Check out our guest post on Briefcase to Backpack today: “Beware Responsible People – Embrace the Crazy”
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2 cities enter. One city leaves.
Will it be Santiago, Chile – the home of enormous mayo covered hot dogs and some of the most impressive mountain views anywhere in the world?
Will it be Buenos Aires, Argentina -where you can (and more or less have to) eat steak 5+ times a week?
We spent 6 months researching–4.5 months in Buenos Aires and 1.5 months in Santiago–in an attempt to answer this frequently asked and extremely difficult question: If you’re headed to the Southern Cone, which of these 2 great cities should you prioritize?
Last week we covered the food category and while Santiago had a strong showing and was far and away the winner on diversity of food options, we declared Buenos Aires the winner for the Food category overall – they may have limited menu options, but damn do they do them well. Check out the full review of Buenos Aires vs. Santiago food.
We’re ready to move on. Today’s category is…
This category is almost as important as food and despite bottles and bottles of intensive research, it is very difficult to declare a winner. Let’s start with wine.
This is not really a Santiago vs. Buenos Aires thing, but rather a Chile vs. Argentina thing. Both Argentina and Chile are deservedly proud of their wine traditions and more and more, they are gaining attention internationally for the quality of the wines they produce. Both are pretty damn good and we had a rather fantastic (though for some reason, difficult to remember) time researching this category 🙂 By the way, if you are in Buenos Aires and like wine, you should do a wine tasting with Anuva – check out our original review on them for details: Review of Anuva Wine tasting in Buenos Aires: Do it, you’ll thank us
We like research
In both countries, most wine is grown right along the Andes with the largest regions being almost directly across the mountains from one another (Mendoza, Argentina and the many regions surrounding Santiago). After visiting wineries in both of these regions and doing some additional research (Jen had to write a report for Spanish class on something…), we learned that while the regions are quite close geographically, being east vs. west of the mountains actually leads to some pretty significant differences in grape growing conditions – one of the largest differences being that on the Argentina side, the climate is quite a bit drier. This and other differences lead to different types of grapes being better suited to one side vs. the other. It’s why Argentina dominates global Malbec productions and is one of the only regions in the world to produces Torrontes and why Chile tends to export a broader array of both red and white varietals including the Carmenere which is largely exclusive to Chile. Before we get into our sub-sub-category ratings, let’s start with some context on both regions.
Context
Argentine Wine Industry:
Argentina is currently the world’s 5th largest wine producer. The vast majority of the wine produced in Argentina stays in Argentina – currently only somewhere between 20% and 30% is exported. Up until the 1970s, Argentina produced more wine than pretty much any other country in the world. They were apparently producing 22 tons per acre whereas most quality wine regions in France and California at the time were only producing ~2-5 tons per acre. How did they do it? Three words:
1) Super
2) low
3) quality
Everyone used to have a big jug that they would go fill up every couple of days in the middle of town at a big wine keg type thing. It was called “vino de mesa,” or “table wine.” Back then, Argentines were drinking more wine per capita than any other country in the world (seriously, they were drinking something like 24 gallons/year/person on average vs. less than 1 gallon/person in countries like the US and UK), but virtually none of it was exported because, you know, it sucked.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that international wine experts started taking a closer look at Argentina. After seeing the soil conditions, the lack of humidity, the lack of pests and the altitude, there began to be a lot of talk about the incredible potential Argentina had to produce top quality premium wines. Slowly over the last couple of decades more and more of the industry has changed their practices away from mass produced low quality table wine to export-ready premium wine. This has been largely driven by foreign investment. When we were in Mendoza, we were told that back in 2002-2003 after the most recent Argentine economic collapse, there was an average of something like 3 new wineries opening every day as foreigners took advantage of low prices and saw an opportunity to make great wine. This process still has a long way to go as they still only export a small fraction of the wine produced, but I think we can expect to see more and more Argentine wines in the international market in the years to come. It is also worth noting, that the days of jug-wine are for the most part gone in Argentina and now even most of the wine produced for domestic consumption is quite high quality.
That said, we did experience some pretty bad jug wine up in Salta
Chilean Wine Industry:
Chile produces only a little more than half of the total wine that Argentina does and drinks only a small fraction of the wine that they produce; they export the rest. In fact, they export 70+% of the wine that they produce which, despite the relatively small size and population of the country, makes them the 5th largest wine exporting country in the world (under France, Italy and Australia – Argentina is #8 at about 63% of the export volume of Chile). It wasn’t always this way. Similar to Argentina, the wine industry in Chile largely produced low quality wines for domestic consumption up until the 1980s. Once they solved some political and economic issues, they recognized that they had the potential to turn wine into a big business, and they did. Starting back in the 80s, they began using modern wine techniques from around the world and geared up their wineries to start producing great quality wines designed primarily for export. They rapidly climbed the export rankings and continue to be one of the biggest exporters in the world.
You may have seen our earlier post on our visit to the Concha y Toro winery in Santiago – it’s the largest winery in Latin America and the 8th largest in the world.
You may recognize these labels... they are sold all over the world
Why am I telling you all of this?
I’m not sure really. The important thing to remember is this… Chile is big in the business of exporting wine and Argentina is big on the tradition of making and drinking wine. They both make great wine, but this context leads to some different outcomes.
