Building the Croatian Digital Nomad Visa & Digital Nomad Association
Season 6
Building the Croatian Digital Nomad Visa & Digital Nomad Association
00:03
Chase Warrington
Hey, what’s going on everyone, welcome to another episode of about abroad where it’s my job to introduce you to people who have built amazing lives for themselves in various foreign corners of the globe. We’re talking with expats and thought leaders about moving abroad, remote work, visas, and all the fun and practical knowledge you need to know to follow in their footsteps. If you’ve ever dreamed of making a life for yourself overseas, maybe working remotely or embracing long-term travel, retiring or studying abroad, or even just taking a peek inside life beyond your borders, you’ve landed in the right place. My guest today is Jan de Jong. He is a serial entrepreneur from the Netherlands who has made a home for himself in Croatia he’s also the co-founder of the digital nomad association of Croatia and was one of the key people behind the world-famous digital nomad visa that was pushed through the Croatian government in a record like four minutes. So he came on the show today, tol tell us all about that process, talk a little bit about Croatia in general as a destination, and talk about the digital nomad association itself. And what is happening in one of the hottest locations for digital nomads and expats alike that are looking to move to Europe and settle down in a place with great climate, great cost of living, and awesome accessibility for people who are coming from abroad? And just so many things happening in Croatia. So this was a blast. Jan is world famous in this world. So it was really fun and really nice to get him on the show. I definitely appreciated his time. I hope you guys will enjoy this one as much as I did. Please help me in welcoming Jan to about abroad. Yeah, so what is this current conference that you guys have going on there in Croatia? It’s I saw a little bit about it posted online, but I haven’t had a chance to dig into it much.
01:59
Jan de Jong
Yeah, so actually one of my co-founders, Tanja Polegubic Pollogovich. She’s one of the co-founders of the digital nomad Association. And she is also the founder of a company called Saltwater Nomads. So she is in the business of organizing really amazing conferences and projects throughout Croatia, very much focused on digital nomadism, but also just the future of work in general. I mean, we have seen such tremendous change in the way that we work nowadays, also as a result of COVID, of course, that there’s so much content on that subject. So she goes around and organizes all those amazing conferences, and this time in Istria, with in partnership with the local tourist board of Central Eastern, they’re organizing a digital nomad-in-residence project. First of all, aside from just exploring that area in Croatia, they’re going to be co-creating together with the local tourist board a strategy on how that part of Croatia can become more appealing and attract more digital nomads in the future.
02:57
Chase Warrington
Wow. Yeah, I guess you are a key part of this. And has been leading the way at least in terms of the digital nomad visa, and we’re trying to actually look at digital nomads as almost like a user end user of a product and like bringing them into the country. I mean, doing that kind of like the in-depth study is a pretty big testament to how seriously the country is taking.
03:21
Jan de Jong
Yeah, and this is not the first time actually about a year ago, there was also a digital nomad in residence prod project in Dubrovnik, which lasted for a month, and was very successful and was also an award-winning project. Tanja won an amazing international award with that at a conference. And we’ve also done other really great things. As a Digital Nomad Association, we are supporting those initiatives for us. Locally, we are actively participating in these things. But we also have the Zagreb digital nomad week, where for seven days straight in seven different locations, we are touching upon all different kinds of subjects related to digital nomads and remote work professionals. And yeah, I would like to believe that we are leading the way in becoming a hotspot in Europe for digital nomads, which is not a complete coincidence. I mean, I think that, first of all, Croatia, it’s easy to fall in love with this country. And then you know, the problem that Raesha has is that it has a very short season, you know, we are welcoming every year like 20 million tourists, even though we have only like 4 million in population. So we are depending on tourism. But it all comes around the summer. So we wanted to develop a strategy on how we can actually attract let’s say long-term tourists if you want to call them that way throughout the entire year, and that’s why we have even initiated some changes in the law-making Croatia actually the second country euro to offer a digital nomad visa,
04:46
Chase Warrington
Who is the first country that had an official digital nomad, but it was at the g7 and Portugal or another country that actually had one.
04:54
Jan de Jong
No, it was Estonia
04:55
Chase Warrington
Estonia. Yeah, of course.
05:00
Jan de Jong
When I saw them, launching that, very soon after that, I wrote an open letter on LinkedIn, to the prime minister of Croatia. And I asked him if he would be so kind to consider introducing a visa like that in Croatia and 44 days after that open letter on LinkedIn, I had a chance to meet with him, and he gave me his full support. And in the months that followed, together with about six-seven ministries, we have been working very hard to change two laws and two regulations. And in a country actually, that is known for its bureaucracy, we have managed to make those changes in the law in a period of five months. And that made us the second in Europe and the seventh in the world to welcome digital nomads by granting them a 12-month staying permit during which they won’t have to pay any income tax in order to avoid double taxation, which is obviously very important for Americans because they will always have to pay their taxes in the US so we would not be a very attractive destination if you would charge them again in Croatia. Yeah. Yeah.
