Has Tommy Smith lost his mind? A lot of his college buddies probably thought so when he booked a ticket from New Hampshire to Japan in the thick of a recession here in the United States.

But while his old classmates were back home grinding it out for tips at the bar or hoping to land an entry-level office job, Smith was giving presentations, coordinating with lawyers and accountants, signing deals and building a business for himself Taiwan.

Now at the ripe old age of 24, Smith is launching his second business: a full-service digital agency called ClickShark.com.

Smith has an incredible story about what can happen when you throw caution to the wind to get what you want.

Tell us a little background about yourself and how a kid that’s
originally from New Hampshire ended up in Taiwan?

Well, I graduated from the big university in New England. It was really trendy and cool to go down to New York and get a job at one of the big banks or a hedge fund. I remember putting in my application for Lehman Brothers the day before they went bankrupt. Graduating with a finance-related degree at the start of the recession was hilariously bad timing.

So, rather than bartending and waiting tables in New Hampshire like so many of my friends did during the recession, I decided to move to Tokyo, Japan to teach English. My intention was to make it a hybrid of working and backpacking. Japan was awesome, really an incredible country. It’s a tough place to start your “career” that’s for sure, as I was going to probably 10 hours of classes every week, and all of a sudden was working 50-60 hours a week in Tokyo, teaching everyone from 6 year olds to 70 year olds. Some of the friends I made in Japan are just amazing, and I’ll definitely be in touch with them for the rest of my life. Japanese people have a kindness to them that you won’t find anywhere else in the world. And Tokyo, you really have to see it to believe it. Absolutely incredible.

A good friend of mine from high school came out to visit me during his Christmas break, and we decided to backpack around Asia for 2 weeks. In planning our trip, we were trying to find the cheapest flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, and it so happened to include a layover in Taipei, Taiwan. I had no idea where Taiwan was, and I thought it was part of China, but I was down to check it out. When we landed, I was extremely impressed. The people were so friendly, the city was very busy and exciting, and everyone spoke English quite well. It was a much cooler, vibrant and exciting than I had anticipated.

So Donny and I had decided that Taiwan was supremely underrated, and we wanted to start a business there. We were trying to think up ways to profitably let the world know Taiwan exists, and came across medical tourism, the idea of leaving the country and traveling abroad for lower cost surgery. It’s very successful in Thailand, India, and Singapore, and other Southeast Asian countries are getting on the bandwagon as well.

So I quit my job in Japan, and moved to Taiwan, where we started FormosaMedicalTravel.com, Taiwan’s first medical tourism agency. It was an incredible experience, from incorporating in Taiwan, to creating our business processes, developing our website, giving presentations, signing contracts with hospitals, finding accountants and lawyers, negotiating through translators, and marketing in two languages, it really was my alternative to paying for an MBA.

When we took a look at the medical tourism market, we decided that it existed primarily online. There weren’t agencies with big corporate headquarters in New York and LA, or people setting up satellite offices everywhere. All a company really had to show for themselves was their website. So the premise was that we were going to create a web startup that worked in facilitating Americans travelling abroad to Taiwan for surgery, and our marketing focus was solely online. This was my first professional look into the world of SEO.

I recently left FormosaMedicalTravel.com, and I’m happy to say that they’re growing rapidly. I’ve since moved to Singapore a few months ago, where I’ve started an energetic new digital agency, ClickShark.com.

So you moved to Taiwan to start a business. Were there any unique challenges that went along with starting a business in another country?

Tons of unique challenges! Taipei, the capital city, is quite developed. Lots of young people speak English, and they are a little more internationally minded than the rest of the country. However, when you go farther south, and into the more remote areas of the island, you’ll find communication a bit more difficult. In Taiwan, you have what they call 關係, or “Guanxi”. It roughly translates to “relationships”. At a party, this would translate to “Who do you know here, bro?”

It was very difficult at first to gain any traction, but once we met a few key people in the business and government space, it opened up a lot of doors. Contracts that had previously taken months to sign, took weeks. Meetings that were taking us weeks to book, took days. Once you’re a friend of a friend in Taiwan, things get a lot easier. Networking is important in any country, but in Asia it’s everything.

Now that you’ve been living abroad a few years and have left your previous business, what made you decide an SEO business was the right next step?

The short answer: Digital marketing is where it’s at, and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’m 24, and my family got our first computer when I was in 3rd grade (shoutout to AOL Kidspace!), so for me this industry is a no-brainer. For older generations, it might be tougher to see this coming, but everyone my age knows that the first page of results on Google for any term is going to be the “right answer” for that term. “Cheap Car Wash Portland Oregon”, “Best Hotel Budapest Hungary” – what Google says (ok fine, Yahoo and Bing too) is going to dictate a larger and larger portion of where dollars go. Additionally, I’m very good at it, I keep my ear to the ground and most importantly, I really enjoy it.

What advice do you have for anyone who’s considering starting a
business abroad? Would you recommend it to others looking back on what
you know now?

Yes, I would absolutely recommend it. In fact, I can’t recommend it enough. As a person born in an English speaking western country, you have no idea how blessed you actually are. This is our time! People all over the world are taking English classes, applying for visas, and learning about how western culture works. They’re doing the hard work, all you have to do is show up!

Here in Singapore, they call it an “international” business environment, but really it’s just everyone conforming to western standards. If you haven’t left the country yet, you are absolutely wasting this opportunity to go abroad. With an American/Canadian/British passport, English as a first language, and your cultural upbringing, you don’t even realize how many doors have already been opened for you.

As for advice, there is only one piece of wisdom I can give that will create any traction if you’re going to start this journey: buy the plane ticket. Don’t make a business plan, don’t “save a little more money”, don’t wait for your 2 year lease to run out, don’t wait for the recession to end, just buy your one way ticket. It’s going to be messy, you’re going to make mistakes, things will go awry, but just get out there and do it. Even if you don’t have an idea yet, even if you don’t have a clue. Personally, I take a very “American cowboy” attitude towards my life and my business. I just pull the trigger. Just show up! Pack your bags, buy the one way ticket, and get out there! You’re going to live, stop worrying about that! Go! Right now! Kayak.com! Maybe get drunk first and do it, I don’t care! Hurry!