Enough information, onto our totally subjective opinions…
Argentina: Our experience was that Argentina focuses far more on red wine, and while we did find one Chardonnay that we liked, the vast majority of the whites that we tried there we thought were terrible. Obviously this is subjective, but I’ve yet to hear anyone rave about a white Argentine wine nor have I ever seen one for sale in the US – if you have a different opinion, please let us know. There is an exception to this… Northwestern Argentina is quite proud of their own unique white varietal known as Torrontes. Many people talk it up as being a fantastic alternative to the more traditional varietals and the Argentines from the region (Salta) beam with pride whenever it is discussed. We wanted to like Torrontes. We really did. Sadly, we could not. After tasting several versions of it at a few of the wineries in Cafayate, the best way we can describe it is that it smells like very sweet dessert wine, yet somehow tastes like water. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s not good.
Chile: Chile has fantastic white wines. Virtually every white that we tried there we thought was excellent and if you are ever staring at the 100s of bottles of wine in a liquor store wondering what Chardonnay to buy, your odds of picking a good one are pretty good if you grab pretty much anything from Chile.
This is too close to call. They both have fantastic red wines. Some of the Malbecs from Argentina are absolutely amazing (others taste like kool-aid) and Chile has some fantastic big Cabs, Syrahs and others. We are going to take a pass on this one. Suffice to say, you can acquire fantastic red wine in either country.
This is just a random yet classy picture of wine glasses that I thought fit well here
The difference is in how much you have to pay for it, which leads us to the next category…
Value for the money is a pretty important dimension in determining what wine you’ll actually be able to try wherever you go and a big part of the reason why I provided so much context on the histories of the wine industries in each country up front.
Chile: Prices in general are a bit higher in Chile than Argentina for pretty much everything at the moment (though, with ~30% inflation per year, Argentina is rapidly catching up – until the next economic crisis). The difference in wine prices is remarkable. The reason for this is that Chilean wine is for the most part produced for export and priced at export pricing levels – we often saw the same bottles of Chilean wine that we’d bought here in the US for sale in Chile at the same or higher prices. It’s not that it’s super expensive, it’s just that it’s internationally priced. Argentina is different.
Argentina: Argentina exports only a small fraction of their wine and that wine is often labels that aren’t even sold domestically, so when you go to buy wine in Argentina, you are confronted with prices that were designed entirely for the local, relatively low-income, wine-loving market. The vast majority of the wines in any store are priced at AR$15-30 which is US$3-7. The staple wine that we drank all the time in Buenos Aires literally cost ~US$4/bottle. That wine was awesome, and a bottle of that quality would easily cost $15-20 in the US (or Chile for that matter). The value got even better if you were willing to spend a little bit more… we took back with us a few extremely expensive (on Argentine standards) bottles of wine that are easily some of the best wine we’ve ever had (and when we were consultants, people used to give us some pretty fancy wine from time to time!) – these super expensive bottles cost ~US$20, I’d put them in the ~US$100 range for something of similar quality here in the US. Another great thing is that it’s easy to experiment with different high-end bottles in restaurants as the mark-up tended to be only 10-20% over store prices vs. the 2-3x mark-up that is common in the US (Chile also had a high restaurant mark-up).
So good AND so cheap! Just look how happy we are.
On value for $, Argentina is impossible to beat.
There is no question that Chile has great wines, but because they export so much of their wine, the wines that you’ll see in Santiago are pretty much the exact same wines that you’ll see in the Chilean section of a wine store in the US. I’m sure that there are wines that you have to be in the country to experience, but in general, you can sample most of the Chilean wines from pretty much anywhere in the world.
On the flip-side, the vast majority of Argentine wines are currently impossible to purchase outside of the country. You can be certain that a trip to Buenos Aires will expose you to an awesome variety of wines that you’ve never seen before.
Chile: Chile’s national drink (other than Nescafe) is the Pisco Sour. It’s made from Pisco which is a grape based liquor and varying forms of sour mix. Often there is egg white put on top, but the Chilean version usually skips that part. It’s important to note that Pisco Sours are also very popular in other parts of Latin America (most notably Peru), but the Chilean version is their own. The Pisco sour has the remarkable quality of tasting almost non-alcoholic – kind of like lemonade – yet having the ability to absolutely knock you on your ass in a very short period of time. They vary in alcohol content depending on the type of Pisco used, but at one venue we had one drink each at around 5pm and were not able to walk straight again for about 4 hours. The girl we were with threw up upon walking out of the bar. After one drink. Three hours later, we still wished that we had thrown up wih her. They are dangerous, but we love Pisco Sours.
Pisco Sours make us happy
Argentina: Buenos Aires has an obsession with a very special kind of liquor called Fernet. It’s made out of grapes and a variety of spices. It’s often mixed with Coca Cola. We tried a Fernet and Coke one time while in Buenos Aires. Despite the fact that it was mixed with a fair amount of Coca Cola we could not drink more than a few sips. It was without question the worst tasting thing we have ever put in our mouths. This is of course subjective; there are many, many people that claim to love this drink – we suspect this is merely a form of hazing.
