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What's up everybody? Welcome back to the All Things Croatia podcast. I'm your host,
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Stanko Zovak, and I'm bringing you the best of Croatia from around the globe.
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This episode is brought to you by Adriatic Tours, the best place since 1974 to book
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information, go to www.adriatictours.com or click the link in the description. Now,
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eat a modalia and let's get started.
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Alright, welcome back to the podcast everyone. Today we have a very special guest,
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entrepreneur Jan De Jong. Born and raised in the Netherlands, Jan moved to Croatia
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in 2006 and started Mplus Group, which now employs over 8,000 people across the region.
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After exiting the company to work on other projects, he founded WebPower,
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Adria, the first company in the region specializing in email marketing automation.
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As one of the most well-known entrepreneurs in Croatia, Jan is also the marketing director of
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Digital Nomad Association Croatia and lobbied for the Digital Nomad Visa that Croatia has now
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implemented. In this episode, we're going to learn about his path to the so-called Croatian dream
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and his positive attitude towards changing Croatia for the better. Jan, thanks for coming on the
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podcast. Thank you so much for having me.
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Yeah, of course. Thank you for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy. You're definitely one
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of the most famous entrepreneurs, I think, in Croatia. But I think that most people don't
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sort of connect entrepreneurship and business, you know, when they think of Croatia. And it
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seems you're sort of changing the narrative a little bit on that. You know, so what's your story
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of coming to Croatia? You know, what were you doing before and what led up to your move?
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Yeah, well, like you already said in the intro, I was born and raised in the Netherlands and I
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was studying marketing over there at the University of Leiden. And in my final year of
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university, I had to write my final thesis. And at that time, I was already working for a company
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in the Netherlands, like a student job, but it was even though it was a student job, it was a full
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time job. And I was working there in a contact center, managing the day to day operations,
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approximately 150 people. And the owner of that company, he actually has Croatian roots. So his
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name is Mato. And he was like a little boy when he moved to the Netherlands, started the company in
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the Netherlands, and I was working for him over there. So one day I went to Mato and I asked him
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whether he would be interested if I would write my final thesis from Croatia, where then the subject
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of my final thesis would be to expand that company from the Netherlands, so M plus group, to Croatia.
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And because of Mato's roots, he very much liked that idea. And that's why in September of
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2006, I collected all my belongings and I put it in the car and I drove down to split Croatia.
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During the first year that I was in Croatia, I was of course then writing my final thesis and
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simultaneously starting the business. And after I graduated altogether, we employed about 35 people
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at that time. As a result of that, I also became a Mato's business partner. 50-50, we were going to
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continue the business, on the condition that I would continue further developing the company.
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And fast forward, nine years later, the company we founded in 2007 then, employed more than 400
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people. And that's when I was being able to make an exit from the business. And the new owners,
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they did a lot of M&A and they brought the company to the stock exchange in Zagreb.
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And today, in your intro, you said 8,000 people. By now, that's over 12,000 people that they
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employ across the region with all the acquisitions that they have done. So consolidated 12,000 people
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today. And so you moved over to write your thesis and learn about business in Croatia and how to
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implement the M plus group, which was the business in Croatia. When you were writing that, were you
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thinking like this is a viable option and I'm going to end up living here and opening this up? Or
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was it more this is finishing my thesis to get my degree sort of thing?
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Well, when I entered Croatia, very soon, I fell in love with this country, with the lifestyle,
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with everything that it has to offer. Then I also met my girlfriend back then, which is my wife
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nowadays. So there was of course more reasons than to it for me to stay longer in Croatia. But I
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also noticed that this country actually has a lot of business opportunities because a lot of the
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things that I kind of like took for granted as services or products that were being offered in
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the Netherlands, those kind of services I couldn't really find in Croatia. And one of those services
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was contact center business. So in the Netherlands, this was already highly saturated market, you
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know, everybody was outsourcing that while here in Croatia, nobody was outsourcing that basically
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my biggest competitors when I started that business in Croatia, were the in-house contact centers of
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those large businesses, right? I mean, they were all doing their own customer support. And it was
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my job basically in the beginning to convince them with numbers and with good arguments, why it
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would be better for them to outsource that. But that took some time, you know, the first four,
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five years were very challenging. And after that, more and more of those companies, they started
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outsourcing that to us. And that's why we became such a strong leader, because we were the first
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one to do it here locally. Yeah, I know you talk a lot about being a first mover. And I want to
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get into that a little bit later. Yeah, what were some of the difficulties, Jan, that you faced,
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you know, at first when you started doing business in Croatia? Well, I mean, we were we were completely
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self funded, you know, so we've always had struggles with cash flow. Also, because we were
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growing very fast, you know, and that all needs to be financed. And at that moment, also, because
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perhaps because I was a foreigner at that moment in Croatia, I didn't really easily get, let's say,
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the support from the from the local banks to finance our growth. So cash flow has always been
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challenging. Even though, you know, one of the things in Croatia is that, especially in the past,
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it would sometimes be difficult for companies to collect their invoices, their opening voices.