05:56
Chase Warrington
Yeah. 100% as an American expat I can attest to this shout-out to greenback tax our sponsor for helping us Americans with those American-only problems that we have US and Anasera. I think they are a Tresy , I think are the two places in the world that have to do that. So and I mean, honestly, Jan, like that story you just told is, you know, that’s how I first heard about you. I mean, that story is kind of world-famous now, like people in this world of digital nomads and expats the fact that you guys pushed that through so fast, and dodged all that red tape and bureaucracy as best you could and got that it put into place. And that really kind of set the precedent for all the dominoes that continue to fall in the country started waking up and started creating these, even though a lot of them took years to create. Now, you guys managed to do it super fast. I would love to know if you could I’m sure you can’t share all the details. But like, what were the nuts and bolts of that letter that you wrote to the Prime Minister? How did you express the need for this?
05:56
Jan de Jong
Well, I think that it was really helpful. First of all, Estonia was the first one to launch something like that. And then of course, while we were all stuck in lockdown as a result of COVID in a country that for more than 20% of its GDP depends on tourism. I think, you know, it was quite obvious also for the creation government that our season was going to be horrible, most likely, or I mean, it was really devastating. And you know, if more than 20% of your GDP is from tourism, then it automatically affects all the other industries, you know, I mean, even the sales of furniture, so to say, you know, I mean people that welcome tourist in their apartments, if they don’t have tourism, then they will not replace their furniture either. And everything is in that way affected by tourism in Croatia. So yeah, we were really looking for alternative ways to attract people to Croatia. And if you cannot come to Croatia for just a couple of days or a couple of weeks, then why not welcome remote workers? All of the sudden, overnight, everybody became a remote worker pretty much, why not welcome those individuals to come to your country for several months, or even all the way up to one year? And very often. I mean, research also from Nomad list.com has shown that those digital nomads, especially the American ones, have a really good income, right? I mean, they make on average, like $80,000 a year, which is, especially by Croatian standards, it’s really high. And these are my opinion, therefore also very much like citizens that we would like to welcome to temporarily stay in this country to spend their income here in this local economy. So yeah, that all together clicked. And then I think it was just the right time, the right person with the right message under the right circumstances, that made it all happen very fast.
08:34
Chase Warrington
The things that you mentioned there, I mean, that cyclical effect, whichever way you get that flywheel turning, you know, when revenue stops coming in from tourism, and then people stopped buying new goods, and then the providers of those goods can’t buy other goods. And that negative cyclical effect is, is pretty apparent. But then the reverse of that when you inject all these people with, as you say, like higher than average salaries, and they’re there for the long term, and there’s they’re spending more in the local economy, that part of it I feel like it was totally accepted by Croatia, whereas you see some of the other digital nomad visas Around the world, putting a high emphasis on like obtaining tax dollars from those digital nomads. And the friction that causes to me seems very counterproductive to the overall net gain that they could be capturing. So I wonder, you know, what, what are your thoughts on this? I mean, was that part of the conversation with Croatia?
09:27
Jan de Jong
Absolutely. when we were talking with all those ministries in order to draft all those new laws, the biggest struggles that we were having actually was with our tax office because they wanted to find ways of course on how to tax those digital nomads. And we were quite firm in that and quite persistent in that saying that, you know, Croatia already has among the highest VAT in Europe, we have 25% Vat so on whatever digital nomads will be spending in this country the Tax Office is going to get their fair share right there is no need to also tax their income. And you know at one point, what I did is I organized actually a meeting with the state secretary of Estonia. And I basically put the state secretary of Estonia on the table with our tax office. So they could have an open conversation on that subject. And I was moderating that conversation. And then after that, we went back to the drawing table, and with some more pressure also from our Ministry of Interior towards the Ministry of Finance, we in the end were able to convince them that we should not be charging them any income tax because they will be anyway taxed on their consumption.
10:31
Chase Warrington
Do you have any idea now? Like, are there any rough numbers floating around out there about the cash injection that’s created in Croatia?
10:38
Jan de Jong
I’m not allowed to say but I’m ready to share some numbers with you. So again, if we look at, for example, nomadslist.com. Are you familiar with nomadlist.com?
10:51
Chase Warrington
Yes, yeah, for sure.
10:52
Jan de Jong
I mean, that’s really the go-to place for digital nomads today, they have this lifetime subscription. And they are participating in surveys, and they’re giving feedback about destinations and whatnot. And from that website, we could see that on average, Croatia is welcoming between three and 5000 digital nomads per month. Yeah, so then another research has shown also by Nomadlist.com, that an average digital nomad stays about 69 days in one location. So let’s round it up to two months. So if they’re staying for two months, and we’re welcoming between three and five of 1000s of them per month, on average, I think it’s fair to say that at any given time, we are hosting between six and 10,000, digital nomads in the country, let’s stick with six, let’s be conservative here, if we are with 6000, digital nomads in the country, and if they would spend on an average, and I’m going to be again, on the conservative side here, if they would be spending one and a half 1000 euros per month for a digital nomad, we’re talking about 9 million euros of consumption per month, which on a yearly basis, more than 100 million euros for the creative economy. And again, you know, I think that those numbers could easily be doubled. If we are not as conservative as I just was,
12:04
Chase Warrington
That’s those are insane numbers
12:05
Jan de Jong
Anywhere between 100 and 200 million euros of fresh new money to this country.
