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I do process consulting for mid-size manufacturers, mostly remote since 2021. I moved the base out of Bucharest two years ago and I got three things wrong that I would warn anyone about.

I underestimated the time zone. Not the hours themselves, the erosion. Six hours ahead of my main clients means every call lands in my evening, and after four months I noticed I had stopped doing anything after seven because there was always one more call.

I assumed invoicing would follow me. It did not. Two clients had procurement rules about the country of the supplier that nobody had mentioned while I was sitting in the same country as them.

I signed a twelve-month lease on the first place I liked. Everyone says not to and everyone does it anyway. Three months would have told me the area was wrong for me and cost me almost nothing.

None…

I do bookkeeping and small-company admin in Limassol, and about a third of my clients arrived here in the last four years. The same four things come up every time, so now I write them down.

Rent quoted to a foreign company is not always the rent quoted to a local one. Not everywhere, not every landlord, but often enough that I ask clients to have a Greek speaker make the second call.

Nobody budgets for the deposit and the agency fee and the first month landing in the same week. Three payments at once catches people who planned perfectly well for one.

Registering the company is fast. Opening a bank account is not. I have seen four weeks and I have seen five months, and nothing about the client explained the difference.

Watch listings for two months before you sign anything, not two weeks.

The fifth thing is that…