S1E3 | The B2B Expat Experience in Asia vs. Europe with Charles Brun & Spencer Tahil

So for all the listeners coming in, Charles is joining this week for behind the Growth. What we're going to be talking about is we are both Americans living abroad and serving the go to market and the SaaS startup space. So there are some different things regarding time zones. And I wanted to continue the conversation because I've talked to a lot of fulfillment people inside of Asia and mostly in Singapore. And I also know that there are teams in Europe with me in Prague and we all serve the American market. So it's like last night for instance, I was up until 2am but like for you, Charles, that would be a completely different time. So Charles, welcome. Let's just dive in and continue the conversation for all the listeners that are joining now.

Sounds good. Yeah. Thanks for having me on the pod. Spencer, great to chat. I think it is an important topic. Folks tend to kind of idealize what it's like to live abroad and you know, live in these amazing cities and have an amazing cost of living. But there's a downside to that. So we can definitely jump into that.

Yeah. So for background, I'm in Prague right now. I'm originally from Connecticut in the United States. And Charles, you're elsewhere.

Yeah, so I'm right now in Thailand, more specifically in Bangkok. So Bangkok is a huge city. I'm from New York even though, you know, I've lived in a bunch of places my life. But I do seek like big cities. Like some of my friends were like, well, why don't you just go in like Koh Samui or like one of the smaller islands. And my answer to that is I just need a lot of stuff happening around me and be surrounded by international folks. But, but yeah, Thailand and Bangkok is certainly different from Prague. You know, pros and cons, I guess.

I mean, like I'm in a sweater and you have your hat, your shirt halfway open. I mean, yes, weather's.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Weather is very different. And yeah, so we could definitely, you know, dive into, to what that looks like and even like the, the, the appeal for Asia versus Europe, I think so again, Europe has a ton of, first of all, like, much more talent, I would say, than, than in Asia when, when it comes to like pure kind of tech. But, but yeah, like, I think the, the quality of life in Asia can be really fantastic. I, I think I'm a little bit older than you, so I have, I basically. And when you have small kids, my God, it's, it's a dream here because you can basically have. I have like one and A half or almost two nannies. That's, you know, helping us full time with her kids and with other things around the house. And so that just means that we can just focus our time on the things that we love or just working on our own, you know, projects. So that's one of the benefits. And then you can travel across Southeast Asia and all these amazing destinations with the great food culture, you know, very easily. Like, in New York, I could never. Like, this is pretty much the area of the world. You cannot just go for a weekend, right? You can go to the Caribbean. You could even go for like four or five days, you know, to. To Europe. But you can't go to Thailand or Singapore or Vietnam for just a couple days. That would be quite, quite exhausting. So definitely some advantages there.

I think it's the inverse here in Europe. So, I mean, like, I'm in Prague, but, like, I used to study in Italy a long time ago. And it's just like, oh, let's go to Rome per day. You know, like, I'm gonna piss a lot of people off by saying, oh, you just go to this capital city for like 24 hours or like 72 hours, right? And you see the whole city, but you don't really see the whole city, right? And, you know, that's why, like, was one of the reasons I grew up living here too. Like, I'm not a morning guy. And it's like three in the afternoon now. And like, this is one of the first things I'm doing. But I was never a morning guy. I would, you know, work us hours, wake up at like, 7, 8, and have to, like, drag myself to the office or like, even, like, for my internships and stuff. And I did not enjoy any of that. So, you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, right? And I described it earlier to somebody else. It's like, what is it like living in Prague? It's like, it's a very. It's a very great place to have a private but very convenient life, like, in a city. Like, I'm in a main city, so. And, like, you are too, so I feel like we share the opinion there, right?

Yeah, totally. I will say so again, coming from New York, I thought I could just, you know, other. Other big cities would be easy, but actually, Bangkok is way more chaotic than. Than New York City. And, you know, New York City, you can just take an Uber and get from point A to point B or, you know, just take the subway, really, you know, quickly for meetings and stuff. It's really hard here. Like, I'm basically taking a motorcycle to go from point A to point B because it's way faster. You know, that's not something you do in any other city in the U.S. europe actually does take, you know, you can't take a motorcycle from A to B. But yeah, basically that's one of the differences, I think. You know, I think what would be interesting also to talk about is it depends what your market is. Right? I had told you it's true that my market is mostly the US And I've, you know, my entire career has been the U.S. i've only been here for about a year and a half. And the truth is it's hard because I do a lot of, you know, late, late night evenings. Like basically after dinner is like, you know, I'm very busy. Cause I have a lot of calls with the US and when I arrived here, I was actually working with a company based in California, a startup which is, you know, growing fast. And I was on calls until 4 or 5am and it was, it was very painful. My wife hated me for that. And yeah, I don't think that's also healthy. So it really depends. Like, I think if your market is European, that's amazing. Like, I, I work with a lot of, you know, founders at the wework here, and a lot of them are European, like German, French, Italian, you name it. And it makes sense to your point. Like they have their morning, which is clear. They're like doing the deep work in the morning and then they have all the meetings and the calls in the afternoon. And I think that can work really well for some, some folks. You know, you can still have calls with the US As I said. But if it's California, that's, that's, that's really painful. So better pick your battles.

Yeah, I, you know, like, it's really funny because like all my friends here, like, like the people that I know here as well, like, they're, they're in the office, they're in, we work, you know, but they, they go rock climbing. Like I still go rock climbing in the morning. I don't have morning meetings. It, it. I keep them so that I can have flexibility. How long did it take you to figure out like your ideal schedule?

