Smaller
BiggerCan Startups turn the Dominican Republic into the Japan of the Caribbean?
YES it can!
History teaches us lessons about economic development and turning the tides of international relevance.
Japan, for example, is a fascinating example of what innovation can do for a developing nation.
In the mid-1800s, Japan was a feudal society. Samurai walked the streets with swords, and merchants sold from horse-drawn buggies.
By 1904, however, due to rapid industrialization and the adoption of modern technology, it became the first Asian power to defeat a modern European power in the Russo-Japanese War.
Fast forward to the modern day, and it is an advanced global hub for innovation, influence, and wealth. They lead the world in key industries such as automaking and telecommunications.
Japan achieved this rapid development in several ways, but arguably the most important was its investment and focus on innovation and modernization of technology. What nowadays we call “startups”.
The Dominican Republic can become the Japan of the Caribbean by igniting its startup and innovation economies.
Here are the three steps to take:
Step One: Separate Startups from Small Businesses
The approach and development of small businesses and technology startups are not the same. These are vastly different business models that require entirely different resources.
This is parallel to the distinction of executives from entrepreneurs.
In the United States, for example, there exists the SBA (Small Business Administration) to develop a volume of small and local businesses. The startup sector’s answer to the SBA comes from accelerator programs like Techstars that engage technology startups.
There is a difference between public and private organizations, as well as a question of approach. Scaling a nail salon and a tech platform for nail salon owners requires different talent, funding, and structure.
Step Two: Develop the five elements of a strong startup ecosystem:
1. Entrepreneurs: Provide resources and community to founders and entrepreneurs in the startup space to serve as a collaboration hub for bartering knowledge, resources, and transparency.
2. Financial: Design and develop financial products that leverage equity rather than debt. Debt financing and equity financing are worlds apart in terms of risk, gains, and structure. Equity financing and venture capital are key to growing the emerging technology sector.
3. Corporations: Research and innovation are paramount to commercial competitiveness. What would happen if national companies in key domestic industries develop internal innovation centers to digitalize and improve processes? Not only do they get a first mover’s advantage in terms of growth within their firm, but they also improve domestic market competitiveness.
4. Government: Job creation, tax revenue, productivity, and market growth are all results of innovating industries. The government supports social mobility and economic growth by aligning strategic national interests with the startup sector. They incentivize technology products, providing solutions to grow key commercial projects via tax incentives, contracts, grants, and accelerators.
5. University: Developing not only entrepreneurial talent but tech talent is key to fortifying the startup industry and helping them remain in the country. By offering students pathways into the above four areas through the startup lens, emerging startups can recruit local talent and diversity of thought.
Step Three: International collaboration
The business culture of secrecy, risk aversion, and nepotism is well known in the Dominican Republic and the rest of the region.
By recruiting best-in-class experts, consultants, and vendors in the short term, seeds will be planted at the cultural and institutional level to grow key industries with real-world knowledge and a global network of resources, talent, and expertise.
Startups not only need pioneering founders, but also program engineers, cybersecurity professionals, revenue operations, legal, and strategy.
Countdown to Innovation
The Dominican Republic is already the reigning champion of economic innovation and development in the Western Hemisphere. With a 30-year history of compounding GDP, raised standards of living, foreign direct investment, tourism, social mobility, and political stability.
It’s time to solidify the Dominican Republic’s “Dominican Miracle” and start making serious investments in the Dominican startup ecosystem and infrastructure.
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By Jonathan Joel Mentor
Founder & CEO of Successment | Revenue Growth Strategist | Expert in Startup Ecosystem Development | United Nations World Summit Award Nominee
Completely agree. We can’t have a small business mindset when dealing with a startup. We must also become fluent in English to communicate efficiently in foreign business/political settings. We can’t vote for people who can’t communicate our needs or vision to the outside world.
Agreed — startups operate on a different logic than small businesses, and countries that fail to understand that never produce global champions. Scale, speed, and systems matter.
Language fluency is part of that infrastructure. If you want to compete globally, you must be able to negotiate, defend, and project in global forums. That’s not cultural — that’s strategic.
The broader issue is representation. Nations don’t rise on intention; they rise on competent execution and credible leadership. If we want a different future, we have to be serious about the caliber of people shaping it.
Doubt it because It starts with education, and I’m not talking about higher education (Universities) I’m talking about pre-primary, primary, and secondary. Heavy reform and investment. But the government doesn’t care nor have the means to improve education. It’s all about tourism and foreign investments.
You’re right that education is foundational — no serious innovation economy is built on weak early pipelines. That’s non-negotiable.Where I would differ is on inevitability. Countries don’t wait for perfect systems to start building new pillars; they build in parallel. Talent, startups, and innovation zones can be engineered while education reform is underway. In fact, they often become the forcing function for reform.Tourism and FDI can generate revenue. The strategic failure is not using that revenue to upgrade human capital. That’s a choice, not a constraint.
Start with education at preschool and primary levels, real education. School uniforms and proper hairstyle is not education. Math, reading & writing skills are. Actually use educated teaches who know the subjects they’re teaching. Some do, most don’t. Not anyone’s fault, it just a reality.
