From his early days in Japan as a destitute student sleeping in train station stairwells to living in a 3-mat room that cost him ¥10,000 a month, Richard Northcott went on to head a mobile software company that now enjoys sales of $2 million a year.
Northcott, a native of Australia who has lived in Japan since 1986, is a senior champion in kyokushin karate, owns a bar in Shinjuku and runs a real estate business as well.
"Diverse" is certainly a word that comes to mind when one speaks with the 43-year-old Northcott. The word he uses far more often to describe himself, however, is simply "strange." "I'm better now," he says. "I can talk with foreigners and I have some foreign friends."