Post: #1

I'd like to bounce this idea off the forum. I've been pondering the question of the Western man's emigration a bit more, after I concluded that "a man has two living choices: live in a mentally ill country, or live in a poor country." (/thread-9856-p...pid1053496)

I think it is fairly obvious to most Western men who frequent this forum, that you can sexually do much better for yourself abroad (East Europe, South America, Asia etc), and live with a higher quality of lifestyle overall (depending on the country and your home country). The government is the enemy of you and your posterity, the women are mentally and physically broken, you are taxed to death and beyond, your country is a sinking ship, and your freedom is becoming increasingly throttled.

The West has one advantage. It has money and it makes money. By example, the average American has a raw productivity north of $67 per hour, whilst the Thai produces $8.5 per hour. To maintain the same material standard of life in San Francisco as in Bangkok requires 3 times the money, not to mention the second-tier SEA cities. Compared to Osaka, it is about 2.3 times. Compared to Budapest, it is about 2.5 times. If you compare New York to Warsaw, it's 3.3 times. If you compare Toronto and Kiev, it's 2.5 times.
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co...our_worked , http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/com...y2=Bangkok , http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/com...ity2=Osaka , http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/com...2=Toronto]

To me, leaving the West is a no-brainer. It is the lifestyle equivalent of a man leaving India to make money in America. The non-West is the promised land. Sure, you'll have to learn a new language. If you're an American you'll have to leave your guns behind, but you probably won't need them anymore anyway, and you'll be leaving the rotund beasts behind too. If you're an Aussie, you'll have to take less trips to the beach each year, but at least you'll be able to drink outside, and you'll not get fined $100 for not wearing a bicycle helmet. If you're Canadian, you'll have to do without as many ski-trips, but... Toronto. If you're English... well you really have no excuse.

The problem is: how do you pull the money with you? The current strategies I've witnessed so far are:

• Save up at a high paying Western job, spend it living overseas, repeat. Only possible with certain types of jobs, and depends on re-employment difficulty.
• Contracting / freelancing. The most successful cases of this I've seen, are when someone already had a reputation and contacts in their home country, and the work could all be done on computer.
• English teaching. The default go to job. Pay and job availability can be poor depending on country, and is an immediate dead-end job. This isn't a 'money pulling' job per se, but rides on the popularity of English as a second language.
• Expat workers. Those lucky or savvy folk who wormed their way into a high-paying expat package at a multinational company. Generally only available to the top men in a company / industry, and becoming less frequent.
• An online business of some sort.
• Some business that has been successfully fully delegated to a General Manager by the owner.
  

My idea is one of an emigration rotation partnership. It's structure would be as follows:

1. The business partnership is formed with periodic emigration in mind. This is written into the operating agreement.
2. The aim is to keep as many partners outside the host country as possible. There will always be one partner in the country to represent the company locally, to meet in person with local clients, and to manage everything that cannot be done by computer.
3. An example could be: 4 partners, each partner in America for 3 months of the year, and the remaining time overseas.
4. It would be possible because of how much work most companies do on computer, by phone, by email etc. There is no need for an accountant, an office clerk, most types of engineer, most managers, most types of salesmen or marketers, writers and editors, many types of lawyers, draftsmen, artists, and a whole lot of other workers, to be physically present in an office to get their work done.
5. Every partner must maintain a high-speed internet connection at all times when overseas. Depending on what his roles are, the ability to choose country may be limited by time-zone. E.g. a manager or a salesman probably won't want to be working the night-shift to match the firms local day-shift.
6. When in-company meetings are needed (they rarely are), they can be done by webcam etc.
   

I think the main problem to tackle would be one that plagues all partnerships, the 'tragedy of the commons' group-effect. The operating agreement would have to be clear as to who has what responsibilities and when, have some kind of safeguards against slacking partners, have clear command responsibility, have external adjudicator and arbitrator clauses in case of disputes, and have a system of punishments and rewards that the arbitrator can mete out.

What do people think?

Post: #2

I like this general idea, but perhaps on a smaller scale, one facet at a time of living abroad maybe at the other end of the see-saw--in the target countries.

