[March 2021, Issue 2] A Chance Has Arrived for Small Businesses to Receive 60 Million Yen in Business Funding

Hello, this is Tetsuya Ashida of ACIDHOUSE, INC.

Last week I went to an ENT clinic, a dermatologist, and a dentist all at once.

The week before last I also went to an orthopedist, and this week I'm planning to go to an ophthalmologist too.

Written like this it sounds like I'm battered all over, but I'm perfectly healthy.

Nearly all of my "going to the doctor constantly" is "for prevention".

Prevention is one of the things humans neglect most, yet neglecting it causes great losses.

In business and in life, we always carry some degree of "risk."

There's time before that risk materializes, so you just need to prepare before then, but because it doesn't feel urgent or we don't see it as our own problem, we ignore it or put it off.

Then, unexpectedly, the risk materializes and we suffer major damage.

Also, even after suffering major damage, people often fail to learn — "once on shore, we forget the danger" — and it's not unusual to take a big hit again.

The declining birthrate and aging population, labor shortages, further economic stagnation, major earthquakes...

We're currently being jerked around by COVID, but the chronic problems remain piled up, and none of them are someone else's problem.

There will be a big difference in the difficulty of business and life between people who can practice prevention habitually and those who can't.

As I wrote this, I realized the exact same thing can be said not only of prevention (risk avoidance) but also of opportunities (chances to leap forward).

In other words, it's an extremely ordinary conclusion, but "Preparation determines 90% of the result in everything".

Note that, given human nature, businesses that sell "prevention" basically don't sell.

If you're building a prevention business, I recommend either quitting it or designing it with an add-on service as the main attraction.

A chance has arrived for small businesses to receive 60 million yen

The state of emergency for Tokyo and the three surrounding prefectures was extended until March 21.

The tough situation continues, but in exchange, a generous subsidy program has been prepared.

It is the Business Restructuring Subsidy program, and you can receive a subsidy of 1 million to 100 million yen.

Even before COVID, it had been said that Japanese companies needed fundamental business transformation, such as DX (digital transformation) and work-style reform.

But using this subsidy program, as its pamphlet says, you can push ahead all at once with "bold business restructuring by companies" while considerably reducing the burden, so if you qualify as a target business for the subsidy, there's no reason not to use it.

By the way, applications for this subsidy are only through JGrants (the electronic application system), and issuing the information needed to use it (a GBizID Prime) apparently takes 2–3 weeks.

So it takes nearly a month before you can actually apply, and subsidy applications tend to be more likely to be accepted earlier in the period, so if you want to receive the subsidy, I recommend acting immediately.

*For the exact details of the Business Restructuring Subsidy, I recommend carefully reading the relevant page of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry below.

And what is very, very important is the design of the business restructuring.

A merely cosmetic business restructuring using trendy measures and superficial techniques will unfortunately either reach its expiration date early or end up wasting both the subsidy and your time.

"In business, your counterpart is always, ultimately, a human being", and it is essential to restructure your business on the basis of brain science, behavioral psychology, and quantum mechanics.

If you want to make the foundation of your business solid and reach a state where you'll never have money troubles for the rest of your life, using our company's online consulting service, "Cloud Digital Strategy Partner", might not be a bad idea.

If you're interested, please contact us by email.

*This service may possibly be eligible for subsidies under the Business Restructuring Subsidy program, but it is unknown at this time. For details, please contact the secretariat.
*Our company does not provide support for "the subsidy application itself."

COVID has brought a "subsidy and grant bubble" unlike anything in history.

I recommend that companies for which money is a bottleneck actively use subsidy and grant programs.

Social proof

In business, you're always dealing with people.

If you want to advance your business more advantageously than anyone, it's an absolute must to know and master the many traits that all humans are influenced by at an unconscious level.

Each time, I'll pick up one of those traits and explain it.

This time I'll take up "social proof".

Social proof is one of the most popular traits and one of the most useful, and simply put, it is "conforming to the evaluation (belief) of the majority".

It's engraved in our DNA that humanity has survived by forming groups, so we have a habit of reflexively matching the actions of the majority.

Especially in Japan, compulsory education thoroughly brainwashes people into "going along with the majority." You can see how strong social proof is from experiences like these:

Social proof is that powerful.

In business, too, social proof shows up in places like these:

All of these draw on it.

2 and 3 are also "worship of authority," but authority involves "everyone believing (even vaguely) that it's great," so it's a form of social proof.

However, you must not overlook that the majority's evaluation is not necessarily right or superior (it's often wrong).

So in business, while using the power of social proof, as an individual you need to view information rigged with social proof skeptically.

Originally, if you can evaluate information yourself, the power of social proof doesn't work.

It's when you can't evaluate information yourself and fall into a state of not thinking that you start seeking social proof as the basis for evaluation.

*If you want to study "social proof" in depth, Robert Cialdini's "Influence" is a recommended book.

Noteworthy technology news

Google "will not develop" browsing-tracking technology, out of consideration for personal information (This link was unavailable when checked in October 2026.)

"Browsing tracking" is the technology involved in running so-called "retargeting ads."

Retargeting ads are ads that display your company's ads to users who have visited your company's site once.

They're called that because they behave as if "chasing users around," and Facebook has the same kind of ads (by the way, YouTube is under Google and Instagram is under Facebook, so each has the same feature).

Those "retargeting ads" may become impossible to run with the existing technology, so for now Google seems to plan to change the technology and keep running them (probably the same thing will happen with Facebook).

However, not just with "retargeting ads," it can perfectly well happen that a measure you've been using suddenly becomes unusable.

The effects you can expect from "retargeting ads" lie in "increasing opportunities for contact with users" and "the mere-exposure effect (Zajonc effect)."

Even if "retargeting ads" disappear, if you know those effects, you can look for other measures — "alternative means" — with a solid basis.

However, if your vague reason is "I heard retargeting ads were good, so I was running them," you'll panic when they disappear, and opportunity losses and real losses will occur with nothing you can do.

We run our businesses using many outside resources, and we must operate on the premise of change, such as "terms changes" and "service terminations."

After all, rather than stopping your understanding at superficial techniques, never stop looking at the essence in your everyday work.

The era of making a logo in a web browser in 5 minutes

When you start a new service or launch a new company, you often need a logo.

A logo is, so to speak, your "face," but like calligraphy, it's one of the things that's hard to give form to and doesn't turn out as you want.

The best way to make a wonderful logo is to commission an excellent designer, but that's a tough option for small businesses without ample funds.

Recently there's also the option of asking crowd workers (freelance designers), but there are probably many cases where something somehow unrefined comes back and you compromise and accept delivery.

Enter a service that lets you create original logos in your browser: Hatchful Logo Maker.

It doesn't match commissioning an excellent designer, but you can make logos at a level that surpasses crowd workers.

It's like a version of the browser design tool Canva specialized for logo creation.

These days, landing pages, design, and logos — up to a certain level, you can do them yourself in a browser (or even on a smartphone).

Design is a means in business, not an end, so here is my recommendation: when you don't have much business capital, make full use of tools like these, and once funds become ample, bring in professionals as needed.

This article was published some time after it went out in the newsletter (a rich-text email newsletter sent twice a month, plus two irregular issues) from ACIDHOUSE, INC., the company Tetsuya Ashida runs.