• About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
FREE REPORT
BEST PLACES TO RETIRE
*No spam: We will NEVER give your email address to anyone else.
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
Live and Invest Overseas
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
No Result
View All Result
Home Employment

Here’s The Secret On Starting A Business Overseas

Remember This When You’re Just About To Give Up

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Apr 16, 2017
in Employment, Ireland, Lifestyle, Panama
0
The Secret To Starting A Business Overseas
220
SHARES
3.1k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

While retire overseas is my beat, it’s not my personal agenda. I didn’t move overseas to retire but to run a business, first for someone else, now for myself.

When I left Baltimore, Maryland, nearly two decades ago, headed for Waterford, Ireland, I carried with me clear marching orders from my partner of the time:

Establish an office, an EU base.

Back in Baltimore this Easter holiday weekend, that long-ago history is on my mind…

Our first year in Waterford, Lief and I pushed ahead, stubbornly, persistently, enthusiastically even, through challenge after challenge. We’d come to establish an office for a direct-marketing publishing company, but no such industry existed in Ireland and hardly any industry whatever existed in Waterford.

The pool of available local labor was thin. For marketing, fulfillment, and editorial support staff we hired people with no relevant experience. They’d worked as receptionists in hotels, hands in local stables, cashiers in local shops. We tried to identify people who seemed to want to learn and then set about trying to teach them something.

Staffing our fledgling office was tough but so, too, frankly, was just about everything else, including finding the office in the first place. We didn’t want to be located in the new “industrial park” being built on the outskirts of Waterford City (it looked like a prison compound to me), but other options for commercialspace, like options for staffing, were limited.

Opening a corporate bank account, getting a company credit card (these were uncommon in Ireland back then), finding an Irish tax accountant to keep us compliant, drafting employment contracts (which, we were told, had to allow for things like regular tea breaks)… these kinds of administrative support tasks were also a struggle.

Meantime, Lief and I, only recently married, were struggling on every other front, as well—struggling to solidify our new family unit, struggling to adapt to life in Waterford, struggling to communicate our situation to those back in Baltimore, where the publishing company we were working for was based. They couldn’t understand how or why it was taking so long to do simple, straightforward things like rent office space, open a company bank account, and hire core staff.

We couldn’t adequately explain the delays or the struggles, because we didn’t understand them ourselves.

Today, a half-dozen starting-a-business-in-a-foreign-country-from-nothing experiences later, I can explain. Someone who hasn’t done it isn’t going to understand, but it’s just the way it goes.

Way back when in Waterford, though, I was among those who hadn’t done it. I didn’t know yet that the only way through the challenges is through them. Perseverance is perhaps the biggest prerequisite for the successful entrepreneur abroad.

About a year after we’d landed in Waterford, I’d about had it. I was worn out trying to teach a bunch of sometimes-interested folks how to build and run a direct-marketing publishing operation.

I was worn out by social charges, Bank Holidays, twice-daily tea breaks, bankers who didn’t return your phone calls, tax auditors who’d never heard of the business we were in and couldn’t make heads or tails of our financial statements…

I was lonely for people who understood my questions when I asked them without my having to provide endless background and context. I wanted to be among folks who’d shared at least some of my experiences, personal and professional. Because telling every story from scratch every day all over again… about how to produce a magazine, how to publish a book, how to sell a subscription, and then how to renew it? That was getting old.

Nearly desperate, I called my partner for this venture, based in France at the time, and told him I wasn’t sure this establish-an-office-in-Waterford thing was going to work out. He told me to sit tight. He’d fly over from Paris as soon as he could for a visit.

Bill came to Waterford and spent a couple of days in the office, meeting with me, Lief, and the little team we’d assembled by that point. We’d just moved into new office space at this time, a big improvement over our original (windowless) digs. The new office was in a three-story townhouse in the heart of Waterford City with a Georgian front door that I’d had painted red.