If you had a business you'd have to find people with very similar skillsets wouldn't you? Not much chance of finding someone with my health care sub-specialty.

But on the consumption end, for instance, I've found low cost apartments in the Philippines but they usually have longer lease terms required than I want to accept. So I'm paying almost double what I could be paying.

If there were someone who wanted an apartment when I left I could take the longer term, just collect the security from the next guy and he just takes over the lower rent. In my case I'm paying P16,000 plus utilities because i am staying month to month, but a pretty similar apt further out is only about P5000.

Post: #3

(07-27-2015 06:44 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  If you had a business you'd have to find people with very similar skillsets wouldn't you? Not much chance of finding someone with my health care sub-specialty.

Not necessarily, partners generally complement each other in various ways. For instance, I know a guy with a niche Japan-US law firm, and his partner is Japanese and he's the American (both lawyers). In other partnerships, one guy might be the sales guy who goes out to get the contracts, another might be the finance and accounting guy + CEO, and another might be the operations guy. Complementary but with common aims is the best form of partnership.

One issue might actually be that the rotation system makes normal role-assignment more difficult, and you'd have to have everyone qualified to do the physically-present aspects (meeting with clients etc). To start off you'd probably start with only one partner leaving at a time, and ramp it up to whatever level of offshoredness the partners desire or can sustain.

Post: #4

Nice idea in theory, but I don't exactly understand how it will work in practice.

Does a new company have to be created to create such a partnership? Let's say 4 people want to do this... do they have to form their own company?

Or is it possible to do so for an existing job at an existing company? Not sure if I'm phrasing this question right, so I'll bring up an example. Let's say you have a guy who manages a local auto insurance office under a large company (like Geico). This guy is an office branch manager, who supervises an accountant, a salesman, and an attorney.

Using this example, let's say these 4 people want to take on an emigration rotation program. They agree to allow the accountant and salesman to go abroad wherever they want for 6 months, while the manager and attorney holds the fort at home. All 4 do their work as normal, as they all have high speed internet connections no matter where they are. When the accountant and salesman return home, the manager and attorney head overseas... while the accountant and salesman hold the fort at home. Rinse and repeat every 6 months.

Is this what you are thinking?

Post: #5

I think it is an interesting idea. But I think you will really need to know your partners. And really have a business that can be sustained by this business model. If guys are complementary in skills, that sounds great. But if one of you guys is the sales guy and he is away in a different time zone either he is operating on, as an example, US hours not sure how much fun he will be having abroad. Or customers demand face time and you are going to send your legal guy? Not saying lawyers can't sell. Of course they can they sell their services all the time.

For me, it woild come down to the type of business and investment required. And the guys you are trying this with. Ultimately, someone is going to fall behind on his contribution of effort. It always happens. The bigger the group the more likely it will. But that doesn't mean your idea won't work.

Another way to do it is to have 4 investors and your GM model. Your GM runs it and you rotate in to surpervise.

Just a random thought. You guys buy a flagged hotel. Then use the management services of the flagged hotel. One of you rotates in every three months stays on premises. While it is managed by the hotel company. Someone is there to make sure your investment is handled. Granted the problem is the location may suck.

Also, being there for 3 months won't let you qualify for the expat tax treatment (US specific). You might need 12 people. Maybe 15 so that everyone who wants to be home for the holidays can be.

You may want to put this company in a spot closest to a region of guys interest (sea EE). Meaning you drop the business in the UK or some EU country for guys who want EE. Maybe Singapore or Japan for SEA. In the event there is some business issue guys can travel easily to the business.

Post: #6

(07-27-2015 09:17 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  Is this what you are thinking?

Well the executives at an existing company just wouldn't agree to it. It reduces their control and flexibility, and would likely hurt the bottom line to some extent. Otherwise you'd see this sort of thing cropping up everywhere already. The only case I've heard of is this guy: http://www.justin-klein.com , but it looks like he's back in California now and hasn't updated for 2 years. This is rare, and in his case it was because the job (programming) was very easy to telecommute, and because he already had the reputation (see his portfolio) and skills to successfully negotiate his request. Companies are normally formed solely for the purpose of maximum profit.