Fernet makes us sad
It may seem odd to have a category devoted to coffee, but the coffee/cafe cultures in these two cities are so remarkably different, we thought it was worth mentioning. For us, we preferred the leisurely cafe experiences in Buenos Aires, but to each their own as these are very, very different. Here’s the deal…
Buenos Aires: Cafes are a big deal in Buenos Aires. The strong Italian roots of the city are likely the reason behind the strength of the cafe culture. There are usually several cafes on every block and for the most part, they all serve fresh ground, strong and quite tasty coffee. The standard ‘cafe’ is actually what we would call an espresso shot in the US, but there are several variations involving more or less amounts of milk (e.g., cafe con leche, cortado, lagrima). It’s all good. Pretty much any cafe you go to will serve some cookies and a glass of water with every coffee you order. The locals spend lots of time hanging out in cafes sipping their espresso and reading the news. There is no such thing as a to-go cup… when you’re going to have coffee in Buenos Aires, you are going to sit down and drink it for as long as it takes. That’s just how it’s done. Coffee is a big part of the culture here and a good deal of pride is taken not only in producing top quality drinks, but also in providing a great cafe experience. If you’re in a hurry, it can be pretty difficult to get a quick cup of caffeine in this city, but then again we found that we were rarely in a hurry in BsAs.
Coffee, cookies and water
Santiago: The cafe culture is very different in Santiago. There are 3 main differences: Experience, quality and legs.
1) Experience: There are still many cafes, but for the most part they are designed for getting a quick cup of coffee rather than as places to leisurely hang out for a couple of hours. In fact, a large percentage of the cafes downtown don’t even have seating… everyone just quickly drinks their coffee while standing at a bar. We found that getting coffee was typically a 10 minute experience. This is not really better or worse than the BsAs style, just different. On top of that though, we also found that many of the cafes were favorite destinations of smokers and sometimes there was so much smoke billowing out of them that we couldn’t breathe. Starbucks is actually doing quite well in Santiago and many of the people we talked to suggested that a big part of their success might be that they are one of the few non-smoking cafes.
Stand-up coffee bar
2) Quality of coffee: For various historical reasons which we never quite fully understood, Chile has a national obsession with Nescafe instant coffee. Upon ordering coffee, the default offering you will get even in a fancy hotel or restaurant will be an empty cup and a plastic single-serve container of Nescafe. After which, they will offer to fill your cup with either hot water or hot milk. While instant coffee can be convenient when you need some coffee and don’t have any alternatives, it seems odd to order coffee in a coffee shop and get it. To be clear, you can definitely order an espresso drink if you’re in the right kind of place, it’s just not the standard-Nescafe is everywhere.
3) Legs: We covered the Coffee with Legs/Cafe con piernas phenomenon at length in a previous post (see it here: Cafe con piernas = coffee with legs). Coffee shops that are part strip club or even brothel are not representative of the coffee culture in Santiago, but are certainly a significant part of it. If you are into this, then the incredible number and variety of cafe con piernas establishments in downtown Santiago may well trump all of the other drink categories and make Santiago the city for you.
Ah the memories...
There is plenty of good drinking to be done in both cities. If you’re all about trying new red wines that are really cheap and good you should prioritize Buenos Aires. If you prefer white wine, go Chile. If you like drinking gasoline, go to Buenos Aires and try some Fernet. It really depends on you. We happen to love red wine and were blown away by the incredible value we got in BsAs on awesome wine, so despite how much we miss Pisco Sours, we’re going to award this category to Buenos Aires by a slim margin. We can’t declare a strong overall winner in this category, but hopefully we’ve at least given you some good context to draw your own conclusions.
Round 1) Food – Buenos Aires came out strong and won round 1 with best overall food despite Santiago’s superior variety
Round 2) Drink – Buenos Aires barely edged out Santiago driven by the incredible value for your money on unique red wines
So far Buenos Aires has Santiago on the ropes, but the first two categories have definitely played to Buenos Aires strengths, so we expect big things from Santiago in the coming rounds. Next week, we’ll get into round 3 and tackle the issue of which of these two cities would be more attractive to live in as an expat.
Do you agree or disagree? Let us know what you think!
Disclaimer: Keep in mind these are just our opinions based on our personal experiences and we’re very happy to have people disagree as this is quite subjective – if you do disagree, please speak up and tell us why!
2 cities enter. One city leaves.
Will it be Santiago, Chile – the home of enormous mayo covered hot dogs and some of the most impressive mountain views anywhere in the world?
Will it be Buenos Aires, Argentina -where you can (and more or less have to) eat steak 5+ times a week?
We spent 6 months researching–4.5 months in Buenos Aires and 1.5 months in Santiago–in an attempt to answer this frequently asked and extremely difficult question: If you’re headed to the Southern Cone, which of these 2 great cities should you prioritize?
Research wasn’t easy. We worked relentlessly day in and day out to try as many restaurants, go on as many day trips and explore as many on and off-the-beaten-path attractions as possible. We’ve also done an extensive wine comparison. I don’t know how we stayed motivated.