12:11
Chase Warrington
Yeah, that’s insane. And then and then you can look at the, you know, just the VAT tax there and created on just one part of the flywheel that we’re talking about, right? Like, we’re not talking about the cyclical effects, and the trickle-down effects of that money being injected into the economy, all the subsequent transactions. And I think you’re being very conservative there on all those numbers. So I mean, this is this we’re talking massive numbers
12:34
Jan de Jong
This is also money that doesn’t go to all the, let’s say, classical tourist attractions, you know, it’s not being spent on hotels only, you know, it’s also being spent on hair salons, it’s also being spent on going to the movies, it’s also being spent on basically whatever creation people would be spending their money on. And because those people stay long term, they are mid to long term. And it’s not only the value-added tax that the government is getting to the tax office with also companies, therefore they will make more profit, there’s also something so-called profit tax. So there’s another source of income taxes, you know, the way I look at it, it’s 100 or 200 million euros of an additional influx of money into this country that we probably wouldn’t have had if we were not among the first countries to welcome digital nomads. And if we wouldn’t be so good at promoting ourselves internationally as a place to go for digital.
13:27
Chase Warrington
Now, one thing I’m curious about is like, what was your motivation? I mean, you played a central role in this. It’s and as far as I know, you’re not like, directly involved in the government there. It’s not like this was your job to create you stepped outside your day-to-day to do this. But correct me where I’m wrong. And maybe just shed a little bit of light on that. Because I’m genuinely curious.
13:46
Jan de Jong
Yeah. So there’s actually only one reason why I wanted to be involved with this and why I wanted to do this so badly. And that’s because I really think it’s good for this country. And I’m a father of four children, my wife is Croatian. So my kids are half Croatian, half Dutch. So we will always have a connection with this country, and we are planning our future in this country. So for me, it’s important that this country starts performing better economically, and that it offers more opportunities not just for today’s generation, but also for future generations. And I think that in a country where when I moved here, 15 years ago, the population was about 4.5 million. Today we are with 3.8 8 million left. So we have seen almost 600,000 People leave Croatia, these are obviously not old and retired people that have left this country. These are mostly young, smart individuals that have left for countries like the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, and the United States, and they’re moving there in order to find opportunities. And that’s a very sad thing, actually, for me to see that because I’m actually a Dutch guy that moved to Croatia and I found my opportunities and my happiness in this country. And I just want to be an example there. First of all, I can show that it is possible to build a great life and I call it the Croatian dream of living the Croatian dream in Croatia, I always wanted to avoid moving to America and live the American dream. But I moved to Croatia. Now I’m living the Croatian dream. And I want to help Croatia progress. And I want the future of Croatia to be better for my kids, but also for all the other kids in this country. And I think that by welcoming young and smart digital nomads, or remote work professionals to this country, we can not only have an economic benefit from that, but we can perhaps also reverse the brain drain that we are experiencing here in this country,
15:30
Chase Warrington
I was going to use that exact terminology right now and say that brain drain I think, is one of the hidden shadow sides of the industrial economy that we’ve become so reliant on everybody moving to the economic centers of wealth and knowledge, and then shall we see these other areas, beautiful areas in every other regard, but the younger generations leave there and go to this mega metropolis is and very few, the few and mighty countries around the world. So the rich get richer in that way. And I think that’s one of the awesome aspects of the whole remote work revolution. And the movement towards more location independence is that people can choose where they want to go and go and go back home or move to places that offer a better quality of life for them for their families, the injection they put into the economy, you see it on a big scale. In this case, when we’re talking about the digital nomad, visa, and Croatia, you can, you know, we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, I’ve talked to people who have like, you know, they moved back to their little village on an island because they could leave London. And you know, they could go be close to their family on a little island in Greece, for example. And so I mean, it’s on a microscopic scale on a macro scale. It’s incredible.
16:37
Jan de Jong
I think that this remote work revolution that we are experiencing right now, it’s probably one of the biggest opportunities for countries like Croatia, the Mediterranean, you know, you would see in the past or still, perhaps you would see people move to countries like the United States or like Ireland in order to find opportunities. And now what you see actually is that those people from those countries, they’re moving to countries like Croatia to find lifestyle again, and they’re just bringing their job with them, you know, and it’s perfect. You know, we have talented people all over the world, even though up until COVID. Actually, job opportunities were not all around the world. And nowadays, but the remote revolution, that’s the most beautiful thing of everything, I think, is that the job opportunities are more equally spread around the world now.
17:22
Chase Warrington
Yeah, I saw I love this quote, I can’t remember who I heard it from first, I want to say Nacho Rodriguez from the Canary Islands, but you know, the opportunity is evenly or no talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not and remote work fights directly against that. And we see that here. That’s really exciting. And that’s I’m glad you brought up the point about the fact that you’re actually not Croatian, which I think probably a lot of people who follow your work, or maybe followed from a distance or just heard of you. I mean, they just probably naturally assume someone that’s so central to this movement in Croatia, that they Oh, they’re probably born and raised there. That’s why they’re so passionate about it. But you’ve come from a foreign country the Netherlands made your life there. What is it? You know, you obviously have a fondness for the country, aside from the fact that your wife is Croatian, I mean, what drew you to Croatia? And what is it that you love about it so much now?
