A forgotten history
The last time that I wrote here was in October 2019. I told you that I was home-basing in Tbilisi Georgia and for the most part, that’s the full truth of what’s happened over the past 4 years. However, there is so much more that never got told…
For those that are friends and know me, you can likely skip over most of this and cut to the end…
At the end of my most recent Entrepreneur blog, I told you “Ultimately, I think I want to engage in another entrepreneurial venture. What will that be?”. Then I disappeared for 4 years…WTF?!!
What I’ve been up to the past 4 years
A lot has happened in the past 4 years. I had been feeling lost, alone, without community and wandering the world (literally) spending time finding myself. When I landed in Tbilisi, I immediately felt that this was the place! I had already decided that my next entrepreneur venture would be to open a CoWork and CoLive and had been researching places, business models, and the communities where I was traveling to find the ‘right’ spot to start-up. Tbilisi Georgia ticked off all the boxes that I needed.
I sometimes boast that I’m a community builder – but in reality; maybe I just build community so that the community will come to me and I don’t have to search them out? I don’t know…just thinking out loud. Anyway, LOKAL Tbilisi was born out of the desire to do something, and my interest in building community.
It’s been a very successful business. The community that emerged from LOKAL is one that I can honestly say that I’m very proud of. Many ‘forever’ friends were made and I feel that I have a second family here in Georgia.
Success didn’t come without it’s share of difficulties.
I had barely opened the business (built on bringing people together) and COVID hit… That didn’t do much for being able to build an in person community! The business went through many iterations of how we connected and yet somehow survived. Maybe just my tenacity of not wanting to let things go..?
Getting through COVID, I thought that I’d finally made it and that the business would now thrive; then – the Russia invasion of Ukraine happened! You wouldn’t necessarily think that this would have much to do with the small country of Georgia nestled in the Caucasus Mountains; but it did (and still does today). In a nutshell, Russians fled to Georgia due to it’s lack of travel restrictions and friendly government; Georgians in retaliation, increased prices on everything; and the landscape became unrecognizable from what it was when I arrived in 2019. The increased cost of living coupled with the physical proximity to Russia warded off digital nomads who were looking for peaceful, cheap places to travel. This was my audience and they were no longer looking at Georgia as a nomad-friendly location.
I pushed through these roadblocks for nearly 2 years before I finally said ‘ENOUGH’! and that brings us to the here and now..
Subscribe and stay tuned for the next chapter!! I’ve got some BIG news to share!!
A Re-Discovered Life 