There are five high-level categories to this competition, each of which will be thoroughly analyzed in it’s own post with a winner declared:
Obviously, much of this is very subjective and our opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. You may agree or disagree with our conclusions; our hope is to provide enough context such that you can draw your own conclusions based on your own preferences and priorities. Our other hope is that this series of posts becomes a useful reference so that next time someone asks us the question of which city to spend more time in we can just tell them to read this rather than rambling about it for an hour–sadly, the rambling will likely continue.
Let’s do this.
Today’s category is…
We like food. We like food a lot. Trying authentic foreign cuisines is one of our very favorite things about travelling, so this category is a pretty important one in our minds. Let’s break it down:
Most crave-worthy: Winner – Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires: We’ve been back in the US for a few months now and we haven’t bothered eating steak. We know that it could never measure up to the Buenos Aires version that you can get at places like El Estrebe, Dada and a number of other stellar places (see our where to eat in BA post for recommendations). My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Beyond just the steak, we can’t forget the empanadas…. oh, the empanadas. The empanadas were unbelievable. Also, Provoleta is missed. We crave these things often and if/when we go back to visit BA, food will be one of the biggest reasons.
Want
Santiago: It’s not that the food was bad in Santiago, it was actually pretty good. That said, we certainly don’t crave anything we had there. Food is not as core to the culture of Santiago as it is to Buenos Aires. It’s fine, but it’s unlikely to blow you away. However, if you are a fan of giant hot dogs, Santiago is the place for you.
Yep
Best food diversity: Winner – Santiago (by a landslide)
Buenos Aires: Virtually every restaurant in Buenos Aires has an identical menu. As we’ve written about previously, there are really only 5 types of food in Buenos Aires (steak, pizza, pasta, empanadas and Dulce de Leche). They do those 5 things quite well, but that’s pretty much all they do. If you head into some of the more touristy areas you can find a handful of foreign cuisine options, but not many. Despite the high quality, after a couple of weeks the monotony of eating the same thing every day does get to you.
Sometimes it's possible to combine all 5 food groups in one meal
Santiago: Santiago, on the other hand, is full of all kinds of different cuisines. Peruvian and Japanese are probably the two most common (and quite good), but we also had some of the best Indian food we’ve ever had, there are lots of Chinese restaurants (which the locals strongly suggest avoiding), Seafood, Italian, American, French, you name it. From a dining perspective, Santiago offers far more international options than Buenos Aires.
We do kind of miss the Peruvian ceviche
Best dining experience: Winner – Buenos Aires (if you have a few hours)
Buenos Aires: In BA, dining is definitely an experience–whether you want it to be or not. For dinner it is usually a 3+ hour experience. This is not (usually) the result of bad service, but rather is intentional. In BA, dining isn’t really about eating, it’s about being with your friends and family. Service is usually quite efficient and impressively formal up until they finish bringing your food; after that, you will have a very hard time tracking down your server to get your bill. This is by design. They would never want to give the impression that they were rushing you out and fully assume that you will spend another hour or 2 sitting around the table after you finish eating. That’s simply how it’s done. At first, this can be a bit unsettling for those of us from countries that tend to be in more of a rush. After you get used to it though (and assuming you are not in a hurry), it’s pretty awesome to allow yourself to fully experience a meal with your fellow diners.
Santiago: In Santiago, the dining experience was far more similar to what you would find in the US. Servers are interested in turning tables fairly quickly and in some cases may even clear your dishes and bring your check while you’re still chewing your last bite (update: we have it on good authority from someone who has spent much more time here than us that this is usually not the case and perhaps we were going to the wrong places. Either way though, they definitely value efficiency more in Santiago and meals were much quicker relative to BA) Great if you’re in a hurry, but otherwise nothing special. I’m sure there are exceptions, but even/especially the fancier places we tried were not that memorable.
Santiago is no slouch, but dining is core to the entire culture in Buenos Aires and as long as you eat meat and can handle the lack of diversity, they do it extremely well. So, if your single top priority in choosing between these two cities is food (and you like meat), you should definitely prioritize Buenos Aires.
As important as it is though, food is unlikely to be the only factor in your decision making process, so stay tuned for future posts to see which city wins in the remaining categories!
Do you agree or disagree? Let us know what you think!
It’s been awhile since our last installment of Crazy People That Just Might Inspire You, but if there’s one thing you can count on in life it’s that there are always more crazy people out there. We think you’ll agree that today’s Crazy Person, Kevin Friedman, is crazy in ways that sound pretty fun.
We originally met Kevin through some mutual friends in San Francisco awhile back. He’s got an MBA from one of the best business schools and some might even say a somewhat conservative early career in banking, but somewhere along the way he chose a more unconventional path. When we met him he had already left the corporate world behind and was engaged in at least a few unconventional and interesting businesses (more to come on these); now, somehow he’s heading up a business in Buenos Aires and other parts of LATAM called OfertaSimple while still living in San Francisco – obviously we had to find out more. Let’s do this.
Kevin, before we get started, tell us where in the world you are answering these questions?
At the back table in Jovino on Union Street in San Francisco.
When people ask you what you do for a living, how do you respond?
I usually lie through my teeth and make up the job du jour. I guess I’m a little bit sensitive that I fill ATMs with twenties for a living.
Fair enough. Other than filling ATMS, what are your primary motivations/inspirations in life?
