I quit my tech job due to burnout and left London. Moving to Lisbon cured my loneliness and restored my work-life balance.
Courtesy of Rita Ansone
- Startup founder Charlie Baron felt lonely and burned out in London.
- He moved to Lisbon in 2023 and started a new company focused on building community.
- Baron told Business Insider he has a healthier and cheaper lifestyle in Lisbon.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Charlie Baron, 30-year-old founder in Lisbon, Portugal, about moving from London. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When I moved to Lisbon, I was burned out and lonely from working from home for a tech startup I'd co-founded.
One week in November 2022, I barely left the house. I needed to change my lifestyle. I'd been thinking about moving to another country for a while. Moving abroad would push me to meet new people and live a more fulfilling life.
I co-founded a startup
I've always been entrepreneurial and worked on little projects from a young age. In 2012, I went to Loughborough University to study business. When I left university in 2016, I joined Tesla in their London sales team. I had always wanted to work in tech.
While there, I started a side business helping inventors launch their products on crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo. I quit Tesla in 2017 to work on it full-time.
Through that, I met the founder of a portable phone charging network ChargedUp. I consulted for them, then wrapped up my business and joined ChargedUp as a cofounder in November 2017. I led various teams, including sales and marketing. We raised capital from VCs in the UK.
The COVID-19 pandemic stopped us in our tracks. We pivoted to creating hand sanitizer dispenser stations under the name CleanedUp. Five years into the business, we sold the CleanedUp side and launched another tech product for the hospitality industry in 2022.
I was lonely
I started to feel slightly lost and tired of London. I'd grown up in London and moved around the city in my 20s.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, everyone left the capital and moved to the outskirts with their partners. When restrictions were lifted, I realized I barely saw my friends anymore. We would meet up once a month if we could.
I struggled to meet new people. I joined a football team locally but still spent most of my time working remotely from home and not meeting anyone.
Over the five years, I often worked 18-hour days and was burned out.
I considered moving to the US
Moving to California had always been a dream. But after the pandemic, the state seemed to be on the decline, with lots of people moving out.
I'd visited Lisbon before and loved it. It felt like somewhere on the ascent. One of my friends had moved there and encouraged me to join. I decided to go for three months in 2022 while working part-time for ChargedUp.
I wanted to live there immediately and applied for a D7 visa that summer. The visa is for people who make at least $7,673 a year in passive income. It took me around five months to get the visa. I flew back to the UK a lot for my visa appointments and still had an apartment there with my brother.
I got the visa in January 2023 and moved to Lisbon shortly after.
Since I started my application, digital nomad visas have become available. Those require a higher minimum income.
I left ChargedUp in April 2023 but kept equity in the company. I took six months off to enjoy myself, living off my savings.
I scoured WhatsApp for groups to meet new people, tried out new sports, and spent time in nature. Hiking around Lisbon is very easy.
People I met often had similar stories to mine. They lived in different cities and struggled to connect with people there. They all moved to Lisbon to reconnect.
I started my own business
These interactions inspired my new business. I started it in July 2023 as a fun side project. It's a membership app called Tribe, which connects people new to a city on mutual interests like sports, arts, or music. We host events at our social clubs, which are also coworking spaces.
I launched the business with money from my previous businesses and used AI tools to help me build the app.
I met my cofounder paddleboarding in Lisbon. He'd run a chain of cocktail bars in London. We'd even worked together but never met. We bootstrapped the app together.
London's business scene is ahead
Building in Lisbon was probably harder than it would've been in London. Getting investment and finding tech talent in London might have been easier, and it would have been faster to set up a business in London.
In Lisbon, it was a long process, and employers have to pay Social Security tax proportional to an employee's salary, so it's more expensive to pay people higher salaries, which is frustrating.
We plan to take the app to Spain, France, and the UK over the next few months.
My lifestyle is better and cheaper
The UK, especially London, is constantly in a rush. Lisbon is more laid-back. My lifestyle is focused on wellness and being outdoors. I walk and exercise more.
Playing sports four times a week is easy, even while building the business, because everything is nearby. In 20 minutes, I can be on the beach or up a beautiful mountain.
I haven't taken a salary yet from my business, but I hope to next year. It helps that I live a simple life, and it's much cheaper than London. There's some of the nicest wine in Europe, and it's three or four euros for a glass. I didn't go out in London much because it was so expensive.
When I first moved here, I had a one-bedroom apartment in the center of town. Rent has since gone up. I now live 10 minutes away from the center in a nice community, and I rent a three-bedroom house from a friend for less than double my initial rent.
I feel so much less lonely than I did in London. I'm almost overstimulated now from meeting so many new people. It was a good decision to move.
If you've relocated to another country and would like to share your story, email ehopkins@businessinsider.com.
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