Its been awful quite here lately but thats not because nothing happens. Well Ill give a better update later.
Right now Im in Toftlund and this weekend Ill head to Copenhagen to participate in this years BarCamp. Its an un-conference so not that much is planned up ahead but I will most likely be doing a talk. The topic will be along the lines of My Experience With Bootstrapping A Rails Business In Prague.
Update 25th jan, 18 My slides: splashr presentation
– When we told people that we were moving to Prague for six month – everyone without exception asked why? . The why? was usually accompanied with a frowning face and a look that said are you crazy? . Let me try and see if I can explain it
Our goal of starting our own company has been to enjoy life and gain experiences while making money building software that works. We started this company to let us try something we probably wouldn t experience if we were working for an employer.
After setting up the company and working in Copenhagen for about 8 months we realized that it is not crucial for us to be stationed in Denmark to work for Danish clients. We had Danish clients but also clients we d never met and who were sitting in US, UK and Germany. We were web workers and all we needed was (roughly) a chair and good Internet and we could do our work. When we truly realized this fact and our lease in Copenhagen was nearing an end, we started to look at a map – in the beginning just for fun – but quickly it became apparent that we had to try to move to a different country.
We settled on Prague for a number of reasons – cost of living is cheaper (since we are still paid by Danish rates), trains and flights are frequent and cheap to Denmark and the rest of Europe and finally Prague is a beautiful metropolis with a thriving night life.
Our plans for our Prague adventure is to stay here for six months as a work holiday where we can get more value for our buck while we focus on developing products for other companies and one of our own products. Arb Design the company is still based in Denmark in terms of tax, VAT – it s just the two owners that are sitting in Prague for a while.
– After explaining this some people said I guess it makes sense in a way or I wish it was me – and a few continued to shake there head.
We have now been in Prague for nearly three weeks and moved into our new apartment Sunday and it already feels like home. At times we have asked ourselves whether or not it was a good idea to make this move – now I know it is.