Bootstrapping Abroad: why we do it and why it's awesome | Hacker News Reader

Bootstrapping Abroad: why we do it and why it's awesome

spreadsong.com

60 pointsZsolt36 comments

I've done a similar thing as this guy, living in a number of countries for half a year or so, usually in connection with language study (doing remote contract work to pay my way). I've also observed American expats in those places, and in my home country (Poland).

I think it is laudable to live abroad, and in our field we're fortunate enough to be able to choose where to live. But with that choice I think comes a certain responsibility. You can live very well in a place like Thailand or China without engaging with the country past the minimum needed to get your needs met. Basically treating it as your private hotel resort. I've seen many people who choose this route, and I find it pretty repugnant.

If you are going to bootstrap abroad, be careful to remember that the country you choose does not just exist for your convenience. Be respectful of the place, and try to go beyond the role of a self-satisfied expat, which is very easy to fall into.

100% agreed- awesome, awesome comment.

> Be respectful of the place, and try to go beyond the role of a self-satisfied expat

I'd like to hear you expand on this or is it something that you just learn from experience and actual long-term traveling and not from arm-chair reading articles on a site like http://BraveNewTraveler.com? Thanks

I can relate to this comment. I've bootstrapped in Shanghai (last 9 years) and in Cape Town (6 months, mid-90s). Both were great. I ran into other Americans and Europeans from time to time that were not respectful of the locals and I felt they set a bad example and muddied the waters for the lot of us.

* Basically treating it as your private hotel resort. I've seen many people who choose this route, and I find it pretty repugnant.*

I assume that by this, you mean buying cheap food/beer and ignoring local culture? While it isn't my preference, I'm curious why you find it repugnant.

I understood it to mean that you don't treat people since you start living like a king. Instead of talking the local people and understanding the culture you only converse with them to get certain tasks done - maid, gardener, and so forth.

ok, here's what i like and dislike about living in argentina and starting up a consulting business and building a product on the side.

first, yes, it's cheaper, and yes, the wine i buy is better 100 fold than the states, and yes, i would say i've cut costs by about 40%. my kids didn't belong to a private club and take swimming and tennis lessons in seattle... so we're not taking advantage of the cost savings we could.

but it's still hard: hiring is hard. getting a good cultural fit is hard. building a business that works within the legal framework is impossible. i'm deathly afraid of hiring local talent because it's VERY easy to be sued due to the employment laws of the country.

but it's great: you get a lot of time back in ways i can't explain. it's like you get to ignore a lot of the BS that working in seattle or SF can overwhelm you. explaining the details of why that is would be a longer post, but every tech expat i know in argentina talks about the same thing - somehow you feel more in control of your schedule and your life.

do it when you can hire foreigners, keep your team small, keep your relationships and contacts with people back in the states or europe, and get paid in dollars or euros (or build a product that makes dollars or euros), and can come back once in a while - anything else and it's not such a great deal.

I just pulled up your profile, but alas, no contact info :(

Going to Costa Rica next month but I'll be down to South America in January, we should definitely meet up when I'm in town.

I live in Ecuador 9 months out of the year.

If you plan on swinging through Manta, shoot me an email.

No email in your profile, but I'm really interested in your experience in Ecuador- we're planning on heading to Costa Rica at the beginning of next month, but Ecuador might be a way better option. Do you know of any good three bedroom rentals on the coast? Figure we could get 3G cards and be off to the hour a day of surfing races.

copla201 at gmail is my email- hit me back!

Hiring is not necessarily worse. In many countries (e.g. China), good engineers have a much lower market rate.

Agreed, why do many americans think other countries all have the exact same issues?

However to his credit the OP prefaced with "ok, here's what i like and dislike about living in argentina and starting up [...]". And his advice was obviously meant to apply for the Argentinian situation.

Ive lived, worked, created, operated and advised startups in Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and briefly, Peru (apart from the U.S.)