For this reason, a partnership would have to be formed from men who specifically wanted this type of system, since it naturally detracts from profitability to some extent due to slower command-and-control speeds versus competitors. The company wouldn't have to specifically be a partnership (it could be a corporation which implemented this in its constitution/bylaws), but it sounds like the most fitting form.

Post: #7

It sounds good in theory but is difficult to execute. I would think the easiest answer is just to start a business where you want to live. Barring you intend to live in North Korea or Cuba In about 95% of places in the world there will be economically viable businesses which you can start.

Post: #8

(07-27-2015 10:27 AM)lavidaloca Wrote:  It sounds good in theory but is difficult to execute. I would think the easiest answer is just to start a business where you want to live. Barring you intend to live in North Korea or Cuba In about 95% of places in the world there will be economically viable businesses which you can start.

I don't think it would be more difficult to execute than starting a (non-online) business in a foreign country. It'd probably be significantly easier, especially to produce the same income level, given that most countries don't use English as their primary language.

Every other common technique is based around "both feet in one country", and is subject to limitations on that. The techniques of sole-proprietor overseas & local GM, or high-reputation guy contracting with local companies from overseas, or expat packages, are rare and reserved to the top tier. The idea of this technique is a form of "one foot in each country" which is more accessible to younger or middle-tier men, to open a new channel for living outside the West but earn within it.

I suppose the easiest implementation would involve just buying a relatively simple or stable business like a pub or cafe, and rotating partners through as the manager. I suspect these simple businesses have lower returns on equity though, but it might be OK where there are large differences between the local and target country price indexes.

Post: #9

Lower return on equity plus lifestyle and freedom is higher utility than higher return on equity plus no freedom or flexibility. Then throw in the poosy factor.

Post: #10

(07-27-2015 03:49 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  The problem is: how do you pull the money with you? The current strategies I've witnessed so far are:

• Save up at a high paying Western job, spend it living overseas, repeat. Only possible with certain types of jobs, and depends on re-employment difficulty.
• Contracting / freelancing. The most successful cases of this I've seen, are when someone already had a reputation and contacts in their home country, and the work could all be done on computer.
• English teaching. The default go to job. Pay and job availability can be poor depending on country, and is an immediate dead-end job. This isn't a 'money pulling' job per se, but rides on the popularity of English as a second language.
• Expat workers. Those lucky or savvy folk who wormed their way into a high-paying expat package at a multinational company. Generally only available to the top men in a company / industry, and becoming less frequent.
• An online business of some sort.
• Some business that has been successfully fully delegated to a General Manager by the owner.
  

You can probably add to this list:

• Owning real estate
• Some high demand technical jobs, such as software development, could be done on a full-time basis if the person establishes themselves in the US first.
  

(07-27-2015 10:27 AM)lavidaloca Wrote:  It sounds good in theory but is difficult to execute.

Starting a new business like this would be extremely difficult to execute. If someone can pull it off then that person probably has the skills and resources to take a simpler approach, make 10x more money over a relatively short time (maybe 5 years), and retire abroad.

(07-27-2015 10:55 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  I suppose the easiest implementation would involve just buying a relatively simple or stable business like a pub or cafe, and rotating partners through as the manager. I suspect these simple businesses have lower returns on equity though, but it might be OK where there are large differences between the local and target country price indexes.

I just can't envision many scenarios where this would make sense. If someone has the capital to buy a business then that capital could probably be used in a better way. One example - buy an apartment building and hire a property manager, keep your job and stay at home for 1-2 years so you can solve the inevitable problems that will come up, and then move abroad and possibly do some freelance work to supplement your income. In that scenario you'll have to manage a single property manager who you have already worked with rather than managing multiple partners in various locations.

