You can earn foreign currency while staying in Japan. Moreover, you don't need overseas business trips or large capital. You might think, "Selling to the wealthy is only for people with connections."
But in reality, a company in Kyoto with only five employees is achieving a unit price of 1 million yen per customer.
In this article, I will dig deep into the case of "selling Japan" and extract the model for creating a flow to earn foreign currency.
Case Study: A Travel Agency with 5 Employees and a 1 Million Yen Unit Price
Let's look at a specific example: Mitate Co., Ltd., founded in Kyoto in 2014. The content discussed by CEO Hideo Shoji in a YouTube interview was at a textbook level of insight, so I will organize it here.
Their first business was cultural experiences in traditional townhouses (machiya). They offered tea ceremonies, flower arrangement, and calligraphy in English. The unit price was 8,000 to 9,000 yen per person. By running four sessions a day with six people per class, they made 200,000 yen in daily sales. The cost of the matcha powder was only about 200 yen.
Even so, annual sales plateaued at 45 million yen.
As long as you do business based on a physical space, there is a ceiling.
In 2018, Mr. Shoji flew to the UK. He made appointments via cold emails and met with about ten local travel agencies that handle trips to Japan. From there, the business shifted to B2B.
Customer requests were like this: "I want to meet a Living National Treasure." "I want to eat at Sukiyabashi Jiro." "I want to work with Kobe beef producers."
They designed experiences that cannot be booked by searching online and sold them by adding a profit margin to the cost. The unit price became 700,000 to 800,000 yen per person. For two people, it’s 1.5 to 1.6 million yen.
Even with the same "Japanese culture," the moment the target audience changed, the digits moved by two places.
Two Points for Beating Big Companies Through Grit
By realizing experiences that cannot be booked online through networking and coordination skills, they sell through travel agencies with a profit margin added to the cost. Many products exceed 1 million yen, with unit prices around 700,000–800,000 yen per person.
The ultimate example is a "10-month experience to create original sake" currently being proposed. It involves 25 people visiting Japan three times, designing everything from rice planting to harvesting and the delivery of their finished sake. A few of these massive projects move each year.
The important things are:
① Create products that cannot exist online
"June 1st, Rice Planting Experience, up to 10 people, 3,000 yen" — the moment it is standardized, the experience appears on OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) and becomes a price war.
Conversely, the more conditions pile up — coordinating with farmers, securing specific fields, private handling, using the highest grade Yamada Nishiki rice — the less it can be standardized. It enters a realm that can only be established through human trust. Platforms cannot enter that space.
② Capture only travel agencies that are serious about selling Japan
There are 2,000 to 3,000 travel agencies in the UK. But only a handful are serious about selling trips to Japan. You capture only those and deeply understand their needs. Mitate even has a related PR company in the UK to run local development in parallel.
And the reason they focus entirely on the themes of "Tea and Sake" is the same. If you don't narrow it down, you get exhausted by generic requests like "shrine tours" that anyone can arrange. By narrowing it down, you can confidently say, "We are the best in Japan in this field."
In Mr. Shoji's words, the place to survive is "where big companies don't come, because it's extremely difficult and tedious, but the unit price is solid."
So, Where Do You Start?
However, it is difficult to copy the Mitate model exactly. Connections with Living National Treasures cannot be built overnight. Mr. Shoji also took four years from founding to reach overseas B2B.
That's why my company reversed the arrow.
We take hit products already completed overseas and sell them exclusively in Japan. This is the sole distributorship business.
It's faster than spending tens of millions of yen on OEM (manufacturing) from scratch. In the time it takes to develop for six months, you can consult with 100 companies. Negotiations are free.
https://x.com/columbus_ceo/status/2016113941701919015
Here are our results. We have negotiated with over 500 companies in more than 20 countries. Roughly 10% lead to exclusive contracts. We expanded five brands selected from those; some were sold off, and some we continue to sell. A Taiwanese wine aerator made 15 million yen initially. A highball ice maker made about 20 million yen through two crowdfunding campaigns.
The procurement cost is around 30% of the selling price. Including shipping and customs, the gross profit is 60-70%.
We have survived for seven years with this structure.
https://x.com/columbus_ceo/status/2068647931918569843
Extracting the Laws from This
① The product is the medium; the asset is the list of decision-makers
What Mitate built was relationships with UK travel agencies. What we built was a list of decision-makers at overseas manufacturers. Even if the arrow is reversed, what remains is the same. If you move for six months, you will accumulate about 100 decision-makers.
② Start with "I want to spread this in Japan"
Don't start with a sales pitch; start with a proposal. The first sentence is "I want to spread your product in Japan." Since it's a conversation about profit for them, it's hard to be rejected. Overseas manufacturers find Japanese support tedious, so they welcome someone who handles it for them.
③ The barriers are exclusivity and customer lists
Major trading companies don't handle overseas products with no track record in Japan. Therefore, competitors are small to medium businesses and resellers. If you secure exclusive rights and hold customers via Shopify (an EC service where customer data accumulates in-house), no one can enter later.
Because you sell for them, the next thing sells. If you reverse the order, nothing sells.
The Decision-Maker List Turns into Secondary Revenue
When you produce results with exclusive sales, the nature of consultations changes. Support for entering the Japanese market, sales channel development, hiring KOLs (influencers), and advertising operations. The unit price is in the millions of yen.
That's not all. "I want to take my children on a trip to Japan." "I want permanent residency, so tell me about companies that are candidates for acquisition." You stand in a position where you are called first when they want to do something in Japan.
This is where it connects with the Mitate model.
The first step can be the free plan of Claude or ChatGPT. You can create lists and English emails. Translation is handled by chat tools. Our company creates 200 lists every month. If you can allocate 10 to 20 hours a week to list creation, you can start moving.
Overseas travel expenses are zero.
Summary — To Earn Foreign Currency While in Japan
Let's organize the key points.
① Mitate switched an 8,000 yen experience business to a 1 million yen unit price for the wealthy, making it viable with 5 employees.
② Our company reversed the arrow, starting with exclusive Japanese sales of overseas products, making 17.85 million yen in 2.5 months. The person in charge was an EC beginner who couldn't speak English.
③ The product is the medium; the asset is the list of decision-makers. If you accumulate 100 in six months, Japan-related projects worth millions of yen will arise.
At our company, we provide support for acquiring exclusive Japanese sales rights and launching overseas brands as "Overseas EC Exclusive Sales."
I have summarized the thinking in the 36-page internal white paper "How to Create a 17 Million Yen Global Business in 3 Months" below.
https://x.com/columbus_ceo/status/2077951415616745706
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References
- Kentaro Kuroishi Channel: "A travel agency with a unit price of tens of millions!? We asked Mr. Hideo Shoji, President of Mitate Co., Ltd., about the reality of custom-made travel agencies for wealthy foreigners growing rapidly with inbound demand!" YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXNv2S5dKsw
- Sakai Man @ New Business Channel: "Method for exclusive sales of overseas brands in Japan" YouTube 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PNiEfPZG0w
- Noji (@columbus_ceo) X Post: "17.85 million yen in 2.5 months: 4 steps to launching an overseas EC brand in Japan" 2025 https://x.com/columbus_ceo