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But I've always been very fortunate to work with financially very strong companies like creation
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telecom or big energy companies. So that that problem I never really had that we had cash flow
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problems as a result of them simply paying very late. But that's that's that's a good thing.
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But that is something that happens often with, you know, smaller companies?
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Well, I mean, I have to say, it's definitely improving. 10, 15 years ago, when you whenever
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you would talk with with companies, very often they would bring up the idea of them having
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difficulties to collect their open payments. And not only that, but in the beginning, it was also
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not uncommon that companies would be late with paying the salaries. And I have to say that over
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the past, let's say 10 years, that part really improved. You rarely ever hear that that somebody
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didn't get the salary paid or that companies really went bust, let's say, because they were not
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able to collect payments. So it definitely has improved over the years.
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Well, you know, you know, eventually you left and plus group, you know, you sold out the company.
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Why was that? Was it to work on other projects? Did you have something in mind already that you
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wanted to work on?
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Well, I mean, I started my career, let's say in the call center business in the contact center
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business at a very young age. I mean, I was 17 years old when I when I became a call agent.
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Then by the time that I was like 19, I was already operationally managing a call center. Then when
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I was 22, I started one of my own. And when I was 31, that's when we had an opportunity to make an
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exit. And at that moment, I was 31 years old. So I was already in the business for 14 years in the
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call center business. On top of that, my family was living in Split. And for the business, I had to be
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pretty much full time in Zagreb, which is about 400 kilometers, 250 miles away from Split. And I was
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unfortunately not able to to spend more time with my family. I was only at home for the weekend. And
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that started bothering me really a lot after doing that for about two years. I felt that I could no
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longer be the father that I wanted to be or the husband that I wanted to be. And then at that moment,
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when you get an offer to sell your shares and the money is really good, then I honestly, I didn't
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have to think twice.
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And so how long were you there? You were already married with kids at that point then?
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Yeah, at that moment, I had two kids. And this was in 2015, when I got the offer. Okay. Now we have
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four kids. So we made two more babies in the meantime. Congratulations on that. That's awesome. Yeah. So
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it sounds like you met your wife right away or very soon. Yeah. Yeah, I moved to Croatia in September,
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and we started dating in December. So a couple of months after my arrival here in Croatia. Has she
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been your biggest Croatian language teacher? Oh, no, no, we speak English to each other. I did go to
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Croatian language school for the first two years. But I have to say, it's a really difficult language to
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learn, for me at least. I don't consider myself to be very talented with languages. But to me, you
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know, there's absolutely no similarities in with the languages that I already know, speaking of
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English, either German or Dutch. So yeah, I had to learn it like a baby, you know, like learning to
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count from one to 10 first, and then the ABC, and then of course, the vocabulary, but especially the
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grammar part is very, very difficult in Croatian language. Yeah, the grammar is almost impossible.
