david8840

joined 10 months ago
sorted by: new top controversial old
1
How can I make a business out of this skill? (alien.top)
 

As part of my job over the last several years, I have often been tasked with finding hard-to-find information. This typically involves digging through thousands of pages of archived documents, submitting freedom of information requests, and travelling to libraries to gain access to older documents which were never digitised. In many cases this was related to resolving a discrepancy where one government office was saying A and a second government office was saying B and I had to get definitive proof of who's right and who's wrong.

I've gotten quite good at it and can't help but wonder if there is a business opportunity here. The latest generations are so used to getting the information they seek with a single Google search that they often lack the skills required to obtain information from other sources. While it is usually free to submit a freedom of information request, there can be a steep learning curve. The first time I submitted a request to the Mexican government it took hours of scrolling through poorly written webpages with the help of Google Translate just to create a user profile. The 2nd time it took me 4 minutes.

Is there a business opportunity here? Which industries or niches would it make sense to target?

Can you be a digital nomad in your own country? in c/digitalnomad@expats.zone
[โ€“] david8840@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Yes, unless your home country is Gibraltar or the Vatican or Monaco or something.

Do we need to stop being nomadic? (Banking/residency issues) in c/digitalnomad@expats.zone
[โ€“] david8840@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)
  1. You need to pay taxes. The question is where. It's not as easy to determine as one would think. If you work for a Dutch company as an employee then you owe income tax not to the Netherlands but rather to the countries where you do the work. On the other hand if you have dividend or investment income you will likely owe income tax to the country where the investment is based. The fact that you don't spend 183+ days in any single country during the year doesn't mean you owe zero tax.
  2. The best solution is to find a bank that knows you are a non-resident and supports that. It doesn't really matter what address they have on file for you because everything is online these days and you won't be getting statements in the mail. Use a friend's address if you can.
1
Not sure how to reinvest profit to scale the business (alien.top)
 

My small business is several years old now and revenue has been flat for the last 2 years. There's a good amount of profit and I'm not complaining, but I would really like to see the business continue to grow and not just stay flat at the same level.

We have $15k which isn't needed for anything else and could theoretically be invested in growing/scaling the business, but I'm not sure how. We already sell internationally. We already have pitched our service to nearly everyone in our niche industry. We have the capacity to handle more clients but our marketing efforts are already maxed out. All the low-hanging fruit is gone and we're struggling to find new ways to grow.

The business sells professional services online B2B and B2C.

Any ideas?