Archives for September 2016

The optimistic view is that there is always light at the end of every tunnel. Sometimes, however, the tunnels we enter in life can be quite long. It can take quite a while before we see any light. And sometimes, we need a little help. Sometimes, we need someone to lend us a little light just to make it through.

This Looking for Light crowdsource campaign is my humble request for some light to find my way out of the longest tunnel of my life.

Entering the Tunnel

It was sometime around mid-2012 that I began to notice a problem. I’d been operating a company in Costa Rica that designs and manages vacations, mainly for customers in the U.S., for almost a decade. After a shaky start the company, called Package Costa Rica, had been growing at a nice pace for the past 5 years. Our web site enjoyed a good ranking in Google searches for Costa Rica vacations and that drove a lot of traffic to our web site. And we were pretty darn good at turning vacation inquiries into sales.

My optimism got the best of me and even though sales were growing (from $160,000 in 2006 to almost $400,000 in 2010), I ramped up my overhead too rapidly. I wanted to build a company that perhaps I could sell eventually. I’d always had the idea that an entrepreneur had to have an exit plan.

So, in 2010 I decided to make a few drastic changes. I downsized the company from a team of 4 to just 2. I thought with this change I’d see better profitability.

A Little Background

After several years of practicing law I decided around 1995 that perhaps a career in business would suit me better. My first attempt at that was a failure. My second one, a boutique mergers and acquisitions firm known as Live Oak Capital, fared much better. The idea behind it was to help business owners implement exit plans. Perhaps that’s where I got the idea that I needed one myself. The keys to any good exit plan are growth and organization. You have to be able to build a business that has growth potential, but with an organizaton that can continue growing even in your absence.

I made the same mistake with Live Oak that I would later make with Package Costa Rica. I grew it too fast. When the internet deals I’d had some success with dried up, I was left with a company with too much overhead and little income coming in to cover it. I went on the hunt for deals. That search landed me in Costa Rica with the biggest deal of my life…the sale of Universidad Interamericana.

I provide that little bit of background to satisfy the curiosity of those who are wondering how I got to this amazing country in Central America. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. I blame those largely for the tunnel that I’m in. No, it’s not all Google’s fault!

Meanwhile, Back in the Tunnel

The problem I began to notice back in mid-2012 was that our site had all but disappeared from the Costa Rica vacation-related searches on Google. At first I thought it was just temporary. It wasn’t. I had relied on “experts” to help me with things like that. They didn’t help that much. So, I decided to learn how to do it myself. That didn’t seem to help either.

My sales began to plummet from the $400,000 I enjoyed in 2010 down to below $200,000 in 2012. And they continued to fall in 2013 and 2014.

I panicked.

Groping for Inspiration

I downsized even further. I moved to my current home in the mountains of Perez Zeledon. I began to write about a topic called Impact Mindfulness. I wanted my life to be about more than just trying to make money. I was making barely enough to survive on the little bit of vacation sales still trickling in. I thought perhaps a career as a writer suited me better. I started the Revolutionary Misfit blog. A blog about Impact Mindfulness. I self-published my first book, The Revolutionary Misfit Manifesto. I really didn’t know what I was doing. The book went nowhere.

My wife and I began to discuss the idea of my repatriation to the U.S. I thought that if I was going to go back it had to be to a place that meshed with my current very progressive mindset. It had to be to a place where I could perhaps make it as a writer and blogger. It had to be…Portland, Oregon!

I left for Portland on February 2, 2015. I had sold virtually everything in Costa Rica except what I could fit in my backpack. My idea was to make it with some kind of a job, sell a few vacations, and ultimately start making money with my writing. After all, Portland was full of successful bloggers. Why couldn’t I be one of them?

Little did I know that on that fateful day, the long dark tunnel would grow even longer and darker. Upon entry into immigration in Los Angeles, where I had a connecting flight to Portland, I was arrested. My ex-wife had gone to court late in 2014 because I’d fallen behind in support payments. I was never notified of anything. I had no idea of any outstanding warrant. I was taken to L.A. County Jail, one of the worst in the U.S., where I sat for almost a month before finally being extradited to Horry County, S.C. I was able to make a deal with my Ex and after a month behind bars, I was finally released.

By the way, always being one to try to turn sour lemons into some sweeter lemonade-like experience of growth and impact, I wrote a series of blog posts about my stint in “County.” You can read them here .

That was the nail in the coffin of Package Costa Rica, or so I thought. Despite these setbacks, I remained optimistic about my plan for Portland. So, I carried on.

I spent 5 months there, looking for a job unsuccessfully, writing, and still making a few vacation sales. My wife came to meet me, along with her daughter. She found a job in a beauty salon that catered to Latinos. My wife doesn’t speak a word of English, but she had much more success in finding a job than I did!

Nevertheless, she didn’t like the place and our economic struggles continued. She became fearful that we would not be able to move forward with getting residency for her and her daughter. She decided it was best for her to return to Colombia before her visa expired and they became “illegal.” I had no desire to continue living in the U.S. without her, so I decided it was best for me to return to Costa Rica.

A New Direction

One thing I did not sell when I made the decision to repatriate was my vehicle. I left it with my wife’s sister. So, as soon as I arrived I jumped in it and made a B-line to Perez Zeledon. I rented a little studio apartment in the mountains and began to devise a plan to get my life back in order.

