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WAKAYAMA — While the number of young people in Japan hoping to open their own business has been rising along with a diversification of workstyles, many face fundraising and other high hurdles. However, one young entrepreneur in this west Japan city has successfully started a business using less than 500,000 yen (roughly $3,500).
Takahiro Nakamoto opened the Lop Cafe and Mini Gallery on March 16, 2022. The 23-year-old entrepreneur had just attended his university graduation ceremony five days earlier. “I want people to know that even without a huge amount of funds, and even at my age, it’s possible to start a business. By all means, drop by to talk with me about it,” Nakamoto said.
According to the Wakayama Municipal Government’s official start-up business support plan, the number of aspiring entrepreneurs supported by the city and the Wakayama Chamber of Commerce and Industry totaled 563 in fiscal 2022. Of these, 120 actually started their business. About 10% were under 30 years old. Financing is said to be viewed as a major issue, resulting in many who are hesitant to start their business.
For the opening of his cafe, Nakamoto had neither a significant amount of funds nor a fully thought-out business plan. As a regular student attending a medical university in Osaka, he had aimed to become a judo therapist, a type of osteopathy practitioner. Without knowing how much money he’d need or exactly how to start a business, he mainly searched up info on his smartphone.
With “within a scope that is manageable” as his first rule, he financed the opening of his business using the money he had saved up from his part-time job and monetary gifts he had received on New Years going back as far as he could remember. Looking back, Nakamoto said, “In management terms, it’s probably good that I didn’t have any fixed notions.”
In his first concrete steps toward opening the business, he took the courses to obtain a required food hygiene license. He decided on the cafe’s rented space after visiting around 20 potential locations meeting his criteria of having all necessary equipment and below his maximum monthly rent of 100,000 yen (approx. $700). Other expenses, such as utensils and an espresso machine, totaled to only between 100,000 and 200,000 yen ($700-1,400). For the cafe’s furnishings, he picked up some items to his liking on the unwanted goods section of the classifieds site Jimoty, and received other pieces from people he met along his business-opening journey.
“I was able to start managing a cafe for about the same cost as becoming a company employee and living on my own,” Nakamoto explained. Meanwhile, he was set on using a portion of the limited startup funding to establish a gallery alongside the cafe. Reaching out to artists within Wakayama and in other prefectures, five roughly six-week-long individual exhibits have been held there to date. Rather than charging the artists to host their works, the cafe takes a fee for any sales. This helps attract art fans and more customers to the business.
The cafe completed its first year in business profitably, and continues to operate without debt. There have been times when he was told his studies have gone to waste, and times he couldn’t tell his friends he was going to run a cafe when they urged him to start looking for a career. However, he is confident in his decision. “If there’s anyone out there who thinks, ‘if that guy can do it, maybe I can, too,’ I’ll be happy,” Nakamoto said.
(Japanese original by Rihi Anzai, Wakayama Bureau)
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