
Relocating our startup from Seattle to Morocco - jonnymiller
http://qz.com/371657/relocating-our-startup-from-seattle-to-morocco-was-the-best-decision-we-ever-made/
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cleaver
Those of us who can work remotely are incredibly lucky. I spent last winter
motorcycling and working in Mexico.

The photo of the Macbook by the ocean brought back memories. I had a nice
little house on the beach for $500/mo. Unfortunately computer equipment won't
last long in the salty air. My keyboard gave out after about a month.

~~~
wstrange
The salt air is the biggest downside that no one ever mentions for beach
condos.

We replace most electronics (including A/C units, microwaves, etc) every 18
months.

~~~
fapjacks
Absolutely. I lived on Oahu for six years and blew through all kinds of
hardware.

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deftnerd
I'm a solo-founder, but I made the move to the mountains of Puerto Rico for
similar reasons. Next year I'll move with my wife and kids to the beach.

By moving, we're able to survive on passive income from a few web properties
so I can do nothing but think about building new websites and services.

For a team, I highly recommend it. You can stretch that runway really far and
decrease your burn rate by moving lots of different places.

~~~
MCRed
How do you find Puerto Rico? I spent two years in Chile, and it was really
nice, love the people, the visas are good, but there's a lot of bureaucracy
and its hard to import stuff.

~~~
deftnerd
There is a lot of bureaucracy here as well, but people here are nice and
patient. Knowing Spanish is a big plus as it's the official language.

Navigation is tricky as the addressing scheme relies on naming the road and
then how many kilometers the house is from the roads starting point. Google
Maps is practically ineffective here.

Some things are far cheaper here and some things are far more expensive. Used
vehicles are about equal as they would be on the mainland, but vehicle
maintenance work is much cheaper. Rental prices outside of San Juan are very
good. I'm living in the mountains around Adjuntas, in the interior, and paying
$300 a month for a 1100 sqft 3 bedroom, 1 bath house. Since I'm at a higher
altitude in the interior, the temperature hasn't gotten above 80 degrees yet
(or dropped below 65) so we don't need to spend money on AC or heating.

Food and goods in stores is more expensive because of an ancient merchant
marine law that requires goods shipped from US ports to US ports travel on US
flagged ships _constructed_ in the US. This means that the few ships that can
make the journey legally get to charge what they want and that increases the
costs of all goods delivered.

The way around it is ordering things online and having them shipped via USPS
which treats Puerto Rico as domestic. Unfortunately, FedEx and UPS treat
Puerto Rico as a foreign location and charge more. It's difficult to buy
things on eBay because of that incongruity.

We're likely to remain here until next August and then we'll decide if we want
to stay another year in the mountains, try living on the beach, or go back to
the mainland. We left from Austin but we think we'll try either Chattanooga TN
(for the 10gb connections) or some small town in Colorado (the kids demand
snow) next.

All in all, I recommend a hacker retreat to Puerto Rico if you want to have
some seclusion to get work done. It's easy to do on a budget and it's a bit
easier for a (mainlander) American to pass here than it is in Central or South
America.

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ameen
I'm interested in similar options for startups. Where was the company
registered, and what would be the taxes, etc?

I would ideally want to start a company in Silicon Valley or any other tech
centres of the U.S., but I guess such an option would require shelling out a
great deal for taxes, offices, living expenses, salaries, etc.

Being Indian, Bangalore isn't an option either given it's rise in CoL.

~~~
virtualwhys
OT, but any idea what the internet speed/power uptime situation is like in
India these days?

Thinking of traveling around (Varanasi, Goa, southeast of Bangalore) but from
what I gather you're doing well with 2MBs download and most days without power
outages in a given month if outside the major cities.

I've done it before with spotty access/power but can get stressful scrambling
for connectivity.

~~~
ameen
Metropolitan city centres have pretty good power/connectivity (4G/LTE, Fibre
100+ Mbit connections at ~$50USD). If you can get a cheap office space (with
power backup of-course), you'd be golden.

Suburbs and other tier-2 cities are a bit of a gamble. A few states seem to be
developing and positioning a few cities to be favourable for investment.

LTE and Fibre networks are mushrooming every other day, but I'm not sure about
Varansi and Goa. Bangalore has pretty decent connectivity.

~~~
virtualwhys
Thanks, helpful. I may delay my trip until the spring if that's the case (when
can take time away from work).

I'd like to check out some areas outside of the big cities. Obviously India is
an enormous country, will just be dipping the toes.

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MCRed
Weren't you guys in Startup Chile? I swear you've been getting play out of the
"we relocated to Morocco" story for years-- not a criticism, good on ya!

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nbardy
I spent 10 months traveling and contracting in hostels, and struggled through
some pretty shoddy and slow internet connections; However, Taghazout was the
one place I couldn't find a consistent internet connection. I only lasted
about 2 weeks trying each cafe and even some of the more expensive hotels, but
the bigger problem was the power dropping out every 2 hours or so. I tried to
get myself to be able to with develop offline, but unfortunately the product
ending up getting more and more tied to SaaS products and I wasn't able to
stay in Taghazout for longer.

I was curios to see where they found to setup and it turns out they are
actually in the adjacent town. I can think of a couple other good reasons to
setup somewhere else, but I imagine reliability is part of the reason they are
located in the next town over.

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auvi
Can anyone tell me, what sort of visa do you need (or is ideal) to relocate to
Morocco (considering that I'll be working there and get paid)?

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TheHolyLancer
The big question is how they are going to grow, or is it small enough to only
ever need 3 people (err...)

A company needs to grow and while this will work for the short term, to
attract talent you need to have a talent pool.

~~~
Johnny555
Which is why so many startups are located in the SF Bay area. Rent is absurdly
expensive and hard to find (both office space and residential space) thus
salaries and operating expenses are high -- _good_ tech people can pretty much
name their price.

Yet, despite this, at the end of the day, it's still the best place for many
tech startups - they have a nearby talent pool (even though it can be
challenging to entice people to make the leap), plus there are plenty of
investors nearby.

But if you're trying to bootstrap a startup with your own funds and a few
friends, I can see why moving to a place with a very low cost of living would
be beneficial.

~~~
gizi
The reasoning about investors is circular. In order to be nearby investors,
these startups need lots of money, which means they need investors, so that
they can be nearby them. These investors then end up owning most of the shares
in these startups. That is good, because these startups are nearby anyway.

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gPphX
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinque_Terre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinque_Terre)
?

~~~
davidw
Italy is not particularly cheap, unfortunately. Beautiful place, though!

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voltagex_
Working remote from somewhere less crazy than SF might have worked too, but I
guess packing up and leaving the country is an extreme version of that.

~~~
jeza
The article said their visas were expiring.

