EOR’s, Albania & the Balkans w/ Skirty Sino

Episode 73
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Remote Work Opportunities in Albania

Ever imagined what it is like to transition from living in a communist country to a thriving, modern capital city? Join us as we journey with Skerdi Sino, an ardent advocate for Albania and the Balkan region, who paints a vivid picture of his homeland’s beauty and culture and his unique journey. Skerdi shares insights about the potential opportunities and challenges in the Balkan region, and extends an open invitation to our next conference in Albania – an experience you can’t afford to miss!

Moving on to more serious matters, have you ever wondered about the impact of the brain drain on underdeveloped regions, or how digital nomads and freelancers can tap into the Balkan region's affordability and skilled workforce? Together with co-hosts Nikola and Igor, we tackle these issues head-on. We delve into the disparities in resource and information access, potential pitfalls of rapid growth, and most importantly, how young professionals can re-invest in their local communities.

To round off, Skerdi introduces us to the concept of an Employer of Record (EOR), and the multitude of benefits it presents. He further explains how companies can tap into talent pools in Tirana, Albania, and beyond, with the help of an EOR. We also explore Albania's digital nomad visa, reflecting on the country's friendly remote work ecosystem. Skerdi offers a glimpse into his favorite regions outside of Tirana, emphasizing the potential these areas hold for investment. Join us on this engaging journey as we discuss how remote work is transforming underdeveloped regions into thriving talent hubs.

Topics of Discussion

• Remote Work's Impact on Underdeveloped Countries
• Future Challenges in the Balkan Region
• Using an Employer of Record Benefits
• Remote Work Opportunities in Albania

Skerdi ’s Resources

Website
LinkedIn
The Future is Remote events

About The Show

Thoughts of a Random (Citizen Remote Podcast) is a podcast oriented around open ideas, entrepreneurship, travel, investing, politics, philosophy, and an odd take on history. Together with Toarc United & Citizen Remote we talk with thought leaders from all around the world to stir the innovative mind. This podcast specifically talks about the importance of having an international perspective, the ins and outs of the business world, the entrepreneurial life, the digital nomad life, investing and ways to enjoy life in the new age.

Businesses worldwide have very quickly oriented themselves around freelancing, digital nomads, remote workers, and diluting borders. If you'd like to find out how you can benefit on an individual or entrepreneurial level from that change, this podcast is for you & Citizen Remote can help.

If you’re a startup, needing to find useful tools, wanting to build custom software or generally struggling with the next steps you should be taking to optimize your companies bottom line Toarc United can help.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome to another episode of Thoughts of a Random Citizen, the Citizen Remote Podcast. Today, my guest is Skirty Sino, a Brand Development Manager and Business Development Manager for Native Teams, which is an up and coming EOR platform that is the preferred partner of Citizen Remote. He's a very outspoken advocate for Albania and the Balkan region in general, a huge remote work advocate as well, specifically how it can benefit underdeveloped countries and communities around the world. Skirty, thanks so much for coming on and welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Thank you very much, Tim, for the invite and for having me, and that presentation was so good. So right now you have put me in a pressure. It's actually some very good stuff, no not at all.

Speaker 1: 1:01

It's the fifth cup of coffee I was able to read fast for the first time in forever. But no, skirty, I'm really excited to have you on man. I believe we reached out before the conference in Tirana back in October and we've kind of just been in connection ever since then. So I was really excited. I'm not only to walk through the maybe struggles that people deal with in the remote lifestyle, but then EOR, specifically because I feel like it's a term that nobody knows about, and then you're also from such a cool region and a country that maybe people don't even consider, and so I'm really excited to dive into all of that. Before we started recording, you actually said that it's a special holiday in Albania today, so everyone listening Skirty's going out of his way to join us on a nice day. What is that day about? Can you walk us through that? So?

