To really understand a culture–do business there?
Vintage toy cash register. Photo: landofnodstudios / Flickr
As vagabonders, we love the feeling of “getting into the culture.” Where you finally understand how the people think, how their society works.
Inc magazine had a fantastic article titled A Constant Feeling of Crisis, about the struggles of entrepreneurs in Argentina. I once talked to Antoni, the New Zealand owner of a gourmet burger restaurant in Taiwan. I suggested there were different levels of knowing a place:
1) Visiting
2) Studying
3) Working
From my experience of working in a foreign country, you get to know it pretty well. Especially if you’re with a domestic firm, and your boss and co-workers are all locals. Antoni suggested one further level of immersion: doing business in a country. He said there’s no better way to find out how things work–and often don’t work–as trying to keep your enterprise alive. You’re forced to deal with government bureaucrats, local employees, sometimes dodgy infrastructure, the whole lot.
I can see how you would look at a place with clearer eyes if you were more invested (bad pun, sorry). When you have a stake in a country for your livelihood, you notice a lot of things you’d miss if you were just passing through. A charming dirt path could seem different if you had to rely on that path for transportation and delivery of raw materials. Delightful traditional houses might not have the electricity and high-speed Internet access you would need to get work done.
From that article, it’s painfully clear how entrepreneurs are vulnerable to outside forces beyond their control. A swing in currency rates can wipe out the value of bank accounts. A new government regulation could put assets at risk of seizure via nationalization.
Have any of you started a business abroad? What were some of the challenges and joys you experienced? Please share your stories in the comments.
June 6th, 2011 at 7:26 am
I am a speech-language pathologist who decided to try private practice this year in Vietnam. It has been a great first year and I’ve gotten to experience and participate in things that I would never have been given a chance to do if I had remained working for someone else or remained in the States.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with Operation Smile as the speech therapist to evaluation cleft palate speech, I’ve organized and ran workshops for Vietnamese teachers, and I’ve also help NGO anti-human trafficking workers to reduce their accents in order for them to tell their stories to the world. Working for myself in Vietnam has allowed me the flexibility to meet colleagues and flex my schedule to participate in these activities.
One of the most difficult challenges has been dealing with the currency. The Vietnamese banking system and State control is fairly paranoid when it comes to hard currency. I’m often paid in VN Dong, which is fine for living expenses here, but trying to convert Dong into US Dollars is difficult. This year the government has really cracked down on the black market currency exchange and has forced people to exchange at banks. The problem is that the only bank that usually carries hard currency is Vietcom Bank and they put foreigners through the third degree when it comes to exchanging Dong for Dollars. Plus, their rate for Dollars to Dong is not as good as the black market rate was. People have started getting around this by using Couch Surfers and other sites to find tourists to exchange money from. Part of doing business here is find out what the rules are and then trying to find ways around them. It’s probably not much different from other developing countries.