It is now 9 years since Estonia launched its e-residency programme. The initial goal was to attract entrepreneurs and digital nomads to this Northern European country. It has worked, and the programme continues to grow.
To find out why someone would want to become an e-resident and open their own e-resident business, Enterprise Times talked with Alistair Starling, CEO, European Diplomats. Starling took up e-residency 3 years ago and immediately used it to start his business. It operates across Europe, and basing it in Estonia gives him the benefits of being inside the EU.
Interestingly, Starling already has European resident status in Germany due to his time living there as a British diplomat. So why choose Estonia rather than Germany, Britain or another EU country? According to Starling, one of the biggest problems is that all other countries require you to meet with business professionals to set up a company.
But in Estonia, it was simple to become an e-resident and then set up the company. Starling said, “It was completely digital. I didn’t even need to go to Estonia, not even once.”
It is not just the ease of creating a company that impressed Starling, it was also the digital marketplace. When looking for professional support, he said, “It was very easy to find those kinds of suppliers in the marketplace.” He added, “Starting off on the marketplace, as opposed to just doing a web search, gave me that degree of confidence that I was starting off in the right place.”
To hear what else he had to say, listen to the podcast.
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