Speaker 2: 1:45

today is the March 14th. It's the summer day in Albania. It's the day when we celebrate the beauty, the nature beauty, of our country. So actually, everyone is off in this day and we go and we travel along the country. Everyone chooses their own place. They don't see it that they like, and this is a day when you dedicate yourself to nature, to family and to actually enjoy yourselves and to enjoy your country. Thank you very much again for having me, tim, and returning back to the conference, when we met the Futurist Remote. I'm going to share something about our hosts also, because the people who are on the podcast been also about the hosts. So when we contacted together, I remember very positive that contact because you were very keen to actually, let's say, see what Albania was about and to visit the country, and you were very open and you shared your experience with everyone who was there. So I want to publicly thank you for being there and we invite you to the next one, which will be probably in November 2023.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Oh, 100%, I'm coming back. You also met Dominico, who was there, and I think we'll have him on in a few weeks, but he's actually doing something down in Valora. Yeah, digital Nomad Village in Valora yeah, exactly, and I'm so excited to come back over check that out. And just I didn't get it to go around enough in Albania, so I 100% am coming back. I've actually talked to Peter, the other founder of Citizen Remote, and he was like my goodness, that place looks beautiful. It's so amazing to me that it's such an overlooked country when it's just like you could throw a stone, I feel like and hit like the most beautiful region of southern Italy, and it's the same vibes just right across what we would call the pond but the sea, and so I imagine that it's a beautiful day to day to go out and experience all of the beauty that Albania truly has. I was actually just looking at pictures just on my own spare time right before we hopped on and I was like, my goodness, I gotta make it back over there.

Speaker 2: 3:42

Well, we have been blessed, say the truth. We have been blessed with a beautiful nature, the environment, so we have the sea, but we also have mountains. We have different cultures within the country because we have the Greek influence, we have the Italian influence, we have also, in the north, another culture inference. So you can see so much in Albania and what it differs from the countries, our neighboring countries and when I say neighboring I mean the western Balkan countries is that we have a combined culture from the influence that we have from the countries we actually migrated to. So we have Italian food. Remember, when we had that dinner, our CEO actually the CEO of Native Teams told me that that was the best Italian dinner he had ever had, and actually he was in Tirana, at an Italian restaurant, of course. So for everyone that wants to visit a country where they need to find everything and anything that they need, albania certainly might pop up the first on the list as far as Europe goes.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Oh man, the food was so good and, again, I lived in southern Italy for quite a few months with my partner at the Times family and was eating, you know, just like pure Italian food, and I went there and it was on par exactly. I was like this is Italy. So it's definitely a sneaky region for those wanting to travel and kind of experience what that's like, you know, outside of Italy, but with those same vibes, All right. So I know that life maybe wasn't always like that, especially in your early childhood, growing up, maybe it was a different experience. You know, while people can't see your face, I just saw your face right there and your eyes. So if you wanna just brief us maybe on the transition from what life was like in your early childhood to now, because when I visited Tehran it was like it blew me away. I mean, even compared to other European cities, it was just a very nice capital, and so maybe you just walk us through on what that transition was like for you.

Speaker 2: 5:36

You know, most of the people who live nearby know, like that, we were the longest standing communist country left and we were the last ones to actually take out communism in the year 90. But the first year so I was born in 96, the first years of our life were pretty difficult. From what our parents tell us because, you know, we were little, didn't understand much, but we had a civil war in the year 97 where people go around, you know, gangs killing each other and basically everyone had Kalashnikov in their homes. So growing up into the early 2000s it wasn't very easy. Things weren't very established, there wasn't a lot of infrastructure, safety and a lot of people actually migrated. So the young people, the young blood, the young generation actually migrated, went off to Italy, england, switzerland, greece. You know everyone moved out and who remained here were the children, who certainly couldn't actually get away, and some of the old people and just a low percentage of actually people who could, you know, take the country forwards. And we had a very bad political situation but continuing growing and with the help of people who actually were in the diaspora, with people who actually migrated, we started to slowly but surely grow in a nice way and came to this day when actually Tirana.

Speaker 2: 7:02

I've visited a lot of capital cities in Europe, but Tirana has nothing to end with them. Of course, a lot of things could be better, but in terms of envy, we have nothing to end with them. Where we need to actually develop and there's where remote work could give us everything that we need, in the cities surrounding Tirana, because the cities outside of Tirana are slowly dying. I'm talking about the cities who don't have like a coastline, because Duros, flora that you mentioned before, in Saranda, they have a coastline, leja, skodra also have a coastline, so they have economy because of the tourism, but the other cities are slowly dying because of the people who are actually leaving. Albania unfortunately holds a negative record in Europe right now for young generation migrating and we are losing percentage and percentage of population to other countries. And right now, before it wasn't a problem because we weren't actually shipping the brain, but right now it's a problem because we are shipping doctors, engineers, we are shipping the elite, the quality people, and right now it has become a problem.

