life first, business second with e-Residency
E-resident Martin on how e-Residency has supported his nomadic lifestyle and his frank advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
E-resident Martin is Danish by birth, currently located in Germany. He is a Certified Professional Google Cloud Architect, full-stack developer, and micropreneur with over a decade of experience. Martin is founder of mr noe OÜ, a specialist landing page design agency.
2020 has been a busy year for Martin, who has relaunched his company website, adjusted his business model, and is now preparing to merge two of his businesses into one.
I caught up with Martin over email to hear more about his experience with e-Residency since 2016 and his incredibly frank and useful advice to aspiring entrepreneurs dreaming of setting up a business.
1. What does your e-Residency company do in a nutshell?
We help businesses grow and scale with automation and high-converting landing page campaigns.
2. When and how did you hear about e-Residency and why did you apply?
I heard about e-Residency in 2016 and directly applied. Since 2009, I had been registered as self-employed but wanted to nomad for a longer period of time without a home-address and still pay taxes. E-Residency seemed the only option to achieve this and on top of this, the program is highly aligned with my personal dream of a world with fewer borders.
3. What has e-Residency enabled you to do?
- Run a location-independent business for over four years
- Enabled me to easily start a second start-up idea, with few costs
- Included me in the physical network of e-residents, which led me to the Digital Nation Hackathon in 2019 in Vormsi, Estonia and also to EERICA, where I am now a board member
I was also invited to the e-Residency 5-year anniversary celebration in the Estonian embassy in Berlin, where I got to share my story, as well as meet Caitlyn from Xolo, former Managing Director of e-Residency, Ott Vatter, and other interesting e-residents.
Learn more about the benefits of e-Residency here:
4. What have been the biggest challenges of running your business?
Sales. I am not good at that. Together with my strategic partner, I create websites, web apps, landing page campaign, offer consultations and automation audits and publish a digital strategy blog as well as maintaining a high SSI on LinkedIn.
As a micropreneuer, I prefer to spend less time on my business and more time in “normal life”, so I have learned to rely heavily on partners not to burn myself out and keep an inbox zero, which I am proud of.
5. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs, who are interested in the e-Residency program?
It may only take a few minutes to register a company, but take time to plan your future before you do so. This can be the greatest transformation you have done for your business, but it can take a toll personally.
"Start by asking yourself what life you want, then ask what business you want."
When that is clear, talk to a tax consultant to figure out if your business model works with local law. The best scenario is to be a perpetual traveller, which allows you to only deal with taxes in Estonia and avoid double tax declarations.
You can find specialist tax consultants on the e-Residency Marketplace.
Finally, your business model will also need a proper partner to handle your business in Estonia and provide you with the essential services you need. I am very grateful to Xolo, who has managed my businesses from the start. But Xolo does not support dropshipping business and other more complex business models, so you might need to go with 1Office or create a holding company with my friends at Silva Hunt.
My main point is: don’t register your company in 5 minutes but take time to plan and do research first.