In my opinion the only way this could work well is if 2 partners knew each other well and setup a business where they each spent 6 months per year traveling. The partners would already have knowledge of their industry and know they can work well together. They would start with a business and then build a lifestyle around the business. They would not start with a lifestyle and try to build a complicated business structure around their lifestyle. I'm not saying you can't build a business around a lifestyle but it can be difficult and involving several partners in various locations is going to make it exponentially more difficult.

I think the OP is on the right track as far as coming up with ideas, doing research, and getting opinions from other people but the strategy seems like the tail wagging the dog to me. I think there are simpler ways that will be easier to execute and possibly allow the business owner to take advantage of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion if they can stay out of the US for 330 days per year.

Post: #11

The other problem is if the partners get along well enough to have a business together, wouldn't they also want to travel together? It is always nice to have a wing.

In a perfect world, there is some trustworthy guy living in the US, that everyone knows all the details on (where to find him, his family, etc). He already is settled and is happy staying in the US. He manages the investment. All back office stuff is supported by the guys overseas, accounting, billing, etc.

He gets a management fee and ideally he also invests so he has skin the game (gets his profit share also).

Post: #12

Re: How to bring the money with you?

Rental properties are, in my opinion, an excellent source of more-or-less passive income. The only difficulty is managing your properties which requires either someone you trust to deal with renters/maintenance/upkeep OR delegating it to a company you can pay to take care of things for you in exchange for a flat fee or percentage of the rental income.

Preferably this rental income would be supplemented at least one other thing such as another investment, substantial savings or even a local ( part time ) job.

It's how I plan on escaping.

Post: #13

My experience is that properties can be hard to liquidate once you own them and if the local economy or political situation becomes unstable (USA 2008/2009, Eastern and now much of the rest of Ukraine, Chinese collapsing markets and vacant cities for example) you can be stuck - best to be a financial nomad with liquid assets that can be managed for a profit - if situations and markets change quickly - mainland China over the past 16 months for example - best to be liquid..

Step one is offshore banking outside of the grasp of greedy US bureaucrats and unconstitutional Civil Asset Forfeiture laws.

PM me for a copy to a guide to offshore banking for US Citizens.

Next is set up an offshore company and banking in the name of the company to do legal business and keep you from being the focus of FATCA and FBAR onerous reporting rules.

Third is to get in front of major trends and capitalize upon them - that will require some hunting for offshore opps or exim trading with the USA.

Protect your nest eggs with multiple flags (residence/biz flags vs bang flags)

Good resources:

http://sovereignsociety.com/

http://nomadcapitalist.com/

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2015/07/24/ho...dependent/

Post: #14

(07-28-2015 08:29 AM)Deepdiver Wrote:  My experience is that properties can be hard to liquidate once you own them and if the local economy or political situation becomes unstable (USA 2008/2009, Eastern and now much of the rest of Ukraine, Chinese collapsing markets and vacant cities for example) you can be stuck - best to be a financial nomad with liquid assets that can be managed for a profit - if situations and markets change quickly - mainland China over the past 16 months for example - best to be liquid..

Step one is offshore banking outside of the grasp of greedy US bureaucrats and unconstitutional Civil Asset Forfeiture laws.

PM me for a copy to a guide to offshore banking for US Citizens.

Next is set up an offshore company and banking in the name of the company to do legal business and keep you from being the focus of FATCA and FBAR onerous reporting rules.

Third is to get in front of major trends and capitalize upon them - that will require some hunting for offshore opps or exim trading with the USA.

Protect your nest eggs with multiple flags (residence/biz flags vs bang flags)

Good resources:

http://sovereignsociety.com/

http://nomadcapitalist.com/

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2015/07/24/ho...dependent/

Even if markets tank, owning a rental property outright (with no mortgage payments) will still make money regardless of the market. Sure you probably can't charge $1500 on a four bedroom home in some 3rd tier US city but even if you have to lower rent to 1000$ or even $800 it's still passive money. Owning a rental property in a semi decent neighborhood (Read no ghettos) in the US is probably one of the safest investment one can make outside of blue chip dividend stocks.

I'd also be wary about using international banks. Cyprus and Greece both had bail ins and it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see other European countries go this route.

