Need Advice Please On Fiancee Visa and And Marriage

[ultro]

I've got a small call center in Davao & from my experience the biggest three problems aren't what people would think. The three biggest problems are:
1. Finding reliable people who can speak good english
2. Quality phone lines.
3. Getting steady, long-term clients in the UK/US/etc

The other problems you can deal with in time & aren't a massive pain - or at least aren't for me. My advice would be - start really small & don't look at getting an office to start off with. This will keep your costs down. Try to find a biggish house and run things from there for now. Get at least two ISPs so one can't destroy your business.

Take a *lot* of time to find professional help. Find 4 or 5 lawyers, accountants etc. Ask them all the same questions. Compare their answers. Ask them questions again, giving them the answers from the other lawyers and accountants. At some stage you'll start to work out that some of them don't know what they are doing, and some of them are trying to con you.
You can own almost 100% of a call center here - as it's an import-only business.

Find people you can trust. Do not trust anyone closely related to your girl for now - this is good road to ruin. Give people a little bit of a chance to rip you off & see how they respond.

Assume key people who you do trust will betray you.

Don't let that bother you too much. It's just life here in a poor country.

jp

[walesrob]

I've got a small call center in Davao & from my experience the biggest three problems aren't what people would think. The three biggest problems are:
1. Finding reliable people who can speak good english
2. Quality phone lines.
3. Getting steady, long-term clients in the UK/US/etc

The other problems you can deal with in time & aren't a massive pain - or at least aren't for me. My advice would be - start really small & don't look at getting an office to start off with. This will keep your costs down. Try to find a biggish house and run things from there for now. Get at least two ISPs so one can't destroy your business.

Take a *lot* of time to find professional help. Find 4 or 5 lawyers, accountants etc. Ask them all the same questions. Compare their answers. Ask them questions again, giving them the answers from the other lawyers and accountants. At some stage you'll start to work out that some of them don't know what they are doing, and some of them are trying to con you.
You can own almost 100% of a call center here - as it's an import-only business.

Find people you can trust. Do not trust anyone closely related to your girl for now - this is good road to ruin. Give people a little bit of a chance to rip you off & see how they respond.

Assume key people who you do trust will betray you.

Don't let that bother you too much. It's just life here in a poor country.

jp

I think your barking at the wrong tree

[JimOttley]

I think your barking at the wrong tree

He sounded quite well grounded in my opinion

Ownership of a business is tricky without proof of substantial investment i.e. > £60,000 ish.

Foreigner can't "own" a business unless they are bringing in significant investment (special visa is allowed in this case) many use a set of named individuals in the Phils who assign the rights back to the westerner not sure how sensible this is but I know one big company that did this.

If you marry, a small business can be in the wife's name with I think 40% ownership by you? Not sure about that one but I think in that case you are allowed to personally work in the business as well.

Bit of a minefield all round and ultro seems to be talking sense


Jim