Working Around The World! With Karoli Hindriks
“If I think back about every conversation I’ve had with HR people and they say to me that, “We only hire culture fit,” then I would like to challenge that. If you only hire culture fit, do you usually hire people who are just like you? And if you hire people who are just like you, it’s really great to find agreeable people, but does that take your business further? Listen to all Freelance Creative Exchanges episodes here: https://creativesatwork.asia/fce/ Karoli Hindriks is a TEDx speaker and founder of Jobbatical – a marketplace for international career adventures. She founded her first company at the age of sixteen (officially becoming the youngest inventor of Estonia). Karoli successfully lead the launch of seven television channels in Northern Europe (including National Geographic Channels, MTV, and Fox entertainment). She was named one of the 20 most promising young entrepreneurs under 25 in Europe by the prestigious international business magazine BusinessWeek and one of 50 Most Influential Women in Tech of Europe in 2016 by EU-Startups.
Jayce: Hi, thank you so much Karoli. So, I’m Jayce.
Fanny: And I’m Fanny. Welcome to Freelance Exchange, where every week we speak to a freelancer about freelancing and the gig economy.
Jayce. Now, usually we speak to a freelancer, but today we are actually stepping out of that a little bit, and we have a very special guest today.
Fanny: TEDx speaker and CEO and founder of Jobbatical, we have the exclusive opportunity of having Karoli Hindriks down with us, here in Singapore and in our recording studio today.
Jayce: Hi Karoli.
Karoli: I’m very happy to be here, thank you. Singapore is almost like my second home already.
Jayce: We hope to see you more often actually.
Karoli: You will, you will.
Jayce: Maybe for a start, would you like to share with us a bit about yourself and also about the company, so that our audiences can understand a bit more about you?
Karoli: So, maybe firstly then about Jobbatical. So, Jobbatical is basically a community of ready to relocate tech and business and creative talent. Basically, everybody from the talent side who joins Jobbatical joins because they want to work in another country and, on the other hand, we connect them to the enterprises, organisations around the world. Right now, we work with organisations across 49 countries, who are lacking certain skills locally or would just like to bring culture-add to their teams. So, this is what the platform does.
But the short story about myself. I actually became an entrepreneur when I was 16, from a student company. I grew out my first company. I became the youngest inventor in my country. It was a very inspiring experience, realising that as a 16-year-old, you can invent something that will change people’s lives and you don’t have to have a PhD to do that, but you can be a simple girl.
So, from there, like I have said, I got addicted to making a difference and I couldn’t let go. So, I have been an entrepreneur since high school.
Jayce: Singapore started the drive into entrepreneurship, I would say only about, less than two decades ago, but now, we still have a struggle, in terms of getting people to think outside of the box. A lot of the parents would tell their kids, “No, I want you to be a doctor. I want you to be lawyer.”
Karoli: Oh yeah.
Jayce: Or, “I want you to join a bank.” So, is that the kind of environment that you see, from where you’re coming from?”
Karoli: So, I think, where I come from, first of all, I come from Estonia, which is a tiny country. I call it the Singapore of Europe. It’s today, the most digitally advanced country in the world and a lot of entrepreneurship.
To be honest, when I started, thinking back, this was a country which in 1991 regained its independence from the Soviet Union, which occupied the country for 50 years and every person in the country had to start with basically $15 Singapore. That’s what everybody got, not more. So, that’s how you had to build your life.
So, I think the fact that people had to build their lives from that and the country had to be rebuilt from that, made people very entrepreneurial, because you need to be entrepreneurial to figure out how to, kind of come out from that.
I have also looked back, my conversation, even you were mentioning, like parents saying that you should be a lawyer. I had this moment with my father where I came home, and I told him that I had this idea and he told me that it’s such a good idea, “Go to the patent office.” I didn’t know what a patent office was, I didn’t go, but I phoned from the Yellow Pages and I went there, but I have wondered, if my father would have told me, “Forget about it, go and study, become a doctor,” would I ever be here?
So, I think it’s very important what we actually say and how we encourage young people in that very vulnerable time. So, for me, I was lucky that my father really, kind of, gave me the confidence and that really changed my life.