I mean, you know, the, the truth is it's, it's, it's two things that battle each other. One is it's the privilege to be able to choose, you know, your, who you work with and what you do with your time. And also at the same time, the, how do you say, the obligations you have towards some of the startups you work with. So I, my, my role is a little bit different from yours in that I basically like, I'm fractional, kind of fractional VP revenue, fractional VP sales. And what that means is I, you know, for, for all intended purposes that startup will say that I'm their VP sales. Right. And so I do one on ones with the AES and I sometimes jump on calls with strategic stakeholders to be able to have a senior leadership guy who, not the CEO on the call and put pressure on some things and make things move in the right direction. So it's harder to just say, all right guys, I'm out. There needs to be kind of some preparation for being able to also just kind of transition that team to someone else. So it's a combination of those things. But I immediately realized very quickly when I got here that it was not going to be sustainable. I'm also a night person like you. I can work until 1am no problem. But there's a difference between working until one on, you know, alone on a doc you might be working on or you know, workflow you're building and having a call with somebody who's in New York. It's 3am Your time and you're supposed to have a highly kind of engaging conversation and funny and challenging. And I just wasn't at my peak in those conversations and realized this is not gonna, it's not going to cut it. So I don't know if that answers the question, but I think you have to be honest with yourself in terms of what's your peak performance and then balance that with the expectations of, you know, your clients in the market.

Yeah, I think that's a really good way of looking at it. I, I just, it's what's going through my head right now is what you said earlier about like your wife wasn't happy with you when you're going to bed so late. That's my girlfriend too, man. And I talked to like, you know, I've got some friends in Singapore, some, you know, some Kai boot camp students that are like interning or working together or something like this. And they say like, oh, how do you serve the US market? I was like, well, I have a cutoff time at like 10pm for meetings. Like, unless it's like deep work or like really urgent overflow. I started to block my calendar actually, and that's why I asked you about it. So for me, like six hours, I'm six hours ahead of US east nine hours ahead of PST Pacific, like Pacific time zone. And for you it's like Europe, it's like what, six to nine hours. It's the same difference. Right?

So six hours to Europe, 12 hours to the US to East coast and then 15 hours to California.

So do you do it the other way around? Like if you're in, like if you have a meeting with California, do you just do like 9:00am like do you.

Just go like first? Super, yeah. Like if it's an important one, yes, I'll do that. I'll tell you that. I've even like even lately I've had a call for example, there was a really important call with a prospect with a startup and the CEOs like, Can you please run the call? I was like, sure. And then I looked at it and it was like at 4am and I was like, you owe me one. I'm, I'll join this call, but you owe me one. And so occasionally I'll do those things. Yeah, ideally I block off some, some, some much more of my calendar now. So I don't take calls like past 11:30pm here local time unless it's like really an emergency. The other part I'll say is as I had told you, like, so I have kind of two hats. One is like fractional go to market, you know, kind of leader. And then on the other side I've been working on my startup, which is a SaaS startup, kind of like an alum on steroids with AI. And that's also a challenge when you have your own startup because you are supposed to service. A lot of my customers are, you know, in the us so I'm kind of like responding to chat support and those things or emails at all times. But sometimes people get annoyed because they're like, well why did it take you five hours to get back to me? And the truth, like I'll have to, you know, figure that out at some point. Another thing I'll say about that is I specifically decided to launch something in the SMB space. Like so like targeting like small and medium businesses and startups because I can't do enterprise. Like I've sold enterprise for most of my career actually. But I know that doing enterprise means you have to be on like in the, in the same time zone and in, in the same geo pretty much because you want to fly in. You, if you want to close a 50k deal, a 300k deal, etc, you need to fly in. You have to have some presence, you have to show Your face. And so like, you know, it kind of determines the type of business you can build depending on, you know, your Geo and your availability basically.

I've noticed that in Europe they love shaking hands. I've noticed like, I mean like for enterprise deals as well. Like I'm in enterprise space and like a higher end of SMB to enterprise. And I've noticed that this is so true, like right, like right now, like truth be told, like I'm talking to a Paris based logistics company and I, you know, I told them on like the third call, I said, listen, if it's easier for me to just come to Paris for two or three days of a workshop, sit with your team, you know, we can get some coffee, like go to lunch and stuff like this for three days, just tell me. I'm like an hour and a half away. And they said, oh, like I thought that you were in Miami, you know. No, no, no, I'm like, I'm, I'm in Prague. I could get to Paris like very quickly. And, and they're like, yeah, that maybe sounds good. I, I didn't end up going but like, you know, it was, they were like, oh, like you would actually do that? It's like, of course, you know, and this is, these are tens of thousands of dollars and I, I think like with enterprise people that are selling like SaaS grade enterprise products and not even just services.

Right, right.

I think it's going back to that.