18:12
Jan de Jong
Yeah, so I mean, I was rather young, when I moved from the Netherlands to Croatia, I was 22. And when I moved here, I mean, first of all, I just fell in love with the beauty of this country, the nature, the islands, the sea, the lifestyle, the food, the quality of food, the amazing wines, this entire Mediterranean lifestyle has, you know, there has always been so attractive to me. And, you know, we in the Netherlands, we always dream of going on a holiday and spending like one or two weeks in a country like that. And then we have to go back to our rainy country and work very hard. And when I was given the opportunity actually to during my university, my last year of university to write my final thesis from Croatia, During that year, I started my first business aside from the fact that this country is beautiful, and that it offers a really great lifestyle. In my humble opinion, it also offers really a lot of great business opportunities, because a lot of the things that you see, for example, that have worked out really well in the Netherlands, or businesses that are running great in the Netherlands, those kinds of things are sometimes not even being done in Croatia yet. And for me, having the ability that with one eye, I can see what works in the Netherlands and with the other eye can see what is lacking or missing in Croatia, and then to be the bridge between that and to start great businesses in Croatia to solve really major problems here. That’s something that I have really a great passion for. And you know, I’m able therefore to build a really great life in this country or build great businesses. The first company that I started, it’s called M plus group. I started it in 2007 and I sold it in 2016. I employed more than 400 people at that time. And this is a company specializing in contact center services. So it’s obviously a business where you need a lot of people but that company today is listed On this active Stock Exchange and employs more than 12,000 people after a whole series of m&a. And that company, you know, back in 2007 is the company where I carried the first computer inside. So it just shows what kind of opportunity you have in this country going from one computer in 2007 to 12,000 people which are, by the way, mostly working remotely these days in 2022, and, you know, try to do that in the Netherlands, it’s perhaps not as easy. I mean, it was not easy in Croatia either. But it’s definitely possible to do that. And now, I mean, not that I want to go very deep on this subject. But the Netherlands, as you might know, is also one of the largest exporters of food in the world. We are the second largest exporter of food in the world. And the way that we do that is we build those greenhouses where we are growing vegetables. And in the Netherlands, we have nearly 10,000 hectares of greenhouses six, nearly 10,000
18:20
Chase Warrington
What? who knew?
18:55
Jan de Jong
Yeah, well, I know because I was born and raised there. If you look at Croatia, we have about 6570 hectares of height, greenhouses. And for example, in the winter in Croatia, you cannot find creation produce, you cannot find tomatoes from Croatia cucumbers from Croatia, it’s all being imported from Spain or from the Netherlands, while in the past, Croatia used to feed entire Yugoslavia, you know, and now today, we are an importing nation now with my Dutch roots, knowing what works in the Netherlands knowing that having access to money, but also to experience into the technology from the Netherlands. Now my next dream is to be able to bring more of that technology to Croatia. And my ultimate goal is that we first of all become less dependent on importing foods and ultimately that can help to turn Croatia back into a food exporting nation again. So these are things that you know, I mean, I wouldn’t even start those kinds of things in the Netherlands but it’s so cool to do that in Croatia
21:51
Chase Warrington
Then I swear you guys the Dutch are some of them are driven in like from an ingenuity standpoint, you guys see it like a barrier and you go right over it I’ve been living in Valencia the last like five years Valencia, Spain, and there’s a ton of we have a huge Dutch population there. Someone told me there are like 25 flights per day between the Netherlands and Valencia and a lot of my close friends are from the Netherlands there anyway, I was just I happened to just have been in Amsterdam just recently and went on a tour where they were talking about the ingenuity of early on and the travels around the world. And like for this relatively small country, you guys take on some pretty massive projects. And just I find it hilarious because I joke with my Dutch friends, they’re like, You guys don’t see a problem, you see a problem and you just like you’re gonna get right past it and solve it. And, so yeah, that’s, you’re seeing that the reverse of the brain drain here happening in Croatia?
22:44
Jan de Jong
Yeah, but that is what entrepreneurship is all about, right? I mean, entrepreneurship is nothing more, nothing less than solving other people’s problems and charging money for that. And if you solve very big problems or a lot of problems, then obviously you can turn it into a very big business.
22:59
Chase Warrington
Yeah. and you’ve, you’ve managed to do that a couple of times now. Correct. Am I Am I correct? Like it’s several,
23:05
Jan de Jong
Well yeah, sometimes bigger than the other times. So the first company I made a very nice exit in 2016, then employing more than 400 people at that time. Then after that, I started a company called Web Power Adria where, you know, again, another example, here in this region, everybody was sending newsletters by using software like MailChimp. I don’t know if you’re familiar with MailChimp, but that’s,
23:28
Chase Warrington
I use it for my about abroad newsletter. Excellent.