In my opinion and limited experience, these are the top 3 places to launch a tech startup:

1. Chile: Government, (CORFO, specifically) helps out a lot with grants even for off the wall tech startups, something I dont see in the U.S., however, it is expensive compared to its neighbors, but living costs are at around $800/mo comfortably (no dependents)

2. Argentina: Amazing and large tech community with presedence, tech Angels and VCs, lots of tech and startup meet ups and events. Most, if not all the main tech startups have come out of Argentina. Great talent. Day to day living costs are more expensive than Chile.

3. Colombia: Best bang for your buck, more business friendly, extremely good engineering talent that is very affordable, easy cultural fit and work ethic. However, not a lot of tech startup presedence and capital. See: Results of: 7 developers, working 24/7 for 90 days, 1 house (in Colombia) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730031

• The #1 obstacle for startups in Latin America (and I think most of the rest of the world) is the Government. In the U.S. it takes 1 or 2 days, $70, to incorporate an LLC, whereas in Latin America it can take from a week in chile to over 175 days in venezuela.

• Most countries demand that you have an actual physical office, killing the option of work from home/garage.

• There is correlation between the time it takes to incorporate and the corruption of a country.

Doing this now, and also living in Budapest.

One of the biggest benefits of bootstrapping abroad is that you don't have the social obligations that you do back home. No friends calling to grab dinner, go to a movie, go for drinks, etc (this is also a drawback, of course). You truly are able to control your own time. I spend 10-12h a day working, and when I get off my computer, I'm somewhere cool (like Budapest, or Buenos Aires!)

Having social contact is important when you're not working, but meeting people on sites like couchsurfing is pretty easy.

This sounds like a bad idea for exactly the same reasons as starting up in a startup hub sounds like a good idea.

1) Easy to find and hire good people from your own network

2) Easy to raise money from connections in your own network

3) Easy to find accountants, lawyers, office space from your own network

Starting a successful business is a fairly complicated and risky thing to do, why would you want to go live somewhere that makes it even harder? (Note: This does not apply if you're the only one building a product and just need a change to focus and get it out.)

Perhaps, starting and selling a business in the valley and then going on your world tour/vision quest is a better idea, no? :-)

Frankly, I don't give a shit about playing that game- success for me isn't being Mark Zuckerberg, because I don't want to live in Silicon Valley.

1) There are tons of people who would kill to work for a company that lets them live in interesting places around the world. We actually have some pretty seriously cool stuff going on in this area, but we're not quite ready to talk about it yet- I'll get a post out in a few weeks talking about exactly this.

2) Fuck that, we're already profitable.

3) Already have a great accountant, already working with a phenomenal law firm. Office space? Seriously? I'm not going to stick around the Valley because it's easier to find an office on Twitter.

I'm not sure if your last sentence is sarcastic or not- life is too short to spend seven years (average time to exit) somewhere you don't like.

I want to high five you after reading that ...

You're right that it's tougher out here to generate the sort of hype that you get for free if you're in the Valley. For Twiddla, we actually left one of the founders behind just so he could do the Schmooze part.

But really, everything you mention is only relevant to a certain kind of of company. If you're not a Social-Media-Music-Sharing site that runs on the back of Twitter and needs to Get Big Fast, and you instead sell things to people who pay you money, then your list of things becomes much less important.

It's pretty good out here. You should come give it a try!

These three points all revolve around this: your own network.

Which completely ignores the fact that working in this fashion means you are building an international network which opens up an entire world of opportunity.

You can keep your Valley network, thank you very much!

In my experience, building or joining a network for a tech startup when you come from abroad to another country is really easy.

It did not take me more than 2 weeks to get connected with the top lawyers, entrepreneurs, investors, accountants, talent, press and get complimentary access to office space.

At least that was my experience in Chile and Argentina, which have thriving and large tech startup communities.

Seems the recruiting problem is a big one -- I wonder if there is a job board specifically for companies that are bootstraping abroad? Maybe there are too few companies doing this to make a job board worthwhile.

I would love to browse a job board of these openings.

It's actually super easy to hire so long as this is something uncommon- our employees will find us.