Finances isn't a set it and forget it thing. It takes semi weekly management to avoid getting caught with your pants down. Homework needs to be done.

Post: #15

I'm bumping this because I remembered it when writing something on this thread. /thread-55782...pid1307746

My idea was sort of an expansion of this and turning it into an RVF fund. It would takes lot of vetting and I am sure more complications than I have thought of in these 5 minutes that have passed since coming up with this idea.

But a fund with accountability that understands the desire for location independence might have some potential. The issue is the more guys you have - the more likely someone would shirk or steal. Although, I think some guys here would be happy to enforce accountability old school style. And I personally wouldn't have a problem with that, since I know myself.

Post: #16

^ Samsamsam, I think that would end up with a lot of "old school accountability" and a lot of bitterness

The problem comes from the flat hierarchy, not so much people's characters. All partnerships tend to run into this problem (a kind of 'tragedy of the commons' and free rider problem). I've heard multiple tales of it. Difference is that in this case it's exacerbated by partners not even remaining in the same country.

In a standard corporation, you basically have two hierarchies (shareholders and their elected board members; and the employees) coupled together at the CEO. This splits ownership and work aspects. As a result, you have centralized decision making, backed up with the power to fire or reward. In a partnership you don't always have a centralized decision maker, there is no firing power, and there is no reward power (all reward comes from distributions of profits according to ownership).

I haven't done enough research yet to work out how these problems could be overcome. I suspect it would require the following aspects:
- An entrenched elected CEO who executes the company rules. Could only be normally replaced by a supermajority vote. This would be a "final say" position to resolve disputes, separate to the GM position (the rotating domestic manager).
- External arbitrage appeal. If an individual becomes the victim of the group or CEO not applying the company rules, he can apply for external arbitrage by a stipulated process. (Pretty easy nowadays, you can submit cases to online e-arbitrators now).
- Punishment provisions. A partner cannot be fired, so there needs to be a mechanism whereby his distribution can be docked to certain degrees by the CEO for poor performance (perhaps with majority ratification). The arbitrage appeal would be a safeguard against this being done unfairly.
- Reward provisions. The CEO would be required by the rules to reward based on changes in company performance during each members GM stint (up-adjust that members distribution that year by a bonus).
- "Runner" safeguards. At a minimum, partners would have to lay down a significant sum of locked-in capital into the business -- low or nil capital businesses would have high runner risk. There has to be enough disincentive to avoid a guy collects his distribution and then never shows up for his stint. This would be especially true where partners have no domestic assets anymore, since recovery through a court would be too difficult.
- Failure to attend stint provisions. In cases where someone can't attend for a good reason (e.g. injured from too much 3rd world poon), there should be fall-back provisions in place, whereby his distribution is docked to some extent, and whoever takes the stint is rewarded.

Basically, the last thing it should be based on is trust and honour. It would have to be completely self-enforcing and robust to disputes and intermittent problems.

I still think this is a great untapped escape idea. It would be good to discuss how it would work further.

Post: #17

My biggest concern was always the accountability part.

I think you need guys who know each other and live from the place that they would rather die than let your brothers down.

That is a rare person in this day and age.

But if there were a few guys and there was a plan, I would be curious.

Maybe the guys find an established business or two and feed it some equity. They would be more involved by being on the board than the actual day to day. Granted, that would be a lot of capital to get anything decent to live off of.

I guess that is leaning more towards a private equity thing.

Post: #18

I suppose we should think of an example test case. What kind of work can be anchored with a physical office and single partner in say America, but then have work pushed out to partners abroad online in say Colombia?

One example I can think of is CAD drafting guys. I know one guy who does that from abroad in a personal contracting capacity (using his Australian client book). You only need a computer and email to do that. I don't know much about law -- if there is a lot of paperwork and emails versus client meeting time or not. There are probably a bunch of cases in IT where it could be done (probably timezone sensitive though).

Post: #19

Anything that is IT related would be a bit skill specific. I think those guys could just work remotely anyway.

