[canpan]

Working in that area in Japan. I think I can provide some answers.

Payment: CC are mostly used for BtoC but if you are a BtoB SaaS you want invoice and a local presence (ie no tax or currency shenanigans for your customer).

Hand on sales: Don't expect customers to sign up for a free plan and convert. Your conversion rate will be close to 0. Mostly scammers. Instead: Contact form, Cold call, go out to events, lots of drinking.

Regarding language: Many people do not speak English. I think that surprises some, but Japan is big and you can live forever happily only speaking Japanese. So if you don't support Japanese it's a complete no go.

[jesterson]

> Many people do not speak English

More like noone speaks English, plainly put

[Scramblejams]

> Hand on sales: Don't expect customers to sign up for a free plan and convert. Your conversion rate will be close to 0. Mostly scammers.

Brutal! Is that true even for Japanese companies with a traditional sales force?

[canpan]

Your sales team can totally utilize a free plan, while communicating with the customer. But a free sign up from the website, without sales person contact, is something we only had negative experience with, so stopped doing it. (Talking about B2B, B2C might be different)

[karim79]

In other words, don't bother from outside of Japan unless the SaaS has been fully translated into Japanese? That's what I'm getting from this response. Is that true?

[felixding]

Translation alone is simply not enough. You'll need local presence, Japanese sales people, and patience (a lot of them).