Starter Kit. Idea 362 of 500. Cluster 18

Return-relocation services: the school, the house, the car, the tax, in one package

Back to the idea

Written for this site as a starting point, not from the book. Rules and fees change: ask the bodies named below before you spend money.

The mechanism, from the book

1.5 million people abroad who know how rich countries work, and who send home money and little else.

The first step

Find five families abroad who say they are thinking of moving back, through a Sri Lankan association or your own contacts, and ask each for their list of worries: school, house, car, tax. Price what you would charge to handle school visits and house viewings for one family, done and reported. One deposit is the proof, and the lists of worries are your service design.

Who pays first
A professional couple abroad with children of school age who want to come home but cannot plan the move from where they are.
What leaves today
Returning talent often gives up halfway through the paperwork and stays away; a relocation service makes return practical and brings the skills home with the family.

Ask first

  • Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which business registration suits a relocation service paid from abroad.
  • Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what returning families must declare when they bring household goods home.

Check before you spend

What you may advise on and what must go to a lawyer or tax adviser, and how you hold deposits paid by families abroad.

Find out these three numbers

  1. What would a family pay for school visits and house viewings?
  2. Which worry comes up most on the families' lists?
  3. How many families in one association are planning to return?

A comparison from the book

Going first. Epilogue

"The first one through pays the whole price, and everybody after walks through a door that is already open."

Each family that returns smoothly makes the next return easier; your service is that open door.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

WITH500BUSINESS IDEASTO STARTTOMORROW

From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.