Have you needed to expand yet? Do potential employees find you through your blog, or elsewhere? If you're not actively hiring, do you still get a lot of unsolicited resumes from people who are intrigued by the lifestyle?

edit: btw, your personal website gives me a redirect loop (Chromium and FF on linux)

I wonder if you would end up with tax issues when doing this? As a US citizen would I pay tax abroad, or in the US, how difficult would it be to get the requisite visa, and most importantly, how many idea spots have fiber internet?

It does sound intriguing though.

The world is a big place, the answers to your questions depend entirely on your circumstances. Visas depend on the country. As a general rule, US and EU citizens can stay for 60-90 days at a time without hassle in many countries. There are many tax consequences to living abroad - hire an accountant or else spend a pleasant few evenings on the IRS website to find out more.

The US is one of very few countries in the world that taxes their citizens who live abroad.

So yes, technically you'd be subject to pay income tax in both the US and the country you live in, but it is likely that there is a tax treaty with the host country that will let you deduct any local income taxes paid from your US taxes.

In practice, this means that you will pay only one income tax (but file two returns).

You do not have to pay income tax if you spend less than 30 days in the US that calendar year. You do have to pay any self-employment tax, however. The rules are extremely complex and I highly advise consulting someone who understands them.

You do not have to pay income tax if you spend less than 30 days in the US that calendar year.

Careful with tax advice from the Internet, folks. idlewords is talking about passing the Physical Presence Test for the Foreign Earned Income Exemption. If you quality for the FEIE via either the physical presence test or the bona-fide residence test (see the IRS docs, they are fairly easy to understand), you get to exempt the first X of your income from the income tax. X is in the $80k range this year, check your friendly local IRS website.

Regardless of the FEIE, your income is not exempt from self-employment taxes, as idlewords said. Additionally, it has to be EARNED income, a distinction which has VERY IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES for people here who are intending to sell their startup at some point. To oversimplify, earned income is the portion of your profit you gain in return for services rendered, but it excludes the return on invested capital -- including IP. So if you end up selling your business for $500,000, it is highly likely that large portions of that are not earned income, and will be taxed from the first dollar in the US.

Taxes are a minor headache for me every year, and this year my business gets to start filing with Japan, too. Yaaaaaay, more fun.

Deduct any local income taxes paid from your US tax liability, or take a deduction in that amount on US taxable income?

As far as I can tell - having moved to Austria and acquired a tax specialist - this is backwards.

The US gets first dibs. At least they do in my situation. Then the full amount I pay to the US in tax (100%) is removed from the taxes I owe in Austria.

Simple example: Austria says I owe 20,000 euros. US says I owe $15,000. I pay the US $15,000. My tax burden in Austria is now approximately 20,000 - 10,000 euros (ballpark currency exchange) = 10,000. (This is assuming you crest theearned income waiver for expats, which is about $85,000 USD now.)

Basically, though, you have to hire a tax specialist. There's no way to manage it simply. And tax specialists with international experience are hard to find, but if you're coming from the US you'll have an easier time than if you're coming from a smaller country. Your best bet would be to contact one of the larger international firms, e.g. Deloit. I had to search for 9 mos to find one, myself.

(As an aside, I'm outraged that I have to pay US taxes at all.)

"If you meet certain requirements, you may qualify for the foreign earned income and foreign housing exclusions and the foreign housing deduction.

If you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien of the United States and you live abroad, you are taxed on your worldwide income. However, you may qualify to exclude from income up to $87,600 of your foreign earnings. In addition, you can exclude or deduct certain foreign housing amounts."

It's much more complicated than this but that's the jist of it.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,...

Even forgetting the travel, the two parts about maintaining everyday wonder and what businesses are really impressed and inspired me.

I hope you'll write more.

I know it's completely off-topic and I'll burn some karma here... Using only titles on the current front page:

"Steven Frank Gets [...] strangers to talk to [...] Google App Inventor [...] Phil Schiller [...] in Chinese Language [...] and why it's awesome"

Please don't. Karma is not intended for burning.

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