Kristjan, Incorporate’s Head of Community attended an event in São Paulo which took place on the 17th of February at Casa Pompeia, where he was able to meet local e-residents and entrepreneurs as well as team members from e-Residency and Start-up Estonia.
To get a better insight into the dynamics of Kristjan living in Brazil, INCORPORATE expanding its services to Brazilian e-Residents in Portuguese and the e-Residency event in São Paulo, we conducted a small interview with Kristjan.
Interview with Kristjan
Q: How long have you been living in Brazil and what are your thoughts about the country?
K: I have been living in Brazil for over two years now. Although I miss Estonia, I do enjoy living here as the culture, and of course the weather is very different from what I have experienced before in Estonia, Denmark and even Spain. However, I feel that my integration here has gone well due to my prior knowledge of Spanish which led me to an easy adoption of Portuguese, which I speak quite fluently. As I have a background in judo, I decided to practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a while to get first-hand experience of the local culture.
Q: What does it mean for you to work for Incorporate and that the company is starting to focus more on bringing Brazil and Estonia closer together?
K: It means a lot for me actually. When I first started working at Incorporate, I was already living in Brazil for a couple of months and I have always found it to be very fulfilling that I can stay in touch with my home country while living abroad as well as to help entrepreneurs across the world to fulfil their business dreams with having the ability to establish a business in Estonia. Now that the focus will be a bit on Brazil as well, I am glad to be a part of it.
Q: Why did you choose to go to that specific event if there were many other events taking place in Brazil and in São Paulo?
K: Well, the initial plan was to attend all the events taking place in São Paulo; however, we were in the middle of a couple of projects during that time and were taking care of all of the necessary documentation in order for us to be listed on the e-Residency marketplace after we got an invitation to be listed there.
Q: How was your trip to São Paulo?
K: I would say that my trip to the event was easy but long – around 8 hours. There is a plane that flies between Juiz de Fora and São Paulo, however, the airports are not very close to the cities and it is why I preferred to take the bus. Going by bus also enabled me to see some other areas along the way which I hadn’t seen before and I was much more comfortable in the bus, where I could lay down instead of sitting cramped in an airplane.
Q: Was it your first time in São Paulo, did you have any impressions?
K: Yes, it was my first time in São Paulo. My first thoughts were that this city is huge! Compared to what I am used to, it is actually a bit hard to comprehend. Just imagine, one neighbourhood of São Paulo has as many residents as Estonia as a whole, and Tallinn has just about 450,000 residents. However, I love the diversity that a city this big has to offer.
Q: How was your stay?
K: My stay in Sao Paulo wasn’t long, but I did enjoy being there. As I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on traveling between where I stayed and the place where the event took place, I chose to book a small studio apartment near Casa Pompeia. The building where I stayed was an apartment complex meant for digital nomads and young professionals, and it had basically everything – a pool outside, a gym, co-working spaces, etc. However, I didn’t use none of them due to my personal COVID safety-measures.
Q: How was the event, did you meet a lot of new people?
K: I think the event went great! A funny remark here is that I got a bit wet on my way there because it had started raining when I was headed to the event. I was trying to get an Uber but was not able to because all the available drivers got busy as soon as rain started falling, and I chose to go by foot in order not to be late for the event, like a typical Estonian.
At the event, I met many local e-residents and entrepreneurs, an Honorary Consul of Estonia, and team members from e-Residency and Startup Estonia. We were all able to have a chat along with snacks and a few beverages. I also was asked to come on stage where I was able to talk in Portuguese about Incorporate and Estonia.
Q: How was your trip back to your town?
K: My trip back was actually a bit sketchy. First, I had to go straight to the bus station early in the morning which was just fine. The sketchy part was that I had to ride almost half of the trip in a chair that was stuck in the inclined position and didn’t have a working seatbelt. I initially told the bus driver about the situation, and he offered me three options – get a refund and stay in São Paulo, ask everyone to get off the bus and the driver brings a replacement bus or stick with the current seat. Logically I picked the third option as I didn’t wish to stay behind nor waste everyone’s time. Luckily almost halfway through the journey I was able to switch to a working seat which had a seat belt.
Incorporate specialises in providing corporate services to foreign entrepreneurs that are interested in establishing and managing a business in Estonia. In addition, we have created a dedicated page meant for Brazilian businessmen and women to introduce our services and subscription packages.
W are offering a free consultation to Brazilian entrepreneurs between 01.07.2022 and 01.08.2022 to introduce the Estonian business environment!
