Start me up.

Mario Gushiken toiled as a factory worker in Japan from 1986 to 1990, and today, he owns six large construction materials stores in Sao Paulo. He's not alone. Around 270,000 Brazilians of Japanese descent go to work in Japan, sending back US$2 billion in remittances a year, which is quite a chunk of the $5.50 billion that all Brazilians living abroad send back home, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).

Such dekasseguis--a term the Japanese have given to foreign workers--normally come back to Brazil with an average $50,000 in savings, after remittances, and dreams of opening up their own business in Brazil. Yet many of these companies go under in just two years. "Most don't spend enough time to learn if their business is a good one or not," says Gushiken, who oversees 300 employees. "As a dekassegui, you start earning a salary during your first month in Japan, but it's different being a business owner."

Multilateral lending institutions don't want success stories like Gushiken's to be few and far between. The Multilateral Investment Fund, an investment arm of the IADB, earmarked $1.6 million in 2005 to go to the government's technical assistance program aiding Brazilians setting up their own businesses. That program, known as Sebrae, will match the IADB donation to help the country's blossoming entrepreneurs. "We're working with 10,000 people, and of that total, 10% open a business, in other words, 1,000 new companies were born in the four-year-old program," says Silmar Pereira Rodrigues, Sebrae's coordinator.

Any advice is good advice for the fledgling entrepreneur in Brazil. Kazuo Assamo wants to open a jewelry store in Silo Paulo and needs Sebrae funds to get going and also to avoid the mistakes that many of his friends made. "People go into business without knowing about it and end up losing money."