After a brief attempt at a hydroponic gardening business that really didn’t go anywhere I joined the Coldwell Banker real estate team in Dominical. I’m still writing and I just self-published a second book, The Impact Revolution. Low and behold, I still get business with Package Costa Rica. I am trying to rehabilitate that business. I am also beginning to start a similar site for Colombia vacations. With the peaceful progress my wife’s home country is making, I feel that the tourism potential there is through the roof. My wife has returned to me.

I may still be in the tunnel, but at least I have a sense of moving forward in it!

Nearing an Exit?

This crowdsourcing campaign is my request for some light. I have direction. I am motivated and working hard to progress as rapidly as possibly to the exit of this long dark tunnel that began in 2012.

One thing that makes it exceedingly hard to make progress is that I’m starting from such a position of lack. When I returned to Costa Rica last year all I had was a car and the clothes on my back. I didn’t know how I would make things work. I had no credit lines, credit cards, or access to any credit whatsoever. I jumped at the first idea, the hydroponics business. That one just didn’t work.

Since I have a background in law, doing business transactions and tourism, I am confident that getting involved in something that combines tourism and real estate is the right path for me. I’ve started a site that markets Expat Tours and the agency is helping me to get the word out. These are tours, guided by yours truly, for people seeking a new life as an expat in Costa Rica. They need help. They need guidance. And I feel I am the right guy to give it to them.

I’ve also launched a commercial real estate site. Before mine went live there were none. I was amazed that I was able to acquire the domain for Costa Rica Commercial Real Estate with such ease. I am marketing the commercial listings of Coldwell Banker agents throughout the country.

I am now working on a new book about living the Costa Rica expat life. I plan to self-publish on Amazon at the end of September.

I have renewed motivation and my optimism still burns brightly.

My needs are both personal and business related…

• My car is now 13 years old and has over 300,000 logged kilometers. It needs work. In the real estate business, a car is essential. In Costa Rica, a car that can climb a mountain is a necessity. Mine can, but like I said, it needs some work.
• I have been holding back on certain real estate strategies with regard to target markets due to my pervasive lack of funds. I need to make my presence known in those markets and that takes a little money.
• I need funds to continue rehabilitating Package Costa Rica. After 13 years in business, the leads just seem to come, mostly of the repeat and referral variety (which are the best kind). I still have no real Google search presence, but with time and a little money that could be turned around. I also need funds to help get Colombia Vacations from the idea stage to the income producing business stage.
• I have personal issues that I need to take care of. To maintain my residency I have to pay into the Costa Rican social security administration, known as the CAJA. It also offers me government health care, which at my age, is pretty important. I have no medical coverage outside of that. I stopped paying when I went back to the U.S. and have not been able to catch up. That is an urgent and very important need. I also have some dental issues that are urgent. Other than that, my health is good and I am grateful for that.
• I need to establish a new corporation in Costa Rica. With that I can open up a new business bank account and get a merchant service account that will allow customers to pay me with credit card. I lost my ability to accept credit cards when the problems befell me upon repatriation. I have been able to persuade customers to pay with bank transfers, but that is not the way people prefer to pay and it’s costing me business. I cannot afford to lose business.
• There are other small items that need taken care of as well. For instance, I have been taking pictures of properties for new listings with my Iphone. I need a proper camera to do it right.
• I’d like to pay back some dear friends who’ve helped me in this crisis.
• I need a reserve for the future until I can get my economic engine humming again. I don’t have a crystal ball to know exactly how long that might take. In the meantime, I must keep moving forward.

Other than my dear wife and my 4 incredible kids, the one person who has shown me unconditional love and support through the long and dark tunnel is my mother. She has grown very sick. She is in a tunnel of her own right now. I do not want to burden her anymore with my plight.

So, I am doing something that goes against my pride and normal inclination. I am asking you for help. In return I’d like to offer something. I don’t have much, but I can offer something to express my appreciation for your helping me with a little light…

For a $25 donation – my deep expression of appreciation will be given on my Revolutionary Misfit blog and Facebook Page.

For a $50 donation – Everything mentioned above plus I will send you copies of my books The Revolutionary Misfit Manifesto, The Impact Revolution, and The Definitive Guide to Costa Rica Expat Living.

For a $100 donation – Everything mentioned above plus I will give you 10% off any of my Costa Rica or Colombia vacation packages.

For a $500 donation – Everything mentioned above plus I will send you a Boruca ceremonial mask.

I forgot to mention above that I have long worked with the indigenous tribes of Costa Rica, helping them market their arts and crafts. That’s a business I’ve put on hold as I pursue the things mentioned above. However, I still have deep ties with the Boruca reserve, which is located about 2 hours from where I live. I will send you one of their hand-carved and painted ceremonial masks. They are simply amazing and sell in San Jose shops for $200 and up. I purchase these directly from a family within the reserve. The Borucas seek to perpetuate their ancient culture by encouraging tribe members to engage in creating and marketing their ceremonial masks and hand-made cloth goods.

For a $1,000+ donation – Everything mentioned above plus I will serve as your personal guide on any Costa Rica vacation you purchase.

My goal is to raise $12,500 with this campaign and I’ve set a deadline of end of November 2016 for doing so.

Approximately 1/2 of that will go to the immediate needs described above. The other 1/2 will serve as a “working capital” reserve to help get me to that exit and into the broad daylight of economic stability once again!

Thank You for making a profound impact on my life…

and as we say in Costa Rica,

Pura Vida!

Looking for Light Crowdsource Campaign