No post in quite a while as I’ve gone through a pretty significant changing of gears- after waiting out my ear infection in Buenos Aires I headed back to Mendoza with a friend, intending to pick up where I’d left off… except, I really wanted to get back to Buenos Aires. Despite this delayed realization, I felt a need to travel to at least one other country, so I went to Montevideo, Uraguay.
For a day.
Turns out, Montevideo is essentially The Truman Show from hell- it just felt lifeless. Everyone walks around looking down at the ground, talking in whispers, hands at the side… just… flat.
Though the calamari pizza was excellent, I must confess.
Pizza aside, I wasn’t much of a fan- so me and my friend I was traveling with headed back to Buenos Aires, tourist visas renewed for another ninety days, I with the intention of settling down for three months or so.
But, there was an added twist- I’m now a co-founder of a web startup based in Delaware. On the day I returned to the Buenos Aires hostel, I met another web developer, Daniel, and within minutes had decided that we would have to work on something together.
After extended deliberations in a wireless cafe, we settled on a site concept and dived in- that was about two weeks ago or so. Right off the bat, we got the domains, started incorporation proceedings in Delaware via LegalZoom, setup a corporate EarthClassMail account, and, now, are beginning development in earnest. There’s a lot (A LOT) to do, but, fortunately, this is all done on a trail blazed by countless entrepreneurs past.
The fact is, there are a great many possibilities at any given time- anyone spending two or three hours will be able to come up with a business idea. Now, will that idea actually work? Will it be profitable? Will it be sustainably profitable? Maybe yes, maybe no- but, if one develops basic functionality in a smart way, much of the effort on one project will be applicable to another. The same legal shield, and business bank account, repositories, server, development environment, and some code can be used on the next.
So really, it’s a matter of time before an idea, some idea, works- and to have that time it’s a matter of money to be able to last long enough financially. But even that isn’t too rough, at least here in Argentina. It’s $500/month for an apartment that I love, from which I am typing this post now- it has a gorgeous view, plenty of space, and is in a great area- can’t ask for much more than that. It’s $8 for a steak dinner, or, alternatively, eight pesos ($2.50) for TWO steaks from the grocery store, $1.25 a steak. It’s $3 to get into a tango club to hang out with friends, and another $4 for a Malbec.
Point being, life is cheaper in Argentina, and better, because one can live a much better lifestyle.
To me, that’s what it’s really about- lifestyle. It’s about enjoying life and being able to do the things I want to do, working on the things I want to do, and making this company work by building up a customer base and revenue from nothing to something. Hopefully that’ll be with the current business idea, but, if it’s not, that’s ok. I’ll move onto the next. And then the next. Eventually, something will work.
And when it does, I’ll be looking out at the Buenos Aires cityscape laid before me as I look out from my balcony- because, when a company is incorporated online, the bank account can be accessed online, the business is online, communication with customers is online, marketing is online, and development work is stored online, it really doesn’t matter where work is done.
The internet is a beautiful thing.
