Context for dual-country ops
Startups selling in both Korea and Japan layer three stacks: "global stack + Korean local + Japanese local." It looks like many tools, but each has a distinct role.
Principles
1. **Shared layer: global SaaS** — team messenger, docs, CRM, analytics 2. **Support and payments: local** — Channel.io, freee, LINE, KakaoTalk 3. **HR: split per country** — legal systems differ, integration impossible
Combinations by category
Team messenger Slack (shared) + Chatwork/LINE WORKS (Japan external) + JANDI (Korea external) optional.
Docs Notion (shared) or Confluence.
CRM HubSpot (shared) + Channel.io (KR/JP customer support) + Sansan (Japan business cards).
Accounting freee (Japan) + Samjeomsam or tax accountant (Korea) + global accounting separate.
HR Flex (Korea) + SmartHR or freee HR (Japan) — separate operations.
Marketing HubSpot + Stibee (KR email) + Benchmark (JP email) + Naver/Yahoo!/Google ads.
Automation n8n self-host (shared) + Yoom (Japan SaaS integrations) + Make (general).
Payments Stripe (global) + PortOne (Korea) + Stripe JP/PAY.JP (Japan).
Analytics GA4 (shared) + Naver Analytics (KR) + KARTE (JP optional).
Recommended combo (5–15 people)
**Shared**: Slack, Notion, HubSpot, GitHub, n8n, Zoom, Claude Team. **KR-only**: Channel.io, Stibee, Flex, tax accountant, Naver blog/ads. **JP-only**: Sansan, freee or MF, SmartHR, LINE Official, Yahoo! Ads.
Pitfalls
- Mixing KR/JP leads in one CRM without tagging: team confusion. Separate tags/pipelines required
- One HR SaaS for both countries: legally impossible
- No tax accountant for dual-country accounting: unmanageable
Dual-country ops requires a shared global layer + separate local layers as a two-tier structure.