Inside Japan Market Entry with Shigeru Harasawa Vol. 3 — How to Build a Team That Wins

TL; DR (Summary)

Start with trust. Early hires come from people you’ve succeeded with or high-signal referrals.

Hire technical first. In enterprise IT Japan, sales without real tech won’t stick.

Add a bilingual “bridge.” Someone who can translate customer ↔ HQ across business, product, and language.

Don’t over-mythologize the country manager. It’s a team sport—assign the bridge to whoever can truly do it.

Small market, long memory. Japan IT is tight-knit—reputation compounds, for better or worse.

“In Japan’s enterprise IT, sales won’t land without real technical depth. Your first hire should be technical.”

When You’re Hiring From Zero, Where Do You Begin?

Interviewer: You’re building from zero—you need a team. How do you start?

Harasawa: The first seven or eight—really the first five—are people I already know, or people a trusted colleague says, “This one will work.” I look for folks I’ve succeeded with before, or someone they vouch for.

Interviewer: So the early core is “trusted talent × referrals”—a referral-first approach common in early-stage team building.

Harasawa: Exactly. There are fantastic technologists and fantastic salespeople, but that doesn’t mean they’ll fit this team. Dropping someone in and hoping they click—you won’t learn that in an interview. What matters is can we actually run together.

Interviewer: So it’s networks—but specifically, proven collaborators, either from your own track record or from someone you trust.

Interviewer: Tech before sales—that’ll surprise some readers.

Harasawa: Hiring sales as the second is fine—not as the first.

Interviewer: What if your strongest technical candidate’s English is only so-so? Won’t that slow you down?

Harasawa: Ideally, your technologist speaks English. If not, hire a person—could be business development or solutions—who can bridge between the customer and the company. You need a translator in the broad sense: business, technical, and language.

Interviewer: So someone with a background like yours—comfortable in tech and BD, capable of leading locally if needed.

Harasawa: You need one solid person. By “solid,” I mean someone who does the homework and mediates between the company and the customer—in both English and Japanese.

Do You Always Need a “Country Manager” to Do the Bridging?

Don’t Over-Index on the Title—Cover the Functions

Harasawa: It can be the country manager, but it doesn’t have to be. If someone else can truly own the bridge, the country manager doesn’t need that function.

Interviewer: A bit noncommittal. laughslaughslaughs

Harasawa: I wouldn’t over-focus on the persona of a country manager. The real question is how the team is constructed. That’s what matters.

Interviewer: So the country manager is one role in a broader team design—not a superhero job.

Harasawa: Textbooks make the role sound paramount—“find the person who can do everything.” In practice, if you look at it as a team, it isn’t about one exalted title. It’s about covering the critical functions with the right people.

Interviewer: Understood. We’ll compile additional details we couldn’t fit here into a separate document. Thank you for three insightful episodes.