I went to work for Agora Publishing as a copy editor fresh out of school aged 21. Then I spent the next 14 years working my way up that ladder from editor to manager and eventually partner.
With Agora I moved from Baltimore to Waterford, where I launched Agora Ireland. Seven years later, I made my second international move, again with Agora’s help, to Paris.
Four years after that, I decided it was time to see what I could get up to on my own.
At first I thought I’d try being retired. Paris seemed a good place for it.
Six months into my departure from Agora, I’d improved my French with the help of an immersion language course, visited dozens of museums, and explored every corner of the city on foot. I was living a dream life with no responsibilities beyond my young son Jackson. But I was restless.
I’ve never been good at doing nothing, and since my accidental early retirement, that’s what my days had been filled with.
One spring afternoon, after I’d whiled away another morning watching the passersby in a café, I walked to the park across from Jackson’s school and sat on a bench. I looked at my watch. Two p.m. Jackson wouldn’t be out until 4 o’clock. Two more hours to kill.
Never in my life had I had so much leisure time. It felt like the greatest imaginable waste. During my working days, I’d been the first one in the office each morning and the last one to leave at night. After my kids, I worked every evening after putting them to bed. Now whole weeks were passing without measurable yield. I was afraid I might start twitching.
Enough. I’d taken the months since leaving Agora as they’d come but no more.
I required work. And, I realized as the thought formed, I didn’t want another job. It was time to build something of my own. I’d found that I loved the Agora business model. It allowed me to create a scalable income as a writer. I’d do that again, this time for myself.
When Jackson and I returned to our apartment later that afternoon, I walked into Lief’s home office. He’d just launched a new undertaking of his own with the purchase of the finca known as Los Islotes. Lief planned to develop this former cattle ranch on Panama’s Veraguas coast into a private, luxury-standard community and was, when I entered his office that day, hanging up from another conference call with his surveyors.
“I’d like to start my own publishing business,” I announced. “Online.”
Lief had known, I suspect, since the day I’d left Agora that I wouldn’t be able to fritter away my life for long.
“Okay,” he said without looking up from the property map on his desk. “Panama will be a good place for that.”
A major life decision made in the course of a two-minute conversation.
Lief and I had organized relocations from the United States to Ireland then from Waterford to Paris. We knew how to do this.
We notified the tenant of a rental apartment we owned in Panama City that we wouldn’t be renewing her lease. That set our clock. We now had three months to engineer our move, which would take place early April. That would give Jackson a window of time to adjust before starting at his new school.
Next we found a property manager who assured us we’d have no trouble renting out our Paris apartment, which neither of us wanted to sell.
All the pieces fell into place. We packed our bags and repositioned from the City of Light to the Hub of the Americas.
Getting from Paris to Panama was easy. Starting two businesses at the same time was not. We had to compete for everything, including space.
Our rental apartment in Panama City had one bedroom. Jackson slept on the couch. Lief was happy as a one-man show for his start-up phase, but I needed staff. I hired our daughter’s boyfriend, Harry, to be my marketing assistant. It was an unexpected option, but no direct-marketing industry exists in Panama. I wasn’t going to find anyone local who understood the business.
We rented Harry a studio apartment a few blocks away. He’d arrive at our place by 8 o’clock each morning and boot up his laptop alongside mine at the single desk. Lief worked from the dining room table. It was tight quarters but we agreed not to take on unnecessary overheads because money was another thing we had only a limited amount of and needed to share.
Harry built me a website and helped me cobble together a mailing list, then I began writing a free daily e-letter showcasing opportunities for Americans interested in retiring overseas.
It was the same plan I’d followed during my career at Agora. It generated income immediately, and I knew it would work long term because I’d made it work before, though I couldn’t say exactly when revenues would exceed expenses.
Anyone who has started a business from nothing understands. The first years are lean.
With Harry’s help, we made it through our early years. We moved to a bigger apartment and eventually invested in office space.
We grew from a team of three to 30 hard-working folks in our El Cangrejo headquarters today… plus another two-dozen in Paris, London, and beyond… including, again, I am delighted to be able to say, a team on the ground in Waterford.
My first e-dispatch mailed to fewer than 500.
Today our readership exceeds 500,000 daily.
This month marks Live And Invest Overseas’ 17th anniversary.
It hasn’t been an easy or a straight line to get from where we started to where we are today, but it has been an adventure… and a whole lot of fun.
And, as much as I owe to Lief and Harry for giving me my start, I owe more to you, dear reader.
If not for you reading these dispatches each day, what point me writing them.
Your loyalty, support, and custom these many years have been my greatest reward…
Along with your stories.
Tales of your success are what keep me and the entire far-flung Live And Invest Overseas team doing what we do. Please keep them coming.
Until next time,
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter