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And I know even a lot of people here, you know, depends who it is, but you know, some of them
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won't even use the grammar or everyone's depending on where you live. Yeah, it's challenging. Definitely
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is. But I mean, while you speak Dutch, German and English, those are all challenging languages, at
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least for me. And English, I know I've heard is, you know, challenging as well. There's a lot of
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tenses or different types of tenses. So for you to say Croatian is difficult, I trust you now. But I
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know firsthand, of course, it's very difficult. Jan, let's talk a little bit about web power,
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Adria. So you sold your shares of M plus group, you wanted to spend more time at home. When did
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sort of web power Adria take off? Well, already a few months after I made my exit from M plus group,
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I took a couple of months to really just get back to myself and spend some time with the family and
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also to make some new plans. And very soon after that, I knew that I wanted to start a new business
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again. And that new business became web power. Also, again, you know, I was thinking what are
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products or services that that companies or people need in this region that are already very well
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developed in, for example, a country like the Netherlands, but not so much developed in our
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region. And then I came to email marketing, you know, a lot of companies, they were in this region,
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at least they were simply using services like MailChimp, I don't know if you're familiar with
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MailChimp, but that's like the global market leader. But you have many other products like
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Mailer Lite and campaign monitor and, but none of the softwares that were being used in this
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region were actually from local players. And that's why we wanted to become the local alternative to
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such softwares here in Croatia and in the rest of the region. And yeah, that was, I think, again,
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a very good move. Today we are servicing more than 130 clients, a lot of them really big companies,
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again, like all the telcos, aviation companies, insurance companies, banks, credit card companies,
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and then also plenty of smaller accounts that you would never have heard of. But yeah, it's a
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beautiful little company. It's not as many employees as I'm used to with 400 people in the call
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center. But we are now with the 10 of us. And we are creating, hopefully, a very nice environment
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for all of us to work in. With this company, we actually, I don't know if you heard it or read
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it somewhere. But we were among the first companies actually in the region to introduce a four day
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work week, which is rather unique here in this region. Well, I would even say it's rather unique.
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I mean, I would say across the globe, I know there are. That's true. Yeah, I mean, they're doing some
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pilots right now in the United Kingdom with, I believe, it's like 78 larger companies from all
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different kind of industries. And the results from what I've read so far is are really amazing.
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I think that only 5% of companies that participated in this pilot have actually seen a decrease in
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productivity. And all the other companies, 95% of them, they either saw a similar productivity
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or an increased productivity by working one day less. And so what are the hours of
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those four days? Is it still eight hour shifts? Yeah, it's still eight hours. So we are working
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32 hours in a week. Wow. So you haven't added any hours, you just simply cut off one day.
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Yeah, exactly. And on top of that, for the same salary, so for a full time salary,
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so we didn't cut salaries either. Now, I know some people can be critical, especially when it
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comes to change, where you face with any criticism when you first implemented this.
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Well, not from my team. I mean, my team was super happy with this announcement when we
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decided to go for this. And also when speaking with them, they can hardly imagine going back
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to a five day work week. And that's also one of the things that I wanted to accomplish with this,
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of course. I mean, our people in the past, they would from time to time be headhunted by
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financially very strong companies, like by unicorns or pharmaceutical companies. And they
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always have way more money than I could possibly offer to people. But that's why I wanted to
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offer something to my team, something from which I believed that those companies would not be
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prepared to offer it. And that is more free time. And, you know, I'm being very vocal about the
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four day work week. We've actually also last week, we won the first prize of the HR Best
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Practice Award, Regional Best Practice Award at a very big HR conference here in the Rovin in
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Croatia. And so from the, let's say, HR community, we have definitely seen plenty of support for
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what we have been doing. And of course, you know, from time to time, when I speak with other
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entrepreneurs, you know, sometimes they try to come up with reasons why they believe this
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could not work in their company, or why they think that it would actually decrease their
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productivity. I'm not so sure, you know, I think that the only way to really find out this is by
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actually trying it. And if you see that from those 78 very diverse kind of companies in the United
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Kingdom, that only 5% of them see a decrease in productivity, then, you know, the odds are
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quite favorable that you would actually also see the same productivity or an increased productivity.
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Hmm. So you think this is something that's viable? And I mean, would you like to see it
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implemented in more companies across, I mean, not only Croatia, but, you know, obviously the
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region and, you know, eventually the globe at some point, but specifically Croatia, do you think
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it's something that, I mean, I know change can be slow at times over here, but do you think it's
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something that should go? I definitely think it's, it's part of the future of work, you know,
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back in 1926, it was actually Henry Ford that introduced the five day work week, you know,
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before that everybody was working six days a week. And when Henry Ford introduced the five day
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work week, he was able to recruit the very best talents in the market. And they saw an increase
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in productivity and they actually started outgrowing and outperforming all of their competitors.