I had a list of 30+ inspirational people from a few years ago… except Tiger Woods was on the top of that list. So I’ve learned to admire specific characteristics of some notable people, but I look to my parents, my fiancée and a few close friends for real inspiration.
We understand that you are “The man behind the man” at MisterArcher.com… What does this mean? What is MisterArcher and what do you do there?
Mister Archer is my nom de plume for a bon vivant gallivanting around San Francisco exposing the unique and under-appreciated. The motto is “Inspirations for your Explorations” and we share the ideas that are worthy through a members-only newsletter (sign up at MisterArcher.com).
That is a lot of fancy words in a row! How/why did you get involved with MisterArcher?
I started Mister Archer to fight off my inner-couch potato.
We also understand that you started TValacarte.org in a campaign to take down Comcast… what’s that all about?
Does anyone believe that paying $150/month to watch a dozen or so channels is a good deal? My frustration boiled over about a year and a half ago when I realized that Comcast’s strangehold on cable choked off the competition. I believe if we can aggregate our demand and coordinate a movement away from Big Cable, we will ultimately be rewarded with cost-effective, high-quality programming. Of course, if you prefer channel surfing through 300 channels in order to develop the strongest thumb muscles on the block, then you’re probably better off with the status quo.
Nice Time write-up about it by the way, how did you manage to get them to pick it up?
The Time write-up happened organically. The author, Brad Tuttle, saw one of my comments on another related story about the cable industry, then he followed up directly with me.
Give us the pitch, what are you doing down in South America?
I’m running away from the United States economy (half-kidding). America is flat-lining… while much needed reforms (patent, immigration, tax) are stuck in a rubber room due to partisanship. On the other hand, emerging markets are implementing thoughtful policies and programs improving their GDP. I thought it would be a great opportunity to try and launch an international business.
What is OfertaSimple?
OfertaSimple.com.ar is an online service that connects consumers with local businesses. The OfertaSimple business is based on the “collective buying power” concept that has now proved successful throughout the world. Every day, OfertaSimple features an exclusive deal with one local business in each city where we operate. Local businesses benefit from customer acquisition without having to pay an upfront cost. Consumers love the huge discounts and the sensation of discovering local businesses.
Who should be interested in this site?
Some would think that our core customer is the bargain shopper. In fact, our most loyal customers are working professionals short on time, but excited to experience new spots in the City. Time is their most important resource. In the time it takes to cream and sugar their morning coffee, we provide them with a recommendation of a new spot to check out. And we require that the business provide a 40% – 90% off discount as a reward for our customers for trying out something new.
Can you give us some examples of recent deals?
Sure. We’ve offered a great range of deals like over 60% off sushi libre at Aires de Geisha in Palermo Soho to 75% off a parapente flight. Although we are getting some cool spots approaching us to run deals for them, we’re still finding the best deals through our sales team and member recommendations.
How’s business going?
Overall, the business is going swimmingly. We’ve been fortunate to have hired some tremendous employees for roles ranging from sales to marketing and customer service. Our country manager, Eugenia, is the glue to the team. She rocks!
There are a few other competitors who have also recently entered the marketplace, including Groupon. But I believe there will still be room for them since someone who buys a deal on our site, might also find a few other deals attractive on their site. Ultimately, these purchases are not mutually exclusive.
How did you get involved?
I got involved with OfertaSimple by buying the website domain. The rest of the founding team has been living in LatAm for the past 7 years. We drew straws to determine our responsibilities and I ended up with the CTO short-straw.
Anything else we should know about OfertaSimple?
We are looking to build an OfertaSimple mobile app for Blackberries and iPhone. Interested app developers, please drop me a line at kevin@ofertasimple.com.
Were you always off doing crazy things? When was the last time you had what most people would consider to be a ‘real’ job?
It’s been a while. I’ve actually been trying to get a part-time job as a sports consultant. For example, I’d love to share some zany brainstorms with the SF Giants… like bottom of the 9th, Giants are tied with one out and a runner on third base. The other team hits a deep fly ball… definitely deep enough for the runner to tag. Typically, the left fielder catches the ball then throws home late while the winning run scores. Instead, the left fielder should intentionally bobble the ball, as if they are a volleyball setter while moving towards home plate. They wouldn’t control the ball until they were within range to throw the runner out at home. It might be tough to execute, but even if there’s a 1% chance of success better than 100% certainty of losing. These ideas are not available to the L.A. Trolley Dodgers.
What was your last ‘real’ job and why did you leave it?
My last real job was working in Corporate Strategy for Roost.com. I enjoyed working there and we had a strong executive team, but I decided to leave right after we raised an $8mm series B round. My passion was to launch our rentals product, but with the real estate market upside-down, we decided to focus on the core search technology.
Would you ever go back to that kind of work environment?
Certainly. Although I’ve opted for the pirate’s life, I do miss the security of a steady salary. But what I miss most is the office cooler conversations. I haven’t heard a good joke in months because it simply isn’t the same chatting with the team through a skype window or on IM.
I can definitely relate to that! Maybe we should create an online virtual water cooler… Sorry, back to the interview: Was it scary when you first started off on your own? Anything you would do differently in retrospect?