Jayce: So, essentially, going back to Jobbatical, essentially Jobbatical looks at a chain of people with the right skillsets to the right team, or the right jobs. So, it’s kind of very similar, in the form of freelancing, freelancers, where currently, in the country, in Singapore, it’s just starting to actually evolve.
Karoli: Gain traction, yeah.
Jayce: Yeah, gain traction in that sense, with the Singapore government coming in to acknowledge this group of specialised talent. So, just a bit about, why did you decide to set up this platform, and what is the motivation behind this?
Karoli: Yeah, my motivation or the idea actually came from a few things. So, first of all, I actually, before Jobbatical, I had been, actually in media business. I had laid the launch of seven television channels in the Baltics, like MTV, National Geographic Channel, Fox Independent, entertainment channels, and I was there for seven years and started pretty young but learning fast, quite a bit, and I, kind of, at one point felt a little bit bored. I felt that this city here, only in the Baltic region, doing the same faces, that I would love to take myself out to a different cultural environment, maybe take the knowledge that I have, and help an earlier stage company to build up a media channel, for example. And I realised that nobody’s actually using that group of people who have already been in the workforce. There’s a lot for interns, which is great as well, but interns come out from school, they don’t have the experience, but the knowledge actually, that actually comes from people who already are in the workforce.
So, that was one realisation, and then, I was also lucky then from, I call it my own Jobbatical, I was lucky to get to Singularity University, which is like a think tank in Silicon Valley at NASA Ames. I was there for three months, and I remember there was a moment actually, where I had the Jobbatical idea. I was running in the morning, every morning I went running and I passed the Google campus and you see like the power of, kind of, this house has changed the whole world.
So, I was kind of wondering, why are those kinds of companies emerging from here, not anywhere else? It’s not like everybody in Silicon Valley woke up and were smarter than anybody else on the planet. So, it cannot be the case. It cannot be the food that they eat. It should be something else, and I realised it’s the knowledge or knowledgeable people who are drawn there.
So, I stated to wonder, coming from a small country myself, how could we draw the knowledgeable people to the locations that they might not consider as obvious career choices? So, how could they want to move to Estonia or Singapore or Denmark instead of Silicon Valley and kind of discover how it is to live a local life in a local team, while contributing with their skills and knowledge? So, basically that’s what we started to do.
So, the idea of Jobbatical started from my thought that the change actually happens when you distribute knowledge. We can bring as much money to a community as we want, but if they don’t have the knowledge of what to do with that money, nothing will change. So, it all starts with the people and the knowledge. So that was, kind of, the original background of the inspiration.
Jayce: Wow! That is so interesting.
Fanny: Yeah, I think that is like Freelancing 2.0. You know, across a global platform.
Karoli: But I think that’s where it will be, because right now, actually we are living in the, now I’m holding my TED Talk, but we are living in the era of the highest human mobility in recorded history. So basically, people have never moved as much as they are right now, and I think it totally makes sense, because if you think how we are connected today versus 20 years ago, like 20 years ago our connections were nearby. They were around our, where we hung out and maybe you travelled and then you have a friend, but then you forgot about a friend unless you were persistent enough to write emails or send letters, but now, we are so connected through the network.
My friends in Singapore, Australia or Japan, are much more like me than most of the people in Estonia, because we are more connected about the like-mindedness, rather than what is our nationality, right? Which means that we’re also much more comfortable about the world, which means that we can much more easily move around, and I think that’s something that countries will have to start really considering.
I think countries, in very many ways, not the most innovating ones, they, I think, are ahead, but if you think about what’s going on in the United States right now, I think countries still have the illusion that they will decide where people go, but now people are starting to decide where they go and that will make the difference of the future of the country, right?
Jayce: So, I assume, you are very forward thinking, especially with this whole talent mobility thing, but what are some of the challenges that you faced when you first set up Jobbatical and tried to get it up and running?
Karoli: Challenge? I mean, definitely policies are a challenge, because we cannot, for example Jobbatical, we work with US companies only who hire remote people, because immigration in the United States is ridiculously difficult, right? So, policies or the framework set by the governments can support or not support us.
So, policy definitely is and for us, definitely something that we are really passionate about changing and in some countries, we have already managed to get there. It’s the fact that, does it really matter what your passport is? If you think about it, if you are hire a UX designer, does it matter if you were born in Pakistan or in Germany, if you’re a great UX designer?