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While all of the competitors, the other, let's say, industrial leaders, they were all questioning
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what Henry Ford was doing. And they all said, like, you know what, it's simply impossible
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for us to do the same amount of work in five days while we used to do it in six days. And,
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you know, over the past decades or century, maybe even since 1926, just look at all the
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progress we have made in terms of technology. I mean, that was the same year in which the
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television was invented. I mean, look at what's happened with, with all the technology that
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we are working with nowadays, you know, and as a result of all that, we have seen already a
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significant increase in productivity by, as a result of the technology. And on top of that,
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we have also seen an increase in productivity by working from home. Now, what we wanted to do
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in our company, even though we are a small company, but what we wanted to do is we wanted
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to return some of those productivity gains. We wanted to return that to our team.
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And so that's talking about also working from home, working remotely?
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Yeah, we cancelled the office last December. I was having an office for almost two years,
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completely empty. All my employees, they all had the key of the office and nobody wanted to go to
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the office. Everybody was just working from home. I mean, and we left it as a choice for them,
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you know, they can freely decide whether they wanted to work from home or whether they wanted
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to work from the office. But everybody chose to work from home. And after paying rent for two years,
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and not anybody going to the office, I had an opportunity to terminate the contract for the
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office lease. And that's when we decided to do it. And since January, therefore, we don't have an
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office anymore, we just have a contract with a co-working space, so that if anybody would ever
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want to work from an office environment, they can go to a co-working space.
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Hmm. So you have a good alternative for the people that do want to go into the office?
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Yeah, I think it's important that we do offer that possibility, but not by having our own
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expensive square meters, but by having an option in a co-working space.
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Oh yeah, you can definitely cut a lot of costs by not having to pay for an entire building.
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I am. We pretty much, with this deal that we made with the co-working space, we pretty much cut
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like 95% of our office expenses. Wow. Yeah. And then you can use that kind of money on team
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buildings and improved salary conditions. Yeah. Well, I mean, Jan, it sounds like your employees
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must love you then. I mean, they're getting to work from home, they're doing a four-day work week.
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Well, I have to say we have a very good reputation as an employer. Whenever we have an open position,
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it often takes only one LinkedIn post for us to get like 85 applications for one open position.
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So we are also in a very fortunate situation therefore that we can really choose
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who do we want to hire. Yeah. Well, that's a fortunate situation that, I mean, you put yourself
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in based on, you know, decisions that you made with the company. We create that environment where
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people would want to work for us. Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn and I've just been starting,
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now that I've been sort of back on the job search, I've been getting back into LinkedIn
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and I started following you when I heard about you, someone reached out, you know,
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said you have to get this guy in the podcast and you have some really cool LinkedIn posts.
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I mean, with sort of numbers, government policies, sort of observations on, you know,
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business and Croatia, you have a lot of interesting posts that make for good reasons.
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And sort of on that notion, because I saw one post that you made that I guess maybe is this
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where it started with the digital Nomad visas, you made a plea to the president.
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Yeah. Well, before that, I was already creating content on LinkedIn on a regular basis.
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Also, because I noticed that by actually being a very proactive content creator on LinkedIn,
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I mean, it was very useful for me to grow my business. We get a lot of leads and therefore
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a lot of clients as a result of that. But yeah, I've done several really cool campaigns actually
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on LinkedIn. So one of them that is the one that you just mentioned, where I wrote an open letter
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to the prime minister of Croatia, asking him if he could introduce a digital Nomad visa in Croatia.
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And I got so much support from the LinkedIn community. And after that, it was also being
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picked up by the mainstream media, television, newspapers, portals, that as a result of that
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44 days after my open letter on LinkedIn, I had an opportunity to meet with the prime minister
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at his office. And that's when he gave me full support to introduce this digital Nomad visa.
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And in January 1st, the year 2021, so that's almost two years ago now,
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Croatia became the second country in Europe, and the seventh country in the world to welcome
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remote work professionals by offering them a staying permit, a digital Nomad staying permit.
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Yeah, that was a very successful campaign and something that is pretty much
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unheard of in Croatia, a country that is known for its bureaucracy, where in a matter of five,
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six months, we have been able to change actually two laws and two regulations to make this happen.
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Yeah, that's crazy. Why did you start originally advocating for that?
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Well, because I think it's part of the solution on some of the problems that Croatia is facing.
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Over the past 10, 15 years, Croatia went from a population of 4.5 million people to like 3.9
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million people. So we have lost almost 600,000 Croats that have left this country. And of course,
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not talking about old and retired people, but I'm talking mostly about young and talented people
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that have left Croatia in order to find opportunities abroad. Think about countries like Germany,
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Ireland, even the Netherlands, the US, everywhere. And I thought, you know, that by
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welcoming digital Nomads, we can actually accomplish several things. First of all, we can prolong our
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season because the tourist season here in Croatia is very short. It's only like four months.
