Thanks, Julien, & Hello!

Welcome on board Cat!

Right now I'm setting up an online business to serve people who want to create a portable business that they can run from wherever they can find a Net connection.  I'm hoping to take that and be able to carry it with me wherever I end up.

Hey, very interesting, how can we find out more?  

All my wishes of success in your projects,

Julien

Hi Julien -- thank you for your encouragement!  I've decided that starting up a new business is a lot like opening up a small but important vein...you sit there and watch the money, I mean blood, leak away, slowly but surely... 

When I was first researching ways for me to make a living while traveling, I realized that I was seeing the same issues crop up over and over again:

1)  many Expat.coms and forums talk mainly about options such as finding an employer to bring you into the target country, which doesn't help you much if you don't have those kinds of employable skills, or if your skills are not in a sector currently hiring;

2)  currently, most of the resources out there are mainly of the anecdotal sort ("here's what I did") and don't help much if you're not in exactly the same situation as that person with the same skills, although of course it's always worth reading in case you can pick up a hint here or a bit of knowledge there;

3)  like me, many people want to live in a place and get to know it over a period of a few months (allowed for by the majority of the immigration/visa statutes of most countries), but must work to support themselves while doing it (NOT allowed for by the majority of the working statutes of most countries, except of course EU citizens in other EU countries);

4)  there's not much out there that offers real assistance in any form other than advice to those who want to build a portable business that allows them to work wherever they want to be (even if that's in your country of birth);

5) the work laws of many countries allow people who work online to do so without a work visa, so long as the entirety of their business (financials, manufacture, etc.) stays inside the traveler's home country.  (This of course is not an issue for EU citizens travelling in EU countries.)

I also realized some very important things about the people I was coming into contact with as I did research in the expat community:

1)  many people who travel compulsively or who have the urge to live somewhere other than the home country are entrepreneurial in the way they think and view daily life;

2)  like most entrepreneurial thinkers, they often have more motivation and drive than "average" people;

3)  we tend to like helping each other out.

So I decided, well, heck.  I've been self-employed and entrepreneurial most of my life, I enjoy starting up businesses, I'm going to start up two or three businesses to fund this next part of my life anyway, what if I started up a business that paid for itself through advertising revenues and goodwill to help other people who want to do the same sort of thing but don't have the knowledge or money to do what I'm doing with those two or three businesses, since I'm setting it all up at once anyway?

What if it was free for participants, and took donations, sold advertising space and dedicated at least one of the businesses to supporting the website?  (It would have to be dedicated servers due to security issues.)  What if it got big enough to be an actual community of like-minded people running their businesses in a way that allowed us all to support each other?  What if it gave them the support and advice they need from others to help them run a business?  (Lots of people have the motivation, drive, and enthusiasm to run a successful business, but have no real idea how to go about it.  Thing is, it's not rocket science.)  What if it gave them tools to make the more intimidating things (shopping carts!  CMSs! finding suppliers!) easier to deal with?

What if the philosophy of the site was that people should be able to live wherever they want to whenever they want to, and their work should support that regardless of their actual physical location?

So work has begun on the programming and design of the website.  I'm writing business plans and doing research and planning my own businesses.  Soon I'll be looking for guinea pigs.  Anyone interested? 

Cat

Thanks Cat for your response. I'm a bit busy at the moment but I'll take some time to read everything tonight or tomorrow

Looks like you've got interesting ideas / projects ... I am personally looking for a way to bring businesses abroad. The only solution I see at the moment is to keep working on online businesses.

Is there a way to find out more about your project?

Right now, it's all in my head, but the Danish developers will be starting work on the website in 3-6 business days with a due date of 8 weeks, and then we're on track for a testing period of one month.  We'll see if we stick to that schedule. 

I agree that online seems to be the best, easiest, and most efficient way to take your business abroad.  With easy international access (though not necessarily cheap) to your home bank and financials through the Net and ATMs across the world, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal to keep your financials in your country of origin yet live somewhere else.

I wish that we were all members of the damn EU.    It'd make it so much easier to work and travel.

Philosophically, I'm not looking to serve just expats, or just travelers, or just business people who don't have enough web-savvy to start up their own web business without help.  Not only do I want to serve all those people, I want to help promote the concept of a global citizen, someone who lives on this planet and wants to see, get to know, and live within the entire place, or even just select bits of it;  a citizen of the world rather than of one region, who doesn't transcend cultural limits but dwells within as many as they like.

The best businesses set up a win-win-win situation -- a win for the business, a win for the suppliers/products, a win for the consumer.  I'll be encouraging that as well.  I hope to have a great many participants who would not otherwise be able to bring their products to the greater audience the Net can give them.  I'd like to see as many fair trade or even direct sales from artisans as possible; setting up partnerships with organizations who can help them do that if they can't do it directly. I'd like to see people able to transcend borders as consultants and consulted.

I think everyone ought to be able to live where they want to, according to their drive and wishes for their life.  Whether that's in the back reaches of their country of origin or across the globe from the place where they were born, I think all people have the right to support themselves as they wish in an open marketplace, and I hope this will help them do that.

Practically, I'll soon be looking for expert members to help me attract traffic in exchange for early entry and exposure.  Hopefully down the line, once the startup costs have been somewhat defrayed (ie: the dedicated server), I'll be able to profit share with the expert members.

Do you have an idea for a business or an area of expertise you can offer?  Speak to me!    Right now, though, I'd better go do the homework that will make the whole thing work. 

Welcome to the site

Thanks Stu!  I've been enjoying your blog for a while now.  I may actually end up in the Netherlands at some point, so I've been reading with interest. 

BTW, one of my plans is to offer a forum to help import/export folks find partners in countries that they wish to import/export from/to.  If anyone has or wants contacts in your home country or a product you want to export, stay tuned. 

Welcome Cat!
I love Amsterdam better than Brussels!