Global

I’m just back from a 1 month investigative journey to Buenos Aires (BA) in Argentina. The main purpose was to check out the suitability of the city and country as a temporary business base. I have been recommending for a while now the idea of Bootstrapping your business Globally as a temporary and fun way of cutting costs.

Many foreigners are moving to Argentina at the moment. In particular Americans are arriving in droves. I have no numbers to back this up, but I think BA and Panama are the two favorite destinations for Americans moving to Latin America at the moment. In BA the immigrants tend to be younger and in Panama a bit older.

After a couple of months in both Panama and Argentina I am now back in Denmark. It’s been great being away in particular because it has helped me focus and do a lot of work. But now I’m back on a client project.

I will be posting an comparison of Panama and Argentina for web entrepreneurs as they are both cool low cost places to get away from it all and code and focus on your business. Both have advantages and disadvantages which I shall cover.

I will be in Panama in most of July and Argentina in most of August. I would like to meetup and get to know local rails geeks and/or web based entrepreneurial types.

Please write a comment below or send me a mail. Some of us have already talked about doing a Rails meetup or seminar in Panama. If we can organize a venue I think it would be fun.

I am Danish (well nearly ) and am currently operating my business out of Denmark. I have also had businesses in a variety of other countries, so I think I have a pretty good perspective of what you need in Denmark both for Danes, but also for foreign residents here. There is very little good information in English about setting up business here, which is really embarrasing.

I have started businesses in more than a few places now and I was thinking it would be really cool to have an unofficial bloggers guide to the legalities of starting a business in various places around the world.

Current country guides:

• Denmark
• Panama
• Argentina

I think would be great if other entrepreneurial bloggers wrote a quick no nonsense guide to starting a business in their part of the world. This could be your country or in the US your state as well.

Seriously no matter where you are in the world, I think people would be really interested in finding out how things work in your country.

Once you have posted your guide on your blog comment below or do a trackback and I will link to it here in as an unofficial bloggers global startup guide directory.

Basic outline:

These are the things that I seek out when I need to learn about starting a business somewhere. So this could be a basic outline. Fill out what you can and add anything including specifically your own experiences on stuff that you think is important.

• Legal structures
  • Cost and ease of operation
  • Recommended for bootstrapper
• Tax
  • Tax registration process
  • Rough tax rates
• Business environment
  • Government
    • Pain in the ass or out of your face
    • (Try adding a link to the World Banks Doing Business Guide for your country.
  • Banks
    • Ease of opening account
    • Ease of getting credit card/debit card/paypal etc.
  • Customers
    • Are there good local opportunities?
  • Partners
    • How open are other businesses to partnering?
  • Investors
    • Do they exist? Do they invest? Tips?
• Cost of living
  • Average apartment, office, adsl etc.
• Immigration
  • Is this recommended/encouraged.