Entrepreneurs in Japan

Hisato Hamada

Founder of VIVA Japan, exporter of Wagyu (Japanese beef)

Mr. Hamada is not your “typical Japanese”. After working for only one year in a large corporation in Japan, he decided start his own business, only at the age of 22. He didn’t do it for the sake of money or status, but to make a change. At that time he realized how the Japanese society views people differently depending on company...


Innovation Dojo: From Japan by way of Iceland

A newly founded student organization focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship in the land of the rising sun.

Innovation Dojo is a student organization founded in Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Japan. It is based on the ideology that everybody can start up their own company, and even initiate social change if they have the right idea, and the passion to bring it to reality.

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Royal Beauty Treatments

Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of a beauty queen is all about?  Mandy Schendel regularly visits the Paule Attar Salon and Spa in Bellevue to receive the royal beauty treatment.  Her visits start with a Anti-Toxin Body Wrap with Green Coffee* and continue with full makeup and hair styling that was captured here in a deluxe photo shoot by world renown luxury photographer Ilya Moshenskiy. As Miss Washington in the Miss America...


France by way of Morocco | Paule Attar

“When I was a child growing up in Morocco, we had so many orange trees,” Paule Attar recounts in her gorgeous, husky French accent. “As a kid, I would eat oranges fresh from the tree.. . .Any time you rub the peel over your hand, smell it and it is pure heaven!”

Since 1988, she has been the president and the technical and creative director of the European-style Paule Attar Salon and Spa in Bellevue, Washington. Ms. Attar has also...


Five Startup Finance Strategies

Capital is the lifeblood of any business venture, and for startups, securing enough capital to become operational and profitable is a daunting challenge. Here is a look at the pros and cons of five startup finance strategies.

1. Friends and family: Asking friends or family to invest in a new business is a very informal financing strategy. This is among the simplest ways to finance a startup business. The pros –...


Would Boudica Wear Spanx?

A major angel investor in high tech companies, who is a woman, told me she didn’t like to invest in ventures led by women  the vision of male entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs. Some women build large businesses, she explained, but they’re usually based on girly products. Women don’t build companies that are based on disruptive technologies and have the power to change the world.  Even Amazon, a name associated with...


Key Traits of Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs have a different mindset from people who have jobs. Here are some key traits:

Stubborness. True Entrepreneurs don’t know how to give up.  This attribute is far greater than persistence. It means entrepreneurs have to actually learn how to give up.  They have to learn when to cut their losses and move on. And usually they can’t move on until they’ve indentified their next big idea or business concept...


Interesting facts: Vietnamese Americans

A majority of Vietnamese came to the United States as refugees of war and without much money or resources available to them.  According to Wikipedia, mass Vietnamese immigration to the United States started in 1975, after the end of the Vietnam War. Early immigrants were refugee boat people, ...