GFATV02 – When is the Right Time to Set up Your International Business

Thank you very for tuning in, today we are going to talk about, when is the right time to set up my international business, maybe you have a company already set up somewhere in your home country or you are thinking which is the best place or you are wondering when you are going global. So today we are going to cover few ideas, and hopefully will give you some motivations. Let’s get to it.
I am assuming some of you have business already, like I did when I was in America, and I first came over to Hong kong and China, and I just didn’t know what to do, I still kind US company and was trying to hire staff in china, was trying to get payments from various customers around the world, send wire transfer quickly so it was very stressful and I’m thinking of, you are watching right now is somebody like me like then.

So my first tip is Don’t stress out too much, don’t close all your businesses, and shut down your operations don’t try to change everything over like changing a website server, or change your email provider, we can have this transition period or we might keep both, we might kind start one and test with it, start slowly move things over and make it sure it works, I recommend the same thing we’re setting up a new company. I don’t know if it is a good thing to say or a bad thing to say but I have opened about 10 different companies for myself a few in Americas, one in UK and one in Finland, and Philippines, few in Hongkong and 2 in china. Of course I don’t operate all of those right now. I have transferred ownership, sold and merge and closed some of these companies and so what I like to say is don’t rush to open a company, you can do a lot of your business without actually a company, maybe you can make some money if you are going to work with me to set-up a company. But I don’t want to make you go too quickly, so that is one point I want to bring up, don’t rush into it. I have operated a lot of stuff in my personal accounts to get started, and transferred that over to my company later. Of course there is a biggest risk with your personal liability if there is a legal matter or customer issue, quality issue. So that makes you personal reliable. Of course you want to protect yourself and your assets but setting up a company structure where your business done or once you get to certain level. But allow the people start without a customers, no suppliers, no partners, so I don’t recommend rushing to a company right then.
Another thing before you set up your businesses; I want to make sure you have lot of patience because it might not be as simple as straight forward as possible all the time. So I have learned a lot patience as an American, especially we are a little bit spoiled by everything so convenient and easy to use. Hongkong is great place to do business something you got to use to, I just want to make sure you are in the right mindset, not into rushing into things earlier, and get frustrated if things don’t go smoothly. I think the way I sustain myself here so long in Asia, as by getting more patient, so get that mindset ready.
Another one is you are about to received a big payment form a customer especially if you are doing b2b when are you going to get payments into your bank account so that way I actually waited a little bit longer than usual for one of my companies as flour company. I had a customer asking me for my payment details, and I didn’t have company bank account for that business yet, so locally in America, Is set-up a bank account one or two days, received money from the customers you could get it into your personal account.
Another reason is investors, I know a lot of startups and a business are cap ting dreams and hopes to get a lot of investor money, you might need to do it in a certain country or jurisdiction based on which investors you are targeting. But also getting an investors sometimes will take long time so if you rush to open a company for that and that’s definitely not a reason, so I don’t worry about it for that until you are about to get the contract. Sometimes you might even want to set up a new company where you set it up, so I won’t rush to open a company based on investors. They will understand if you don’t have a company set up yet especially if you don’t have revenue, no tech start-up that might not me understandable.
Another reason you might want to go international is because of high volume of transactions overseas, where you are getting a lot of customers there, paying a lot of suppliers, staff there or contractors there. So you might want to balance a couple of different companies being global like micro international company and that might be another reason and hopefully it will naturally popup and you’ll see a cost saving based on the cost setup and maintenance should be positive ROI.
And there’s another reason, you just want to seem legitimate, I work with some business partner and others that just want to seem legitimate, and they felt like a real business once company is set up. I worked in salesman in America on a company and he has his own business and the he found out that he didn’t actually have a company yet, and he does some sourcing and he said that he would I don’t set-up right away he would pause and weight until I did, before he actually want to do business with me. He’s a little bit old fashioned, and you might want to check people you are working with before you get going with that, so that might another reason for business partners for safer, I actually use MOU or memorandum of understanding or a simple contract before the company set-up with business partners so that they understand that there is something there, a contract.

None this episode.

So I hope this video help you out, this is a process that even massive companies set-up in their hometown and started, they got an investment reincorporated one country or mover to another country and they got another investment, they grew their business and operate somewhere else. It is not like you set it now and it is done, hopefully I wish you the best in your business and you grow it.

• Youtube Direct Link
• Our Youtube Channel
• iTunes: Listen and subscribe on iTunes for free!
• If you enjoyed this episode, leave a positive review on iTunes!