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Living in Japan...business ideas. What would you do?

patent10021

patent10021

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 23, 2004
3,582
854
I'm trying to think of ideas to take advantage of being a foreigner in Japan. I already run my own school but until I have managers at multiple schools it's not passive income. Something involving royalties is always attractive. For example, one of my hobbies is photography. I'm in a unique position to provide journalistic content for SPAs like Corbis and Getty Images. Another is exporting niche products. There's a guy who exports collector samurai swords and apparently does great business. Back home online grocery stores do great business. The supermarkets aren't doing that here.

Any ideas?
 
patent10021 said:
I'm trying to think of ideas to take advantage of being a foreigner in Japan. I already run my own school but until I have managers at multiple schools it's not passive income. Something involving royalties is always attractive. For example, one of my hobbies is photography. I'm in a unique position to provide journalistic content for SPAs like Corbis and Getty Images. Another is exporting niche products. There's a guy who exports collector samurai swords and apparently does great business. Back home online grocery stores do great business. The supermarkets aren't doing that here.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Fashion.

Biggest fashion capital in the world.
 
I suppose the one flaw with the groceries idea is that offline grocery stores simply aren't as popular in Japan due to space issues, etc.

An online store isn't a bad idea though, at least with the right product. One thing that could be vastly improved upon over existing markets is web design. I suspect its simply because much of the Japanese populace is very internet savvy, but the design of many Japanese online marketplaces is bizarrely garish and counterintuitive.

To play on the previous poster's idea: What about an online fashion market? You can improve on existing retailers' individual stores by offering a better interface and cherry pick your goods. You could even offer an english version site for exports. Aside from the anime/goth/loli stuff, very little mainstream Japanese fashion makes its way to the states.
 
JHorace said:
To play on the previous poster's idea: What about an online fashion market? You can improve on existing retailers' individual stores by offering a better interface and cherry pick your goods. You could even offer an english version site for exports. Aside from the anime/goth/loli stuff, very little mainstream Japanese fashion makes its way to the states.
Click to expand...
You mean working with already established brands/current retailers or establish my own market place working with independent designers/no name brands? I'm thinking of something that wouldn't involve a lot of inventory.
 
JHorace said:
One thing that could be vastly improved upon over existing markets is web design. I suspect its simply because much of the Japanese populace is very internet savvy, but the design of many Japanese online marketplaces is bizarrely garish and counterintuitive.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's mainly because cellphones dominated Japan's early Internet days, which was unlike the USA and most other developed countries (which were dominated by desktop PCs). So many of the Japanese websites were designed to be viewed on a phone, which is why they have tons of columns, tons of text and small images - looks and functions great on a flip-phone, but not so much on a computer. And by the looks of things, many Japanese web designers still haven't moved on, so there could be some great opportunities for western ideas to enter in that area.
 
noodlemanc said:
and by the looks of things, many Japanese web designers still haven't moved on, so there could be some great opportunities for western ideas to enter in that area.
Click to expand...

I would really appreciate that. Japanese websites tend to be: ... Colorful and overloaded. Totally different from tea ceremonies or zen simplicity
 
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