23:31
Jan de Jong
Yeah, we have to talk about that
23:34
Chase Warrington
Help me. Definitely, I’m not totally thrilled with what we’re getting here.
23:38
Jan de Jong
I got you covered. Yeah, I got you covered. But for example, in the Netherlands, you have like at least 10 companies that are all having their local software for sending newsletters, and each of those companies is employing, let’s say anywhere between 20 and 50. People, you know, these are not huge businesses, but they are employing between 20 and 50 people so we can fairly say that, in that industry. We employ in the Netherlands, probably like 500 people easily and in Croatia, the creation of a company like that doesn’t exist. So everybody in this region, we are just using MailChimp or Campaign Monitor or any of those US base or Australian-based software as a service for sending newsletters. So what I did in 2016 Right after I sold my call center, I started a company called Web Power Adria and I started offering a product like that, but locally with local support, obviously hosted within the European Union. So GDPR compliant, we are doing all the setup. We are helping companies not just by offering software, but we can also help them to get more out of their email marketing activities. And now we are a local market leader serving nearly 150 companies across the region having a perfect business. It’s very scalable, it’s very profitable. And being in a position like that. We are also one of the first companies in the region to introduce a four day work week for a full-time salary. So these are really cool and nice things to do something you know that hasn’t been done in Croatia yet and how It’s already been done and very successfully been done in the country where I was born and raised in the Netherlands.
25:05
Chase Warrington
Yeah, you’re just importing these awesome ideas and injecting them into the local economy, just some are more tangible in terms of dollars and cents and others are more, you know, figurative in that way, the four-day workweek, I think, I don’t know, I’m assuming you agree, I think it’s the future, I think we’re all we’re hopefully going to adopt that as more of the status quo and in the not too far off future.
25:26
Jan de Jong
We started with this in September 2021. So a bit more than a year ago. And I can say that we will never go back again, five days, this is probably the best decision we’ve ever made in our company started working less.
25:38
Chase Warrington
Why do you say that?
25:39
Jan de Jong
Because it makes our people so happy productivity is the same. And at the same time, it gives me really a very big competitive edge compared to other companies that are hunting for my talent. In the past, I always had to compete against either pharmaceutical companies or unicorns that were looking to employ my team members. And you know, they can always offer more money. Becausethey’re simply have more money than I have. So I didn’t want to compete with those companies in terms of like just spraying more money on spending more money on salaries. So I wanted to give something to my team for which I believe that my competitors, I’m not talking about direct competitors because they’re working in the same industry, but competitors for talent, I want to give my people something for which I believe that my competitors wouldn’t be prepared or willing to give that and that is not more money, but more free time. And I think that that’s more valuable than my end, we are working 100% remotely, we closed the office for more than a year, almost two years, we had an office, everybody in the office, everybody of the employees had a key to come to the office, nobody came to the office. So after two years, I decided not to prolong the rent anymore. Now we are a 100% remote company. And then what you see now is that for example, if one of those pharmaceutical companies, if they want to hire my team members, then they could maybe offer more money, but then they have to make a decision. Am I going to work five days a week from the office for a little bit more money? Or am I going to work four days a week from home both then it becomes a decision about lifestyle? And I think that we are positioning ourselves very well with where power has given us also a lot of media attention. Everybody knows about our company, even though we’re very small, and you know, with happy employees, you get happy clients at the end of the day. So yeah, like I said, best decision ever.
27:17
Chase Warrington
I mean, it’s awesome to hear that from the perspective of the CEO, you know, someone who’s from the very top looking down, because I think it’s easy for a lot of the people from the, you know, on the ground floor to say, Yeah, of course, I want a four-day work week. But when you’re running the business, you have to look at the dollars and cents of it, you have to think about the productivity and the effect the cyclical, or the trickle-down effects, I guess a better way to put it of making this decision. And I totally agree with everything you’re saying that I’ve done some pretty extensive research on this to look at other companies that are doing it. And I think the writing’s on the wall, I mean, you know, like you said, productivity maintains or, you know, at worst might drop off a point or two, and then most Yeah, in most cases, it increases happiness and engagement go up employee retention through the roof. So yeah, seems like an awesome way to build a moat around your company and keep people from wanting to leave. We’ll be right back to the show after a quick break for a note from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by my good friends over at Greenback tax as an American citizen. I’m from one of only two countries in the entire world that requires me to pay taxes on my global income regardless of which country I’m actually living in. So when I started my expat journey back in 2015, I knew my tax situation was about to get complicated. Fortunately, I discovered greenback and I’ve never looked back greenback is 100% focused on helping us expats with their tax situation, and to date, They’ve filed almost 50,000 returns for nearly 15,000 Happy customers from more than 200 Different countries after seven years of working together I can say with confidence that they make one of the most painful parts of life abroad and absolute breeze with their automated systems friendly advisors and expertise in the very specific niche of us expat taxes. Also, for those of you who may have fallen behind on your taxes and or you’re trying to get ahead of tax season and 2023 greenback has your back here as well. They can assist with late filings to ensure you don’t encounter any problems with the IRS and to make sure you start 2023 off right tax season is on the horizon. Learn more about greenback today by going to greenback tech services.com via the link in the show notes. Hey guys, so many of you are right in asking how to support the show best. And if you are listening and made it this far into the episode, then I’m going to presume that perhaps are one of those people that wants to help. So if that’s the case, the best thing you could do right now would be to open up the app that you’re currently using to listen to this episode. Go to the little arrow thing that allows you to share, select it and share it to one of your social media networks. That would be a huge huge help. You can feel free to tag me at DC Warrington and I’ll slap your virtual high-five from wherever I am in the world. Thank you so much for the support. We really appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed listening to the rest of this episode. Time is so valuable. And I think the generation behind me values that even more than you. And I do. And so I think it’s something that companies have to adapt to.