Not only was it scary… it still is scary. I still have doubts enter my mind during some weak moments in the wee hours of the morning. A little stress might help to motivate, but a lot of stress is counter-productive. But I’ve been lucky to have a strong support network with my founding team, my close friends and my fiancée. (Yup, I know how to type accents over vowels.) I am also heartened by the inspirational Marianne Williamson quote about “playing small does not serve the world.” Touché.
I am impressed by your vowel accenting – a key skill for the success any international business. Any advice for people who are reading this from a cubicle at a job they don’t love wishing they could get out there and pursue their passions?
I don’t think I’ve earned the right to share unsolicited advice to others yet. But, I will share a quote from Charles Swindoll that stays top of mind.
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”
Thanks Kevin, good luck with OfertaSimple.com.ar!
THANK YOU, Ryan and Jen! It’s been a pleasure to meet you both and I sincerely hope your journey inspires others to explore the world and pursue their ventures.
This is craziness at it’s best. I always have tremendous respect for anyone who risks failure to pursue their passions and Kevin is a great example of someone who is doing just that. On more of a side note, I also think the idea of starting a business that focuses on international markets without necessarily having to relocate yourself is pretty novel. I continue to be surprised by just how many different possibilities there are out there… rather than the 3-5 life/career options that most people think they have (e.g., stick with current job, look for other job in same industry, go get an advanced degree, etc.), in reality there are an infinite number of options – often they require risk, but if you know you aren’t ever going to be truly happy doing what you’re doing today and there is some possibility that you will be if you take the leap, the odds seem pretty good. I heard a story recently of a guy that left his 10+ year successful business career to become a professional golf caddy… it’s been a few years now and he absolutely LOVES it. Pretty cool if you ask me.
Thanks again for the inspiration Kevin. If anyone out there knows other crazy people we should be talking to, please let us know!
Today is the end of an era. The dawn of a new age. The chocolate of a new chip.
Today was Jen’s first day at work.
It’s been awhile since our last update, so I’ll take a step back…
As previously mentioned, Jen started looking for a real job once we got here to Seattle. This went well.
She interviewed with 3 companies and got 3 very compelling offers before deciding to halt the process with a few other companies to accept what seems like a perfect-fit opportunity. I won’t say the name of her new employer (yes, you know of them), but I will say that it seems like a great role for her, the company itself has an awesome culture and it’s the kind of company/job that she can get excited about going to work to in the morning.
As you know, our biggest goal on post-career break re-entry has been to design our new lives with an emphasis on balance. Long nights at work or working at home on our laptops are a thing of the past for us–especially since Daphne (our new puppy) is now the boss of us (completely and totally) and she would not approve of us working late (and would punish us severely). In truth, she disapproves of anything other than 100% of our attention being focused on her 24 hours a day – now that I think of it, I guess she is kind of like a consulting project in that way… except much cuter.
Reminds me of late nights in conference rooms (except replace the bone with a laptop)
Anyway… so, it’s too soon to tell how Jen’s job will work out, but we take it as a good sign that she was the last person in the office today at 5:20pm. Yes, I said 5:20 pm. And, they even pay her!
So, it turns out that you really can go take 6 months off to travel around the world with no negative impact whatsoever on your career – actually, I’d say the career break had a hugely positive impact in differentiating her in the recruiting process. Equally surprising, you can apparently also find awesome jobs that pay well, are exciting and challenging and offer real-deal work/life balance. Who knew?
I’m currently working on no less than 8 different entrepreneurial projects and advising on a few others. I’ve started writing code again… pretty crazy, but really fun – so rewarding to actually make something real again after such a long time. More details to come in the future on what these projects actually are, but suffice to say, I’m having a blast.
Also, as of today, I am now a stay-at-home puppy dad. Daphne is great. She will be even greater when she is a little lower maintenance 🙂
She’s awesome. Sometimes we want to kill her, but mostly she’s awesome. In the last 3 weeks she has gone from 15 to 23 pounds (>50% increase!!!). There are still some potty training challenges, but for the most part she’s got a handle on it. We actually were able to apply our consulting skills to this problem and created a pretty fancy and super useful spreadsheet model to track her ‘schedule’ – stay tuned for a future post where we’ll share it in addition to some other thoughts we have on puppy parenting.
"it's a good thing I'm cute!"
She loves to play with her cousin Murphy (my sister’s dog). And, even though he is more than twice her size, she can take him down (sometimes):
This is the (happy) end of our career break and the beginning of the next phase of our lives. Life is great. We are living pretty much exactly the lives that we had wanted and it is spectacular. We highly recommend it.
If any of you are out there wishing you could take an extended career break but are concerned about what will happen after, our advice is to just go for it. Who knows, things could turn out even better than you could imagine.
p.s. Now that Jen is at work, I will have more time to do some blogging, so stay tuned!
UPDATE 1/9/2013: To avoid any confusion, this article/warning is NOT about the rental company DiscoverBA.com. We were recently contacted by the owner there who told us that this post has a high Google rank for “DiscoverBA review” due to a few similar keywords. While we don’t have any experience with DiscoverBA, they seem like a legit company and the scam below is definitely not referring to them.
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A reader recently emailed us asking if we could help publicize the story of how he got scammed out of getting his deposit back when renting an apartment in Buenos Aires in an attempt to shut-down the scammer (which has been remarkably successful thus far–read on…) and to help other people avoid becoming victims. We hate scams (and in Argentina, there are MANY), so we were happy to oblige.
