As I started to write this, I ended up covering a few topics:-
-Japanese business entities
-New Mirai Inc employee Chris Gaunt
-Japan Working Visa
-Online Profile
-Online Portfolio
-My puchi background
-Ranting
Japanese Companies
Kabushiki Gaisha is the Japanese term for a stock holding company. The English equivalent is "co.ltd" or "inc" and in Japanese can sometimes be shortened to just "KK."
Up until a few years ago, to set up a KK in Japan, one needed at least 10000000 yen of capital in the bank but a new law was introduced to reduce the hurdles needed to set up a company.
The new law allows folks to set up a company for just 1 yen - which one can do but may be difficult to gain the trust of clients who see that one is running a company with 1 yen of capital.
The new law allows folks to set up a company for just 1 yen - which one can do but may be difficult to gain the trust of clients who see that one is running a company with 1 yen of capital.
For foreigners to support their own Business Investor visa, one has to have at least 5000000 yen in the bank. If the amount of capital is less than 5 million, one has to employ 2 Japanese nationals who can either be Japanese or gaijin with permanent residency.
There are other requirements such as needing an office and business plan too. I will write up on how to set up a Japanese business entity in detail soon.
I have already written up on how to set up a Sole Proprietorship and recommend you do so too if you are earning *any* sort of side income.
I have already written up on how to set up a Sole Proprietorship and recommend you do so too if you are earning *any* sort of side income.
Over a year ago, I wrote about how Hector joined my company Mirai Inc in the Japan Startups article and today it gives me great pleasure in announcing that Chris Gaunt has joined us as a Web Developer.
Chris hails from Bedford in The UK and has been in Japan on a "Working Holiday Visa" issued by the Japanese embassy in Regent Street London - the same place I got my working visa for Japan.
I didn't know how incredibly easy it was to get a visa to work in Japan. All Chris had to do was show that he had about 2000 UK pounds in his bank and write up a letter about why he wanted to have a holiday working visa for Japan. The embassy then issued him with a visa for a year.
I didn't know how incredibly easy it was to get a visa to work in Japan. All Chris had to do was show that he had about 2000 UK pounds in his bank and write up a letter about why he wanted to have a holiday working visa for Japan. The embassy then issued him with a visa for a year.
Chris then came over and started to look for freelance work on the Internets which included work for Japan Soc and used many social networking tools such as Twitter to connect with folks in the Web2.0 industry in Tokyo.
I knew of Chris from his work at Japan soc and his website Nihongo Notes but didn't meet up with him until one day at Tokyo CGM Night where he approached me and asked if I had any work available.
I didn't commit to anything at the time and went to check out his work even more and was impressed in particular by his frontend CSS, HTML and JQuery work.
I didn't commit to anything at the time and went to check out his work even more and was impressed in particular by his frontend CSS, HTML and JQuery work.
I asked Chris to come in for a week which gave us time to evaluate each other. Remember that when you go looking for a job, its not about whether they are going to hire you or not, its also about whether you want to work for them - they are being evaluated at the same time.
Working for a company is a partnership where both parties gain from a relationship and is not about "the boss" telling employees what to do.
Chris on the far right in this photo. Ken Lee to his left who is working with me and Appliya on dannychoo.com apps. We are pushing to launch this month so that we can announce at the Apple Store in Ginza at the end of the month.
Working for a company is a partnership where both parties gain from a relationship and is not about "the boss" telling employees what to do.
Chris on the far right in this photo. Ken Lee to his left who is working with me and Appliya on dannychoo.com apps. We are pushing to launch this month so that we can announce at the Apple Store in Ginza at the end of the month.
Chris learned how to work with the Mirai Gaia APIs within a week and was able to produce front end templates for our next clients site. He demonstrated that he not only had the skills I was looking for but also could produce results in the timeframe that I desired.
Chris has been working with us for nearly two months now - maybe he decided to join because of the free figures? ^^;
Chris has been working with us for nearly two months now - maybe he decided to join because of the free figures? ^^;
Also kudos to Hector for designing the backend of Mirai Gaia in a scalable way to make it easy for new comers to pick up the APIs with ease.
Chris's story is similar to my story where I had a web presence that enabled me to get jobs initially at Job Dragon who then introduced me to Amazon. Without dannychoo.com and my profile page, I don't think I would have got the job at Job Dragon because they specifically contacted me due to my CSS and design work and even had printouts of my site when I went to meet them. I remember the boss asking "Did you really do this?" ^^;;;;;
Job Dragon had to let me go after a few months but as they were a recruitment agency, they introduced me to eBay Japan and Amazon Japan amongst others. It was nice because Ebay and Amazon both offered me a job and the recruiters got them both in a bidding war over me - the more they pay, the more the recruiter gets which is about 30% of my annual salary.
eBay ended up offering more but I chose Amazon...
Going back to what I wanted to emphasize like I did at the Animax Workshop in Singapore - the importance of an online profile.
Without an online profile, people are going to have to guess what you do. With an online profile outlining your skills, experiences, interests and achievements will make it easy for people to connect to you and open the door to more opportunities.
Without an online profile, people are going to have to guess what you do. With an online profile outlining your skills, experiences, interests and achievements will make it easy for people to connect to you and open the door to more opportunities.
Your profile is like your online resume and I recommend that you include as much info as possible. You may have trolls bash you for "showing off" but thats what a resume is all about - to list achievements which you worked hard to accomplish. Trolls want to be recognized for doing knowt.
If you dabble in design, illustrating, writing, dancing or whatever, having your work in a portfolio online will enable potentially millions of people to connect with you and open doors all around the world.
You can also use business social tools like Linkedin.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dannychoo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris
You can also use business social tools like Linkedin.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dannychoo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris
Without an understanding of Chris's work online, it would be unlikely that I offered him a job.
Ultimately it depends on what you want to do in life but I recommend using the Internets as a tool to reach out and profile yourself online.
A small note to those who rant on their blogs - completely fine but imagine a potential employer or business partner reading rants on your blog - Hmmmm. Impressive?
I used to rant on dannychoo.com and am completely embarrassed by it. I also used to use the blog as a tool to attack others which only accomplishes one thing - to make myself looks like a complete and utter pratt. I've been deleting those posts when I see them popup under the "posts currently being read" ^^;
I used to rant on dannychoo.com and am completely embarrassed by it. I also used to use the blog as a tool to attack others which only accomplishes one thing - to make myself looks like a complete and utter pratt. I've been deleting those posts when I see them popup under the "posts currently being read" ^^;