Speaker 1: 8:09

And I know one thing that you said in regards to kind of that brain drain. I'm just kind of curious as to being a country that imports so much Because you said that Tirana imports a lot of their stuff and then having all of those skilled laborers leave the country. How do you envision one of the ways to solve not only the brain drain but development of those cities that aren't necessarily taking the necessary steps to grow?

Speaker 2: 8:40

So two words Remote work.

Speaker 1: 8:45

I set you up for that.

Speaker 2: 8:46

Yeah, yeah, thank you. But the remote work for us, as I told several times, is a fight for survival, a real fight for survival. The main reason Albanian youngsters are leaving the country is an economical one, because we are. We are having the maybe not the lowest right now because we changed minimal salary in Europe. I need to double check it because it just changed, like from the first of April it will be three hundred and eighty euros if we do the conversion, but it's still very low. So we do have very skilled people and we have people who when go out of the country, they move very fast along the steps of their career. So they are good people, good, hardworking and very skilled people because they show it on the positions they get on international companies. But we have a market inside Albania which the salaries are not competitive and, considering that we are a country that imports 99 percent of things, so things here are not cheap. Not cheap when we are talking about actually the cost of living, because when we are talking about maybe luxury is, like you know, going and eating up on restaurants and drinking and so on and so on, maybe we are, we are on the cheaper side in Europe. But when we are talking about the market prices or when you go and get pasta, I don't know, like rice, things that the family needs to survive. We are not on the low end, I can assure you. We are maybe in the high end because we import everything we don't actually produce here. So this has put us on a rough spot.

Speaker 2: 10:15

A lot of young people need to go out, and what we have seen me and another group of people and, of course, the experts who are helping us you came and helped us. We shared your experience and Trias came here. Dominic also came. You provided us, you know, with with your blueprint, with your path on how we can actually work remotely is that the young people in Albania do not see living as the best option, but they see remote work as the way that they can get a European salary by working in Albania. And if you get a European salary by working in Albania, you pay less taxes. You are very, very happy with what you get, especially for cities outside of Tirana, because they have biggest drainage. They are only left old people, people in pension, and the people in pension are kept by their children who are out of the country. They just send them money via Western Union, I don't know some cash or something, and they have no vitality. The land is not producing anything because the land needs actually young people to.

Speaker 2: 11:15

We are not a very high tech country, so we need strength to work the fields. We are not, on that, high tech solutions that you know. You have machinery to do everything and if we execute right what we should actually, which would be to give the young generations a blueprint to work remotely for international companies, we would have the advantage because you know, a software engineer into the US will cost you like 150 K. So a very good software engineer here would cost you 50 K. So there are a lot of differences and for the first time in the world with globalization, small countries like ours with a good tax system might have the upper hand. If we all push into this direction, if it's only me and a couple of other guys, probably nothing good is going to happen to everyone. We need to have like a full scale plan to tackle this, but I'm optimistic for the future. Team. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Absolutely. And just to clarify on something you said earlier. You said that while Tirana is expensive, it's very affordable for those living outside and coming in, as opposed to those you know making those minimum wages of Albania and then living and having to pay for those you know more expensive imports. Correct yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:30

So, as far as people saw the digital nomads, remote workers, foreigners who come to visit for tourism because to run, I was visited the last year, I think by 3.5 million, if I'm not mistaken, during some period, because I remember reading something. So, in terms of tourists visiting, the prices for them are like actually perfect All the time. They're like it is so cheap and for them it's like perfect. But also Cuba is cheap in terms of but if you ask the locals then you know I'm not making a comparison with Cuba. We are like another dimension. We have passed that time. But I'm just making like a small example that anyone could understand that actually for foreigners here it's cheap, it's beautiful, everything is going well. It is very safe, actually because we have a bad rep all over Europe, but I can guarantee you it's very safe. We don't have a case with tourists going bad in like years and years and years. So it's very safe.