Yeah, yeah, they're, they're definitely. It does, it does make it harder. It, it does. I mean, if you want to have it like a kind of, like a more of a digital kind of lifestyle where you can, you know, travel and be remote. Listen, so for me, just, you know, just going back to like what it means to be remote. It means obviously like the freedom to do whatever you want, et cetera, but there are like some constraints you have on your business, on your, whether it's, you know, SaaS or services. And yeah, at some point you have to kind of deal with reality. Like even like I earlier was talking about kids. My kids are small now, so I can take them, pick them up and take them up different places. But when your kids get into high school, then that becomes harder. They're not going to say, yeah, dad, sure, I'll go with you to Mexico or Argentina or wherever. They're going to have their own opinions. So right now it's that, that's also makes it easier. Yeah, I think, listen, as I mentioned, like most of my career was in New York. And when you're in New York it's first of all there's a lot of businesses that are local and from New York you can just hop on a plane, be in, you know, Alabama or wherever your prospect is very quickly. So I'd be flying quite a bit. This is less when I was kind of fractional because as, as a fractional I wasn't necessarily like the key person. I would still fly to a company like an AE for a specific task. But this was more in my time when I was like a full, full on VP sales for different startups. And my background was VC backed. Right. So a lot of money raised, a lot of, you know, stakes are high and you go all in. And for that for sure you have to be in person. And I think, you know, it's an advantage and a disadvantage. I think the advantage that occurred when Covid hit is suddenly everybody's on a screen and we're kind of like leveling the playing field. Like the, the VC backed company and the startup with no money is basically on a zoom call. But the reality is like if you can like fly in, fly out, go to a conference, you know, every other week and be like, have a lot of physical presence, you're, you're going to win those deals more often than the startup who's not doing that.

So do you think like, okay, so like we're both Americans, right? And it's, it's interesting that we both come from the northeast, which is like primarily where there's a lot of business, right? I, in the United States, like so that's Connecticut, New Jersey, New York especially.

Yeah, totally.

And that's something. So going back to it, right? Is there, do you think, I mean in general for the people that are mostly in the western hemisphere, I'm talking like Western Europe, Spain, France, also in like the Americas, you know, North America, Canada, United States. Do you actually recommend like after, you know, after traveling so much, do you recommend people trying this lifestyle like traveling or do you think that there's like so much holding them back?

No, listen, I think it's an amazing opportunity, like once in a lifetime opportunity. I think it also depends on what you're looking to build, what you're looking to sell. And, and again we, it goes back to like to your market, like who you're targeting. Uh, I do see like it's funny because I've, I've met here a lot of digital nomads and I don't consider myself a digital nomad. It's, it's because for, for me, when I think Digital Nomad, I think, or like indie hacker, you know, Like I, I feel like those are folks that are happy to be just a one person team and they're doing their craft really well and they're full stack, full stack, like building, marketing, selling. Like I'm impressed by those people. Like these are like just jack of all trades tech folks and you obviously know a lot and maybe you consider yourself, you know, from, from that crowd. For me, having come from the VC world, that's like, like, that's like, you know, the devil. And I was, you know, speaking with a friend who was, you know, we were just making fun and he built an amazing business and he's actually a French guy who I met in Bangkok. He built an amazing business which is, I, I'm not going to share too much because he's super secretive about his startup but needless to say, it's in the dating space and he is making like six figures in MRR. Six figures in MRR, like monthly recurring revenue. Six figures. And it is a pure SaaS business related to dating. And he's himself and like one other guy and they're just, that's it. And so if you're doing that, if you're doing stuff that's like consumer type, you know, apps and he's like automated a bunch of stuff and he doesn't need to get on calls to close things. Good for you. Like I don't have that, that skill. Like I'm more on like the, you know, B2B SaaS, like kind of the, the boring quote unquote, like you know, startups and I don't know how to do consumer. Like I wish I did, but consumer is really hard and he's a brilliant dude and he's built it all himself and he was literally telling me, yeah, I don't even need like he, he's, you know, he's in the, wework with like a T shirt and flip flops and cargoes and he's like, I don't even know what to do with this money. Like I just funneled into an account in Dubai and I, you know, I'll reinvest it. But so listen, if you could do that, the world is your oyster and go build it from anywhere. Like enjoy, enjoy like the life that you can discover around the world, you know.

Okay, so this is, this is an interesting place to kick off this question because I don't think we've talked about this yet, but there's a $10,000 dream like you've heard this, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So like this for everybody else, constantly I hear to this from like, I just want to make $10,000 and like go to Thailand and go to Japan. How many times you hear somebody say, I just want to make $10,000 a month? Like, once I hit $10,000 a month, then I can go to Japan or I can go to like Asia or South America. Is first of all, it's $10,000 a month, like the actual number that is successful. Because in my opinion that's, that's way too much. Right? Like, I'm comfortable with probably a third of that. I mean, then again, I'm hunkered down like here in Europe.

But.

Do you think that that's like reasonable? Like, do you actually need that much? Because I feel like money just doesn't make you happy after so long.