You’re pointing at the real issue: education quality, not symbolism. Uniforms, discipline, and formality are not substitutes for literacy, numeracy, and cognitive rigor.
Foundational skills are where national trajectories are set. If children can’t read fluently, reason mathematically, and think critically by early adolescence, everything downstream becomes remediation.
This is not about fault — it’s about system design. Teacher training, curriculum standards, and accountability are infrastructure, just like roads or power. Countries that treat them that way compound. Those that don’t stagnate.
Don’t forget collective capitalism, which Japan has it and still use it to this day.
Johne
I agree that it all starts will the education of the child from day one. Day one is in the home and continues to basic and then onto STEM. The comparison to Japan is extreme. Not in the same ballpark.
Japan is not the point of comparison — it’s the point of reference. No one is suggesting replication. The lesson is structural: long-term coordination between industry, capital, and state. That’s what “collective capitalism” actually means in practice.
And yes, education starts in the home and compounds through the system — but culture alone does not produce industrial power. Architecture does. Japan didn’t become Japan by accident. It was engineered over decades.The question is not whether the Dominican Republic is Japan. The question is whether it is willing to think and build with the same level of intentionality.
The issue is taxes, especially for corporations. US companies would rather invest with countries that have a tax treaty. Americans love to spend money and having American dollars injected into your economy would help local business owners. Rent, cable, phone, gas, entertainment, groceries, and other purchases go to the people, then the government.
Tax treaties matter, but they are not the whole equation. Capital flows to environments that combine regulatory clarity, operational ease, talent access, and long-term stability. Incentives open doors; systems keep investors. The strategic opportunity is not just attracting U.S. dollars, but embedding them into productive engines — companies, jobs, IP, and export capacity. Consumption is a byproduct. Value creation is the objective. If the Dominican Republic wants sustained inflows, it has to be engineered as a platform, not just marketed as a destination.
120 years is a very, very long time to consider “rapid”. Unfortunately, it’s not just the snap of fingers that do it- not even with start ups. With a large portion of Dominicans in the States, it dissolves what would be contributing to the base of RD.
After the 1900s wars, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War ; Japan had several economic strategies and policies that took place in order to be the powerhouse it is today. But it took years of kisen change, diplomatic relations and patience to happen.
Plus, Japan is much, much geographically larger than the RD- land mass, and population which provides an advantage.
Not to mention the Chinese, Vietnam factories behind it.
Innovation is what makes start ups exciting and robust. But the necessity of Japanese innovation from 1900-1999 is much different than that of a dual citizen in the Bronx or Boston.
No one is arguing that transformation is instant. The point is that trajectories can change decisively when a country aligns policy, capital, and industrial intent. Japan’s rise was not slow because it had to be — it was slow because it was deliberate.
Size is not the advantage people think it is. Singapore, Israel, Estonia, and the UAE disproved that. What matters is strategic coherence, not land mass.
The diaspora is not a dilution — it is leverage, if activated correctly. Talent, capital, and networks outside the country can be an extension of the national engine, not a drain on it.
The question is not whether the Dominican Republic is Japan. The question is whether it is willing to design itself with the same level of intentionality and discipline.
No!
Do you know how big Japan is? During WWII, it had more than three economic centers- competing against one another for market share, product dominance, and trade: Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Osaka, Kyoto, ect.
Companies: Kawasaki, Yamaha, Honda, and Toyota are whole RDs away from one another. In Nautical Miles- it’s a much larger place, providing more privacy for innovation, less connection to local economic activity for innovation, but with a willing scale partner in projects.
The rebuild of Japan- still underway- did take international collaboration, and does have those 5 steps of a strong start up ecosystem- which was most reflective in Abenomics . But – Japan has atleast 4 Santo Domingo’s: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sendai, and 7000 islands for the space to support innovation and natural resources.
Start ups have to scale, which require natural resources. RD is limited in what it can extract from land, and from the sea- thus fueling the tobacco, sugar cane, coffee, and tourism industry. Even Cocoa looses fuel with occasional bad harvests. But, Japan doesn’t grow these crops, they import them, and the exchange with countries like Japan is what could be a breakthrough for Dominican Start Ups.
Tourism isn’t a bad business model. Technology is certainly involved and it’s worth having a role model for trade, finance, and tourism.
But I don’t see Dominican branded cars, televisions, food, clothes, and banking — doing what Japan does to America today by throwing them around the room like an Aikido doll.
Worth the notes, permits, licenses, and diplomatic skills.
Japan’s geography, scale, and industrial history are not in dispute. The mistake is assuming those variables are prerequisites for relevance. They are not. They are paths, not requirements.
Innovation today is not resource-driven, it is architecture-driven. IP, software, data, fintech, logistics, biotech, climate tech — these do not require land mass, steel mills, or islands. They require coordination, talent, capital, and regulatory clarity.
The Dominican Republic does not need to manufacture cars to be strategically important. It needs to own platforms, pipelines, and leverage points in global value chains. That is how small countries win in large systems.Tourism is not a weakness. It is a cash engine. The failure is not tourism — it is not compounding tourism into technology, IP, and exportable capabilities.The goal is not to throw America around the room. The goal is to be indispensable to the rooms where decisions are made.