Things learned from running a non-profit micro-sized company in Japan

After almost completing the 2nd term of my representative position, I resigned a non-profit company in Japan that I co-founded 4 years ago. Before things in my brain go into oblivion, I'd rather leave my experience and thoughts out here, focusing on things that worked / did not worked. I have a feeling that this article will probably characterized by "non-profit" and "work from remote".

Before starting, some assumption about me and the company:
- Non-profit in Tokyo, Japan. University spin-off.
- Company provides engineering consultancy.
- Minimum number of full-timers. No one works from our office.
- I live in the US. The rest in Japan.

Modern technology makes remote hire happen more than ever, and there are many articles that provide in-depth insights, e.g. this so I'd rather go over things specific to us/me.

In aforementiond link we have a good rule of thumb:

• Say hello in the morning on Slack, and let people know what I’ll be working on today
• Say goodbye at the end of the workday, telling people how my day went, and what issues I faced today
• Dropping by the office on video at least once a day to hang out and listen to office chatter
• Try to solve issues not only on text but get someone on video to discuss
• Try to work with someone else when working remote
• Set clear start and stop times for my day.
• Find good places to work, compile a list for others to use
• Visit at least two countries, and one different time zone.
• Get some new hardware to aid working while travelling, explore needs and usage patterns

 We didn't share any non-work stuff nor did frequently inform the other party. Anyways here are things I thought I wanted to take a note:

• Meticulous usage of online software for work

Current technology allows us to store and share information online very well. We have Google-Drive folder that ended up dozens of giga-bytes after 4 years full of all sorts of files. This requires meticulous handling of data that is physically available, so that it may not work for everybody. In our case all of our full-timers are very careful and motivated in sharing information online so worked out pretty well IMO.

• Try harder to communicate

Particularly, my mistake was to not clarify the expectations from both sides (i.e. from me and from the other sides), which over the course of time broadened the gap between each party with or without knowing. So in addition to the minimum necessary conversations, we could have shared things-to-do per day / week or even month. Or casual thoughts, motivations. If I remember the days when I was working locally at a company and a university, they required reports pereiodically with such personal planning ahead.

• Clarify the organization's longer-term goal.

Every team needs purpose but I felt like ours didn't clearly specify one. As one of the co-founders, I _could_ have defined one, but another co-founder who's the most influential always seemed reluctant in doing so (again the communication here was the key). Being a non-profit, in particular, can usually mean that less risk, less return.

• People do not understand what a company being "non-profit" indicates.