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And digital Nomads, they would not come for just a couple of weeks, but they would come for several
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months all the way up to one year. So by welcoming them, they would also basically be in Croatia
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during the off season. And they would spend a lot of money here because, you know, they, one of them,
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one digital Nomad, if you want to come here on a digital Nomad permit, you need to make
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approximately two times the average Croatian salary. So they are, let's say, especially for
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Croatia, they are considered to be big spenders. And last but not least, by seeing a lot of,
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this time actually, by welcoming digital Nomads, we can reverse the brain drain. So instead of
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people leaving this country, smart and talented people, this time we would be welcoming them.
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And I hope that digital Nomads can also have a positive impact on the youngest generation here
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in Croatia and perhaps open their eyes that they don't have to leave Croatia in order to find
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opportunities, but they can actually bring those opportunities to Croatia by being a remote work
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professional. And hopefully over time, more and more people would actually decide to enjoy the
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great lifestyle that we have here in Croatia, but with a very good and well paid job, for example,
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from a German employer or an Irish employer or a Dutch employer or a UK employer, whatever.
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So yeah, that was that was my main motivation.
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And is it too early at this point to see how that has worked out and how it's going?
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No, we have we have some very promising statistics. I can share a few with you. So up until now,
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we have seen more than 1000 applications for the digital Nomad permit. Now we need to emphasize that
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only third country nationals need to apply for the permit, right? So if you are having a passport
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from within the European Union, you don't need to have a staying permit to come to Croatia. So
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you can just then come here and register yourself. So the more than 1000 applications are all from
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citizens from outside of the EU. And on top of that, they would only apply for the permit if they
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would want to stay more than three months, because if you would want to stay less than three months,
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you could basically just be here on a tourist visa. So that's that's a big number already. And
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and I think that we have almost doubled the number, the double the amount of applications
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compared to, for example, Estonia, which was the first country to introduce the digital Nomad visa.
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So I think that that by itself are very promising statistics and something that we can be very proud
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of. On top of that, I don't know if you are familiar with the website nomadlist.com.
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I'm not. Okay, nomadlist.com is one of the largest, let's say, community websites where digital
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nomads go for information. And they can have also like a subscription with that website.
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And wherever they go, they can then check in where in the location where they are. And they share
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basically also with Nomad list, to which countries they travel, and they are also giving feedback
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about those locations. So a couple of very interesting things. First of all, according to nomad list,
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between, well, Croatia actually welcomes on average between three and 5000 digital nomads per
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month. On top of that, a digital nomad on average, they stay about 69 days in one location. So we
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can say that in Croatia, probably at any given time, there's approximately 6 to 10,000 digital
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nomads in the country. And also, according to surveys that Nomad list has done, Croatia is
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performing really very good. We are the most loved country among digital nomads right now in the
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world, followed by Japan. And I think that one of the main reasons why we have also accomplished
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this is by being a very welcoming country for digital nomads. I mean, first of all,
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people here are super warm, super welcoming. We know how to deal with hospitality, you know,
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that there's, this is one of our biggest industries. This is the biggest industry in Croatia, with
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more than 20% of the GDP coming from tourism. So we know how to welcome people. But we as a,
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we've also founded a digital nomad association. We are also making very strong efforts to really
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create this community here in Croatia. We are organizing all kinds of conferences or we're
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sponsoring them. We have introduced a digital nomad hotline so that if you have any questions,
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you can always call a phone number here in Croatia. And then you have very pleasant people that will
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answer any of the questions that you might have as a digital nomad in Croatia. So yeah, we have,
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we have done a lot in that regard. Well, yeah, it sounds like there's, I mean, only benefits
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to being a digital nomad in Croatia, because I know most of the things that, you know, people
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complain about when you, you know, complain about Croatia are sort of that bureaucracy and
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you mentioned something else, I forgot what I was going to say. But it sounds like as a, oh,
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and, you know, jobs and salaries, things like that, of course. But as a digital nomad, those are
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sort of some of the things that you don't deal with. And instead you're living in Croatia and
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enjoying all the benefits. Yeah, you know, I mean, Croatia is of course also known, for example,
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for its corruption and, and, and, and, and the bureaucracy and all these kind of things. But
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I mean, digital nomads, they don't deal with these kind of things. They just deal with,
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with the beauty that this country has to offer, which is amazing weather, great internet connection,
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amazing food, the most beautiful wines. The country is so diverse, you know, you can be on one
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hand, you can be climbing mountains. And then you also have beautiful coastline with more than a
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thousand islands. So it's also because it has so many different things to offer, it offers something
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for everybody. And that's, that's what, that's why Croatia is probably one of the most popular
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destinations for digital nomads. Yeah. And as a digital nomad, you know, you can travel to all
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those different places. And, you know, Croatia is great for traveling. There's so many. Yes.
