Taking the mystery out of business expansion in Japan

NGB helps international companies with successful market entry in Japan while helping Japanese startups grow globally. We offer a unique combination of business development (two Harvard Business School MBAs) and in-house technology development capabilities. Conducting market research, developing a strategy, and regionalizing products/services, we not only “consult” but execute. Forming partnerships with key Japanese companies, designing UI/UX, writing codes, establishing legal entities, hiring bilingual talent, conducting PR work, etc. We will represent you so that you may not have to hire a country manager.

Experienced

Founded in 2007, our past clients include unicorn startups like Yelp, top-tier global VCs, and Fortune 500 corporations. With over 17 years of experience, we established “trust,” which is a critical aspect when making partnerships in Japan. We provide full transparency to our work, utilizing tools like Asana to show the status of each project, Bitbucket to share the progress of our codes, and HubSpot to show our outreach to your potential partners.

Market Entry

Into Japan

Every market in the world has its unique set of challenges. However, global companies are often stunned by the vastly different ecosystems in Japan. Their reliable “playbook” for some reason does not work.

Here are some frequently encountered hurdles:

Cannot acquire bilingual talent with adequate skills
Establishing partnerships in Japan takes too long
Hidden rules and regulations catch you by surprise
Overhead costs for establishing operations in Japan are too expensive
Lack of trustworthy bilingual CTO

NGB has years of experience in helping clients overcome these challenges. Unlike the large consulting firms, we are nimble, flexible to needs, and lean.

Outward from Japan

NGB will help a Japanese startup scale globally. Utilizing our strong network of global VCs, Fortune 500 companies, and Unicorn tech companies, we will help establish the necessary partnerships to propel your business to expand exponentially. Many startups in Japan need help communicating the strength of their service/product to the global market. This is not just a language hurdle but a lack of global strategic insight, which could only be gained through years of experience.

Marketing in Japan

NGB has years of experience working with global companies to fine-tune their marketing strategies for the Japanese market. There is a delicate balance between maintaining the core message and adjusting the nuances that capture the heart of Japanese customers. This is not simply a cleaver language translation but a strategic message building.

Founder & CEO

Tomoyuki “Tomo” Takada is an entrepreneur, educator, investor, and writer. Born in Japan and raised in Illinois, he possesses a unique combination of experiences in strategy, engineering, programming, design thinking, fitness, VC, and manufacturing. He found his "Ikigai," a source of joy, nurturing Japanese entrepreneurship mentoring startups for global VCs like Antler and Mitsui & Co’s in-house incubator in Moon Creative Lab.

Tomo started his own company in LIVERUN, a fitness service that instructs and motivates people to prepare for the Centenarian Olympics. Over five years, LIVERUN's live classes have drawn more than one million participants. Earlier, Tomo worked with Yelp, executing a successful country launch, and led Yelp Japan as the managing director. He holds a B.S. from Northwestern University, an M.S. from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Tomo is a self-proclaimed fitness and health nerd and a mindfulness instructor. He incorporated his learning into Amazon's top 10 novel, “RH Channel: Secret Fitness Mission.” Connect with Tomo on X, Yelp, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.