Business cards, cold outreach, and practical tools

For ordering business cards, raksul.com/businesscard (an online design tool with inexpensive printing and delivery) and the Accea print shop (same-day printing, nationwide network) are recommended. Raksul (raksul.com/print/sticker) also prints stickers (packaging labels, mailbox stickers, etc.); for car decals or large print runs, ordering from China via Alibaba is cheaper, but specifications need careful control and a trial batch should be ordered before the main run. Business cards (名刺) remain important in Japanese business culture — worth having even before a company is officially registered (a name and email address are enough), optionally with a QR code added. Dress code for preliminary consultations at startup centers is generally business casual; a suit isn't strictly required for foreigners but is appreciated. Starting business contact with Japanese companies is better done by phone and in person rather than by email, which often goes unanswered; Japanese counterparts often trust the person more than the content of a proposal. Cold-writing (cold emails/letters) rarely works — the recommendation is to find intermediaries, use personal connections/calls (nemawashi), attend relevant trade shows, and approach government business-support agencies (e.g., Osaka Innovation Hub/Osaka Business Agency) or the local chamber of commerce (商工会議所). It's easier to reach Japanese branches of foreign companies, or Japanese people who lived/studied abroad. In price negotiations, Japanese clients generally don't ask for a discount when confident in quality, valuing reliability and personal relationships over price. A cheap laptop for old/specific Japanese government services (e-Tax, e-Gov) can be found affordably (a used ThinkPad for under 10,000 yen on Mercari). A portable printer is a useful tool for printing documents on the spot at a convenience store when filing at the Homukyoku. A katakana address converter for official forms is at daiverse.com/tools/kanji-to-kana, though not always accurate since kanji in addresses can have nonstandard readings. For scanning documents (e.g., low-contrast passport stamps), using a smartphone camera (scanner apps) is recommended over a regular scanner — quality can be higher for low-contrast red stamps. For small-business CRM, options discussed include a self-hosted open-source CRM in Docker (security and maintenance risk falls on you), corporate cloud CRMs like Hubspot (used even by companies with sensitive data), or a minimal "upgrade from paper" approach using Google Docs/Microsoft 365 (considered secure enough for a small business). Online freelance/outsourcing marketplaces in Japan include CrowdWorks (クラウドワークス) and Lancers (ランサーズ), both Upwork equivalents; Coconala (ココナラ), a Fiverr equivalent; meetsmore.com, also a services marketplace; Skeb (スケブ) for commissioning illustrations from artists (mangaka), though without revisions or feedback; and niche platforms like Pixiv Comic/BOOTH. .co.jp domains can only be registered to a company incorporated in Japan, with a maximum of one domain per company. For bars/snack bars that don't sell take-out alcohol and serve drinks in an open container, participants report that an ordinary trading license is enough, with no special alcohol license needed (not fully confirmed). Producing alcohol requires a separate license and a minimum production volume of about 6,000 liters/year; smaller custom batches can be ordered from existing producers without holding a license yourself (contract distillation). For export activity, an ordinary shipper's license usually isn't required (customs is handled by a broker); a license may only be needed for specific regulated equipment. Registering with JASTPRO costs about a 10,000-yen fee, after which you can operate (confirm with a broker). As an example of how long account setup can take for an export company, one confirmed case had a SWIFT-enabled account take up to 14 months to open, even while actively pursuing it. Setting up a GK (合同会社) in Hong Kong took one participant a week online, including opening a bank account; corporate tax starts from 9%, there is no dividend tax, and a fully offshore, tax-free status is possible under certain conditions (an unconfirmed opinion from the chat, details not verified). Source: https://raksul.com/businesscard/ — Raksul online business-card design and printing. Source: https://raksul.com/print/sticker/ — Raksul sticker printing. Source: https://daiverse.com/tools/kanji-to-kana — Converter for Japanese addresses from kanji to katakana.