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And very well connected also with the rest of Europe, you know, if, if from here you want to
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make a stop in Italy or in Austria or, you know, it's all close by.
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Jan, I want to go back to something we sort of talked about in the beginning, which was being a
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first mover. Yeah. As we sort of get into a little bit, you know, I want to ask you some business
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advice and your business experience here in Croatia. You talk a lot about being a first
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mover into Croatia. What exactly does that mean? Well, being, being first with something is, is,
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is probably not always the easiest thing to do. But I think that when it turns out well, that it's
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one of the most rewarding ways of starting a business. And I mean, I've seen proof of that
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myself when I started this contact center, where in the beginning, like I said, it was very difficult
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to, to get that started and to actually create a need among your potential clients for them to
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start outsourcing those business processes to you. But then once they start doing it, then
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that you have such a tremendous headstart over your competition that you can really become a
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strong market leader. And the same goes with what I, what I did after that with wet power.
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We are still until today, the only company in this region specialized in email marketing and
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marketing automation. So if you don't want to use services like MailChimp, or, or a campaign monitor,
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if you would like to have a dedicated account manager, if you, if you have any questions,
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then we are the only option at this very moment. And we have such a tremendous experience and
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great email marketing experts on our payroll that can help. And we have such a wonderful
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reference list that it's going to be probably pretty difficult for somebody to, to start making
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that difficult for us, let's say, in this market. So we again have a very strong market position.
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And then with this digital nomad visa, we were also among the first countries in the world
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to welcome those digital nomads. We were the second one in Europe after Estonia.
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And, and, and as a result of that, we enjoyed so much free publicity still until today, you know,
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I'm still doing interviews for Japanese newspaper and whatnot to promote Croatia internationally
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because we were among the first countries to do this. If you are the 50th country to introduce a
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digital nomad permit, then nobody will write about it. You will not enjoy any free publicity.
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And then, you know, there's this other thing that I also plan on starting and that is that
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I plan to build large greenhouse operations for for growing vegetables, but indoor. So in a
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secured controlled environment, which is something that the Netherlands is very much known for.
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But here in Croatia, this is again, you know, something that is almost not developed or at least
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very little developed compared to, for example, countries like the Netherlands. And, and I would
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never start a greenhouse in the Netherlands. I mean, most greenhouses in the Netherlands, they,
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they're facing very challenging circumstances right now, also as a result of the increased energy
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cost. But in Croatia, if you would open up a beautiful greenhouse, you would be among the few
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to do something like that. And again, I think it's a great opportunity to, to be again, first
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with something and to take a strong market position over the years.
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And do you think that there's a lot of opportunities in different industries to do this in Croatia?
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Absolutely, because especially if you, if you would come and live here, and if you would start
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listening very carefully to, to people that have been living here for a long time that have grown
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up here. And if you listen to their, to the things that they complain about, or the problems that
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they're facing at the end of the day, you know, entrepreneurship is about solving problems,
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solving other people's problems. And if you solve a lot of problems or very big problems,
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then you can have, you can build a very profitable business around that. Now, people in Croatia,
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they are not shy on complaining. They will, you know, I mean, at the end, they're human in the
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Netherlands. We also complain about pretty much everything. But if you listen very carefully
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about what people complain about here, then I think that you're listening to potential business
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opportunities. Yeah, that's an interesting way of looking at it. And a true way, I would think.
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Well, I mean, they tell me all the time that Croatia, that we produce the best fruit in the
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world. We have amazing food, you know, everybody's talking about how great their potatoes are,
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their tomatoes are. And at the same time, almost in the same sentence, they say like, well, you
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know what, we should be feeding Europe. We have such great soil here, great climate conditions.