Another person a different thread makes a living doing lead generations and selling services (I think an example was like moving companies). But then, if the guy you subcontract to do the work blows it - you don't have the physical presence to address any issues (maybe you don't need to - maybe your contract says you do subcontract and any issues is to be taken up with the subcontractor.

Maybe you have a team that imports goods into the US from the desired area - like all of you want to be in China and you send stuff to the US to sold on Amazon. You never touch the products, Amazon handles all the storage and shipping. That could be a possibility, all of you could be in China but that doesn't really need a rotation. You don't need a US anchor.

Hmmmm...

I have one idea but require a guy like Suits I would also take it to PMs.

Post: #20

(05-23-2016 08:15 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  One example I can think of is CAD drafting guys. I know one guy who does that from abroad in a personal contracting capacity (using his Australian client book). You only need a computer and email to do that. I don't know much about law -- if there is a lot of paperwork and emails versus client meeting time or not. There are probably a bunch of cases in IT where it could be done (probably timezone sensitive though).

Was going to suggest exactly that. Engineering and software development would be ideal candidates for this, especially if you could structure it in a way that the business domicile was in a tax-advantaged country and work on the ground in high-tax/mentally-ill countries was 'sales representation'. I can see it working for law/accounting industries, but that would be a very long-term play as you would need to train staff in the offshore country.

It would definitely suit a rotation between western markets and EE countries like Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania and the Ukraine, which are rich in engineering talent. I know a company headed by three Frenchmen which operates a very similar scheme - the directors do month-long shifts in France to manage their representative office, while the head office is in Kiev. Their business is website development (design and backend development).

Post: #21

I've been pondering this a little more recently. The universal case: an internationally-distributed partnership, with non-trivial individual travel/relocation costs, and where use of domestic judicial systems to enforce the partnership agreement is prohibitively difficult or expensive.

I have a point I am stuck on, perhaps you guys could help me brainstorm it.

As I see it, aside from choosing a viable business in the first place, the structure of the partnership agreement is the most important thing. It is a matter of crafting the best self-enforcing partnership agreement possible to match this internationally distributed form of business partnership. To make the most robust agreement, it is assumed that "despite the best vetting and preparation, everything will go wrong and everyone will turn bad" whilst making it, and the opposite is assumed after it is signed.

The central question seems to be balancing two things: sustaining a viable partnership; and allowing smooth exit or expulsion of partners. Provisioning for all the ways a bad partner might spoil things, while still protecting the good partner who gets unfairly treated.

Working out that balance seems best illustrated by taking edge cases.

Example 1: a partner goes rogue and intentionally violates the partnership agreement.
(a) He fails to return for his domestic stint, or to uphold some other partnership-specific duty.
(b) He drains all the money in the partnership capital account.
© Or he just becomes a Grade A slacker and he needs to be got rid of.

(a) could be mitigated against with a penalty system. The CEO would apply a monetary penalty, either to his salary or to his distributions, or possibly to his paid-in capital (or 'deposit'), depending on the violation and according to rules in the partnership agreement (as none-discretionary as possible).

(b) would require capital account withdrawals (such as the periodic salary+distribution payments) to be multi-authorized by all partners. Even a super-majority authorization would raise the risk of a partner being unfairly deprived of his capital & distributions by a ill-meaning majority, who could then just transfer the money to a jurisdiction favourable to them and difficult for the individual. Especially in cases like 3 partners, where 2 partners are friends or just decide to break away and start a new partnership.

© very hard to apply a penalty for slacking, it would be too open to subjective interpretation and abuse, creating ill will (same reason we don't apply penalties for slacking in normal jobs). Best to have a "unanimous minus one" provision to eject a partner which details how his final payout is made in different situations. There could still be incentives based on KPIs for good performance which could help with this though.