So, the question is, we’re still defining people by the statistical error which was where they accidentally were born and actually passport is something that has existed only 100 years. So, it’s a very recent innovation, but does it already make sense, if you think about it in today’s world?
So, I think today, when we’re working, if we talk about, for example, the Estonian government, there we have managed to help the government and we’re in constant dialogue to… I mean, you can get a work permit within 24 hours, with less than $200. Now, we’re talking about a digital nomad visa, which I’m happy to cover later on, and this is a government who has acknowledged that if we don’t get the people, then who will build the economy? So, they are doing everything to adapt to the modern world, and I think Singapore is very similar in the mindset, right?
So, I think our challenge and opportunity is how fast the countries will adapt to the changing workforce.
Fanny: Yeah
Jayce: So, is that one of the reasons that brought you to Singapore?
Karoli: Yes. So, here in Singapore, we’ve just hired our first Singaporean, we have set up the office for the region and we are hiring the second Singaporean. So, we are establishing our second official operational office.
Our headquarters is in Tallinn, Estonia, where we have people, now I think it’s 42 people from 19 nationalities. They all came through Jobbatical, or most of them came through Jobbatical and they flew in to build our vision. So, I think that’s really inspiring, and I think that’s where the world will be. Like your career shouldn’t be defined by where you were accidently born and live, but maybe for the best team, you have to circle the world and then you get there.
Jayce: I think for us, [unclear 00:13:16] that we have also been driving, especially [unclear 00:13:17], so it doesn’t matter whether the talent is full-time staff or is an independent friend or an individual freelancer, as long as it’s what makes a great team and the right skillsets.
Karoli: Exactly.
Jayce: Having the right skillset is the most important, but I’m just wondering, because you mentioned you have 42 people in Estonia from 19 other countries, how do you manage the cultural diversities along this group of people? Do you have any…?
Fanny: Or even language challenges?
Karoli: Language, basically we hired our first person in 2015 who was from Argentina, so he moved from Argentina to Estonia. So, we kind of started from scratch by being culturally diverse, so we decided English is our main language. This is something that we’re also advocating very much to the companies that we’re working with.
If I think back about every conversation I’ve had with HR people and they say to me that, “We only hire culture fit,” then I would like to challenge that. If you only hire culture fit, do you usually hire people who are just like you? And if you hire people who are just like you, it’s really great to find agreeable people, but does that take your business further?
So, I think for us, I see how the cultural difference has actually brought different ways of looking at things and has challenged me so many times and the challenge actually helps us to get further.
Of course, there are little things where you have Americans who are much more, maybe…
Jayce: Outspoken.
Karoli: Outspoken, hugging. I mean, if you have somebody from Asia who’s maybe a little bit less and then you try to find a… But you end up finding that both sides learn something new and then they work happily together, but this is, I think, part of the culture-add, that you, on one hand, bring something new, but also every counterpart will take away something new.
Jayce: I think that’s very important, especially in Singapore, we are talking about four different visas. So, we have the Chinese, the Malaysians, the Indians, the Asians. So, for us, it’s very important that we live happily together.
Karoli: Exactly.
Jayce: In fact, that is actually one of the, I would say main reasons why Singapore, we can convert ourselves from a third world country to a first world country within 50 years. So, I think that is actually…
Karoli: That’s a very good point and I think that’s something I really admire about Singapore.
Jayce: Thank you. Thank you.
Karoli: Every time I land in Changi Airport, I have this feeling, like this is like diverse. I mean, you see all types of people and this is so good. I think that’s something I sometimes miss in Northern Europe, it’s still not there yet.
Fanny: But I think that’s one thing with Singapore, the youths are starting to open up and embrace travelling, things like that, but there’s still a bit of a majority of us, who are still a bit conservative in having the digital nomad kind of lifestyle. So, can you share some the advantages of adopting…?
Karoli: I can start from the fact that I think that is also why I had the idea of Jobbatical, is that when I was 17, I actually fulfilled my first big dream, which was, I spent a year as an exchange student in the United States and if I think back about this year, I mean, you are 17 and you are alone, I think it was like 5000 miles from home. That completely changed me in the way that you suddenly… I think what it does to you is that first of all, it just opens your eyes about things that you think are black and then suddenly you understand there are so many more colours. You had had a mindset of things and then you have to adapt to a different mindset. You become much more humble, but also there’s a lot of studies around how this enhances your creativity.