Speaker 2: 13:25

The people are friendly. You know everyone speaks English, everyone speaks Italian and other languages, spanish. They can understand you pretty well. If you speak Spanish. Maybe they will not reply to you in the right way, but they will understand almost everything you say. So the cooking is you have Greek cooking. You have Italian food, you have Balkans food. You have a key, which is booze, that you only can get in the Balkans, that you have different kinds of raki, as I can, yeah, so from every fruit known to men. We can make that and we are very hospitable. And I'm not saying that because I'm Albanian, because I have a lot of critiques for the country. But one of the good things that I've seen is that we go the extra mile to actually please foreigners who could visit our tourists. We go the extra mile. We love to escort them to some place. They need to show them the way, to actually provide them with something. You know, those things that a good host does.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Yeah, absolutely. And that's one thing again that I'm just continuously blown away, not only by Albania but the Balkan region in general, is the hospitality. There you don't necessarily feel like a tourist, like you would in Spain or France or Italy, where maybe they're a bit more overrun with tourism so they're just tired of the tourists, but the Balkan region it just feels like people are so much more open to have a conversation with you. If you talk to someone it doesn't feel like you're annoying them. The level of spoken English is insane to me, how good it is and how easy it is to communicate. So, yeah, again really, and just blown away by the Balkan region.

Speaker 1: 15:00

And then the growth that I think will happen in the near future. I think it's a fantastic opportunity for those who are interested in you know if you're digital nomad or freelancer to go set up shop there because, as you said, you know You're gonna get this quality level of developers and this talent that would otherwise be leaving and going somewhere else, and you know you're gonna get them at a very affordable rate. You know that companies who are catching on to that, especially startups, are really able to utilize that advantage and then everyone benefits from it, and I guess that's something that I kind of wanted to ask you is, as you said that you are experiencing this brain drain, do you not see that people are potentially coming back after they go make European salaries for a while, do they eventually come back, or do you see that happening more in the future, of people coming back and investing in local Albanian? You know where they're from and where they grew up, so we have two generations of people who actually migrated.

Speaker 2: 15:53

So the first one was from the years 90 to the 2000. They didn't. They weren't like skilled workers. They just left the country to actually find a better living because times were very grim here. And we have the new generation which migrated. They are skilled professionals. They have done very well on like very big companies worldwide. They even work for Facebook, google you know the greatest companies Apple and so on and so on, and they are actually returning to open their businesses here because they know that the marginal functions.

Speaker 2: 16:24

We have a very disciplined workforce in the Balkans, in the regions because I also wanted to shout out the whole region because we as native teams, as a company is like, we have people from everywhere working with us and I have colleagues from Macedonia, from Bosnia, montenegro, serbia, slovenia. Sorry if I forget to mention it, I'm talking only about the Balkans. You know, and everyone is like, hardworking and we get along very well with each other, because you know that the Balkan countries have some problems with each other, but this is not the case with us, which is the young generation. We love working with each other, exploring each other's countries. We always get together, either in like Serbia, either in Macedonia, hopefully in Albania next year, and so on and so on, and we suffer the same problems. Actually, one time we were chatting with the guys we were at the company retreat and we was our co-founder, nikola, which is from Macedonia, our chief of revenue, which is Igor, and it was me, which I'm Albanian, and we were all three together and we were discussing about the country's problematics and we just discovered that they were the same. So we just kept out laughing because the three of us were drinking rakia and we had the same problems.

Speaker 2: 17:33

And why all of this?

Speaker 2: 17:35

So mostly is the politics which is causing tension between the people, because the people themselves love each other, we love the countries we want to explore, we are citizens of the world, we don't care about anything and we just want to be chill with it.

Speaker 2: 17:48

So I do see a very, very good future for Albania in terms of what we can achieve, but you need to know that isn't easy. It isn't easy because, from what I'm seeing, we are projected to be some sort of volcanic Dubai, because with what is going is being built up into Durus, lora, the cities which have a coastline, with the type of investors, with people who are actually coming to do some money laundering here. It's becoming, you know, some sort of when you have like this very posh lifestyle for some people and then this very grim one for the others. So if us, who are like the young generation, who has the access and the information and the right friends, colleagues or mentors, you know, just like we two knew each other If we do not act very fast then probably we might lose our identity soonish, yeah, and I think that's obviously a broader issue that hopefully is solved with maybe a little bit of a younger generation who has some ethics behind them and then potentially more readily information at your fingertips.