The problem is, (b) then creates a new risk, illustrated below:

Example 2:
A partner with bad faith claims his failure to return for his domestic stint on time was due to an allowable exception (e.g. he was technically 'sick', even though it was just a cold or something). The chairman disagrees. He rules it invokes a penalty: his distributions for those 2 weeks, plus costs such as missed flights, will go to the domestic partner who was delayed from leaving. The partner then appeals for majority vote of the partners, and they confirm it. He then invokes the online third-party arbitration provision, which is the final safeguard for an aggrieved individual partner. The arbitration then rules against him, and the arbitration costs are added to the penalty. He still will not accept his wrongdoing, and to spite the rest of the partnership, refuses to authorize any disbursements from the capital account, leaving everyone's income frozen and the companies ability to pay expenses frozen.

My current guess on mitigating that extreme case would be:
- The remaining partners would then immediately pay into a new capital account with only themselves as signatories.
- The chairman would then designate a partner to go back to the country where the account is based, to initiate bank administrative or legal proceedings to have the account closed & disbursed as per the judgement
- There would be a punishment provision against refusing to authorize disbursements that abide by the partnership agreement (to help pay for the costs of this at the rogue partner's expense).

Does this all sound reasonable?

Post: #22

Quite confusing that in RVF, where there is a combination of: complaining about western women and society; extolling the virtues of foreign women and living in foreign countries; and talking about gaining location independent income (in knowledge that "monetarily poor country tends to mean sexually rich and vice versa"); there is little interest in this.

Any particular reason for that?

Is it just that grumbling is more enjoyable than thinking? And less effort? The migrant invasion thread is a comically morbid example of this. 563 pages of doom and grumble talk, and next to nil solution talk other than "I hope Person X gets power".

This is a perfectly legitimate and feasible idea which could possibly be very effective in fulfilling the very values RVFers talk about, and it's bizarre that there is almost zero interest in this thread.

Currently it seems that RVFers fund their overseas time in the following ways:
1. Long term: Teaching English. This is subsistence level income and very few ever push it to new heights and even then it's normally in Korea and China, not East Europe or even other Asian countries for that matter.
2. Long term: Working online. Setting this up starting from zero, building a presence and reputation etc, and reaching a sustainable income, is at least as hard if not harder than this idea.
3. Short term: Saving up money in your job. Doing short trips, like 2 weeks, 1 month etc.
4. Long term: Getting transferred overseas by your multinational company. Barely controllable; you need to get into that company, work your way into a position over several years to get transferred and even then you have no guarantee.
5. Long term: Ask your company to let you work remotely. You need a lot of leverage to do this, which you would build up in your current company over several years. If your company just won't allow it, you're stuck.

This idea has much greater potential upside than (1); potentially has far greater "drag the money from a western country" efficiency than (2); is more sustainable than (3); and is far more controllable, flexible and self-actionable than (4) and (5).

Post: #23

I think something like this is best done with people you already know and know well. No offense to the RVF community but I wouldn't want to get into a deal like this with random guys you met on the Internet. Unless you have really spent some time with them.

I also think anything so needs a lot of details on how it operates hints at the level of complexity you are proposing. Also, you are talking about tying up your own capital and then having restrictions and limits placed on your behavior. Granted this is what you agree to when you enter into this deal. But most people these days are shit for following through on what you agreed upon.

Beyond just the legal aspects. You still have to find a business that all agree to buy and operate.

While the idea is interesting from a theoretical point of view. You have massive execution issues.

And since every guy here claims to be alpha, you will spend time butting heads with guys. Unless you really know them well.

Any close friends you have that you could do this with?

Last thing to keep in mind regarding the posts guys make about traveling and foreign women are better. Few guys will ever take that risk. Just human nature. I am not trying to piss on your idea. I am just trying to give some thoughts on why you haven't gotten much support over this idea and the complexities of your idea. If you need that much scenario planning surely there will be issues that you have not foreseen. This is when the quality of your choices for business partners is more important than your contract.

Also the more partners you have the more likely you will have a weak link.

And with all respect, maybe your idea isn't as good as you think it is. All I am saying is the marketplace lets you know if you have a compelling idea. Just a random thought. Good luck.

