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Japan eyes startup visa program

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#181

Post by cgarrigue »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #131
patio11 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. You know YC's question "How have you ever hacked a non-technical system?" This is my answer to it. You can start a side business on a regular work visa if the character of your business matches your status of residence and you don't intensify the business to the point where it is undeniable that it is a business as opposed to employment, e.g. by hiring full-time…

wait, as a non-citizen of Japan you are allowed to sponsor yourself for a work visa? That sounds, uhh, strange.

A friend who is freelance translator sponsored herself when renewing her work visa (previously she was a colleague of mine and our company sponsored her at that time, but since becoming freelance she's not employed by anybody but herself). She just had to produce proofs for each the recurrent contracts she's got so she can show that she's earning enough money. So yes, sponsoring yourself is possible, but it requires a lot of paperwork to prove you have the mean to live in the country.

I don't know how much difficult it is start your own business in Japan, for this Patrick is clearly the most knowledgeable person here, but once it's done, you just need to give yourself a salary to be able to renew your visa.

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#182

Post by enothereska »

drieddust wrote: post #114
laurieg wrote: post #92

Japan's immigration system seems heavily set up to encourage young people to come, work and then leave. This startup visa is good for getting a toe-hold on Japan but only targets people out of country. If you live in Japan already (so you might already speak the language and have helpful local knowledge) there aren't any great paths to starting a business without permanent residency. You can't start a side business o…

That's not just Japan. UK is another example of such behaviour. They killed HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrants Program ) in the name of curbing immigration. But at the same time allowed companies to transfer employees to UK for up to 5 years. So in my view they are no better. Guess what the very problem it was supposed to solved still exists and immigration is increasing. They are just not getting Highly Skilled immigrant…

I wouldn't compare UK with Japan. The path to permanent residence and citizenship in the UK is clear and straightforward. That has led to a solid number of startups in the UK.

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#183

Post by codedokode »

yorwba wrote: post #160
codedokode wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? Except for Kanji, Japanese doesn't look like a difficult language because it doesn't have genders and inflections.

Japanese does have inflections. Specifically, verbs are conjugated: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Japanese_verbs#Conju...

You are right, I meant cases [1] , like those that are there in German.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#184

Post by jpatokal »

jmadsen wrote: post #136
patio11 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest bank in Japan was flabbergasted that I sweet talked them into getting a business bank account for Starfighter. Some things I wouldn't agree with: Personal bank accounts aren't challenging given a medium term status of residence. Wire transfers should be trivial for anyone capable of running a business; you just have to ask and not sound like a drug lord while doing so. Credit cards are easily available, i…

Sorry, Patrick, have to disagree with you on this one: 12 years of residency, started a Godo Gaisha, had to jump hoops even with my bank I'd had a personal account with all those years just to get a standard savings account . Credit card was the same for me, although friends have had easier time. I owned a house, a car, registered a business - could not get a personal cc with company my family had been using for over…

There's a great deal of variance among Japanese banks regarding their policies on issuing credit cards to gaijin, all of which are (of course!) undocumented. A random list of cards that are supposedly easier to get:

http://wandertokyo.com/japanese-credit-cards/

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#185

Post by jpatokal »

throwaway31293 wrote: post #163

Why on earth would anyone move to Japan ? You get treated like shit, get paid shit, do shitty work, and work under morons whose only qualification is the ability to speak Japanese and bullshit in English... and this for Machine Learning. I can't imagine the things one has to put up with for more vanilla jobs. Moving to Tokyo must be one of the biggest regrets of my life. I'd look for Singapore or India even, compared…

Sounds like your employer is pretty shitty (and to be fair, Japan has more than its fair share of shitty employers), but that's an attribute of your company, not Japan itself. And if you're coming over on a startup visa, it's your company and you set the rules.

All that said, it's hard to people with no connection to Japan opting to start up in Japan -- as patio11 notes, doing so without fluent Japanese is playing life in hard mode.

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#187

Post by [deleted] »

robk wrote: post #145
drieddust wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not just Japan. UK is another example of such behaviour. They killed HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrants Program ) in the name of curbing immigration. But at the same time allowed companies to transfer employees to UK for up to 5 years. So in my view they are no better. Guess what the very problem it was supposed to solved still exists and immigration is increasing. They are just not getting Highly Skilled immigrant…

Hsmp was great but today's Tier 1 Exceptional is arguably the most generous in the western world for tech talent. 5 years with a direct pathway to citizenship. No other in Europe offers a path to citizenship this fast if at all.

[deleted]

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#188

Post by Keyframe »

Buge wrote: post #42
Keyframe wrote: post #22

Wait, what are the benefits apart from 'we let you stay here and do your business and here are some lawyers and maybe a good word here and there'? This is absurd.

What are the downsides? If it's an improvement and not a regression I don't see a reason to call it absurd.

Improvement over what? I haven't read any business argument so far why it would make sense.

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#189

Post by Zakiazigazi »

jpatokal wrote: post #186
yomly wrote: post #180

As an aside, how are software engineer salaries in Japan?

Absurdly low by Valley standards: 6 million yen a year (~$53k) is normal, senior folks might pull in 10m (~$88k).

Additionally, in normal Japanese companies that 6M _is_ the senior salary with starting salaries around the 3M~4M range. A 10M salary is basically a non-starter right off the bat at most places, they'd basically laugh you out the door with that, well, if you got a chance for an interview in the first place, but you wouldn't.

That said, 10M is of course not impossible, but in my experience it is mostly reserved for larger foreign companies, the banking sector or if you somehow manage to get to an executive level. And maybe a handful of very specialized very well funded companies.

Re: Japan eyes startup visa program

#190

Post by rdl »

fiblye wrote: post #80
jswizzy wrote: post #58

Good luck with that. I would advise against it having been stationed in Japan, in Yokosuka, on the first Nuclear vessel forward deployed ever. It's an awesome place for tourists but it will never be a place that anyone who is not 100% Japanese can call home. You will always be an outside over there.

Of course soldiers are considered outsiders. I doubt people stationed in Korea or Germany will be going on about how they felt like true locals either. The biggest hurdle is the language barrier. People treat you like kids when they think you're just a typical tourist, but once you're past that hurdle, it quickly gets to the, "How can you not know this basic thing? All of us Japanese know it" point. At that point, yo…

Actually the US Forces-Germany relationship is pretty strong, and during the Cold War was even stronger. There were a lot of the permanent party at places like Landstuhl who were fairly embedded in off post activities.
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