Speaker 1: 18:58

But you know, I think it's something that you all have to check yourselves and figure out how to, how to best approach that, but steering away from the politics side of things which we could go down. But that's probably safe for another episode.

Speaker 2: 19:11

Yeah, that's another check.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Yeah, so I guess for those who are interested in saying, wow, you know, this sounds like a place in which there is a very large and growing tech community. It's really beautiful in Tirana. But then they're like OK, well, I'm a US LLC, how do I even hire employees over there? That's kind of where these EORs come into place, and so maybe you can just take a few moments to kind of walk through what is most likely a very unfamiliar term for a lot of the listeners in an e o r is an employer of record, but maybe you can just walk through not only what new or is, but also what native teams does to allow those freelancers, those smaller startups, to get access to the talent pool that exists in places throughout the entire region, but tirona and albania specifically.

Speaker 2: 20:01

So in terms of, as you said it was. So it's an employer of records the real definition of the word and I'm going to make it very simple for everyone to actually understand it. We help you hire worldwide. What does it mean to hire worldwide? You know, to hire in some countries, you would probably need to have, like, a proper employment agreement. You will probably need to have an entity. To open an entity, you need to physically be there, open a bank account, have a residency and all of the bureaucratic processes that are needed in this day and age.

Speaker 2: 20:34

What we do provide you, so what native teams does to help companies grow at a faster pace and to help you really manage your budget by managing where are you hiring your employees?

Speaker 2: 20:44

Is that actually, we are having the entities in all of the countries where you want to hire and you are hiring this employee through us, and then we have this fantastic platform where you can do everything in terms of like payroll, hr management and everything else, where you can see your employees and make sure that they are feeling all right, and this would enable you as a CEO, let's say as a company, to have different strategies in mind when you are hiring, because, as I told you. Let's say that you are hunting for a business development manager, you have a budget of like 65k and you are like a US Silicon Valley based company. Okay, you have like 65 100k I don't know what's the salary range in the Silicon Valley, but it's pretty high. So what you can do is actually you can multiply what you are hiring by 10 or 12 and you can hire 12 people in the Balkans and I'm talking about experienced people who have actually done sales and development for like the last five to seven years and actually having their final companies like 14 500 companies, because we have people here who have done that and at the same time, you can save on the salaries.

Speaker 2: 21:56

Let me be a little selfish here, because I want every employer to take a look at the Balkans for employees, because I truly believe that the work ethic and the skill set and the hunger because an employee needs to be a little hungry to get things done is unmatched and so I guess another thing that kind of arises with that is you know, it sounds like you can utilize your services, but in practice what does that look like for a business owner or a freelancer wanting to utilize the services of a traditional EOR?

Speaker 1: 22:29

how much extra work is it? How much processes do they have to jump through? Or is it where those EORs do all of that for you? Like, can you kind of just elaborate on what that feels like from the eyes of it? I'm going to jump right in.

Speaker 2: 22:41

So the biggest step you have to take is always the first. So the first is to actually contact native teams. You know, contact me and I'm going to pay you the way for everyone. But once you actually confirm a couple of data for the employee that you want to actually hire, things go pretty easy because we will manage everything for you. That's why you pay the ur fee, because we are offering you the full service. We will draft your employee contracts, we will do the monthly payroll, we will provide you with the salary breakdowns, so you will just see what's happening. We will provide you with all the information. You don't have to do anything, of course, besides paying the invoice when we send it, because that's a very important part of the process. But everything is managed by native teams.

Speaker 2: 23:21

We are offering one of the best customer success solutions because our employees are distributed in all of the countries and we speak a lot of languages and we know a lot of in-country problematics, because, of course, I can speak english, but do I really know the problematics in the us? I can do some research, but I'm not living there, so maybe you want to speak with a us citizen who knows what's happening. So we do have this solution for everyone. So if you are calling and you are a concerned albanian citizen, I will reply to you right away. I'm going to tell you that I know that the legislation changed, but we can help you, like this and this and that, so this is an extra mile that we have actually walked, and the process is not only easy to manage for the employers or for the companies who want to opt on this, but it is also less headache, because if you are a software development company, why the hell would you worry about actual payroll placement, mobility, let's say compliance, and so on?

