Comments on: Expats & Entrepreneurs – A Perfect Combo (and some inspiration from Hemingway)

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Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:46:56 +0000

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By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:15:28 +0000

I don’t doubt for one second the difficulty of living overseas. However, the point of the post is too look for a location necessarily cheaper (and often times with more lenient laws) than the United States or, in your case, the UAE.

Dubai, being the 7th most expensive city, doesn’t make much sense for the average start-up entrepreneur:

This list, although slightly different than that from Xpatulator, uses a baseline of New York City as a cost estimate (100). I currently live in Denver, which is #146 and has an index of 79.74, so the cost of living differential for me to move to Dubai, with an index of 103.36, would be a 29.6% increase in my cost of living. On the other hand, Cape Town, South Africa, has an index of 58.99, which means I would be saving 26.0% per year.

I am advocating starting a web-based business. Most web-based businesses will not necessarily operate in the country where the entrepreneur is living, therefore the laws are not an issue. However, be it a coincidence, or not, South Africa is much easier to start a business in than the UAE. I would imagine the other locations ranked 200 or higher will also be much easier to start a business in.

If a person is looking to live temporarily overseas, say less than a year, it may make more sense to live somewhere where a car is not necessary or to do their best to live without one. Cars are a HUGE sunk cost.

Lastly, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be adventurous. My point was that entrepreneurs, like Hemingway, have an adventurous spirit and welcome a challenge, such as living abroad.

Cool website, btw.

By: mike

mike — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:33:23 +0000

As an expat (#7 on the list), living overseas is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Consider visa options. In most of these nations – if not all – you must have some type of visa for long-term stay. For example, an American can stay for 30 days in the UAE with their passport. Then, you must leave. Renting a proper apartment requires a residence visa (only obtained after having an employment visa which is only obtained after having a job and sponsor). Same with Internet service – free wifi is very difficult to find here. So, let’s say you come for 30 days, leave, come back, etc. You are wasting at minimum 6 hours (and gas/car rental) every 30 days to go across the border and back. BTW – you can’t buy a car without a residence visa either. So, you are wasting time and money trying to get outside the lines. This is pretty common across the globe (and in america for foreign nationals!).

Let us expand this discussion further. As an entrepreneur, you want to start a business here. Hold on! Different, restrictive rules. To start one in most areas – you have to have cash on hand, a local sponsor that owns 51% of your business, and arabic documentation to start the business. In the free zones, you need more money, a required annual rental fee and much more.

Living overseas is not cake.

as an aside, you should check out http://www.noboundaries.org a friend from undergrad who is…writing, traveling etc. for a couple of years.