Jan de Jong (private album)

Born and raised in the Netherlands, entrepreneur Jan de Jong moved to Croatia in 2006 at the age of 22.

“When I entered Croatia, I immediately fell in love with the country, the lifestyle and everything it had to offer. Yes, but I realized that there are business opportunities in Croatia. All about Croatia podcast.

One of those opportunities was the call center business.

In 2007, he founded M+ Group, an independent business process technology outsourcing company. M+ Group is now the market leader in the region, employing over 12,000 people.

After selling the company almost a decade later, working on other projects, and getting closer to Split’s family, Jan founded Webpower Adria. Webpower Adria is the first company in the region to specialize in email marketing automation.

“We came to email marketing looking for a product or service that people in this region needed that was already well developed in countries like the Netherlands, but not well developed in our region. Today, we serve over 130 clients, including all telecommunications companies, airlines, insurance companies, banks, credit card companies and other large corporations.”

Apart from running Webpower Adria, the first company in Croatia to introduce a 4-day work week, Jan is also working on his latest venture, CROP. She imports food and becomes a food exporter again.

Jan is also the Marketing Director of Digital Nomads Association Croatia and worked for Croatia’s current implementation of Digital Nomad Visas.

In his podcast, Jan details how he came to Croatia, some of the obstacles he faced in business, his path to the so-called ‘Croatian dream’ and changing Croatia for the better.

“It is often said that it is difficult to start a business in Croatia, but I think it is difficult to start a business anywhere. No matter what you do, there is always someone doing it on a much larger scale and with very deep funds to make your life as a competitor miserable.

“In Croatia, there may be no competition in certain areas, but we are dealing with a very slow bureaucracy. If it’s about signing some papers then that’s the easy part. They will help you.”

Click play below to hear the full interview.