Speaker 2: 24:22

You want to do software development. You do what you're good at, let us handle everything and you focus your 100% on actually developing and selling software, and I guarantee you that your results will be very high. And you will not have to do layoffs if you are hiring with a good strategy, because right now we are in a time of layoff and the cfo should pay close attention to this, because if you are having to, let's say, save up 300k per year, but you need to save this by cutting people off, they might be a better solution. So you just don't cut people off, but you replace them in another location where you can actually afford that. So this is a good time for cfo to actually show how much they are worth their salt, because they can keep the numbers high by actually saving money at the same time yeah, absolutely, and I think something that's often overlooked is you can hire that talent and utilize an eor service such as yourselves to cut costs.

Speaker 1: 25:20

You're getting that same output, you're getting that same talent.

Speaker 1: 25:22

You're utilizing a service that requires no extra input on you.

Speaker 1: 25:26

You're essentially putting an extra person on your payroll through you guys and then you're cutting costs drastically, and so I think that it's something that is so overlooked, especially in the us, and I think it's something also that startups are really starting to realize that.

Speaker 1: 25:44

Do I want to build a team on a bootstrap budget in the us where they're very concerned about their work-life balance which is understandable everyone should be concerned about that, but they're concerned about that but then also making sure that that payment is of top tier, comparatively, within the us or the uk standards?

Speaker 1: 26:05

Or, if I'm on a bootstrap budget, do I want to get an employee who, as you mentioned, knows and understands the benefits of grinding and get that same level of quality while paying much, much less, just simply because of the cost of living in albania, comparatively? Yeah, so if somebody's listening to this, though, I think that a lot of questions might arise, where the term digital nomad visa is obviously huge these days and everyone knows or potentially knows or is learning and hearing about a digital nomad visa. So maybe you can help clarify and I'm obviously happy to help because this is kind of getting into my realm with the digital nomad visa but maybe you can help clarify who should use an EOR as opposed to a digital nomad visa and what would you consider the major differences in someone who's evaluating those two options?

Speaker 2: 27:00

So in terms of, let's say, using a digital nomad visa, first of all, digital nomads, or slow meds, are people who are not going to stay forever at one place, so they will actually move. So for them to, let's say, establish a tax residency into a country or then establish that into another, it might be a very difficult process. So some of them might see the possibility to actually keep the tax residency in one country only and move free, leave there like European Union citizens. They can move along the way. I'm pretty sure that for the US citizens is not so difficult to travel and so on.

Speaker 2: 27:37

As far as the EOR service for freelancers if we're speaking about freelancers, because we need to tackle also this as an opportunity, because what Native Teams has done and this is one of the biggest things that surprised me about the company and why I was very excited to join in was that Native Teams has provided all the freelancers with the possibility to actually get employed, to declare taxes, to do everything, to be straight and to get benefits that they might need, because employees have a lot of benefits, whereas free professionals in a lot of countries do not have so many benefits.

Speaker 2: 28:13

They cannot get a loan, they can barely get a credit card, mortgages very difficult, leasing is very difficult, because you are not considered safe if you are not working within the system. So what Native Teams has provided freelancers with is an opportunity to have an employment status and, through this employment status, to gain all the benefits that you have that a normal employee would have. But at the same time, you are a freelancer, you are a nomad, so you can do whatever you like with your time. You just enter the system to actually have these facilities. Let's call them facilities. So, in terms of digital nomads, I would opt for them to have a payment solution where they actually can send invoices too, so they can gather their earnings, they can declare their earnings at the country that they have the tax residency and they can choose the country, because there are a lot of countries, like, for example, albania, who can provide you with a very, let's say, good system. You pay less taxes here and then you can travel the world freely without having any problems.

Speaker 1: 29:14

And so to clarify, when you said that Native Teams can employ people like Freelancer, for example, you're saying that they can employ people through the EOR service, correct? Yes, so it's not that they're getting hired through Native Teams, it's that they're an existing Freelancer, but they get the benefits of the full time it takes.