So basically, being able to, having lived in different cultures, the cultures, it means that you can start to make new types of connections and basically, there’s such a creativity boost that comes from living between different cultures. And that’s not like, if you travel for two weeks, and are in the tourist area, a resort and get your piña colada, that’s not where you get the culture, that’s a different kind of thing. But I mean, really embracing the local, being part of something like that that’s completely out of your comfort zone, that will create, basically, a new way of looking at things and that will help to make you actually more creative.
That’s something that we see also more and more, that recruiters are looking for international experience, which means that this will become your advantage, when you are building your career as a freelancer or as an employee.
But regarding freelancers, I think one of the things we see is that a lot of freelancers use us. Even in our own team we have freelancers who are now hired fulltime, but one of the reasons for that is that for an international career right now, there’s no way to legally be employed as a freelancer, unless you live in your home country.
So, if you live outside of your home country, when we talked about digital nomads, which is according to [unclear 00:18:33], this is already millions of people who are living like that, right?
What they do today, because they don’t have any options, is that they usually enter the country with a tourist visa and then live there and then leave for some time and then come back, because there’s no other way. Because right now, legally you can be employed by a local employer or your spouse lives or works there, but there’s no way for you to enter a country and work as a freelancer.
What in reality it actually means is that, let’s say that there’s an organisation, let’s say it’s IBM, and I think IBM has quite a bit of flexible work already, right? So, let’s say IBM says that it’s okay for you to go and travel, work remotely, work from wherever. Now the person goes to a country, let’s say it’s Singapore and works from Singapore, then as soon as he or she opens the computer, they are actually working illegally, but they have no other way to do that.
So, that was something that we started to notice and that’s why, I think it was the first time in 2016 in December when I had a chat with the Estonian President and I mentioned that, “Have you ever thought about the workforce that doesn’t have any kind of policy support?” And now this year, after several discussions around this topic, the Estonian [unclear 00:19:55] Ministry turned to us to help to figure our the digital nomad visa. So, their plan is to get it launched, how do you say it in [unclear 00:20:04]? Basically, make it effective from the beginning of next year and basically, we are together, putting together the criteria. But the idea of that is that basically you can be a freelancer, a contractor, servicing different kinds of clients. You can be an entrepreneur who has a small agency and working as a freelancer. Location independent.
So, for example, if you’re a constructor, it’s very hard to be location independent, unless like my colleague said, you have very long hands. Or, the other criteria is you are an employee of an organisation in another country. So, let’s say the IBM case, you’re working for IBM, you can apply for the digital nomad visa, you have to have a proof of monthly income, and we actually are putting that criteria together after asking the community. We did the survey on the digital nomad community asking their opinion, what the criteria should be and what their problems are.
Basically, then initially, the visa will be one year and the goal for Estonia is that those people would actually want to stay there and make it a very easy transition if they want to stay there later to get either a work permit or to extend the digital nomad visa, but that visa would also give access to Schengen, but with a limitation of 90 days then.
Jayce: Right.
Karoli: So, it means that you can travel around 90 days but the rest of the time you have to be in their country.
Jayce: That’s interesting.
Fanny: Yes, yeah.
Karoli: This would be then the first country who’ll recognise that there is a workforce that is working in new ways and that will create a legal way, so you don’t have to shiver every time you go to the immigration and “Will I get in this time or will I not get in this time?”
What we hope with this, why we’re really keen helping Estonia with that is that other countries will start to follow, because I think it’s ridiculous that we are not acknowledging a group of… and everybody’s talking about it, but we have no policy acknowledging that group of people.
Fanny: Yeah. So, other than the Estonia government, which other governments are you also talking to with regards to this digital nomad visa?
Karoli: I mean, definitely we have already had a conversation around that with Singapore.
Jayce: Great.
Karoli: We have shared the Estonian example and also the Malaysian government is doing something interesting in that.
Jayce: Okay.
