Created at: 17 Dec 2025 Last updated: 17 Dec 2025
I recently wrote a year-end reflection for MOAB, my little company. That post is more personal—about the name, my mom, and learning to stay somewhere long enough to build something. This one is more practical: why I think almost anyone should consider starting a company, even if it's just for fun.
Starting a company for yourself is pretty useful, and it's never been easier. AI and online software make accounting, taxes, and technical know-how within reach for anyone. You don't need to be an extroverted, super-confident person with divine grit. You just need curiosity.
As long as the loans are only to yourself and you can cover minimal monthly overhead, it's worth it. For me that's about ¥25,000 (~170 USD) including minimum taxes, finance software, domain names, servers, and an AI subscription.
There are benefits that business people know about that everyone would want if they realized how accessible it all is now. Let me give you some examples.
Depreciation (減価償却 / genka shōkyaku): Say you buy a car. You know how it's definitely worth less every year? That loss in value is called depreciation, and you can write it off on your taxes. That's money back in your pocket. You can't do that with "personal use assets." But if you are the business, then you depend on your car for the company to exist. Same goes for computers, cameras, printers—anything you use for work.
In Japan, items over ¥100,000 are typically classified as fixed assets (固定資産 / kotei shisan) and depreciated over several years. Items under ¥100,000 can usually be expensed immediately. So that ¥90,000 printer? Write it off this year. That ¥300,000 computer? Depreciate it over 4 years.
Home Office (家事按分 / kaji anbun): If you work from home, you can deduct a portion of your rent, electricity, and internet based on the percentage of your home used for business. Say you use a room that's roughly 20% of your apartment or house, you can write off 20% of those costs.
Professional Development: Books, courses, subscriptions, software—anything you use to learn and improve for the benefit of your business can be written off. Your time researching and learning benefits the company and the economy at large. So you should write it off.
Business Meals (接待交際費 / settai kōsaihi): If you meet a client or collaborator for coffee or a meal, that's a legitimate business expense. You can't write off every dinner, but real business meals count.
Little things like this add up! I wish I had done this way back when I was teaching private English lessons.
The Lambo Disclaimer: Obviously, you can't go buy a Lamborghini and expect it to be tax deductible unless you have a really good reason it benefits your business. The tax office isn't stupid. But for normal stuff—your laptop, your desk, your internet, a portion of your rent—it's all fair game.
Real talk, money-wise: I started with ¥300,000 (~$2,000 USD). About ¥180,000 of that went to establishment costs—registration fees, legal stamps, filing documents. The rest went into the bank account as initial capital.
Here's a tip I wish I'd known: When you establish the company, you declare an initial capital amount (say, ¥300,000). It's cleaner if you subtract your setup costs from that amount before opening the business bank account. So if setup costs ¥150,000, put the remaining ¥150,000 in the bank on day one. Your books will be much easier to reconcile. I didn't do this—I had already made a couple sales and mixed things together—and it was slightly more complicated than it needed to be.
Money Forward helped me set up the company. They walk you through all the documents you need to file, and that part is free. I stopped using them when they wanted payment and the bank account integration they preferred didn't work for me.
Minato Bank is my local regional bank in Ako. They were willing to work with a small new company when bigger banks weren't interested.
Freee is what I use now for ongoing finances and tax filing. It's been relatively painless.
One regret: I maybe should have just stuck with Money Forward from the start, even though I didn't need all their fancy tools. Why? It would have been about the same price as Freee for a 株式会社 (kabushiki kaisha / formal corporation). It's cheaper if you're a 個人事業主 (kojin jigyō nushi / sole proprietor) or 合同会社 (gōdō kaisha / LLC-equivalent), but I wanted to do the "big boy" version for fun. I probably wouldn't recommend 株式会社 unless you've got big plans—the paperwork and costs are higher.
The real reason it's easier to commit to a paid plan early: you can screenshot and send receipts and invoices as you go, and both Freee and Money Forward are getting better at automating the bookkeeping for you. Less pain at tax time.
But honestly, you'll figure all this out if you just start and ask AI questions as you go. Claude has walked me through so much of this in Japanese.
I feel like if you're even remotely interested in money and how the economy works, you might as well set up a company for yourself. It took me a while—over a year from deciding to start to actually doing it—and I'm still figuring things out. But it's easier than ever, and it's fun if you take it slow and don't stress too much.
A key factor in keeping the stress down: treat it as a self-financed side hustle. ¥300,000 is totally reasonable if you think of it as tuition for a real-world business education. Cheaper than school, and hopefully the start of something more long-term and freeing.
If you're curious, just start. You'll learn more by doing than by reading about it.