Being an expat entrepreneur: What gives you an edge
The fact that the integration process in a new country comes with its own challenges should not deter you from considering entrepreneurship as a career move. On the contrary, your expat experiences can make you a good entrepreneur. Whether you are a ‘greener pasture’ expat in search of better prospects in life, a student expat who wishes to stay back or of the ‘romantic’ sort moving abroad for relationship or family, there should not be any reason to doubt your chances. If you haven’t found what you are looking for then nothing should stop you from creating something for yourself.
On that note, let’s have some entrepreneurial motivation.
You can definitely be an expat entrepreneur and a good one because you have-
1. Fortitude: While being humble is a virtue, it doesn’t always help. Sometimes, you just need to admit that you are brave. You have taken the first big step. You are already in a different country trying to build a new life. You are not afraid of making major changes in your life and by simply making that happen you have proven yourself to be a star risk taker. How much more courage you think you need to qualify as a self-starter?
2. A fresh perspective: Sometimes you do not need to be an insider to identify your target customers or the potential market. On the contrary, you can have an entirely different and fresh perspective on things which seem mundane to the others. Your experience of living in a cross-cultural environment can show you newer ways of doing business. Also, you get familiar with products and services that didn’t mean much to you before. Both ways, you have a better chance of identifying profitable entrepreneurial opportunities.
3. The best of both worlds: When it comes to creating an ideal business model you can draw inspiration from both your worlds; filtering the downsides and incorporating the promising aspects. See, you are already an importer of the best practices! You can also outsource your online work to your home country where you are familiar with the technicalities and can score cheaper deals and bills.
4. Adaptability: Since you have set the process of seeking a career path or some sort of engagement in motion, it means you have already gotten past the cultural shock, internalised the process of change, acclimatised yourself to the new environment and now willing to spread your roots. As flexible as a yoga guru!
5. Crisis management skills: There are only so many things which can go smoothly in a new country. However, you have picked up the skills of how to divert and deal with a crisis or the ABCs of dealing with failure and learning from it. Just go and apply that to your entrepreneurial dreams too. You will soon know that your crisis management skills are nothing less than a superpower.
If you need more convincing then join The Shortcut community. Here, you are welcome to network with the talented community members, work out of the comfy couches at The Shortcut Lab and be a part of the upcoming workshops, programs, and special training sessions. Also, check out the Catalyst Programme currently offering related training. You can follow The Shortcut on Facebook or subscribe to the newsletter for more updates.
Meanwhile, get started working on that idea.