I mean, look, the, you know, as you said, you come from Connecticut and you know, New York, you know, very similar. Like a lot of wealthy people in Connecticut, a lot of wealthy people in New York. In New York. One of the reasons why I wanted to kind of try to break the routine of being a kind of GTM leader in New York is that my wife and I had both like full time jobs in tech and we were not saving that much money because like everything, like we were living in Manhattan, everything's expensive, you know, and three kids and we're just like, how do you do it? Like nannies and then. And daycares and just like, it's just super hard. So in New York, you can't do it in Thailand for sure. And some of these other countries, like Southeast Asia, I think is, is one of the best parts of the world for kind of roi, so to speak. Right? And it really depends on your lifestyle. Like we, we came here from New York, we're like, wow, everything is so cheap. And then I talked to some friends who were like, whoa, you should, you should try, you know, Vietnam. It's even like it's like a third of Thailand. And I'm like, I, I'm also not seeking to, to go to the cheapest place in the world. Like, I'm sure if I go to Azerbaijan or Sudan, it's even cheaper. But I'm not necessarily optimizing. Like every, you know, every single penny is, is 10k the magic number. I. It is a number that's thrown around a lot. I think it depends on again, your lifestyle and what you're looking for. For me, it wouldn't be enough. You know, paradoxically, like, I I, you know, I just feel like I'd need, I'd need more. And that's also the big dilemma I have when I'm like thinking of VC backed stock startups and bootstrap. Like I think for me when I think of bootstrapped, it's getting to the 10k is kind of like that's a great milestone. But I think the greater, the greater like side to this is that you're your own boss and you're, you kind of are in control of your destiny and you're making 10k now and maybe it's 15 the next year and it's 25 in three years. Right? It's, it's that sense of independence versus when, when you're a VC backed company, which I've been doing my whole career up until now, you are basically like every board meeting, especially when you're on the go to market side of things, you have the board that's asking you why, where are we at regarding our targets, our milestones, why haven't we hit them if we didn't hit them? What you know, and your ass is on the line. Like you know, I think that the metric is like VPs of sales have a 15 to 18 month basically turnaround. So they get fired every 15 to 18 months in the, in the SaaS B2B world. Why? Because you know the VP sales is in the hot seat, right? So if you, if you don't hit your number, you know, for you know, six, 18 months, six to 18 months, you do definitely have, typically have a six month grace but after that you better start showing results, then you're out. And so yeah, I think that is the biggest determinant, not necessarily that exact MRR number. I think it's do you want to be, you know, basically somebody else's bitch or do you want to be in control of your destiny? And I think that's what's appealing. But for me it would have to be more than 10k a month to be able to, you know, live the type of lifestyle I want. But yeah, I guess that's a personal question too, right?

It's a very personal question. And, and I think like that's, you know, that's what it comes down to, right? Like I've, I've taken, I take in less money, like a lot less money now than I used to. But it was because of my own choices. Like what I totally was, what I chose was like my sleep, sanity and you know, the balance, like I'm much happier. And I would say I walk away with like 80 to 90% of what I was going to make. So you know, like, reasonably speaking, you know, I've weighed the odds, I've like leveled up my skills and my knowledge and everything like this, but like to match. But especially with the startups and marketing agencies and like my background in that space, it's they, some of them can get really picky and you know, totally trying to sell into that while being abroad, you know, I've gotten hit and I'll never forget this. I worked for a really great agency in New York a long time ago up on Broadway and I was remote, I was doing their HubSpot implementation and then I got promoted to, you know, marketing operations director and they said to me, we want you to move here. And they gave me like a six figure offer and I was like, you know, I looked at, I was like, oh my God, you know, I was like 20, something like early 20s. I was like, oh my God, it's a six figure offer. Like, holy crap. But like I've already been in Prague for so long. I like this life here. I like the European lifestyle totally. And I going back to this, I probably would have made 10k a month, you know, if I had committed to that and that like that leadership position. Now I'm like almost like fractional GTM and abm, like leader in the technology space as well. Do I take that home? Maybe? I think, yeah, I don't know, I hope so. But like at the same time I'm much happier and I've definitely become more comfortable. Of course, the more in your direction of the world that you go. I feel like money goes a lot farther, at least in central Europe.

A hundred percent. One hundred percent. Yeah. And, and again, so again the nuance for me is like if I think of like I have three kids now in international schools and those get time to get pricey. So like I think that might, might also be like some of the differences. But yeah, money goes way, way further here. And I have, I have buddies who are, you know, single, living in Bangkok, like with 3k a month, as you said, like they are like kings. And, and so you can, you can go, your money can go really, really far here. You can have a really great, like, seriously, like when you're young is the best time to travel and you can do so much remotely and always fly back. Like I've met a lot of founders who are making it work. Again, I, the only caveat I would say is, and I told you this too, like if I If I look at the we work where I'm at, I would say 80% are European, maybe 20% American. And then most of them are doing either consumer or stuff that doesn't necessarily require that you're on a call to close a big deal with, with a customer. I mean, sorry that you have to be physically there to close a big deal with the customer. You can close the whatever 10k deal with that customer on a zoom call and those type of things.

Do you feel like this, okay, this is like maybe personal. It's probably gonna piss a lot of people off, honestly. Do you feel like the reason why a lot of Europeans go to Europe and a lot of Europeans go to Southeast Asia and a lot of Americans go to Europe is because of like almost the same reason? Do you think it's mostly about like the lifestyle differences? Because I see, what I see a lot is I see a lot of like work, a lot of talent leaving the United States and going to move abroad. Like going eastward. Yeah, for sure, around six to nine hours. But then I see a lot of like leaders and visionaries actually coming from Europe and going to San Francisco or going to the United States and getting money. So I feel like it's like this way on, you know, east is like lifestyle and like food and balance and like these things.

Yes.

And then when you go west, when you go to, let's just for example like San Francisco, like Silicon Valley, you have all these visionaries and you have like top creme de la creme, kind of like tech talent, stuff like that. Do you agree?