Karoli: Regarding the digital nomad visa, we have talked about immigration topics, I have talked to many governments across Europe, but regarding the digital nomad visa, we haven’t had that many conversations just yet, because it’s not still… As soon as it will go live, we will showcase it and this will be… And, I mean, it has got huge media coverage already from the United States to Europe to Japan. There’s a lot of talk and questions we are getting about it, from the Japanese freelance community for example.
Jayce: Okay. I think that will be interesting because Japan all along has been quite, I would say isolated.
Karoli: Yeah.
Jayce: So, it would be good if we start to see more movement.
Karoli: And from Japan I think that is, because I mean, Japan is a really interesting country because Japan has the… So, Japan is number one in the world situation for employers saying that they cannot fill jobs. I think it was 76% of employers in 2016 that said they don’t have enough employees to put in the jobs they need.
Jayce: Right.
Karoli: And by 2030, a third of Japanese people will be over 65 years old. So, this country is really suffering in terms of aging population, but the problem there is that, since they have been so isolated, their language barriers, the culture barriers, they are really not ready to take international people in to fill those jobs. So, I’m really curious to observe how the… and I think the more people that go out, the more people that will actually get the international experience, the easier it will be to do that kind of transition. In Singapore it’s easy, because everybody speaks English, right?
Fanny: Yeah.
Jayce: That’s right, that’s right. So, some of the countries where our freelancers always re-site, whether it’s where they always go to
Karoli: Yeah, Thailand probably. Yeah, Thailand.
Jayce: Somewhere they like to hide for three months and then they come back to Singapore, and the reason why they’re coming is they say to just withdraw money, or whatever that they collect from their clients, and then they go back.
Karoli: They go to Thailand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually had, it was very funny, because when we had the first digital nomad visa meeting, it took place at the Estonian, our headquarters, right? So, the Jobbatical office. So, we had the Estonian Interior Ministry, Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Estonian Police and Border Guard, Jobbatical e-Residency Team, I don’t know if you know them, but e-Residency is another great innovation we can talk about separately, digital citizenship of Estonia, and also remotely we had different platforms.
So, we had a government meeting with people sitting in Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Tallinn and I was thinking that this is such a great example for where we should go. It’s not like our government policy meeting in a small office and everybody sitting there, but you have remote people, people thinking with you who are not even part of your country. So, I think that was a very inspiring meeting.
Fanny: There’s so much to learn from it.
Jayce: Do you think everybody should give it a try then, to actually take one year of sabbatical off work and just go into a country and…?
Fanny: Uproot themselves.
Karoli: I think everybody should… Is it one year or is it three years? I think it’s more about getting out from your comfort zone. I really like the saying that the thing that can teach you most in your professional life is taking yourself into as many uncomfortable situations as possible. So, going abroad is not something that will be only lollipops and butterflies, right? But it’s so exciting if you embrace it and this will change the way you think, and I think if we think about what’s going on right now in the world, again looking at the United States of America for example, or BREXIT, I don’t think those things would be possible if all people would have lived in another culture.
Fanny: Yeah.
Karoli: Because, and this is very much like, the cultural difference, which is actually just fear about the difference, because you don’t have experience with different. So, if you are somebody who has a friend who is Muslim, you can never say that all Muslims are bad, but if you have no idea what it actually means, then you are, kind of, locked in your small world.
So, I think everybody should live in another country, and I think we will go to the era where we have much more courage and support to do that.
Jayce: But there’s also a lot of challenges for an individual to just go over to a country that they’re not familiar with and start looking for a job.
Fanny: Speaking as a Singaporean.
Karoli: That’s why you have Jobbatical. We find the jobs, right? So, you would have the job already.
Jayce: What advice would you give to an individual before they even start?
Fanny: Is there any prep work that’s emotionally…?
Karoli: I think the biggest, maybe in that sense, yeah, I think you need to find a job and we’re trying to help with that. We are also, kind of, possibly, if it’s needed, we can help with immigration. We have immigration support actually in over 40 countries, but I think the biggest thing, what I have seen, when things go wrong is when the person goes to another country but expects to see home. Like, if you go to another country and expect to see the food that you ate at home, expect to see everything being the same and we have seen that. Luckily very few, but this is where the frustration [unclear 00:28:57] another country, you have to open your mind and kind of realise, “I’m not going home right now. I’m going to another country,” which means the food will be different and you will enjoy it because it is different and that’s part of the experience, right?
