When people are passionate about what they do and are truly committed to their ideas, you can feel it as soon as they walk into the room. They are relentless, powerful, energetic. You can feel their determination. It’s contagious. And it’s exactly what I sense when the amazing female-empowerment duo of Angela Ventsel and Lilian Promet sit across the table from me. They are the engine behind SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA.
What many people may not know is that e-Residency just turned five years old. Estonia has been positioning itself as a digital nation, a leader in digital innovation. SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA has had a big part to play in this. They offer soft-landing solutions for e-residents and are an official service provider on the e-Residency Marketplace.
What does that mean? Well, in a world where growing your business mostly comes down to how good are you at networking, they are here to provide you with connections. Becoming an Estonian e-resident doesn’t give you citizenship, but it does give you access to e-services that would otherwise only be available to Estonian-ID carriers. This means you can register a company online and you can digitally (and legitimately) sign documents regardless of your actual location. This is a huge advantage for anyone looking for a way for their business to emerge in Europe. As an Estonian e-resident, you are already in. Here is where SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA steps in. First, they help you with legislation and registering your company. Now, all you need are contacts in your field of action, who are looking for collaboration – something which SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA can also provide.
They have a huge client base all over the world and they are focused on helping small and medium-sized companies find the right partners. “It is also our mission to work with e-residents ourselves and connect them with suitable Estonian companies. In the long run, both companies will benefit from good collaboration,” Angela says.
Take It from Someone Who Knows
One of their success stories is with Paolo from Mind the Gap. Paolo’s company was originally founded in Italy. “Our business is data-driven marketing. We work with data to extract insights, to drive creativity, and to manage branding projects and online campaigns. Opening a company abroad had been my dream for many years, but I was struggling with bureaucracy and drowning in taxes,” he says, telling his story. “After meeting with Lilian at SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA, I finally realized that Italy was not suitable for my new business plan and that Estonia was the best option. I started the process of acquiring e-Residency. The process was easy, and the documents took less than a month to arrive at the embassy. Literally 48 hours after picking up my document at the embassy, SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA had already completed the setup of the company and I was operational in Estonia.”
Now, just a couple of months later, Paolo’s company is growing steadily. He has a team of five members and is working on several digital marketing projects with clients that span from Australia and Indonesia all the way to the US, passing through Europe and Baltic countries. “We are soon going to increase our presence in Estonia in order to meet the demands of that fast-growing market,” he says.
Development Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA has been acknowledged by the business sector. In September 2019, nearly one hundred experts from around the world participated in Digital Nation Hackathon 2.0 on the remote island of Vormsi to develop services and products for e-residents. After a very intense 48 hours, SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA presented the idea of Successothon, which is essentially a 90-day-long marathon made up of four teams of six different entrepreneurs. By participating in Successothon, increasing your company’s profitability is guaranteed. Successothon was recognized with a special award and named the best idea in the Community Impact section at Digital Nation Hackathon 2.0.
The article was published on February, 2020 in magazin STATION.