Setting up a Japan office: the first 90 days

The early snag in a foreign company’s Japan office is usually delivery between HQ’s plan and the team on the ground.

Seranova is a bilingual PM/PdM in Tokyo and takes that delivery on contract. There is no list price for “a launch.”

The short start is an AI PMO Sprint (4–6 weeks, from ¥400,000 excl. tax). Continuing is from ¥600,000 per month excl. tax. Company registration itself is out of scope.

Ved Kamat, bilingual PM/PdM, 14+ years2026-10-16

What does the delivery side do in the first 90 days?

Ninety days here means the three published steps, applied to a launch. It is not a promise of outcomes on a calendar.

A free 30-minute call checks fit, and who decides what between HQ and Japan
The AI PMO Sprint measures where time goes (meetings, status, tickets, requirements) and leaves a system on 1–2 workflows
If you want it, a monthly retainer then runs weekly priorities, progress, risk, and a Japanese–English decision record

Scope can be adjusted each month. There is no obligation to continue. The three steps are defined on the AI PMO Sprint page.

What does the PM do between HQ and the Japan team?

The team on the ground works in Japanese. HQ works in English. The job is the same priorities, the same progress, and the same decisions on both sides. It is not a translation desk.

Product — priority and scope tradeoffs
Engineering — a realistic path, dependencies, and risk
Business — constraints on the ground, and what customers and contracts require
Executives and HQ — the case for a decision, and a record of the decision

Keeping the record matters more than adding meetings. The detail by seat is on services. The definition of the role is on the fractional PM page.

How do fees and incorporation stay separate?

A Seranova quote is for delivery scope. Registration, visas, and tax filings are out of scope. The public starting point is JETRO’s guide to setting up a business in Japan.

JETRO says a company can be registered with as little as 1 yen of capital, and that minimum setup costs can be kept at around ¥15 million. That is JETRO’s description of incorporation cost, not a PM fee. There is also no list price for a 90-day package.

A separate JETRO survey says about 60% name qualified hiring as the top hurdle, and that mid-level bilinguals often cost 20–30% more. Whether to hire or to start with a contract PM is on the hire vs retainer comparison, with assumptions you can edit.

Which offices is this for?

Teams that need a bilingual PM/PdM they can trust between an English-speaking HQ and the people in Japan. It is not another vendor seat. Japanese startups that already have delivery underway are in scope too.

Solo founders are not the primary fit. No English stakeholder side, or shopping only for the cheapest headcount, is usually a poor fit. Choosing an AI consultant in Tokyo is a different page: AI consulting.

FAQ

Can you file the incorporation as well?

Registration, visas, and tax filings are out of scope. Use JETRO’s guide to setting up a business in Japan for that. Seranova takes the project delivery that comes with the launch.

Can this run with an English-only headquarters?

Yes. The work is a Japanese–English bridge. The same priorities and the same decisions reach both HQ and the Japan team. It is not translation in one direction.

Is there a list price for the first 90 days?

There is no 90-day package price. What is published is a sprint of 4–6 weeks from ¥400,000 excl. tax, and a retainer from ¥600,000 per month excl. tax. Anything else is quoted to the scope.

Sources

The sprint and retainer figures are Seranova’s published prices. The 1 yen capital and about ¥15 million setup cost are JETRO’s words, not a PM fee.