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Why are we not exporting more of our food? And I'm questioning them. Yeah, exactly. Why are you
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not? You know, what is stopping somebody from doing that? Why is that not happening? And I was
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listening to this for years and years. And then you come to realize that a country like the Netherlands,
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which does not have the climate, which, you know, it's a very densely populated country. We don't
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have a lot of arable land in the Netherlands, at least less than Croatia. But the Netherlands,
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somehow, because of technology, managed to become the second largest exporter of food in the world,
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after the United States. So I was wondering, you know, why if the United States can be first,
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if the Netherlands can be second, then why wouldn't Croatia be able to get to the third place,
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as a matter of saying? The only thing that we would need is people to
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start rolling up their sleeves and to start building this infrastructure, because also
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geographically, we are very well positioned to start feeding this part of Europe. Why not?
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And so that's the problem that you're trying to solve with your next project that you mentioned,
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with the greenhouses? Yeah, exactly. I mean, in the past, when Croatia was still a part of
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Yugoslavia, the area northeast of Croatia, so Slavonia, was able to produce enough food
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for entire Yugoslavia, which was a country, correct me if I'm wrong, Stonk, you might know as well.
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Yugoslavia had what, 25 million people? Actually, I'm not sure, but I would believe that.
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I think it was like 25 million people in Yugoslavia. Today, Croatia, a nation with almost 4 million
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people, became an important nation. We do not produce enough food to feed our own people.
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That's a problem, if you ask me. First of all, to be dependent on other
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countries for your own food is not a good thing. And secondly, how can you become
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from a country that was able to feed 25 million people to a country that cannot feed only 4 million
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people? Why do you think that happened? Well, very simple, because the focus in this country is only
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tourism. And I have nothing against having a strong tourism sector in Croatia, but it doesn't
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mean that you can just neglect all the other industries. I think that having a strong tourism
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industry should be the foundation upon which we can build many other industries,
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like the IT sector, like the agriculture sector, automotive sector with Remats, Bugatti, Remats.
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Well, I know the IT sector is growing. I've heard Izakar, I've heard Osiak, I think Split,
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maybe Drijecha too, are all IT hubs starting to become IT hubs. Yeah, that's a good thing.
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But we are far from done. This can be much bigger.
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So, on that in a more general note, Jan, I guess in your experience, what are some of the advantages
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and disadvantages to doing business in Croatia that you've seen so far?
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Well, I think this very much depends on what kind of industry you're trying to tap into.
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For example, if you would now want to start something in agriculture, I'm talking about the
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high-tech agriculture, the way we're doing it in the Netherlands, it's pretty much impossible to
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hire people with experience, because there aren't people with experience here.
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So, there's a great opportunity in starting it, because it pretty much doesn't exist.
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And there's a market for it. But then again, you do have to invest in education of your
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local teams here in Croatia. So, on one hand, there's an opportunity, at the same time,
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there are certain obstacles. Then in other businesses, you might have enough experienced
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people, but maybe you don't have a market. So, there's always, let me put it differently.
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People always, I mean, they very often tell me that it's very difficult to start a business in
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Croatia. But I think it's very difficult to start a business wherever you do it.
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I mean, it's difficult in the United States too. It's difficult in the Netherlands too.
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It's always hard to start your business, but it's always hard for different reasons.
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Where in America or in the Netherlands, these are, for example, very competitive markets.
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Whatever you do, there's always somebody that is already doing it, and that is doing it at a much
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larger scale, and is having very deep pockets to make your life miserable as a competitor.
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And in Croatia, you might not have this competition in certain areas, but then you're dealing with
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very slow bureaucracy here. But then again, if the biggest problem that I could have as an
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entrepreneur is that I would have to go to the public notary office to sign papers once in a while,
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I mean, if you ask me, that's the easy part. For me, that's not a reason to complain. I mean,
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I have a very good lawyer and I have a very good accounting office and financial advisors,
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tax advisors, they are helping me with all these kinds of things. Whenever I have
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an idea, I tell it to them and I tell them, okay, let's start a business for it.