Yeah, I completely agree. I think, listen, the, the Bay Area and to a certain extent New York are like still like tech hubs. And so if you want to make it big in tech at some point you just have to move to the US I have a lot of friends of mine who are founders from Europe and who have made that leap and don't regret it. And I hate to say it like it is going to piss people off, but the people that come here or move east, whether it's Europe or East or Asia, yeah, they're looking for more of a balance. So they're less maybe ambitious. And again, this is what pisses people off. But it's true. The people I meet here, they don't want to raise money, they want to, you know, build a nice lifestyle business. But that's pretty cool. Like this the story I told you about this guy, I like that is more money than some of the VC backed startups that founders that I know. Right. Making like, one point, you know, 1.3 million a year or whatever that number is. Like, that's. That's an amazing. With, like, zero funding. That's an amazing story. So there are some. But by and large, if you're a super aggressive, ambitious founder, that's, you know, not from the U.S. i would say that that migration towards the U.S. makes sense. And I also think it depends on what stage you are in life. In some cases, you know, it totally makes sense. And in some cases, you're like, all right, I want to get off that for a little bit. It doesn't have to be forever. And, you know, you can always get back on that hamster wheel whenever you, you know, you feel like it.

Do you feel like people look down on you, though? Because what I've seen in. In Europe is that locals. I mean, my girlfriend is local, she's Czech. But, like, what I've seen and what I've heard is that, quote, people come here because it's cheaper, and that makes it more expensive for us. And you have, like, this rampant tourism. You have this rampant digital nomad, quote lifestyle in, like, Portugal and Spain where they, like, spray paint their doors. It's like tourists go home. And. And is. Is it the same in Asia?

Def. I would. I would say definitely not in Thailand, at least I think so for Thailand. They're actually very appreciative that there's, you know, smart foreigners with money that are coming and they're participating in the economy. So it's not like, yeah, I've heard that a lot for Portugal and a lot of folks saying, like, that locals can't afford to, you know, find a nice place anymore. And it's. It's changed the landscape, which I get. But there's not that same. No, there's not that same atmosphere in Asia at all. I think they're incredibly grateful. And Thai people are really, really friendly, really super nice, very welcoming. So I've never felt anything like that again. I can't speak for other parts of Asia again. I have friends in Singapore. Singapore, obviously, it's like an international hub, so they don't. They don't have that feeling either. I'm not sure about Vietnam. I have some friends who actually came from Vietnam and said that the vibe is a bit different and that they prefer Thailand. So I guess it depends. There's probably, like, some regional differences as well, but at least in Thailand, it's amazing. They are really, really welcoming, and there's not that negative kind of side effect of, oh, you guys are making Life for the rest of us, super expensive, basically.

In central Europe, it's okay. That's good to know. In Thailand, because I want to, like, I want to go visit. I'm just really sure the time zone jump.

Yeah, I think, I think the time zone is going to be hard for sure. But, you know, you said you sound like you're a structured guy. You have, you know, your guardrails in place. So so long as you make that kind of clear for your clients, I think it can work. I think it can work. You have, you have to have some boundaries, basically.

I love being hands on. Like, I love being involved. And that's why I don't take more than like five or six clients at a time because, like, I can't split my focus that much. I just, like, I, I'm so afraid of losing the quality like, when I move around. Like, yeah, I do take my laptop if I go to, you know, if I go to Italy for the week and stuff like this. Like, last podcast I recorded, it was in Genoa and I. And I took a few meals meetings there.

Right.

But I'm really afraid of, like, dropping quality if, like, my personal life is, you know, being all changed and like, getting on flights and changing all the time. And I don't know, it's just, it's just a fear I have. I don't know how rational it is, though.

I mean, look, there's always an adjustment period and I think your, your clients, you know, I'm sure, you know, you, you've been working with them for a while and, and if you explain to them, hey, I'm transitioning to the other part of the world, they'll be totally understanding again. It, like, you might lose some, right? Like, it depends, you know, of your clients, the one that was in California for me, I actually kind of, kind of parted ways, decided to part ways and they totally understood. But we tried to make it work for like four months, but it was just, it was just too hard. And eventually, like, I helped transition the team, etc. So, like, it was all good. But yeah, you might lose some, but, you know, you'll win some others. There's lots of opportunities in Asia. And again, I think my, my reason for coming here was that I don't want to have regrets. Right. There's, you know, once in your lifetime you can, like, do this type of traveling. And for me it was. I have. My kids are small, I could just pack them and go someplace else. And New York's not going anywhere, so that's kind of the mindset. So I think you should apply the same rules yourself. Like, don't regret not, you know, exploring Asia or Southeast Asia, because there's some great opportunities here, great people, and you can always just do it for like, one or two years. There's a DTV visa that's very easy to get, and for sure, then you can be, you know, sleeveless all year round, and then, you know, drinking coconuts whenever you want.

I've noticed, you know, I've worked from beaches and this, like, it sucks. I, I can't sugarcoat that anymore. Like, working when it's really warm outside from a beach in Greece when it's like 38, 40 degrees Celsius or like, you know, like 80.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

To 95 Fahrenheit. I don't want to work. I'm just so relaxed. I, I, I have to take the time off. I've noticed it's hard for me to do like, you know, like one hour, go to the beach, come back, and I contact, you know, like, personal life, context switch. I don't know. I felt, I felt resistance from a lot of leadership in the past of saying I, you know, kind of like the side eye kind of like, feeling. It's like, oh, you're, you know, you're working, like, from Greece. Like, oh, that's amazing. And it's like, don't relax too much. But they'll never say that, so I don't know.