30:11
Jan de Jong
But just imagine, you know, I mean, you have a bunch of people applying for a job, and you have interviews with them, and you discuss all the details about the job and whatnot. And then at the end, you say, Oh, by the way, we work four days a week are like really happily surprised, you know, it’s like, almost. So the way that we do it actually, is because we have to operate five days a week to service our clients. So we cannot be all free on Friday. So what we do is we actually divide our team into three groups, one team has a day off on Monday, the other team has a day off on Wednesdays, and the other team has a day off on Friday. And we keep it like that for one month. And then the next month, we rotate through then the team that was free on Monday, the month after they’re free on Wednesday, and a month after that they’re free on Friday. So in that way, it’s the fairest for everybody. Everybody gets to experience a day off on either Monday, Wednesday, or Friday in a quarter time period in the three-month time period.
31:07
Chase Warrington
Absolutely. That’s one of the big question marks I think I have is if we were to implement that duelist how we would do that, that free day. And I think the way you’ve designed it is perfect. That’s a first for me. I haven’t heard that. But I like that a lot
31:22
Jan de Jong
it has not even been designed by me, you know, when we suggested this to the team that we’re going to be working four days a week, they were asking like, Okay, how are we going to do this? And then I asked them, Okay, how do you want to do it? And then they came up with the suggestion, the one that I just presented, actually, they came up with a suggestion to split up the team into five groups. And over time, we have actually then perfected it into Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, because that also means that every Tuesday and every Thursday, we if needed, can have group meetings with all the employees included because those are the two days that we are over.
31:55
Chase Warrington
That’s perfect. Yeah, that works out. What’s your free day? And do you pick it? Or is it assigned to you?
32:01
Jan de Jong
Well, I mean, for me, it’s a little different. Because I’m not involved with just one company. You know, I have several things going on. I definitely can’t say that that, you know, well, while in the past, I was working really hard, like 80 hours a week today, I could say that my family is my top priority and that I basically designed my work around with my family. So I don’t work that many hours anymore. And for me, it’s really more about, you know, whenever I do anything, for me, it’s important that I have an impact with what I do. So about just being stupid and playing with Excel tables all day long. You know, I mean, I did that. and, but that’s not what I want to spend my time on anymore. I just really want to be more strategically involved as an owner or as an initiative, initiator of things. And altogether, you know, that might be 20 ,30,40 hours a week, but combined for different projects and different businesses.
32:49
Chase Warrington
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you got your there in this beautiful country, man, you gotta be, you gotta be able to enjoy your family. Yes, right. Well, that’s very cool. I did not know that. And I’m excited. I’m always excited to see more companies pushing that forward and leaders talking about and sharing the positive experience. So I wanted
33:11
Jan de Jong
I want to be very vocal about it
33:12
Chase Warrington
Yeah, I saw it actually on your LinkedIn. And I’m glad you brought it up again here today because I’m not sure I would have thought about it in the context of our conversation. But I’m just totally fascinated by it and love it. I was hoping I meant to get to this earlier because we kind of kicked off with this part of the discussion. But I’m very curious to hear about these in-residence programs that you guys are the digital nomad Association, Croatia’s, you know, helping to facilitate are participating in and like kind of getting inside what they’re finding like I was curious to know that you’re bringing digital nomads in these areas within Croatia trying to figure out what digital nomads want. What are they learning from these digital nomads? And what are those areas doing with that knowledge?
