Hello! We're Evan and Dani Benton.

We are two Americans living in Japan. Three years ago, we received a Startup Business Visa, which then earned us a Business Manager Visa. This allows us to live in Japan via our small business: Benton Homestead. We renovated a former 'akiya' abandoned house into our cute Shōwa-retro guesthouse. And we've built a small honeybee and natural farm, also on formerly abandoned land. It's been incredibly challenging but also greatly rewarding!

Unfortunately, the life and business we've worked to build every day for the past three years, is facing a major challenge... the requirements for our continued residency have changed suddenly and dramatically.

We are now at the beginning of a new and different uphill battle. Existing Business Manager visa holders have been given a three year "grace period" to meet the new increased requirements, in order to continue living in Japan:

There are other changes as well, but thankfully, we already meet those (language skills and work experience requirements).

We have until October 2028 to increase our capital by ¥25 million (about $170,000 USD). There are no exceptions for existing visa holders, or for those living in small rural communities. All existing Business Manager visa holders will be treated the same. So we have a deadline of three years to adjust our business trajectory and meet these new requirements!

How is Benton Homestead going to meet these new Business Manager visa requirements? Well, that’s a really good question.

Here’s the situation: We are a small rural business on a small rural island in a small rural prefecture. We have a small budget, but big dreams, and we work hard to make up the difference. Working with abandoned properties for our business and farm adds a lot of extra work and unexpected obstacles. Benton Homestead is in all ways a small blue collar business. So how are we even considering the monumental task of increasing our business capital by ¥25 million…???

For starters, we have a great team of professionals. We have begun initial discussions with our business consultant, accountant, and immigration lawyer. These three professionals have already been our guides for the past three years, through the Startup visa process, and helped us successfully navigate the first two fiscal years of Benton Homestead in Japan. Since the Business Manager visa changes were announced a few months ago, we’ve already started rolling a lot of different ideas around. So over the next few months, we will continue discussions, and come up with a new business plan, to put us on the proper trajectory. We just have to make very wise decisions with limited additional funding.

Very importantly, we have the support of our community. Many of our friends and neighbors on Ōmishima are also business owners. The outpouring of support has been really heartwarming. One friend in particular sent an encouraging message that brought tears to my eyes, “You are an essential asset to the island, so I sincerely hope you can stay. Let’s all come up with some great ideas together for the Bentons”. Another friend said, “The new goals are so big, but you two have a great story that inspires many”. I know the residents of Ōmishima are not the ones who get to choose if we can continue to live in Japan, but I do believe being a small part of this tight-knit small community will help us meet our goal.

Have you noticed by now that we are a little bit crazy? It’s true. We didn’t become (as others have said) “the poster children for the Startup visa program” without throwing caution to the wind and diving into the deep end. Moving across the globe to Japan, as two foreigners, to start a business in the countryside, and do all kinds of things we had never done before, is crazy. But hey, we got on NHK! Weren’t we all taught to believe we can do anything we set our minds to? We've already defied odds to even get this far, so we're not giving up.

We don't really have a choice, do we? When we moved to Japan three years ago, we invested everything we had into this small island community. We've single-handedly built our small business and farm. We're "all in". Now the rules of the visa game have changed. So if our visa doesn't get renewed, if we can't meet these new requirements, we don't know what will happen.

Long story short, our tentative plan will include a number of different avenues towards securing an additional ¥25 million in capital, including, possibly: certifying future business income as capital, launching one or more additional income streams which will increase the amount of income we can certify as capital, crowd-funding specific projects which can increase our income capacity quickly, potentially seeking investors, and lastly, general fundraising.

Three years is a long time. Anything can happen in three years, even a miracle. But if we’re able to put a great new business plan together, we may not need a miracle. Just another three years of hard work and determination, combined with your continued support and encouragement! A friend told me recently to “leave room for magic”.

The very first step is to start this general fundraising campaign.

Please understand that we don’t take this lightly. We were encouraged by many friends and subscribers to start a GoFundMe, so we decided to give it a try. Fundraising is a way to take the edge off, and make that very high target just a little bit closer to reach. We don’t anticipate that fundraising donations will make up for a large percentage of the goal, but as they say, every little bit helps!

So, if you feel compelled to donate towards Benton Homestead’s continued operation in Japan, please feel free. But also, please do not feel obligated! We’ve enjoyed meeting so many new friends on this three year journey so far, and none of that comes with the expectation of receiving anything in return.

How did we decide on $25,000 USD, when the amount needed is about $170,000 USD?

Besides this fundraiser, every other avenue towards meeting this goal involves our own hard work to grow our business and earn more income. We can adjust this fundraising goal at any time, higher if we need more, and of course lower if we end up needing less. We don't want a single penny donated more than is needed! So to be safe, we're starting with a smaller goal than the entire amount needed.

You can also help Benton Homestead by purchasing a YouTube membership, or becoming a Buy Me a Coffee member. Other ways to help include: visiting Benton Guesthouse on your next Shimanami Kaido trip; enjoying our ‘mikan’ or ‘hyakkamitsu’ honey; browse our vintage records; or (for free) just continue to like, comment, and share our videos and posts.

頑張りましょう!!!

Thank you for reading,

Dani & Evan Benton

Please visit our photo blog and our YouTube channel, to learn more about Benton Homestead. We've documented our whole journey from day one, so you can go back to the beginning to see where we started! It's still hard to believe we've accomplished so much in three short years. Now we have three short years to accomplish the new goals, in order for all this work to continue into the future.