Everything is done in cash in Buenos Aires (because no one wants to pay taxes), the police are corrupt and crime is high so you have to be extremely, extremely careful no matter what you are doing–being taken for your deposit on a rental apartment is, unfortunately, incredibly common unless you go with one of the reputable companies (which may cost a bit more, but you are guaranteed a great place and you will get your deposit back, so in my opinion, well worth it). Check out our guide on how to rent an apartment in Buenos Aires for some tips/tricks to minimize your risk and some mini-reviews of several agencies that we worked with.
Below is a reprint of the story that was just sent to us:
My six-month stay in Buenos Aires ended on a bad note this past Tuesday when I was scammed out of the deposit for the apartment I had been renting for three months starting in August. The apartment owner’s name is Valeria de Santos and the unit in question is located in Recoleta, at Larrea 1393 at the corner of French, apartment #PB2. I found it on Craiglist and jumped at the chance to live in a nice area for a relative bargain, though in hindsight renting through an agency or through a referral may have been the smarter way to go.
I had told Valeria that I needed to check out at noon because a cab would be waiting to take me to the airport. She arrived late with her mother and inspected the apartment to make sure it was in good order (it was). Valeria said that my deposit was waiting for me at her mother’s office, which was supposedly just a few blocks away, off of Pueyrredon and Santa Fe. She asked if her mother could get in the cab with me and get dropped off by her office where she would retrieve the deposit and return it to me.
I had dealt directly with the mother before when I first occupied the apartment so I didn’t find her suggestion odd. But I now realize that I made a number of mistakes. First, I returned the keys to Valeria before getting my deposit back. Secondly, I let my guard down and didn’t think to accompany her mother to the “office” after we dropped her off at the corner, opting instead to wait for her in the cab with my luggage.
The mother disappeared down the street and never returned. I waited 45 minutes and called Valeria a dozen times before telling the driver that we needed to leave because I couldn’t miss my flight. I called her numerous times at the airport and e-mailed her with no response. I was finally able to reach her Wednesday, when she assured me that she would wire the funds to me via PayPal that same day. Well, it didn’t come through, and I’ve been calling and e-mailing her since with no luck. My messages to her have gotten angrier and angrier to the point where I threatened to hop on a plane the next day and come looking for her — which I would be crazy enough to do if I was confident I could track her down.
The strange thing is that Valeria and her mother were a pleasure to deal with during my three-month stay in the apartment, responding to my calls and e-mails and showing up to address any problems promptly. It’s bizarre that they would pull something like this off at the very end.
I’ll continue to call and e-mail and harass Valeria and her mother in any way I can until I get my money back, and perhaps I’ll find myself in Buenos Aires sooner than I think. But for now, I’d just like to defame her on every relevant forum I can find and bring awareness to what I went through. Hopefully you’ll learn from my mistakes.
It’s really too bad that this happened, but I will say that to get out of Buenos Aires after 6 months and only be scammed out of $200 is actually pretty darn good. In our 6 months, we encountered taxi scams (fast meter), counterfeit money scams, tour guide pricing scams, and were almost taken for $400 on the deposit for our first 2 week apartment. Good times.
The above story was actually posted on the local Buenos Aires expat forum. Within about 5 hours, there were 100+ responses by the expat community. Many of them decided to use some clever online detective skills to determine that this woman and her mother had been running scams on tourists in BA for years – not only via apartments, but also through a fake Spanish school, a fake tour guide business and many others. They also found her real name, address, phone number and other personal details (including where she has claimed to be an Oxford trained lawyer on Wikipedia among other places).
As the expats diligently uncovered more and more information about this woman, strangely enough all of the websites and references to her many ‘businesses’ started disappearing from the internet. Clearly many of the expats are software developers though and they were able to backup pretty much everything and rehost on alternate off-shore servers. The thread on the forum showing this whole thing unraveling is long, but extremely entertaining and worth taking a look at: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/11930-stay-away-apartment-rental.html
One of the members on the expat forum put together a nice summary of many of the facts uncovered which I’ve reposted below. Note: this isn’t interesting reading, I’m just reposting it so that there is yet another website that has all of these keywords in hopes that any future potential victims do some googling before doing business with her.
So, in summary this thread is a warning about Florencia Marina Daud (aka Florencia Daud Othacehe). It is strongly advised that you avoid any kind of business dealings or financial transactions with her. If you do enter into financial dealings with her it is recommended that you proceed with extreme caution. She has disappeared with the deposits of several visitors to the city who entered into temporary rental agreements with her.
Florencia Daud
DNI: 26260151
CUIT: 272626015115 (click on the green arrow to see a picture from the website http://www.nic.ar/entidades.html)She has gone under the names Valeria de Santos and Veronica and often uses the username flormarina on the internet.
