Editor’s Note: This story appeared on Live and Invest Overseas.
About 35 years ago (yikes), wide-eyed, pony-tailed, and fresh out of college, I went to work in the publishing industry. Back then, we did the written word business the old-fashioned way—with paper, ink, envelopes, and stamps.
Today my business is virtual.
Today, publishing companies (like mine) may only need the services of a copywriter or editor once or twice a month. Therefore, they do not want to be responsible for a full-time salary and the associated employer taxes, health benefits, vacation time, workplace, etc. It is easy and cheap to find a freelancer with the necessary skills.
This is a small example. The reality today is that international business opportunities like these await entrepreneurs across borders. You can turn your hobby into an income and be part of the new mobile workforce, around the world.
You can approach this low key, with nothing but a laptop, or, more ambitiously, with the idea that you want to build a business, with a foundation and employees, to generate the income you need to live the life you want where you are. I want to live it.
Some Real Life Examples
I had a friend in Poland years ago who learned that Burger King was going to open a store there and needed warehouse space. My friend bought a barn. Burger King became his client. Over time, he expanded his last business to include other customers and other products … and made a good living for himself.
Another friend noted how few coffee shops there were in Warsaw. (This was years before Starbucks came to this town.) A friend of mine found a place to roast the coffee beans and pack them himself. He established a combination of retail and wholesale operations that was bought by another major. That company is still going strong.
Some of the best business opportunities abroad are like these two – organically. You show up, find a market, and figure out how to fill it.
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In 2007, I took early retirement from the company I had worked for for over 23 years. After six months, I realized that retirement was not for me. I loved being in business.
For me, the question was not what business would make sense (I enjoyed a business I had already spent 23 years learning). For me, the question was where should I support the business I wanted to establish.
Panama stood out as the obvious choice … so Lief and I packed up our family for our third international trip. We have relocated from Paris to Panama City, where we spent the last decade building the Live and Invest Overseas business.
What would you do?
Interesting Business Opportunities in Other Countries
How about one of the following:
- A laptop-based business (consulting, copywriting, travel writing, photography, editing, teaching, even bookkeeping, for example) is very easy to set up overseas. It allows you to work anywhere in the world that you can get a reliable internet connection.
- Online publishing
- A franchise can be an easy way to succeed with a business model, strategy, marketing, marketing and support already in place.
- Tourism-based business — bed and breakfast, dive shop, bar, restaurant, ice cream shop, wine shop, souvenir shop, etc.
- A business targeting the expat market wherever there is a decent expat community gives you the opportunity to provide a product or service that you (and your fellow expats) miss back home.
- A niche store … because one of the biggest advantages of being a person from a developed country who wants to start a business in an underdeveloped world is that many unfilled things will happen to you quickly.
- Real estate is a business that many foreign businessmen are attracted to. He brings an understanding of the real estate market to areas where real estate markets are often absent.
- Import/export
- A business aimed at local people … like my friend who started a coffee business in Warsaw. He translated the vision of the developed world into a developing market full of potential buyers.
- Farming or viticulture
My Experience in Doing Business Abroad
Ten years on from my start overseas, I can tell you it’s not easy, but I don’t regret a single day of the experience.
Honestly, my only regret is that I didn’t start this thing sooner.
We had the time of our lives building what is today a stable, fast-growing business with a diverse international workforce and great development.
In the current climate, as well-paying, fulfilling jobs can be harder and harder to come by in the States, graduates are wondering what to do with their new degrees in the world.
I submit that the question is not what in the world you will do to support yourself and the life you want… but where in the world.
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