I suggest starting with opportunities that may be below your expectations, like volunteering or personal projects, to gain experience and visibility in the industry.
Totally. So, yeah, thanks for the question, Pablo. Yeah. It's it's a great question. You always gotta start somewhere. I I think it's just finding any way to start even if it's something that and this sounds cliche, but sometimes you have to take something that is lower than what you want or below your expectation. Like, talking about my career, like, you know, I I I had a fantastic experience there. But when I got my my big break at Capcom, this was in 02/2005, whereas this dates me, the salary wasn't a whole lot. Right? It was it was what it was. Right? But it's like, of course, I'm gonna take that job. Like, well, I would be foolish not to. Right? I get to turn the the stuff that I love into, like, products. So I think it's you have to somehow to you know, unless you get a a fantastic offer, do it. But I think it's finding an opportunity that's even below what you think you're worth because I think we all think about our self worth, and it's like it's kinda hard to overcome that sometimes. But if you can say, you know what? For the sake of long term, I'm gonna do this thing. And, again, it's not something that you you wanna be careful about just getting in the door or just like, oh, I'm gonna do that just for get in the door and then jump ship right away. You know, you wanna give it at least a couple years or something. But, like, I think find trying to find that. Right? And trying to find a way to do that. And I think for me, what I did in particular though was wasn't just, okay. Captain, pardon me just because, but I, you know, did my own little anime club and anime convention. I made no money on that. Actually, I lost money running the anime con. Right? Put my own money into it, and just you're just happy just to keep the lights on. But doing that created experience. Right? So I would say is, like, if it's really challenging trying to find some kind of, like, anime or or something adjacent type licensing job, is there something you can do where it's either a step down or doing something where it's your own project that gets attention or something where it's like volunteering for some organization that gets you that attention or do just doing something that is then gonna get that visibility. I think it's you got you gotta find a way in a super competitive market now. So just finding a way to get noticed by people is is pretty important. You gotta have the experience first. I mean, you know, I I had so many people come to me, but that's after years in the industry. Right? That's not, like, day one. So, I mean, even a couple years was fine, though. Even after I had a couple years at Capcom, you know, it was a it was a brand name. I could you know, people still some people came. So cool. But once you have, like, more, that's even even easier. But you gotta you gotta start somewhere, and even if it's not what you think is the the best comp or something, you just gotta go for it. Love it.
To gain overseas boss experience, consider taking a pay cut for new opportunities in the anime industry, as it can lead to valuable experience.
Pablo has an interesting question. So Pablo says that he has domestic licensing experience through comics. Do you have any suggestions in how to obtain overseas boss experience? It's been a while. And I'm guessing overseas, like, licensing experience specifically. And there's not really any way you can do any licensing with anime IP on your own just as, like, a free agent without the background. Right? For sure. Yeah. I think I have taken a pay cut for every new job I have gotten in the anime industry, but it's always been a good idea. So here's a fun fun one.