Doing business in a difficult country

[Paul Mernon]

I'm planning to start my own business on the Internet. In the past, I made a couple of websites to test if I can earn money this way. This experiment was successful, and I'm sure I can, with a certain amount of work, to make a living from Internet sources of income. But there is one thing that concerns me.

I live in Russia. I love my country and the people who live there. But:

1. Russia is 143th (of 179 countries) on the Corruption Perceptions Index (2007 / cpi / surveys_indices / policy_research / home - Transparency International).
2. Russia is 106th (of 178) on the ease of doing business rankings (Rankings - Doing Business - The World Bank Group).
3. Russia is 147th (of 168) on the Press Freedom Index (Reporters sans frontières - Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index - 2006).

And, living here, I more believe these rankings than not.

Specific things that bother me in the business climate of my country with regards to Internet business are:

- lots of excessive paperwork;
- laws don't meet the needs of Internet business;
- a lot of uncertainty in law that leads to higher dependence on point of view of local officials;
- many companies don't accept partners from Russia, like ClickBank, PayPal (works only for payments);
- the only payment option is often by check, local banks cash checks in 1 to 3 months.

So, instead of growing a business, I will spend more time on overcoming obstacles, and the risk that something will go wrong will be high, because corruption is high! And, in addition, I have to work at my daily job.

I need advice on how to start and grow my business in such conditions. I know there are a lot of people on these forums from many countries, I know there are people from Russia.

If you do business in a country like mine, please share your experience. From the other side, doing business in a country like United States, United Kingdom or Australia and many others seems to be much easier than in my country. If you are from one of these countries, please share your vision.

Also, have you met with government as a source of difficulty, injustice, constraint, bribery in doing your business? Have you heard of such cases? How do you deal with them?

[AndrewPavelski]

Interesting post Paul. I wish you the best of luck with your Internet business!

[1000feet]

From the sound of it, starting a business there would be difficult and possibly take lots of connections with people who can get around the rules. If it's really important to you you may need to consider a different country.

[Paul Mernon]

1000feet, your points about connections and thinking about different country are sensible, but I didn't want my post to look overly pessimistic.

Problems exist to be solved, and I started this thread hoping for a practical exchange of ideas and experience on how a young and small business can rise in a hard, not mature, bureaucratic environment. My goal is to discover tools, ways and methods what can be helpful to such businesses.

Clarification for the ones who are confused with my non-Slavic name here on the forums - Paul Mernon is my pen name, my real name is rather long and hard to write and pronounce