10 Business Opportunities For The Entrepreneur Abroad
I Can Find You All The Money You Need To Live Where And How You Want
Lief has already shared the story of how he got started with his live-and-invest-overseas adventures.
Today he asked his wife Kathleen Peddicord if she’d share hers. Here is her inspiring story, with some expert ideas to initiate your own overseas entrepreneurial adventure…
About 35 years ago (yikes), wide-eyed, pony-tailed, and straight out of college, I went to work in the publishing industry.
Back then, we made a business of written word the old-fashioned way—with paper, ink, envelopes, and stamps.
Now my business is virtual.
Today, publishing companies (like mine) may need the services of a copywriter or a particular editor only once or twice a month. Therefore, they don’t want to be liable for a full-time salary and the associated employer taxes, health benefits, vacation time etc. Nowadays, it’s easier and cheaper to find a freelance worker with the required skills.
This is one small example of a flexible employment opportunity you can travel the world with. The reality today is that opportunities like these await entrepreneurs across every border. You can turn a hobby into an income and become part of the new global digital nomad workforce. This can be approached low-key, with nothing more than a laptop. Or more ambitiously, with the idea that you want to build a business, with a base and staff, to generate the income you need to live the life you want where you want to live it.
I had a friend in Poland years ago who learned that Burger King was going to open up shop there and needed warehouse space for its supplies. My friend bought a warehouse. Burger King became his client. In time, he expanded his storage business to include other clients and other products… and made a nice living for himself.
Another friend noticed how few coffee shops existed in Warsaw. (This was years ago, before Starbucks came to town.) My friend found a local roaster to roast the coffee beans and then packaged them himself. He then set up a combination retail and wholesale operation, which grew to a large company. A company that is still going strong today.
Some of the best overseas businesses start like these two—organically. You show up, discover a market niche, and then invent a way to fill it.
Other overseas ventures can be more pre-planned.
In 2007, I took early retirement from the company where I’d worked for more than 23 years. Six months later, I realized that retirement didn’t suit me. I liked being in business.
Then, the question wasn’t what business would make sense (I enjoyed the business I’d already spent 23 years learning).
For me, the question was where best should I base the business I wanted to launch.
Panama stood out as the obvious choice… so Lief and I packed up our family for our third international move. We repositioned from Paris to Panama City, where we’ve spent the past decade building the Live and Invest Overseas business.
Some Ideas To Help You Make Money Overseas
What could you do?
How about…
- An online business (consulting, copywriting, travel writing, photography, programming, coding, digital marketing, teaching, even social media marketing) is the easiest to launch overseas and allows you to work from anywhere in the world provided you can get a reliable internet connection… All you need to start is your laptop.
- Online publishing (like me)…
- A franchise can be an easy way to hit the ground running with a business model, strategy, branding, marketing, and support already in place…
- A tourism-based business—a bed-and-breakfast, a dive shop, a bar, restaurant, ice cream shop, wine store, souvenir stand, etc….
- A business targeting the expat market anywhere there is a decent-sized expat community gives you a chance to provide a product or service you (and your fellow expats) miss from back home…
- A niche store… one of the big advantages of coming from the developed world to start a business in the developing world is that lots of unfilled niches have the potential to be highly profitable.
- Real estate is one business that many expat entrepreneurs gravitate toward. You can bring an understanding of an efficient real estate market to places where the real estate markets are still finding their feet.
- Import/export… the opportunities are endless…
- A business geared toward the locals… like my friend who started the coffee business in Warsaw. He translated a developed-world idea into a developing marketplace full of virgin consumers…
- Farming or viticulture…
After celebrating success with my own overseas start-up, I can tell you that it’s not easy, but I don’t regret a single day of the experience.
In fact, my only regret is that I didn’t get started at this sooner.
We’ve had the time of our lives building what today is a well-established, fast-growing operation with an eclectic international staff and a big upside.
In the current climate, as good-paying, fulfilling jobs are harder and harder to come by back in the States, and graduates wonder what in the world they’re going to do with their new degrees…
I offer that the question isn’t what in the world are you going to do to support yourself and the life you want…
But where in the world.
Kathleen Peddicord