Post: #24

(03-16-2017 01:49 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Currently it seems that RVFers fund their overseas time in the following ways:
1. Long term: Teaching English. This is subsistence level income and very few ever push it to new heights and even then it's normally in Korea and China, not East Europe or even other Asian countries for that matter.
2. Long term: Working online. Setting this up starting from zero, building a presence and reputation etc, and reaching a sustainable income, is at least as hard if not harder than this idea.
3. Short term: Saving up money in your job. Doing short trips, like 2 weeks, 1 month etc.
4. Long term: Getting transferred overseas by your multinational company. Barely controllable; you need to get into that company, work your way into a position over several years to get transferred and even then you have no guarantee.
5. Long term: Ask your company to let you work remotely. You need a lot of leverage to do this, which you would build up in your current company over several years. If your company just won't allow it, you're stuck.

This idea has much greater potential upside than (1); potentially has far greater "drag the money from a western country" efficiency than (2); is more sustainable than (3); and is far more controllable, flexible and self-actionable than (4) and (5).

Your idea seems to actually just be an extension of (5) except instead of asking your company to allow you to work remotely, you create the company with partners so the remote working is understood and part of the arrangement from the beginning.

I've worked remotely for US companies and lived abroad for two years before, it sounds like the dream but there are all kinds of costs associated to this that aren't immediately obvious.

1. You have to either work harder or be a lot better than average to compensate for the lack of facetime. Most people spend most of the day in the office doing nothing. This is a lot more obvious when you aren't there, so you have to outproduce everyone else on your team.
2. The isolation becomes insufferable. For my industry (software development) it can become impossible do your best work when you are communicating over IM or email all the time, you need facetime with your client/team.
3. You miss out on networking/career opportunities big time.

My current plan is this:

1. Work for a contracting company in a major western city for one year. Build up a solid reputation (I am exceptional in my particular field, and pretty good at selling myself, so this won't be hard) and especially learn how the company brings in new business.
2. Setup a small independent contracting firm on the side during this time. My brother has a complementary skillset to myself and a similar desire to escape the west so I aim to partner with him.
3. Start to get small clients/jobs as I learn the ropes for my independent firm.
4. Quit my day job and go full time on my own contracting firm. Setup relationships with clients in my home country/city then escape for 3-6 months at a time to foreign lands where I can continue to work online and earn a western salary.

In my case because I am working with my own brother there is tremendous flexibility and I can trust him implicitly to get shit done. As per your idea Phoenix we could either take turns in our home country to seek out new business and have facetime with clients, or we could both be away at the same time and operate on a kind of "blast and cruise" cycle where we spend 6 months in our home country gaining clients and working hard, then the rest of the year wherever we like whilst cruising on existing projects.

I think escaping permanently is not the right path, because even if you keep making money from your home country there are other intangibles such as being plugged into the scene, networking and other business opportunities that you miss out on when you are away. The best way I imagine is a kind of roster, like 6 months on 6 months off. This suits my natural way of working (blast and cruise) quite well but of course no major company would support it. That's why I have to strike out independently to make it work.

Post: #25

(03-16-2017 01:49 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Quite confusing that in RVF, where there is a combination of: complaining about western women and society; extolling the virtues of foreign women and living in foreign countries; and talking about gaining location independent income (in knowledge that "monetarily poor country tends to mean sexually rich and vice versa"); there is little interest in this.

Any particular reason for that?

Phoenix, what you are talking about is a corporate structure, not a business. There isn't much to comment on it because it isn't a business.

The business should dictate the structure, not the other way around.

Good partnerships are people that bring differing skillsets to the table. I am assuming what you laid out would be people with the same skillset rolling in every 3 months to work.

Basically 4 different managers working 3 month shifts.

That is all fine and dandy when the business is up and running profitably. You have a lot of work before you get to that point. Having 4 people with the same skillsets won't help you get to that point.

You would be better off building up a business and hiring a CEO or manager to take care of the day to day activities. That still means a lot of dedication on your part to get it up and running before you hand it over.

Don't kid yourself, even with 4 other partners you won't be working offsite for most of the year starting out. That may happen once you get it profitable and worked out all the logistics but that will probably be many, many years away before you can start living overseas.