We didn't set out
to start a business.
Five years ago a few of us moved to San Juan del Sur with too much luggage and not enough Spanish. We figured out residency, shipping, a long-term rental, a dentist, a mechanic — mostly by getting it wrong the first time.
Then friends started calling, and friends of friends. Eventually it stopped being favors and started being a job. We're still a small group, still live here, and — despite everything that doesn't work the way it does back home — still glad we came.
HOW WE GOT HERE
The accidental concierge.
We're not the founders of a relocation startup. We're a small group who moved here, found things out the hard way, and — despite everything — still live here, still get things wrong sometimes, and still pick up the phone.
The first move was just one family in 2020. By the end of that first year we'd helped a few others — a couple of Zoom calls, a long WhatsApp thread, an introduction to our lawyer, a ride from the airport. Nobody invoiced anybody. It was just what neighbors do.
By 2022 the calls had stopped being occasional and the favors had stretched thin. People needed a Miami shipping address, residency paperwork that actually moved, dental work that cost less here than the copay back home, a property agent who wouldn't disappear after closing, and someone to point at the leak under the kitchen sink. So we picked partners we'd already used on our own homes, agreed on what we'd charge, wrote it down, and started taking work on the record.
That's the company. No pitch deck. No investor. A shared inbox, a Google Doc, and the same small group of people who'd been answering for free for a couple of years.
What hasn't changed: the phone number still rings to someone who lives here. The answers still come from people who've personally been through the thing you're asking about. We still drive the occasional airport pickup ourselves when our regular driver is double-booked. The list of services has grown — the way we work hasn't.
What has changed: we say no more often. To customers we can't serve well. To partners we wouldn't introduce to family. To services we don't have the bandwidth to do right. The longer we do this, the shorter that list of "yes" gets.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Four things we actually mean.
These aren't values on a wall. They're the reasons we say no to things, the reasons clients stay with us for years, and the reasons our partners answer when we call.
Local is the whole point.
If you wanted a call center in Manila or a sales team in Florida, you wouldn't be reading this. Every person you'll talk to lives within a 90-minute drive of where you'll live. That's not a marketing line — it's the only reason any of this works.
Slow answers beat fast pitches.
We won't quote you in five minutes. We'll ask what you actually need first, often things you didn't know to mention. Sometimes the right answer is "you don't need us." We've talked more than one family out of moving here. That's not a sales tactic — it's the job.
We say no to things we can't do well.
We don't run helicopter tours. We don't sell timeshares. We don't broker yachts. We are good at a defined list of things — see the services page — and we hand off anything outside it. The list of "no" is longer than the list of "yes" on purpose.
Trust is built phone call by phone call.
Almost every family we work with came from another family we'd worked with — a sister-in-law, a poker buddy, someone they met on a Granada walking tour. We've never had a real ad budget. That means the bar for screwing up is unforgiving: one bad introduction loses us five future referrals. We act like it.
BY THE NUMBERS
A small operation, by design.
We're not trying to be the biggest. These are rough numbers — we'd rather under-promise than puff them up.
Years on the ground
in San Juan del Sur
Families we've helped relocate
most still here, a few moved on
Services we'll actually take money for
tried on our own homes first
Local partners we trust enough to recommend
most we've worked with for years
WhatsApp replies, business hours
Nica time · often faster, occasionally not
Office, which is mostly a porch
San Juan del Sur, Rivas
WHAT WE DON'T DO
The list of "no."
The shortest version of who we are is the list of things we won't help with. We mean each of these. If a competitor is pitching you any of these claims, ask them a few hard questions.
Want to talk?
Tell us what you're trying to do. One of us — an actual person on this team — will write back. No funnel, no scheduled discovery call, no twelve-page intake form. Just a conversation.