Speaker 2: 29:31

Yeah, one thing I wanted to clarify in the Native Teams standpoint, you cannot find any jobs because we have a lot of people who are actually going, but we are partnered up with a lot of remote work, job hubs or, let's say, job sites and so on and so on. So we want to be partners with them. We don't want to actually get their work. We are not trying to actually go into that front. We want to develop a friendly remote work ecosystem at every country that we are present and that's why we are actually hosting this. The Future is Remote Events, which will be our brand into the future.

Speaker 2: 30:02

We just had the one in Serbia actually yesterday team. It went very, very well. We had a very great, let's say, pitching event when people were coming and pitching business ideas and we have some investors there and some CEOs and some CFOs who would actually vote on the biggest idea and then we would provide something to the winner. So we are doing this in every country that we are in and this is our contribution, actually, because we were not obligated to do this, but the good will of our founders to actually contribute to establish a good remote working environment in every country will turn us eventually into a great company who is actually helping not only the clients and the partners, but is also helping the whole ecosystem and so I guess, in terms of kind of that ecosystem within the Balkans, I know, recently kind of just pivoting slightly towards the digital nomad visa side of things, albania actually just released a digital nomad visa, not too long ago, yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:02

Yes, we did that. It allows you to stay in Albania for the first year. Wish you can make another request to say, or to follow up with the second one. In terms of Albania, it's not very difficult to stay in Albania. So once you are here, you can have a couple of conversations with Albania native. They will provide you with a solution for you to actually stay.

Speaker 2: 31:22

I just had a lovely conversation, yesterday actually, with a Chinese woman. She was interested in to see the UR services and so on because she wanted to eventually expand her visa here or actually get a citizenship later on as she go. And she told me because a friend of mine presented her and my friend told me that actually he told her if anything goes bad, we can marry. You know, let's marry each other and you can stay. So the people here will go the extra mile to help you but it's not difficult. It's not difficult to actually get a visa, to get a visa extension, to get a rent agreement, to get the bank account and so on and so on. You always find help just by working on the street. If you are uncertain about anything, just ask and you will receive.

Speaker 1: 32:07

And so I guess to clarify on those major differences of EOR service as opposed to a digital nomad visa, you know, digital nomad visas are going to be more geared towards somebody who already has their own income, who just wants to go kind of travel short term there are a few countries that have a path to citizenship but it's going to be more for those people wanting to move and test out a country or two in their travels and not move every three months. I mean allowed that, you know that option for longer than a tourist visa would allow, whereas an EOR, on the other hand, is hey, I want to actually like relocate long term through an existing employer of record, so I want to use kind of a pass through entity to filter and kind of avoid all of the regulatory hurdles that might otherwise bog you down in a relocation journey. Are we on the same page there?

Speaker 2: 32:58

Yeah, yeah, that would be like perfect, yeah, a perfect explanation.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Cool. So, yeah, this is great and I think that in EOR spaces it's huge. First off, there are so many companies out there who are realizing the potential of what these employer of records can do, and I think it's only going to grow as remote work develops. So I was really excited to kind of get you on for this specifically. I just wanted to wrap up typically with a few questions that I always ask all my guests, and the first one is if you could give any piece of advice based on all of your life experiences. So you turn around and give somebody one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be?

Speaker 2: 33:39

So thank you very much. This is a tough question because immediately a hundred things pop into your head. You only got one man. Yeah, I only got one. So what I would love to share with everyone is that there's always something to learn, even when you are having the most difficult times of your life. Sometimes the most difficult time of your life can actually bring the most beautiful time of your life, which has happened to me personally. So I live by it. And even when times are looking very grim, of course I suffer, like everyone suffers when things are not going good, but at the same times, I know that maybe this suffering will bring so much joy into the future.

Speaker 1: 34:16

Amazing Dude.

