility. With the headcount thresholds and prefectural differences that switch each one on.

2. 02When Your Direct Team and Resellers Chase One Customer7 min

   Set rules before your direct team and resellers in Japan collide: deal registration like Dell's 90 days, named accounts, rep pay, and no fixing resale prices.

3. 03Your Price Decides What Kind of Sales Team You Need7 min

   Cybozu raised kintone's smallest deal in Japan from 90,000 to 216,000 yen a year. Price bands decide your sales team, and your sales team rewrites your prices.

4. 04Your Real Competitor Is Wherever the Customer's Budget Goes7 min

   In Japan, 36.6% of sole proprietors keep books in spreadsheets or by hand, near the 40.9% using software. Map substitutes, tax accountants, SIers and inertia.

5. 05Japan Hires Fewer Graduates. Mid-Career Talent Gets Pricier9 min

   Major Japanese firms cutting graduate hiring now outnumber those expanding it, a first in five years. How much is AI, and why experienced hires will cost more.

6. 06Why Foreign SaaS Stalls in Japan After Ten Customers9 min

   Foreign SaaS in Japan wins ten customers fast, then stalls at the mainstream. Moore's chasm, JUAS budget data, ringi, and the sales team each side needs.

Designing the organization, making the key hires, running the hiring process. Worked through with cases and models.

1. 01First-year performance reviews: don't chase fairness7 min

   A new company or Japan entity has no facts to grade in year one. Write expectations, record facts, have one conversation, and set grades and curves in year two.

2. 02Grades Are Not Titles: A Minimum Grade Table for Japan7 min

   A first grade table for a small Japan entity: six steps defined by what a person can carry, kept apart from titles like section head, plus the overtime trap.

3. 03Manager and Specialist Tracks in Japan Need One Grade Scale7 min

   Japan's department heads earn 2.05 times untitled staff, so specialist tracks become holding pens. Why one grade scale, with management as an allowance, works.

4. 04Can't Find the Right Hire? Which Requirement to Relax First7 min

   Relax what can be learned fast and is cheap to get wrong. Pre-hire experience correlates 0.06 with performance, and JLPT N1 never tests speaking. Keep judgment.

5. 05In-House Recruiters or Agencies in Japan? Split by Role7 min

   Only 32.7% of small Japanese sites hired mid-career in a year. Keep backfill roles in-house, send scarce or confidential searches out, and use RPO in between.

Reports that read Japan’s labor and talent markets from public data.

1. 01Why Japan's Recruiter Fees Run 30 to 35% of Salary8 min

   Japan caps recruiter fees near 7% of salary unless the agency files its own schedule. Filed schedules say 30 to 40%. The FY2024 average was ¥1.03m per hire.

2. 0210, 50, 101: Japan's Headcount Lines for Employers8 min

   Japanese labor duties switch on at 10, 37.5, 50, 100, 101 and 301 people, some per site, some per company. A levy line at 80 was proposed in October 2026.

3. 0390% Feared Japanese. The Real Gap Was Hou-ren-sou6 min

   In a 22-company survey, 90% worried about Japanese before hiring Vietnamese engineers; afterwards 26% said it fell short. How to relax the language bar.

4. 04Japan Job Ad Pay Averages ¥5.13M. Experience Adds ¥1.15M7 min

   Mynavi's full-time job ads offered a record ¥5.13M average in H1 FY2026. It is an asking price, and ads requiring experience pay ¥1.15M more. Price the segment.

5. 05Japan's Labor Share: 47% at Big Firms, 82% at the Smallest9 min

   Japan's labor share was 64.2% in fiscal 2024, but 47.3% at firms with capital over 1 billion yen and 81.5% under 10 million. What that means for a budget.

What experience is worth, changing jobs, and how work is shifting. What I see from the hiring side.

1. 01Why AI-Written Text Is So Easy to Spot7 min

   Five frequent ChatGPT users misjudged 1 of 300 articles. 379 of 454 words that surged in 2024 abstracts were style words. What gives AI prose away, and why.

2. 02Using AI for Competitor Research: Give Every Number a Trail7 min

   Only 51.5% of AI search sentences were fully backed by their citations. A five-column worksheet that ties every competitor number to its original sentence.

3. 03Five Minutes to Spot the Unsourced Numbers in an AI Report7 min

   Year, unit, denominator and contradictions show without opening sources. Invented sources don't. A reviewer's checklist from Mata v. Avianca and Deloitte.

4. 04Japan's Gen Z and the Trades: What Actually Gets Paid7 min

   Surveys and Japan's August 2026 job data show Gen Z isn't flocking to the trades. Shortages follow skill barriers. Four checks for picking a skill to bet on.

5. 05Career in Japan: Moving, Offers and Your First 90 Days5 min

   For professionals in Japan weighing a move: know why you left before, read an offer by its floor, pick the boss, and check your first 90 days.