Her mother has used a name similar to Maria Eugenia
She has had various businesses registered to her addresses:
Discover BA
Florencia Marina Daud (discoverba@hotmail.com)
+1.5411480527
Fax:
Av Pueyrredon 2261
Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires 1119
ARD&A Daud & Asociados
Av. Pueyrredon 2261 2nd floor
BUENOS AIRES – ARGENTINA
tel/fax +54-11-4805-2742Recoleta Spanish School
Pueyrredon 2261, 2nd floor
Entidad Registrante: Florencia Daud
País: Argentina
Actividad: Otra
Domicilio: Chenaut 1967 4 A
Ciudad/Localidad: Buenos Aires
Provincia: Buenos Aires
Código Postal: 1426
Teléfono: 4776 3188
Fax: 4776 3188D&A Daud & Asociados Buenos Aires, Argentina
Address : Av. Chenaut 1967 4 A, Buenos Aires 1426, Argentina
Phone No. : +5411-4776-3188According to the Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal, she’s licensed to practice law here in Capital. Click the green arrow for a picture from the website.
Other phone numbers she has used:
15-5346-4957
15-5259-1319And email addresses:
sweetmarina2007@hotmail.com
valeriadesantos@hotmail.comShe has advertised her apartments on craigslist
She appears in wikipedia
She has an account on EchangeVacances.com (click for pictures)and has had various personal and business web pages of her own most of which have been taken down since these accusations have appeared:
http://www.buenosairesguest.com/
http://florenciamarina.blogspot.com/
http://daudlegal.com/If you have been a victim of a scam as a visitor you can contact the following authorities:
Defensoría de Turista, 4302 7816. Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1835 (Museo de Bellas Artes “Benito Quinquela Martín”) La Boca.
Mail: turista@defensoria.org.arComisaría del turista
Av. Corrientes 436
0800 999 5000 / 4346 5748
mail: turista@policiafederal.gov.arIf you have returned to your country and are unable to retrieve funds owed to you by identifiable persons as a last resort you can tell them you are going to contact AFIP (the revenue authorities) to have their tax records reviewed:
http://www.afip.gov.ar/contacto/
Centro de denuncias : 0800-999-2347There is also another thread about the activities of Florencia Daud on TripAdvisor
Be careful in Buenos Aires (and/or wherever you are traveling) and if something like this happens to you, let the online communities know about it – they may or may not be able to help you directly, but they can certainly help get the word out so that it’s harder for scammers like this to be successful.
Thanks again for the tip!
This morning we met Daphne and her brothers and sisters. This afternoon, we took her home. She is pretty cute.
This was the car ride home - she slept pretty much the whole way
We explored the rescue option for awhile and went back and forth on it quite a bit, but ultimately decided to go the 8-week puppy route and found a fantastic local breeder that’s only 15 minutes away. We actually found them by meeting a beautiful dog hanging out at our neighborhood Peets coffee and talking to its owners who directed us to this breeder: http://www.himoonlabradors.com/ Great breeder and great dogs. We went this morning just to check it out, but we were so impressed that after picking up a bunch of supplies, we went back to bring Daphne home.
Sometimes, she's awake and alert...
...but, so far, usually she's sleeping
We like it best when she smiles
We are thrilled to be new parents. And ecstatic to have our very own furry and demanding reason to never work crazy hours again. This is a key part of our rehabilitation. Should be an interesting first night… We’ll keep you updated.
p.s. More first-day pics here: https://www.consultingrehab.com/photo_gallery/?album=Daphne
For 7 months we lived out of 5 suit cases (2 roller boards and 3 duffels). We went from short-term apartment to short-term apartment; hotel to hotel and later, after returning to Seattle, family guest room to family guest room with only the things in those 5 bags. That all changed on October 11th.
On October 11th at 8am PST, we were reunited with our storage unit and all of the stuff within it.
Stuff don't live here anymore
We put said stuff into a big yellow truck and drove it from San Francisco to Seattle. By the way… there are a surprising amount of mountain passes on highway 5 in northern California and Southern Oregon – they aren’t big, but they are big enough to make it impossible to faster than 45 MPH in a 22 foot moving truck. Expert tip: it takes WAY longer to drive long distances at 45 MPH than it does at 70 MPH.
Surprisingly less powerful than it looks
We now are settling into our new apartment (which is even more awesome than we had anticipated) and are thoroughly overwhelmed by the unbelievable volume of stuff that we now have. There is stuff everywhere. It is unclear why anyone would want or need so much stuff – and keep in mind, that we got rid of a lot of stuff before we left for Argentina! We are thankful that we have so many closets in which we can put all of this stuff… we have 10+ more boxes full of stuff that we see absolutely no point in unpacking.
What's in them? Who cares?
It seemed commonplace before we left, but after 7 months of living with very little, we are now on stuff overload.
This reminded me of a blog that I started following awhile back about “the art of minimalism” called Far Beyond the Stars (I originally found this blog through the post “27 Reasons why you should never have a job” which is worth reading). This guy quit his job awhile back and decided to live life as minimally as possible. Apparently he has been able to live with just having 57 things (this includes each article of clothing!)… check out the list of what his 57 things are. I’m impressed. And, I can absolutely see the kind of freedom that this type of lifestyle would bring. Our closet full of unopen boxes probably has over 1000 things in it.
Anyone else experimented with minimalism? How many things do you have?
p.s. Anyone need a 5 piece bedroom furniture set in Seattle? I’m not kidding…
Special thanks to Dan for tipping us off on this great YouTube video which I think we can all very much relate to:
We salute the creator!