But I can understand that. Yeah. And, and listen, I, I'm a little bit the same. I think that's why I'm in Bangkok. I think I know some founders who are on these islands or even in Bali. I met a guy who was kind of like, hopping and stopped in a wework in Bangkok. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm from Bali. And, and he was like, listen, you know, it's kind of weird because people just stop and go surfing, you know, at 3pm and I'm not used to that. And I, I would not be able to just work on a laptop in front of the ocean with no ac. Like, I need ac. I mean, we're, we're Americans, God damn it. We need, we need rac. And yeah, I, like, there is an energy here that I appreciate. And yeah, I think if I were just in, in, like, you know, in some remote tropical island with sand in my, you know, in my feet, I wouldn't have that same energy and, and structure to be able to be productive, just like you mentioned. So I think it's, it's I mean, at least for. For myself, you know, I think it makes a lot of sense and I feel the same way.

I. Yeah. Would you. I mean, Nick, you've been abroad. How many years have you been abroad now?

It's a good question. So again, this has been a year and a half, so it's very fresh. But I've lived abroad many in like, Europe, Middle East a bit. So I've been abroad probably like seven. Seven years total. Yeah.

That's awesome. What's like one. What's like one thing that is. That was like, really hard to learn, but when you, like now it's in your head, it's like, solid, like an understanding of it.

I mean, look, I. I think one of the things which everybody talks about is like, the cultural differences of doing business everywhere, like, in different places. And like, it's super true. Like, you're. When you're in New York, you know, you're in a hurry, you're impatient, and you want things to happen. Right. And that's really not the case in other places.

And.

And so, you know, when you're even like, you know, I worked with, you know, Koreans and obviously South Koreans, Japanese folks, and, you know, different parts of Asia, it's. Yeah, it's. You have to really adjust to those different mindsets and in those different cultures. And I think that's. It's actually very difficult. You can make a lot of professional mistakes that you don't necessarily anticipate. So it's a bit of a cliche, what I'm saying, but I guess my point is being able to do business in the. In those countries means that you have to make a lot of sacrifices. And. And I have to say, like, I miss the U.S. like, I, you know, I don't intend on, you know, just being here forever. I think we talked about that. This is just the chapter and. And you should just have a bunch of chapters in your life that you can look back to. But I miss the US for so many things. Like the way you can get everything so fast and quickly and set up amazingly and like, I don't know, like, E. Commerce sucks here. Like in. In Asia. Like, it's, it's, it's. It's. I mean, I think there's just a lot of garbage stuff that you buy online and. Yeah, there's just like, there's a lot of things I miss, so you have to learn to cope with those things. But, you know, you're living in Europe. Europe has so many amazing things to it. Right. So there's a lot of things to appreciate, too. So, you know, take the positives and. And, you know, set aside the negatives, but. But adjust to those cultural business practices because, you know, that. That's. That's a tough one. And you can kind of learn the hard way, you know, the mistakes that can cost you, like, big deals. And that's. That's. That's. That's tough.

I think one of the very first thing. I agree with that first of all, holistically and on my side. When I first moved to Czech Republic, I didn't realize that, like, well, I mean, I knew that the culture was, like, very different. A lot of people from the outside of Czech Republic will say, oh, Czechs are, like, really mean. And as a foreigner that's been here for, like, literally almost six years, and in a few months now, I can say that they just usually, for the most part, are not interested. And when they are not interested, they do this and they stare at you, which is fine. But, like, you know, my favorite game to play now is don't pet the dog and stare at people on the escalator. And this is, like, my favorite Central European game to play. Because in Germany, people will look at you completely differently. They'll look at you. In my opinion, they look at me as a foreigner in whatever. Right. They want to look at me, and then they look at me with, like, a curiosity of, like, what are you doing here? Like, why? Why what? And why are you doing here? Right. And when I'm in Austria, I don't speak German, by the way. When I'm in Austria, it's like, people will, like, mind their own business, but I don't really feel so judged in Czech Republic and also in Slovakia when I've gone there, of course, like, this is a completely different history book, you know, like, this is Slavic history versus, like, American history. Right, Right.

Totally.

And I've noticed that when I speak to people, you know, I can get around the whole city just in English and Europe.

Amazing, right?

You know, the unified language of the world is English at this point. Right. Can I. Can I speak in Czech? I think so. I think. I mean, a little bit. I could speak. That's amazing, too.

How long have you lived there now?

Almost six years.

Wow.

So I'm not like, B1. Like, I. If it revolves around food, I could probably read a recipe like. Like 95%. I can assume, you know, like, put the pasta in the water, boil it, close the. You know, like, put it in the oven, and I can. I can Read it. And I can read and check, like, for the most part, if I'm, like, texting somebody or if I need to go to the post office or something, that the post office was a hard one for me because they're all grumpy old ladies and nobody wants to talk to you there. But what I notice is that, like, living abroad, especially here, is, like, doing culture is, like, so different. Like, I would have never thought that you go out and you have a beer with a potential, you know, with a potential client, or you go out and you have a beer and you handshake on it to, like, discuss something or the night before you get hired, like, you're, if you're taking over somebody's position, like, you do the training, and then after the training, you go and drink, like, a whole bottle or three of, like, wine from Slovakia. Right, right.

Totally.