33:54
Jan de Jong
Yeah, well, it’s too early to make any conclusions on the project that is going on as of today in Israel, hopefully in a week from now, because I mean, in a week from now, we’ve had several workshops with the digital nomads and the local tourist board, so hopefully, they will come up with really cool things. But for instance, when they did it last year in Dubrovnik, I don’t know if you’ve ever visited Dubrovnik but Dubrovnik is a destination that that in general has a problem, which is that a lot of people go there only for either a couple of hours if they’re on a cruise ship, or maybe for a day maybe they would spend there two or three days as a matter of saying and but it’s all like very, very short stay tourism. And what Dubrovnik wanted to do is they wanted to obviously become a more attractive destination for long state tourists. And that’s why they asked for help from the digital nomads. And what it comes down to is that when the digital nomads when spent an entire month in Dubrovnik, their conclusion was that being in Dubrovnik for one month is not long enough you could spend so much more time in Dubrovnik, but what Dubai Africa as a city should do is they should not just promote the old town that you see on photos and images all around the world everywhere. No, don’t just promote the old town but promote everything else that you can do around Dubrovnik in that area. And in that way. I mean, there’s so much content, there’s so much to do that, you know that like they said one month is not enough in Dubrovnik. And now what they’re doing is the city has also made co-working spaces available, I think they open two or three co-working spaces. One issue is also very often in Dubrovnik is the accommodation pricing of recommendations. So they’re also still looking into what they can do there to get more and more people on board to rent for lower fees, but for the longer term, and they I think they’ve also had ideas on introducing a maybe they’ve already done it a Dubrovnik long stay like, like a card where you can enjoy all kinds of discounts and benefits for buying the car. If you stay in Dubrovnik for more than I think two weeks, something like that. So yeah, they’re, you know, they were one of the first kind of actually first cities that obviously really felt the impact. Also, when when we were all locked down. I mean the ratio depends on more than 20%. On tourism, I think that Dubrovnik depends more than 35% on tourism, you know, it’s like that. It’s huge. So they wanted to do something about it, they wanted to come up with strategies on how to attract people year-round in Dubrovnik. And yeah, remote work professionals, will be part of the solution. And that’s why they want to come up with ideas on how to keep them in Dubrovnik
36:33
Chase Warrington
Funny, you mentioned Dubrovnik in particular. So I’m, I’m actually looking at coming to spend a few months in Croatia in this coming year and 2023. And I was looking at places to you know, just considering the places and you start with the ones that you know, you do a little bit of research. I mean, it’s Croatia is no secret to most of us in this world. But I kind of had some preconceived conceptions. And one of those was that I probably shouldn’t even consider Dubrovnik because that’s just going to be super touristy. And I definitely want to go see it and spend a couple of days there, but most likely, it’s not going to be my home base for you know, three, four or five months and, and so anyway, I just I find that really interesting because it’s cool to hear that these cities are you know, there’s a lot of revenue in the short term tourists but I love that they’re investing and building the infrastructure for those of us that want to come and spend, you know, some quote-unquote, real-time there. So it’s nice to hear that they’re, they’re taking that seriously, I guess, I think maybe we have a tendency to think that they don’t really care, you know, it’s just whatever, whatever, we get the money, we get the money. But it’s nice to hear that they’re adapting,
37:38
Jan de Jong
They care very much, you know, you said there’s a lot of money in the short-term tourism, but actually, it’s not, you know, you have 1000s of people that come on a cruise ship, they just swamp your entire city and all they buy is one ice cream, and then they go back to their cruise ship, but the whole city was was full with people. And this makes actually that Dubrovnik is really not a nice place to live for the locals. And you know, it’s all nice that you can make a living off of tourism. But if that goes, if that comes at the expense of the local people that they really have to suffer on the quality of life in their own city, that’s, then it becomes a problem. So they really wanted to do something with that.
38:17
Chase Warrington
Yeah, I think there’s another element to this too, when we’re talking about the locals is that the types of people at least in today’s version of this whole digital nomad remote work world, the types of people that are going to come and spend several months there are they want to be there for a reason beyond just snapping pictures in front of cool sites and having that that ice cream, I mean, they want to bake themselves into the local culture a little bit. They want to maybe learn the language they’re gonna go to language learning schools, or they’re gonna go to the gyms they’re they’re gonna get involved with small businesses and maybe even I’ve seen a lot of them getting involved with community service and things like this, perhaps someone like yourself ended up starting businesses there because they fall in love with the place. And so I think there’s a lot to be said about that. It’s a different type of tourist that I think can pay dividends to the local community in a lot of different ways. I couldn’t agree more. Okay, so Dubrovnik, everyone knows, right, but like let’s talk a little more geographic geography here. I guess. You’ve mentioned, you’ve thrown around a few names of places around the country. And so let’s just pretend that I’m a novice because I kind of am. But you know, where are some of the other hotspots where, you know, someone who’s listened to this? They’re going to Croatia sounds cool. I like the lifestyle you’ve built. Where do you recommend people go and really, you know, try to give this a shot? I think one of the other things I’ll throw some context around this is I didn’t realize until not that long ago, like you know, talking four or five, six years ago or something. That diversity in Croatia, I thought about it I think I thought of just the islands, and there’s a lot more diversity there than I think people realize so you just shed some light there.
