Six days every week, Kengo Ohama is up earlier than the solar. He takes 5 minutes to prepare, and is quickly out the door for an hourlong bike experience to the neighboring city of Mihara in Hiroshima, Japan.
By 6 a.m., he pulls up outdoors a log-cabin-style constructing, dwelling to Nation Highway, the café and roastery that he is been managing along with his spouse since April.
Offered by Kengo Ohama.
He cleans the area, makes pastries, roasts espresso beans, and serves friends all through the day. After the final desk has cleared, Ohama stays behind to organize for tomorrow. By the point he will get dwelling, it’s already 11 p.m.
Ohama had at all times dreamed of opening a café. When he discovered a longtime one listed on Relay, a Japanese business-succession platform, it felt like destiny.
The café’s house owners, an older couple seeking to retire, not had the bodily stamina to run the enterprise.”Their largest want was merely for somebody to take excellent care of the store and hold it a vigorous place,” Ohama, 31, informed Enterprise Insider.
Offered by Kengo Ohama.
The phrases of the takeover had been easy: He needed to hold the enterprise working, however was free to revamp the interiors as he noticed match. “That flexibility made the chance very enticing,” Ohama stated.
Ohama now covers 50,000 Japanese yen in month-to-month lease for the constructing. The enterprise itself — together with the model, furnishings, kitchen tools, recipes, and provider info — was transferred to him for zero Japanese yen.
A brand new era steps in
Ohama is a part of a youthful era taking on Japan’s small companies as their longtime house owners age out with no successor in sight.
The nation’s low beginning price and quickly getting old inhabitants have left many enterprise house owners with out grownup youngsters to inherit their corporations. Even after they do have children, these heirs might dwell elsewhere, have established careers, or just not wish to tackle the calls for of working a neighborhood enterprise.
In 2023, the Japan Finance Corporation discovered that 57.4% of small and midsize companies it surveyed anticipated to shut when their present house owners stepped away, up from 52.6% in 2019.
That hole has created a gap for platforms similar to Relay and BATONZ, which join house owners seeking to hand over their companies with potential successors.
Relay has listed about 900 companies so far, together with roughly 350 energetic listings, a consultant informed Enterprise Insider. Homeowners seeking to go on their companies are sometimes of their 60s and 70s, whereas successors are sometimes of their 30s and 40s.
BATONZ, which additionally handles extra typical acquisitions by corporations seeking to develop, has listed greater than 42,000 companies and matched 3,421 buyer-seller pairs as of March 2026, a spokesperson informed Enterprise Insider.
Protecting a beloved place open
For some enterprise house owners, these platforms can provide a lifeline when an sudden disaster forces them to confront succession planning ahead of they anticipated.
Offered by Akitata Mitsui.
Akitaka Mitsui spent years working as an out of doors tour information earlier than opening Mori to Mizu Backpackers in Nagano, a metropolis in central Japan identified for its alpine landscapes, in 2011.
When the pandemic introduced journey to a standstill, he quickly closed the guesthouse. Even after it was protected to reopen, he needed to reduce the operation and lower workers.
By 2022, customer numbers had been selecting up once more, and Mitsui was contemplating increasing as soon as extra. Then he suffered a stroke.
“It was not extreme, however I needed to be hospitalized,” Mitsui, 67, informed Enterprise Insider. “The reason for the stroke was by no means recognized, which meant it might occur once more. I started to suppose it could be higher to cease working the enterprise.”
He turned to BATONZ to discover a successor outdoors his household.
“I by no means supposed to make my youngsters take over the enterprise,” he stated. “I wished them to do what they wished to do with their very own lives.”
Enter Kota Fujisawa, a Nagano native who moved to Tokyo for college and later labored in consulting.
Fujisawa, 29, had been searching for a approach to assist revitalize his dwelling area. Together with two childhood buddies, he took over the guesthouse in Could 2024, although certainly one of them has since left the enterprise. They renamed it Native Knot Backpackers.
Offered by Kota Fujisawa.
He stated they paid lower than 10 million Japanese yen for the enterprise, which got here with its web site, reserving methods, and workers. The constructing was not a part of the switch, and he declined to reveal the month-to-month lease.
It’s a drastic change from his steady workplace job, the place he labored on only one a part of bigger tasks. Now, as a small-business owner, Fujisawa has extra freedom to form your entire operation and determine the place to take it subsequent.
Offered by Kota Fujisawa.
“My earlier work was primarily desk-based, however I now spend way more time on-site and have extra alternatives to speak immediately with a variety of vacationers,” Fujisawa informed Enterprise Insider.
Nonetheless, there’s a balancing act: Taking on a longtime enterprise means deciding what to protect and what to transform.
“If we modified all the things, it could turn out to be a very completely different place,” he stated.
Offered by Kota Fujisawa.
Getting a foothold in a brand new trade
Past handing over whole companies, succession platforms may also assist aspiring entrepreneurs acquire entry to the infrastructure they should get began.
For Takayuki Otawara, a 29-year-old former civil servant in Miyazaki, it opened a path into farming regardless of his lack of agricultural expertise. His curiosity in cacao farming started throughout a demanding stretch at work, when he found craft chocolate and fell in love with it.
“I had by no means farmed earlier than,” Otawara informed Enterprise Insider. “The one factor I had ever grown was a small tomato plant for a primary-school challenge.”
Offered by Takayuki Otawara.
His mother and father initially opposed his resolution to go away a steady authorities job for farming. His buddies, although, had been extra encouraging. “They principally thought it sounded fascinating,” he stated.
To get began, Otawara wanted a greenhouse and farmland, neither of which his household owned. After struggling to seek out one by native farmers, he turned to Relay and located a list from a strawberry-farming household seeking to reduce their operations as they received older.
Beneath a enterprise succession settlement, Otawara purchased a greenhouse and irrigation tools from the unique house owners for 3 million Japanese yen.
He used the amenities to start out his personal farm, the place he now grows cacao alongside strawberries, bananas, rice, and different crops.
Offered by Takayuki Otawara.
He’s on the farm each day, the place his work begins at 6 a.m. and sometimes ends round 7 p.m. He’s normally in mattress by 10 p.m.
The work is extra demanding than his former workplace job, which got here with weekends and public holidays off. Nonetheless, farming has given him a sort of satisfaction he by no means discovered as a civil servant.
“The work I put in comes again to me immediately as outcomes,” Otawara stated. “Within the authorities, you might have a clearer concept of what your wage and profession will appear to be till retirement. Now, how a lot I do and the way a lot I earn can change. I discover that thrilling and rewarding.”