True story. And then I, and then I showed up the next day and I was like, oh, you know, like, should you drink on the job? No. Are you allowed to drink on the job? No. Is it culturally accepted? For the most part, yes.

Right.

You know, like your capital of the world. But I, I, I, like, I go back to the United States and I'm. I've taken this, like, very direct approach from, like, being here in Prague of, like, nobody wants to hear about your. Nobody wants to, like.

Funny.

Nobody wants to listen to you if they don't know you. Why are you saying.

I was gonna say you're becoming, you're becoming European. Yeah, totally.

I, I feel, I feel like it. And, And I've taken this, like, if you don't know them, don't ask them how they are, because.

Right.

You don't know them. Right. But as an American, you're just like, oh, hi, how are you? I'm good.

That's.

And then you.

Yeah, totally.

And, And I've taken this into, like, my business world of, you know, like, this personal. Like, I don't know you. I don't know. I don't want to know. Right. And I've taken this into the business world of, like, doing business across culture.

But that's tricky. That's tricky. Like, listen, be careful because. Because, I mean, again, I can't speak across those different cultures. But yeah, like, there is really, like, in the U.S. like, I mean, you know, this obviously, if you're, like, out, like, I'm not that much into sports, like, you know, or specific, like, golfing or something like that, or. And sometimes, you know, you deal with some big shot who's living in Missouri or something. And, and, and he, he, he can talk for 15 minutes about the game that happened. Did you watch the game? I didn't, but he's still going to talk about these things. And I actually, like, I used to be like, you know, New York, New Yorkers obviously were like, all right, let's. Let's cut to the chase. But I've kind of learned to appreciate that side, too, because I'm like, you know what? This is part of the business. Like, this is actually part of doing the deal is to getting into these things. So I've become more flexible. And it kind of goes back to your point. What's the hardest is be able to kind of context switch, like, even in, like, in, again, Japanese culture. And there are some things that can be really insulting to Japanese, and you have to be very, very, you know, understanding of hierarchy and how you, you know, you know, are basically very appreciative of your hosts if they invite you to their offices, et cetera. And, like, there's just so many norms that you have to know. And so it's really about being mindful of those and not. I'm trying not to kind of be like brass knuckles across these different cultures and be like, I'm an American. I'm just going to say hi, shake hands, and that's it, we're done. Let's get to business. Right? So, yeah, just. I think, I think learning those will get you further in life, basically.

And I think it's. It's when you've seen the world, when you've seen that you, like, when you know you're having a conversation with somebody else that's seen the world, their eyes move a different way. And I think, like, you've seen the world, right? And it. People behave differently when they've seen different things. It's. It's quite hard to be able to say, like, hey, French guy like that only wants to speak in French, right? Like, this is what we're gonna do. And I, I'm not an expert in French history or French culture, right? And neither, you know, that's not a desire of mine at this very moment. But with Slavic culture and in Czech culture, it's like, okay, like, let's stay in touch, you know, like, head of these three businesses that's coming on a podcast tomorrow. Like, hey, I'm just gonna, like, let's get a coffee. And I went to their, you know, we just, we just had a beer and we had some beer at their rooftop party when they moved businesses, it's I feel like Europe is much more. The European culture of business is much more soft, but it's all about, like, who you. It's always been about who you know and how long you've known them. But I think that the community of business community in Europe is a lot smaller, but it's a lot more segregated. I've noticed that a lot of, like, of course, like local countries, like Czech countries or Czech country only really prefers to hire Czech speakers. And like Germany, like, you know, they of course try to get their talent with German speakers, but in America, it's like there's so many options where not so many of those options are segregated. I feel like it's only segregated by geography and skill. Whereas in Europe, it's. It's not even geography and skill. It's like, hey, will you move from Belgium to France? Do you speak French? Do you speak French? Okay, like, you're right. You're good for the position.

Totally.

Yeah.

You know, I was going to ask you. I feel like in your situation, as we said, there's. There, there aren't too many Americans that are moving like, west to east because also, because, you know, salaries aren't the same. There's a lot of your, like, this is just a common thread. Like Europeans are like, when they discover American salaries, like, oh, my God, six, six figures, you know, like. And, and so I think for that reason there, there aren't too many Americans that are, you know, living. Living your life, but you have the benefit of being able to have that kind of lifestyle and being in Europe. And, and I, I think they probably are appreciative that there's an American that made the effort, so to speak, to come to Europe to understand how they live and how, you know, how they do business. And I'm sure you actually have a leg up, you know, when it comes to, you know, your, your basically your perspective around business and, and how to deal, you know, with go to market across different, you know, kind of vectors. So I think that that's a unique advantage for you. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, by the way.

No, you're right. I mean, I haven't really touched on, like, what I do, but, like, yeah, it's like, it's like, oh, they see an American, he's been living here for like three or four years. Like, he has a local partner. Like, he has, like, almost has permanent residence. Like, he's not going anywhere, you know. And, you know, clearly he has American clients. So, you know, what, what's, what's the failure point. Right, right. And I totally, and I think a lot of like one of my advantages here, which I didn't realize was an advantage is that I'm a native English speaker. I mean, I mean that sounds like really, that sounds really silly, right? But when I was first looking for jobs here, like in Prague as well as in like Germany, and I was like applying and you know what? I, you know, I never realized that the resumes, the intakes are completely different. It's like you want to put your English level, you want to put your foreign, your foreign language level, right? And in the United States it's like your, your resume is in English. They know no shit, you're American. Like, you know English, right? But in, but in Europe, like the advantage of saying like native English speaker. Xyz. Xyz. Whatever the pitch was, I changed it. And like the next month I had like interviews like up the gazoo. But yeah, now nowadays, you know, a lot of the startups, a lot of the international facing startups want to have a native English speaker because all of their communication, all of their marketing is in English. Unless they're only marketing and selling nationally.