So, I think, kind of, the first step is understanding that it will be a different country, not your home and I think from there…
That’s actually a good question, something that we are starting to do more and more on the platform. We haven’t been doing that much yet, but how to really prepare you for the interviews, because there are also interview cultural differences and so on and so forth, and that’s exactly what my team is working on. So, it’s a very good question, how to be more prepared, let’s say, what the European different countries, let’s say what the German recruiter is expecting from you and any other.
But, I think the main big thing is your own preparation, which means that your mindset has to be ready for a change and another thing is that when you’re, kind of, introducing yourself, you have to really think through for that recruiter, whom you are now going to be communicating, basically they need a little bit more introduction than somebody who might work in the next building to you. So, really thinking about their aspect of it, how they kind of…
If you would have somebody from, let’s say Estonia, wanting to join your team, how would you like them to introduce themselves to you? So, really thinking through how you actually build that bridge. I think the mindset is the biggest.
Jayce: So, then my next question is, that’s on an individual side, but how about a company, like ourselves, if, let’s say, we want to open up to get people of a different culture to join us, what sort of preparation do we need to get ready, for the experience to be rewarding for both of us, from a company perspective?
Karoli: My first question is, would it be your first international person, somebody coming from overseas?
So, I think the first thing is that basically, the first thing would be, kind of, thinking, really, from the first, let’s say, lunch that you have together to really start building things that will make the person included, because they don’t know the culture and the environment there, so you have to introduce.
So, what we recommend usually is to have somebody in the team assigned as a buddy. So basically, somebody who would be like the go to person when they have a question that you didn’t even know that it’s a question. Where do you buy something? You just go and buy it, but they have no idea where to even start looking.
In Singapore it’s easier. If you go to a country where you don’t even have the signs, you cannot read it, but in Singapore it’s a little bit easier.
But, what we would recommend first is to have somebody who’s assigned for, let’s say the first two months, a buddy, somebody you can go and trust, even if you want to go to a doctor you can just go and ask, “What do you recommend?” So, that they would feel safe, because they might not go to see you and I think you would want that question get to you as well. So, that would be the first thing.
The other, to really, maybe decide in the first week, the first welcome lunch together, explaining a little bit, that’s how we work, when we have lunches those are the things that we are talking about.
I remember, we had a case where, a European actually, trained in a Singapore company and he had a really hard time understanding, for example, there was an issue with understanding how important team lunches were. So, he liked to code when they had lunch and then he suddenly discovered that he was so excluded, and he didn’t realise that it was because those lunches were when important things were discussed, he just thought, “They are going out for lunch.”
So really, maybe making it clear, like to a four-year-old, how you work and what your expectations are just in the social environment and then assign a buddy. I think that would be the two things.
Jayce: So, what are some of the most common positions that you see opening up to international talent like this?
Karoli: I mean, engineering, definitely. Engineering, it could be from [unclear 00:33:37], I mean, everybody is looking for artificial intelligence. But also, from our end, what we see is a lot of UX designers, like I said, senior frontend, backend, senior frontend people, senior designers overall and also marketing, but senior level marketing. We have quite a bit of success with placing marketing positions, both in Europe and Asia.
Fanny: Wow, okay.
Jayce: Okay, before we let you go…
Fanny: Another question. It’s a very common question, but we just wanted to hear from you, what do you think the future of work going to look like?
Karoli: The future of work? I think this is a very wide question. I don’t think it has one answer, but I do think that, and I’m very much an optimist and I do think that one change, that automation for example will change and is already changing actually. Automation will give us much more time to use the creative power that we actually came here with. So, if somebody’s doing that job, then you actually can step back and use what you have here, and I think people will be a very important part. The next automation, we are the creatives, our minds will have much more freedom to create.
I think the big question there is, how do we distribute the wealth and how that will happen? You know, basic salary discussions and so on, but I do think that people will have many more ways to use the power that we actually came here with.
But, what is the future of work? I think another, I mean, if we talk about talent mobility, a little bit like I mentioned before, but I think the countries will start to understand that talent will decide the success and failures of economies, which means that countries will have to redefine how they operate.
