My Experiment with Digital Nomadism
The good and the bad of running a start-up abroad
The good and the bad of running a start-up abroad
150km off the coast of Western Sahara lies a series of volcanic islands known as the Canaries. As a Spanish province, it is one of the hottest places in the European Union during our cold winter months. This makes it a prime holiday destination for sleepy pensioners, drunken Brits and nudist Germans alike.
However, travel north through the central island of Gran Canaria and you’ll instead find yourself in the city of Las Palmas. Currently ranked as the #1 place to work as a digital nomad on NomadList, and it doesn’t take long to find out why.
A scenic promenade spanning 3km running adjacent not to tacky hotels but offices, gyms and local restaurants. Further in, an “old town” with beautiful pastel coloured colonial buildings, including the historic homestead of Christopher Columbus.
Not far from here is a “co-living”, a shared building for digital nomads to eat, sleep and of course, work. This is where I called home for the last 3 months as I began my first experiment with digital nomadism.
A little bit of context
During my early twenties the most exotic city I worked in was Bristol (England). I’d moved from University to corporate job, back to University and finished it off by moving back to yet another corporate job.
However, haven recently left my job and founded a start-up I now had the ultimate freedom to choose where and how I worked. I wanted to achieve a few things with this:
Recover. I’d had a bad run with covid (hospitalised) at the end of 2021.
Rebalance. I wanted to work hard, but also find time to do all the things I love and have missed during lockdown.
Reduce costs. When running a start-up on shoestrings there’s only so much budget for life expenses.
This led me to discovering the term “Digital Nomad” and a little island called Gran Canaria.
Although I have a lot to say on the whole matter, I’ve summarised the experiment down to three key points:
Finding Balance
Transient Friendships
Work & Costs
Before I dig in, remember that this is a personal experiment. We’re different people who have likely lived vastly different lives. What floats my boat may sink yours.
This is also my first stab at the lifestyle, which lasted a measly 3 months. In this timeframe, luck of the draw will effect my perspective. Apply a hefty pinch of salt from here.
Finding Balance
After quitting my job to start iTero Gaming I moved back to my family home in rural West Wales. Dog walks, sea breeze and home comforts. A perfect place to recover from my hit with covid.
However, I was missing the amenities and energy of a city. For this, the island provided an abundance of opportunities. From hiking, volleyball and surfing to socialising with a coffee, fresh seafood or an island cocktail. I even found a local Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class to train with.
After almost 2 years of lockdown, it was exactly the excursion I needed. Yes, I still spent an unnatural amount of time coding, but now I could load on healthy handfuls of everything else to the scales. Balance isn’t easy when running a start-up, yet you’ll struggle to find better places to achieve it then here.
Transient Friendships
Las Palmas is a seasonal destination. Many of those I met here would spend 6–9 months in Lisbon, Barcelona or Berlin whilst the sun shines and then, like birds, migrate south for the winter.
This results in a fast and continuous turn-over of island visitors. In all likelihood, your core group of companions from week-1 will be unrecognisable by week-12.
The primary benefit is that there’s no friction in making friends. There’s no time for it. You walk into a bar, you introduce yourself at the first open table, grab a drink and away we go.
However, this also applies in reverse. There’s no friction on the way in because there’s no friction on the way out. You lose friends as quickly as you make them. It’s a constant cycle of introductions and goodbyes.
Some people see that as a worthy trade-off, others see only upside. If you’re like me, however, you’ll see it as a major flaw in the lifestyle. I’m introverted and nervy, although I can introduce myself to strangers I find it comes at a significant cost of energy. I like to be comfortable with people but whenever I reached that stage they were prematurely ripped away.
Work & Costs
My start-up is pre-revenue as I develop the code. That means that I’m running on my savings, which is a finite pool. The longer I can extend that pool the more time I’ll have. As long as I keep using my time effectively to develop, pivot and sell then the better chance I have of succeeding in the endeavour.
I’m well incentivised to keep costs low and work hard. Gran Canaria can help with this, in theory.
What I mean is that the average cost of living on the island is considerably lower than most European cities. The only problem is that it also offers you the opportunity to live a life far above the average.
For instance, your restaurant outings will be half the cost as they would be in London. However, if you find yourself eating out 10x as often than you would at home then you’re still spending 5x as much! This applies to everything, particularly if you like to party.
As well as this, the lower accommodation rental costs come with a notable caveat. A nice flat may only cost you €400 a month IF you are willing to sign a 12-month contract and deal with all the required utility companies who will not accept “Soy Inglais” as an answer.
If you’re like me and tend to take the easiest route when it comes to admin, then you’ll probably end up in a co-living space. These aren’t cheap, with an average monthly cost of around €900 — €1,000. That can put a serious dent in the budget.
As well as this, there’s an abundance of temptation. You’re surrounded by young travellers, most of which are working a casual 9–5. Of these, many have made the executive decision to move themselves to essentially a 4-day work week (with permission or otherwise). There’s set nomad socials twice a week, sports, hiking, coffee breaks and restaurant dates.
If you don’t have steel will, you may find yourself accepting invites more often than not and your work can suffer. Again, for some this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’re like me, if I’m not putting the hours into my work than I become agitated, often a curse of running your own shop.
In Conclusion
Your opinion on the lifestyle will be decided by who you are and what you want.
If you are someone who sees work as merely a means to pay for the rest, then Gran Canaria provides a fantastic environment to min-max your work-to-play balance. Otherwise, you may find the lifestyle offers a few too many distractions.
Likewise, if you sit somewhere further into the extrovert scale, then the constant stream of new faces and fresh experiences might be energising. If not, it may become a drain on your energy.
Ultimately, you won’t know until you do. There’s countless features and bugs of living the digital nomad life and each one is weighed differently by everyone who experiences them.
If there’s one universal advantage to Gran Canaria its that it’s easy. You aren’t hiking the Himalayas to get here. It has a familiar set-up to most western cities. There’s good health care. Europeans don’t need a visa.
If you are struggling to decide and have the opportunity, then my advice will always be to give it a go. Then you’ll know for sure.
You got to the end of the article! My name is Jack J and I’m a professional Data Scientist applying AI to competitive gaming & esports. I’m the founder of AI in Esports start-up iTero.GG, as well as the analytics site jung.gg. You can follow me on Twitter, join the iTero Discord or drop me an e-mail at jack@itero.gg. See you at the next one.