So, so I don't want, I don't want to do a shameless plug here.

But I will do it.

The app that I built. The funny thing is, so basically as I said, it's like a loom on steroids with AI. And one of the things you do is you just kind of record yourself speaking in any language and you can translate in perfect English. And the feedback I got was from foreign founders who had like terrible English accents and they were Italian, they were Turkish, came from like all over the world and they were like, wow, I can now do screen recordings in perfect English. And this goes back to your point is like there a lot of people don't understand, like if you're speaking English in a screen recording that's supposed to be for, let's say the US market, Americans won't understand if you have a thick Turkish accent or a thick, you know, French accent, etc. And so I do like, you know, going back to your point, I, it's, it's critical. Like you, you're not only fluent, you have like a perfect American accent, people will respect you. They will say, wow, this guy's legit. He knows what he's talking about. He's here for business. So I, I could not agree with you more. And it's, yeah, it is rare in Europe. I have to say a lot, but.

A lot of like there are a huge amount of Americans here in Prague. Like, there's a whole Facebook group and there's like 10,000 or like, really, I have to mute that thing because it pisses me off too much. It's like I can't find an apartment. Has somebody helped me find it? Yeah, it's. It's ridiculous. Like, don't even get me started on like, the housing situation.

Wow. Amazing.

But yeah, like, I don't, I don't hang out with any of them because you know what? They do a lot, A lot of the Americans here, what they do is they teach English and that. It's a, it's a whole market is like teaching English and like foreign, foreign English teaching, you know, like, it, it's. I don't know. I think it's in Thailand too. Like, a lot of people go to Bali and they're like, oh, I'm gonna teach yoga.

Yeah, so. So that, that's where like, I have a little bit of blinders on is. I'm in like really in tech. And so we work like everybody's like in digital. Like they're selling something online. Their services, freaking drop shipping, shopping, drop shipping, e commerce, SaaS. But I'm not, you know, I'm not kind of, I guess seeing that whole other side, which is. Yeah, you're right. The Americans that are here and teaching yoga are teaching English. I'm sure there are a lot of those. But yeah, I, I get what you're, what you're saying around, like avoiding that crowd a little bit.

So. Okay, so I think we're going to wrap up. This is, this is a fun conversation, but I think I have one final question for you. In less than five sentences or in a short explanation, what's one piece of advice that you'd give to either Americans or anybody that's looking to go travel and better integrate and in the business sense.

So this is a tough one. Let me think about this. And maybe you'll have to cut out the thinking part. Listen, I think again, what you want to make sure that you do. First of all, I encourage a lot of young founders, entrepreneurs to definitely explore the world and try to live in places where you have some geographic arbitrage. Right. From a quality of life standpoint. So it's. I think it's a great opportunity, especially when you're young pre kids or when your kids are small. But if you're like. So if the market that you're servicing is going to be the local market, you better be sure you understand like the cultures the culture you're in, the nuances of that culture, the pitfalls and know how to do business in that, in that culture, not necessarily in that language, because as you said, like, English is the language of business. But just make sure you understand how to be able to be respectful and understanding of the culture you're in terms of. The second part of this is going back to what I said, which is just also think about how you position yourself and how what you aspire to do or to be aligns with that geo. Um, so as I said, if you're doing consumer apps and you're targeting, you're just selling to people all over the world and then you don't, you don't have to be attached to any single place, but if you're going to be selling SaaS and large ticket SaaS to, you know, to, to businesses in the US, it's going to be a lot harder. So be mindful of that. There are some folks that, you know, literally have a very active night life where they're literally on calls with clients at night, but I don't think it's super sustainable. So really be mindful of that, that intercession, right? It's like, it's like the Venn diagram of like your passions and then where they overlap with your target market, ICP and the folks you cater to. And you know, ideally there's, there's a good overlap there because I think, I think truthfully, if, if your target is the us, Europe is a better option for you. Portugal, Prague, there's a lot of Berlin, May, Paris, London, there's a lot of great cities there. Asia is a fantastic place to live for sure. I think the ROI in terms of how far your money can go and the quality of life is amazing, but much more difficult if your target market and most of your customers are going to be in the us. So, yeah, just be mindful of that, basically. So that was way more than five sentences, but you'll just snip it up and hopefully you can make it into five.

No, this is going into Podcast Raw. I'm not going to really now. That's what I like to do. So where can people find you? Are you, you have your own podcast? You're on LinkedIn.

I know, yeah. So they can find me on LinkedIn. Charles Brun. I don't even know what the handle is there. They can podcast. Yeah, the podcast is Go to Market Hackers, where I interview folks like you soon to talk about basically how to scale your GTM with AI and you know, a lot of folks, a lot of startups are confused about that, so I think it's. It's a really great opportunity to kind of uncover and, and showcase what's possible. And then on Twitter, I'm also on Twitter, underscore Charles Brun. So any one of those will work.

Cool. Well, thanks for jumping on Spencer.

It was great to join. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Cool. Thank you for coming. See you. See you.