From the team -- Dear Readers -- Founded by a serial entrepreneur, J@pan Inc has always related to breaking the mold and starting new ventures. It’s not surprising that foreign residents in Japan particularly have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, utilizing their experience and knowledge of other countries to look for fresh opportunities in the Japanese market.

It is therefore exciting to have our first entrepreneur special.

By Hugh Ashton -- Surviving entrepreneurs tell us about turbulent times -- Any successful business has faced pitfalls along the way, but for entrepreneurs and small-to-medium sized companies, these mistakes can prove fatal. Those who have survived tell us their story.

By Dave Mori, President of the Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo -- How being a duck out of water can actually help you succeed -- When I first moved to Japan just 6 years ago, I was dismayed to discover that many of my Japanese friends didn’t know what an entrepreneur was. As a student I had heard compelling tales of Japan’s terrific entrepreneurial growth in post-war Japan and I couldn’t understand how entrepreneurship had seemingly disappeared from the Japanese way of life.

By Greg Lane -- Street View lands in Japan -- Google’s controversial Street View add-on to Google Maps was launched for the larger Japanese cities in early August. -- NTT Launches strange SNS -- NTT has launched a Social Network called ‘Talk Feel’ with the honorable intention of bringing together people in Japan and China. -- Lots and lots of blood -- Tech and science news site Ars Technica reports that Japanese researchers have discovered a method to transform embryonic stem cells into red blood cells. -- Facebook has a big mountain to climb -- With 25 times more users, Mixi is still a big nasty Godzilla to Facebook. -- IPO Report -- As we go to press, there are 13 completed or forecast IPOs for the month of August.