The afternoon he was leaving for the airport and his return flight to Paris, Bill and I walked out the big red front door and stood for a minute on the landing. Bill looked up and down Catherine Street, at the other Georgian-style townhouses, and then back at the red door of our place.

“You’ve planted a seed here,” he said. “You’ve really started something. It will continue to grow…

“It’d be a shame to walk away from this now.”

The second most important thing for an entrepreneur abroad to possess, along with perseverance, is perspective. You’ve got to be able to see what’s before you in the context of the bigger-picture agenda. Most of the time, you’ve got to do this on your own, reminding yourself that you’re making progress.

Despite the challenges and the struggles, you’re building and growing. You’re on track, moving ahead…

Sometimes, though, it will get hard to believe yourself. I was lucky way back when in Waterford to have someone to call for a dose of perspective when I needed it. Had Bill not been around to point out that day that, struggles to get to that point aside, there I was at that point… I might have called it a day.

I might have moved back home to Baltimore and the like-minded company I was longing for. Might, indeed, have walked away… meaning that the years since would have played out very differently…

Happy Easter.

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: entrepreneur panama city panamaentrepreneur Waterford Irelandentrepreneurs overseasKathleen Peddicordlive panama city panamalive Waterford Ireland
Share89Tweet55
Previous Post

Caribbean Cash Flow: How To Fund Your New Life In The DR

Next Post

The Expert’s Guide To Postal Services In Panama

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

Related Posts

Senior woman with pink skirt and white shirt who retired alone at the beach
Lifestyle

Retiring Abroad Alone? Here Are 6 Things To Know

by Kathleen Peddicord
June 27, 2022
0

It might seem that retiring overseas as a single could present additional challenges… That taking this big leap on your...

Read more
Paradise islands with white sands and clear waters in San Blas, Panama

Things You Must Know About The Wonderful San Blas Islands

June 23, 2022
Adobe Stock/dudlajzov

My Biggest Regret After Living In Bellapais, Northern Cyprus

June 21, 2022
Taipei's City Skyline at sunset with the famous Taipei 101

The Top Affordable Places To Retire In Asia And Live Well

June 19, 2022
Porto, Portugal

Where (And Why) Should You Buy Property Overseas In 2022?

June 15, 2022
Panama City with high skyscrapers and port on the Pacific coast

The Ultimate Panama Second-Hand Shopping Guide For Expats

June 9, 2022
A grid with several Latin American countries

Finding The Best Places To Live In Latin America

June 9, 2022
Next Post
packages on shelves in a post office

The Expert’s Guide To Postal Services In Panama

Start Your New Life Today, Overseas

A world full of fun, adventure, and profit awaits! Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we’ll send you a FREE report on the 10 Best Places To Retire In Style Overseas Today.







Get Your Free Panama Report Today!

​​Simply enter your email address below and we'll send you our FREE REPORT - 101 Things You'll Wish Someone Had Told You About Panama.
 

LIOS Resources


  • New To LIOS
  • Ask An Expert
  • Media Center
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs

Quick Links


  • Best Places To Live
  • Best Places To Retire
  • Finding A Job Overseas
  • Real Estate

Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and get your FREE report: The 10 Best Places To Retire Overseas In 2022

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Countries
  • Budgets
  • Archives
  • News
  • Events
  • Bookstore
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Members Area
  • Contact Us

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

Sign up for FREE and learn how to live the good life on a modest budget, find bargain property, and more. Plus, check out our free report on the 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE.

RETIRE OVERSEAS AND LIVE LIKE ROYALTY

The World’s Best Places To Be In 2022?

Discover Them Here…

Get Your Free Panama Report Today!
 

​​Learn more about ​​​PANAMA and other countries in our free, daily Overseas Opportunity Letter​​, as well as our ​In Focus: ​Panama ​newsletter​​​​​​. Simply enter your email address below and we’ll send you our FREE REPORT – ​​​101 Things You'll Wish Someone Had Told You About Panama.