Speaker 1: 34:17

That actually almost gave me a bit of goosebumps, so I don't want to sound too cheesy, but I was like I resonate with that a lot 100 percent because I think that it's really easy to say, wow, this time in my life is rough and everything's terrible. But yeah, I completely agree that that's usually when there's most opportunity for growth within an individual. You can just push past it. So and then I'm going to ask one more question at the very end, but I guess I never asked with Albania as we kind of cap up this conversation with EORs in Albania specifically if you could go and see one region outside of Tirana that you could maybe invest in or just go live in or go travel like, what is your favorite area outside of capital city in Albania?

Speaker 2: 34:57

So it has to be the coastline, of course. So we are talking about the cities like Duras, I'm talking about Ljora. In terms of investment, those will be the go to cities, especially if Ljora right now. But you need to hurry you and everyone else who needs to invest, because probably if a couple of years go through, then the prices will go up. So the investment it will be good but it will not be like a bargain, as you can tell. Khorchai is also a nice city where you can live, but it's cold. So it's for those who actually love the winter and the snow and if you want to enjoy, you know, the Alps and so on and mountains. We have the north, so you can go to Tropoya. They have like a great river, valbona, and they have everything is great Geez, biyofood, you know, oh man. But the coastline will be the go to and where actually people are going, let's say people who are coming to invest in Albania, they're doing into those regions.

Speaker 1: 35:48

Yeah, we have a couple of events that we're aware of at Citizen Remote that are coming around in Ljora and we're pretty excited about it. But so you guys have huge coastline, which is just like, if you look at it, it's just pretty much. It's not as long as Italy, but you know it goes down a long way. But then you also have mountains and rivers, you said too, which is insane.

Speaker 2: 36:05

So, yeah, the diversity is one of the. That's why I said in the beginning, if you remember, I said we are blessed because we have the mountain, so we have, like, the winter tourism with snow and so on and so on. We have the sea. From the other side, we have the big city which is Teana. Duros will be slowly transitioning into that city, with the big night life and so on and so on. Laura will be spectacular. I have a strong hunch that Laura will be spectacular as we go on and props to Domenico for organizing that digital nomad village in Laura, with the help of everyone who is involved, of course, and I will be actually looking forward to be there and to meet you there, if we will some across the same time.

Speaker 1: 36:46

Yeah man, 100% and scaredy. One last thing I always wrap up with If people want to reach out to you, if they're interested in getting in contact with you, how do they do it Usually?

Speaker 2: 36:55

through LinkedIn. My name is scaredy Sino. I'm available for everyone, from business inquiries but also to like the kind human interaction to learn your stuff. You know that's always the best Amazing.

Speaker 1: 37:07

Scaredy. I thank you so much for coming on the podcast man and we'll chat soon.

Speaker 2: 37:11

Thank you very much, Tim. This was a great experience, a pleasure, and I wish you success on your future ventures. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 37:37

And that wraps up another episode of Thoughts of a Random Citizen. Thank you everyone so much for tuning back in. For those who are new listeners, welcome and I appreciate you joining. I hope you enjoyed the podcast and our guests today. If you are new and you're doing anything remote, be sure to check out Citizen Remote. It is fantastic. If you're already traveling the world, it's a great app to join a very quickly growing community. It's a great tool for those who are just about to begin traveling and figuring out how to navigate that, especially if you work remotely. It's a fantastic platform and we continue to build more and more tools for you guys, weekend and week out.

Speaker 1: 38:16

Otherwise, if you're an entrepreneur and you're looking for tools or assistance with the next steps of you, know what you need to do with your startup. Or if you're looking for software development network connections, reach out to us at Torque United. Otherwise, if you're just tuning in for the conversations, thank you. That's why I love doing what I'm doing Keep tuning in and actually keep a lookout for the not for profit that we're about to open up. You know its main focus is going to be on international collaboration and helping build a borderless world, because it's something that I'm very passionate about. That's why I'm not only doing Torque United, but Citizen Remote as well. Really exciting stuff on that horizon. Please keep up to date with all of that stuff the not for profit and entrepreneurial side of things at Torque United.

Speaker 1: 39:01

But again, if you're traveling the world, check out Citizen Remote. If you're wanting to travel the world, if you're a remote worker, check out Citizen Remote. Check out the app we've built for you guys. Check out the platform we've built. It's only growing every single week, so hopefully you guys will take part in that with us. Otherwise, I will speak with everyone in a fortnight. Until then, cheers.