The Guide to Starting a Company in Costa Rica - The First Visit

When thinking about starting a company in Costa Rica, there is one fundamental thing that must be done before anything else. It may seem obvious to some, but not followed by all. Before coming down with your bags filled with cash ready to invest your money on a surefire way to make the big bucks, please visit Costa Rica first.
I have met numerous people who have made the big move to Costa Rica thinking this was the place for them, only to find out a few months later, or years, that Costa Rica really wasn’t for them.

Although visiting Costa Rica first isn’t a guarantee that things won’t go bad, it is a smart way to check out the culture and see if you can really see yourself living in Costa Rica for multiple years.

Since it takes 5 years usually to turn a profit with a new company, you will have to keep in mind that this will probably be the same for you. I moved here with the intention of blowing up after a year, and hard the harsh reality of making my first sale a year and a half after first moving in.

When you visit Costa Rica, try to get the tour by a local, and not your Gringo friend that absolutely loves Costa Rica. It is important that you get an honest view from the people who can get you the authentic experience. Also, try to visit small towns in Costa Rica as much as the larger ones. Whatever you do, try to avoid staying in Gringo rich communities such as Escazu, as these places are not an accurate portrait of Costa Rica.

My best advice for you before you move to Costa Rica to start your company is to visit first, and to do it with private transportation so you can shoot a bunch a questions to your driver without feeling like you are bothering everyone else in the van. This is the best way to get info on Costa Rica. After your trip, you will have a much better idea if this is the place for you.

The first meeting in Costa Rica

Things do not always happen as expected, and this was certainly the case upon my arrival to Costa Rica. My business partner who is Costa Rican was suppose to help me settle in my new country which he did just fine. After a few weeks of settling in, I figured it was time to set up some meetings.

We set up our first meeting with a Costa Rican transportation provider that was a good friend of my Costa Rican partner, Marco. Marco told me how his friend had been in the business for years and would be a great asset for our company. Well, he and his wife ended up making all sorts of proposals right out of the first meeting, offering to help us with whatever we would need. He gave us important phone numbers and contacts.

They seemed very kind and sincere and we accepted their help with all sorts of projects. They assisted us in getting prices from various hotel providers and activity providers in Costa Rica. These hotel rates, we would find out later were inflated to leave some room for their commissions that they were to collect from these providers. They even introduced us to our first lawyer and we ended up registering everything through him, which we later regretted. This will be explained in the next post.

In the end, our first meeting would set us back a year without us having any idea. We would eventually have to cut our ties with Marco’s friend and have to get a new contract signed with our current lawyer and have our books completely redone. This was a huge headache and I wish I would have taken my time to look around at other options.

The problem is arriving to a Country where you do not speak the language leaves you susceptible to being used and manipulated. These errors would not have transpired in Canada. Costa Rican law is one that can sometimes be bent, and many Costa Ricans look for ways to make a dollar any way they can. Anyone who wants to start a business in Costa Rica should be very careful prior to doing so.

Why Costa Rica?

Now that I had my Plan B taken care of, the next step would be deciding where in the World I would go. I thought about going to Africa, and had actually decided to go to Morocco, however destiny would interfere and I would end up going to visit my friend in Costa Rica prior to my departure for Africa. The love affair that ensued with Costa Rica was instant and I immediately changed my mind about going to Africa. Costa Rica's nature truly blew me away. Coming from an isolated town in Canada, what I liked even more than the weather was the proximity of everything in Costa Rica. I could drive from the Pacific to the Atlantic in five hours! I could not believe this! Also, with 11 different micro climates, I was able to see what I considered to be 10 countries worth of things, in a week trip. The decision at this point was an easy one, Costa Rica would be my destination, now the hard part was to follow; what the heck am I going to do to make that oh so important $$$.

IT ALL STARTED WITH PLAN B

I must have heard it a million times in my lifetime; "I'm going to leave everything behind and start a new adventure". But I must admit, I have seldom ever seen it done. I was one of those people, however, I wanted to make sure I came through. The first step was having a solid plan B, so I went to teachers college, got a degree and became a teacher. This way, I would have something to fall back on if my adventure didn't end up working out OK. I taught a couple of years, and padded my resume, and eventually got to the point where I knew I would get hired quickly if I ever returned to Canada. This my friends, is how I was able to eventually leave everything behind and chase a dream, my dream.