39:51
Jan de Jong
Yeah, so when I moved to Croatia 16 years ago, I moved to Split, and Split is the second largest city in Croatia. So after the capitals are good Split is a city of about 200,000 people and I can definitely say that it’s probably the most popular city among digital nomads in Croatia. Also because it has great accessibility to all the islands the climate is amazing and it’s a bit bigger city it’s a more vibrant city so there are a lot of expats and digital nomads that are going to split then, of course, Zagreb as the capital especially also in the winter with the Christmas market is a very interesting place to be in Split perhaps in the winter there is not so much to do but on the other hand, things are going up there’s like really a lot of things that you can do in the wintertime. Yeah, I mean, I know I’ve known several where I know, several digital nomads that are you know, they would spend like April May June they would be in the split, and during the real the summer months, July and August they try to avoid those kinds of places and then maybe in September October, they would also want to be in Split but then comes November December, January they want to be example more in the continental part or in Zagreb area and other regions that are really beautiful are for example Istria, which is like Croatia’s Tuscany as a matter of saying it’s really amazing. If you enjoy great food, great olive oil, great wine, if you enjoy that kind of lifestyle, it’s very quiet there. You can definitely find small towns where there’s not a lot of action but a lot of peace, then that’s a really great place to be in Slovenia. That’s the northeastern part of Croatia with all Osiac being a bit of an IT hub in Croatia, where there are a lot of IT startups and great companies that are established over there. Then you have the central part of Croatia, which is very hilly with mountains and rough terrain and beautiful forests and waterfalls like lately it’s the waterfalls area is a beautiful natural park, you should go there for sure. Yeah. I mean, when the digital nomad said, it’s not enough to stay for one month in Dubrovnik? Well, I can tell you, for many people, it’s not enough to stay in Croatia for one year. Unfortunately, after one year, you cannot renew your digital nomad permit yet, we’ve been working really hard on getting that in place so that people can actually renew the digital November but unfortunately, it’s not a priority right now for the Croatian government to do that. We will go actually, we are entering Shagun on the first of January. And we are adapting to the euro as our national currency as of January 1, as well. So these are two major things that are happening in this country right now. So yeah, that has priority obviously over many other things.
42:40
Chase Warrington
Do you expect that to actually happen? Like I’ve heard people talking about that, but saying that it’s like it’s Happening quote on quote “happening on January 1” but expectations being that it could take it is like okay, it’s for sure. Moving forward.
42:51
Jan de Jong
Yeah, I think on the 15th of December already. So that’s for us now that we are recording this in one week from now, I think that when you pay with local currency, which is Kuna today, they should already return you back euros. So this is really happening.
43:05
Chase Warrington
Yeah and I think the Schengen thing I feel like is the like, it just feels like this giant step forward, like this step that’s going to happen, but it’s like, how will it really, you know, like, all of a sudden, there’s just not going to be border control. Are there? Yeah. I’m just curious to see how it’s gonna play out.
43:22
Jan de Jong
Yeah. Well, I mean, for you, for example, as an American citizen, you are obviously a third-country national for Croatia, and you could apply for a digital nomad permit for which you can, by the way, find all the information at Digital nomads.hr, If you want to know anything more about it, if you would apply and get accepted for that, then you can stay basically one entire year in a Schengen country, and you can travel all around you want.
43:44
Chase Warrington
Yeah, that’s, I mean, it’s exciting for a lot of us, you know, I like I happen to have like European residency now. So I’m fortunately over the hurdle of having to think about these things too much. But I mean, most of my listeners come from countries like the US and other others that are I mean, this is probably the number one question I get asked about how do I get you to know, residency? Or how do I get more than 90 days in, in a Schengen country? And so this is one of those pathways in. I should also mention, you know, you already know this, but we have a mutual friend, Jessica Romano, who was a previous guest here on the show, she was the third person I think, to get the Croatian digital nomad visa, and I’m gonna link to that one in the show notes of this one for anybody that wants to really get into the mechanics of that you can go off and do your own research or you can listen to that episode, she goes through the bullet points of you know, how she went through the process and everything. I’m not asking Jan about that purposefully, not omitting this, but I think it’s important that we mentioned that there are there’s a lot of information on this and so and it’s a super straightforward process. I mean, you guys nailed it in terms of reducing friction.
44:51
Jan de Jong
Well, I think that there’s still space to improve but you know, some things are just not easy, especially for US citizens. When you have to have your back. Your background check and your fingerprints and FBI and whatnot. It’s a time-consuming process for US citizens. But well listen, you know, if you really want it, there is a very clear path on how you can get your digital nomad permit, you just have to follow all the steps. And then if you meet all the requirements, which are obviously not having a criminal background, having sufficient income, having income from outside of Croatia having your health insurance covered, then you will be accepted.
45:27
Chase Warrington
What’s the friction with not being able to renew it? I mean, what, why would why doesn’t the government want to jump on that in your opinion from your perception?
45:35
Jan de Jong
I don’t know. I mean, we are making such strong efforts to get digital moments to come here. And then after one year, we’re sending them away. It’s really a pity. It’s a missed opportunity if you ask me. And yeah, if it was up to me, I would have already made some additional changes to the law that would allow me moments to simply renew it. However, there is a bit of a loophole, there is a possibility. I spoke with one also a US citizen. There are two different versions. So you have the digital nomad permit, and then you also have a permit, which you can get by pre-paying your rent 12 months ahead. What she did, she jumps from one to another. So she goes on a digital nomad permit and when that one expires, she applies for the other permit where she prepays her rent for 12 months. When that one expires, she right away applies again for a digital nomad permit. And in that way, she can continue to stay in the country. So don’t tell this anybody. But there is a possibility. Yeah.
46:32
Chase Warrington
Just me and you talking your secret is safe with me
46:35
Jan de Jong
It’s between us
46:36
Chase Warrington
It’s between us
