[Day 11] Can I use grants or subsidies? I looked into it
Yesterday, I wrote about how I looked into how much app development costs and faced reality.
Asking a development company costs over 1 million yen.
Even with no-code, it costs tens of thousands of yen every month forever.
Honestly, I don't have that kind of money.
But I don't want to give up.
So today, I
looked into whether I could use grants or subsidies
to help.
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First of all, what are grants and subsidies?
Embarrassingly, I didn't really understand the difference between grants and subsidies either😂
After looking into it, this is what I found.
What is a grant?
・Mainly issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
・Often supports employment-related matters
・If you meet the requirements, you almost always get it
What is a subsidy?
・Mainly issued by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry or local governments
・Often supports new businesses or IT implementation
・There is a screening process, and you won't get it unless you are selected
If I'm going to make a "Hair Medication Notebook,"
a subsidy seems more relevant.
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I looked into the IT Introduction Subsidy
The name I hear most often is
"IT Introduction Subsidy."
I wondered if it could be used for app development?
So I looked into it.
What I found out
・A subsidy for when you introduce IT tools
・However, it covers "existing IT tools"
・It seems like it doesn't apply if you are building a new app yourself...
Hmm, I might not be able to use this.
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I looked into the Small Business Sustainability Subsidy
The next thing I looked into was
the "Small Business Sustainability Subsidy."
This seems to be a subsidy that
small businesses can use when they start new initiatives.
Maybe I can use this?
・Covers initiatives for market development or productivity improvement
・Upper limit of 500,000 to 2 million yen
・Subsidy rate is 2/3 (you need to cover 1/3 yourself)
If I make the "Hair Medication Notebook" and
spread it throughout the beauty industry—
would that count as market development?
But the application documents look incredibly complicated...
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I also looked into local subsidies
It's not just national subsidies;
there might be subsidies from local governments too.
Since I run a sole proprietorship locally,
I also looked into city subsidies.
There was a startup support subsidy
・Startup Support Subsidy
・For people starting a new business
・Upper limit of 500,000 yen
But when I looked at the requirements,
"Within 1 year of starting the business"was written there.
I've been running my sole proprietorship for 8 years now, so
I can't use this😂
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What I found out after researching
I spent half a day researching various things.
Here is what I learned.
Grants and subsidies do indeed exist.
However, the conditions are strict.
And,
the application documents are incredibly complex.
Business plans, income and expenditure plans, various supporting documents—
creating all of this by myself seems like a huge task.
I might even need to hire someone to help with the application.
But that costs money too...
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So, what should I do?
Grants and subsidies might be an option, but the hurdles are high.
So, what I'm thinking now is:
First, I will do as much as I can on my own.
・Study no-code tools and try building it myself・Create a prototype using a free plan
・Have customers use it and see their reactions
Once I've done that and am convinced that this is truly needed,
then I can think about whether to apply for a subsidy
or try crowdfunding.
First, I need to give it shape.
That is what I can do right now.
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How I feel today
I'm glad I looked into grants and subsidies.
Saying "I don't have money" is no excuse to give up.
There are many ways to do things.
But before that,
I realized it's important to do everything I can on my own first.
Even if I don't have money, I have time and passion.I will use those to move forward one step at a time.
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Tomorrow, I plan to study no-code tools properly once again.
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Thank you for reading until the end today.
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