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And they will just let me know when I need to come to the public notary office to put my
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signature on paper. That has never been an obstacle to me, at least. What I think is the most
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difficult in starting any kind of business is to come up with a great product or a great service
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and then to map that and match that with your target audience and then to have a great financial
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proposition and then to have a great way of actually doing your business development in a way
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that is more unique than your competition. And then after that, also to just continue delivering
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great support and customer service, these are the most difficult things of doing a business,
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not going to the public notary office. Yeah, I guess it all depends on your perspective. If you
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put it like that, it makes sense. Right? It sounds like you would say then the biggest advantage is
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that in a lot of these industries and a lot of these sort of, you know, more high-tech areas,
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the market here in Croatia may not be as saturated or probably isn't as saturated as, you know,
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some other places where if you were to start that business, that would probably be your biggest
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disadvantage. Well, I mean, if you would want to go into the business of renting out apartments to
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tourists, that's a very saturated market here in Croatia. Because everybody's doing that.
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But if you want to start a greenhouse, then for growing vegetables, then pretty much nobody's
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doing that. So I think that you just have to really carefully select what are the business
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opportunities here. And at the same time, I do think that you need to realize that the market
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here in Croatia is very small, of course. I mean, it's only 4 million people. I think, I mean,
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just a city like New York has a bigger population than entire country Croatia. So I think if you
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come to the point where you are very successful with your business, then it's only a matter of time
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until Croatia becomes too small for you. And then you have to start going abroad with your product
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or service. Well, Jan, we're sort of coming down to the end of the time here. I want to put you on
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the spot in a sense and ask you one last sort of thing. I'm going to put you in this position.
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If you had executive order power in Croatia, say even above Prime Minister, President, whatever,
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you could change one thing. What's that first thing you would change? Sort of policy,
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governmental wise. I think it's difficult to pick only one.
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I'm going to just summarize it. I think that the best thing that the government can do
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is to really motivate and stimulate entrepreneurship. And that's very broad. I know that. There's not
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just one thing on how you can do that towards entrepreneurship. But I think that if you look at
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countries that are economically very strong, that's always as a result of great
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entrepreneurship happening in those countries. And for me, I think that the only way forward
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in a prosperous way for Croatia is through entrepreneurship. So if the government can do
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something to motivate more people to start their business and to be successful in their business,
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I think that would be probably the fastest path to more, let's say,
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prosperous times for this country. Well, yeah, with this census you mentioned earlier,
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it's been what, like 10% of the population that Croatia has lost. And I'm sure a large majority
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of that reason is economic and job related. I would say it's mostly economic.
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Yeah. I mean, so yeah, entrepreneurship would bring people back to Croatia and bring jobs back
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to Croatia at the same time. I mean, if you look at a company like Rimac, Bugatti Rimac,
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who is producing the fastest electric vehicle in the world right now, but they're also delivering
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a lot of technology to many other car companies, right? This company, if I'm not mistaken,
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because they keep growing every day, I think that by now they employ more than 2000 people.
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So these are 2000 highly paid positions. And this company is even attracting many foreigners
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to come and work at Rimac in Croatia. Now, imagine what kind of an impact we would be able to create
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would we have another five or 10 of those kind of companies in this country?
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How would the influx from smart and talented people in this country that will have great
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salaries and that at one point they might also fall in love with this country and they would
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decide to start their own business, but not in Silicon Valley, but in Croatia. And then you
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will see the results of entrepreneurship and you will see that more and more people would want to
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be here because there is something happening here and life is good because life is not very
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expensive here compared to maybe like Silicon Valley or other more expensive countries.
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So yeah, I think that Croatia is a lifestyle destination. We offer a great lifestyle here,
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but it would be much better if more people can have economic stability and economic
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that they simply have more money in their pocket here.
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Very well said, Jan. I appreciate you taking the time here to come on the podcast. I know
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you're a busy guy. You've got a lot of projects. I appreciate you taking the time to come talk about
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them, talk about your companies and Croatia in general and the future of Croatia. That means a
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lot. And I mean, to me, I'm excited. I think there's a bright future ahead with people like you who
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people like Matej Rimac who are looking ahead, looking to the future and looking to innovate.
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I think there's a lot of good things to come here.
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I'm very positive too. Thank you so much for having me, Stan Ko. That's it for today's episode of
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the All Things Croatia podcast. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you all enjoyed it. You can subscribe
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to the Patreon and check out the All Things Croatia Instagram page to stay updated. Feel free to
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reach out to me with any questions, tips or ideas and make sure to tune back into the next episode.
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Thanks again and vide mosten.