So, it’s not anymore that I sit with those people, I mean Singapore has seen it already for years, that has been part of your success, but in most countries, it kind of has been sitting with this group of people that decided what was best for it, and now they sit here, but now they don’t sit here anymore and the question is, how do you become, like a service, how do you attract the best people?
So, I think the future of work, in that sense, will be much more global and so attracting people will be, like a big thing that the countries will have to start focusing on. That means, also, again we were talking about user experience and I think the countries will definitely have to start thinking about the user experience of a country, because if you create barriers, I mean, look at America right now, we have seen the decline of international interest, even to go and travel there, not talking about studying, which has dropped enormously. So, if you create barriers or fear, that will mean that people won’t want to come here, so they will go somewhere else.
So, you have to really start thinking about the user experience and I’ve said once that I believe that in the future the governments will have a minister of user experience, like somebody will actually be in charge of thinking about that, because it’s such an important thing.
In Estonia, we have talked about my country a bit, but this country has an amazing user experience because I can start a company within ten minutes online. I can do taxes, I did my taxes last year, I was in South Korea, in two minutes, from the airport lounge, online. I voted for the elections when I was in Tokyo, online. I mean, it’s just so easy that you don’t even… seriously, we spend almost zero time on public bureaucracy and I think that is something that countries will have to think about also. So, in that sense, bringing in talent and how to make their experience great.
Fanny: That’s interesting.
Jayce: I think if we have a minister of user experience.
Karoli: Yeah, yeah.
Jayce: So, tie it in with the economic value of the country.
So, this is the last question before we let you go. This is the usual question that we always ask our guests. What is the one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self?
Karoli: Yeah, I know that very well actually. So, how short do you want me to say that? I think, for me, the biggest learning has been how to say no, and it sounds ridiculous but it’s so important.
When I started my first business and I became so famous, so fast, I suddenly discovered that, like 90% of the time, I was spending talking about what I’m doing instead of doing it.
So, really focusing and asking the question, like as an entrepreneur or as somebody building a business, to really, okay, I get a request, does that help my business? Does it help my family? Does it help my health? If it doesn’t then I shouldn’t do it and a lot of people don’t like me because I say no so much now, but definitely, we are wasting, we don’t even notice how much time we waste because we’re afraid to say no or we don’t want to disappoint other people, but if you don’t do that you are disappointing yourself. So, I think for me, that has been painful learning.
Jayce: Yeah, I think that’s very true. I think that’s something that we also share with some of our freelancers, and even for us. When we first started out five years ago…
Fanny: You said yes to everything.
Jayce: Yeah. We never said no. Even like the higher dollar jobs, which was probably not worth it, but we would still say yes because…
Fanny: We hoped that the client would come back to us.
Jayce: We would worry that if we say no, the client would never come back again. But then, after doing it, we realised that actually, it doesn’t make sense, we should have said no, because we couldn’t put in 100% of our effort to do something that we’d be proud of, and yet, at the same time, there’s so many things that the clients expects.
Karoli: Expecting.
Jayce: Yeah, expect us to deliver and of course, So, in the end now, we also found this to be very important, so we have to learn how to say no, in a very nice way.
Karoli: Exactly.
Jayce: In that Asian way. I don’t know whether it’s from birth or whatever it is, but when we receive a job and we realise it’s actually not worth our efforts, so what we do is, we deliberately put a very high cost on it, so then the client says, “Oh no, that’s too expensive, we cannot.” So, hopefully, then it seems like the other one is rejecting us and not the other way around.
Karoli: If they would agree then it would be worth the time, right?
Fanny: Yeah, exactly.
Jayce: So, that’s just one of the techniques that we have learned.
Karoli: I think that’s a very clever one.
Jayce: It took us five years to come up with this technique.
Karoli: I think it’s very clever. Yeah, and every time now, I’m saying no to big speaking engagements, but I just know that it’s not going to help us and every time you say no, it feels so good. Otherwise you just drag this, you said yes, now there’s an expectation, you cannot meet them, and all of that brain power that you save from being anxious, like you would be anxious about the thing, you can now use that on the things that you have to work on.
Jayce: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. Great, okay.
Fanny: Thank you so much.
Jayce: Thank you so much for your time.
Karoli: Thank you.