Start a business on the "cheap"?..Adventurous? Try Argentina

[SoCalDem]

Foreign entrepreneurs spice up Argentina
Devalued peso, low costs attract young people looking for brisk business
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14346385/


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - There's more to Argentina these days than tango, tourism and tasty beef. Lured here as tourists, adventuresome foreigners are increasingly deciding to stay — launching businesses that offer everything from English tea to pad Thai and even California-style burritos topped with guacamole and spicy salsa. Despite a crippling 2002 devaluation that saw the peso lose two-thirds of its value practically overnight, eviscerated workers' savings and sent unemployment and poverty soaring, Argentines never lost their famous predilection for living well. And with startup costs and wages still low in post-crisis Argentina, entrepreneurs say their savings in dollars, euros and pounds go a lot further here — letting them chase entrepreneurial dreams while reveling in the nation's cosmopolitan blend of Latin America and Europe.


"Argentina is very developed compared with other countries in the region," said Jordan Metzner, the 22-year-old co-founder of the California Burrito Company in downtown Buenos Aires. "I travel around Buenos Aires with my iPod and headphones just like I would in the U.S." When Metzner and Sam Nadler, 23, got their bachelors degrees from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business last year, they didn't want to follow their classmates straight into banking or law. "We were highly opposed to working 9-to-5 jobs and wearing suits," said Metzner, decked out in a beanie and Bob Marley T-shirt at his burrito shop.

So they traveled as tourists to the Argentine capital, having heard that its steak dinners and dance clubs could be had on the cheap in what used to be one of the world's priciest cities. Last November they teamed up with former banker and San Francisco native Chris Burns, 36, who had been blogging about life in Argentina. Within a month, they began renting 1,700 square feet of run-down retail space in the heart of the business district. "The bathrooms were just holes in the ground. We had to tear the place up from top to bottom," Metzner said. But at just $1,200 a month — a comparable space in Manhattan would run on average about $180,000 — the price was right. "You could never get a place like this in a major U.S. city."

He said it took just three months and less than $100,000 — all of it withdrawn in daily runs to the ATM — to transform the "dump" into a hip joint that today is packed Argentines, burrito-craving tourists and foreign students. "Never once did I question whether I made the right decision," Metzner said. "We have our own business and we break the limits on the nightlife."

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