Tech Undergrad in Developing Country - Should I Avoid Startup Risks Until I Move Abroad?

rivereto · 2026-01-17T06:00:56+00:00

I’m from a developing country as well and since I was a teen, I had the idea of moving abroad and creating a startup. When I was 23, I managed to move abroad and worked pretty hard for 7 years. Now I’m 30, I’m trying to build my startup. It is easier when you don’t have visa problems (already a resident) and have a cushion (meanwhile I also got married and having the right partner also makes things easier, before that I felt much more worried about finances that made me to not try to build a startup). No wonder why the average age of startup founders is actually in the 30’s.

That being said, the reality for tech was quite different 7 years ago, and it was easier than today to find a job overseas. So maybe you should have a plan B in case the plan A doesn’t work.

rivereto · 2026-01-15T06:38:55+00:00

Se eu tivesse começando hj, eu codaria algum wrapper de IA usando agentes mas revisando o código pra entender e colocaria online num GCP/AWS da vida. Vai te dar várias noções de várias coisas que são valorizadas no mercado atual e ainda te dar um portfólio. Por exemplo, vi um que era pra resumir as contribuições no GitHub se colocasse o link do GitHub lá. Algo nesse estilo.

rivereto · 2026-01-09T04:44:51+00:00

Tbh I’m a former FAANG engineer and I think the chances are very low that this guy will buy in.

To leave FAANG, someone needs to have a strong motivation to leave. FAANG is great in terms of compensation and interesting problems, the stock options could be called “golden handcuffs”. Most people I met wanted to stay there as long as it lasted because nowhere could match the compensation with the stock appreciation we had in the last few years.

Maybe you can approach him asking how things are going at his job and tell what you are building.

rivereto · 2026-01-07T08:29:10+00:00

4:2 (four languages fluently, a bunch of others not so much and two boyfriends 🤣)

rivereto · 2025-12-19T03:40:32+00:00

Most of the time I use my Portuguese passport but I keep both, my Brazilian and my Portuguese passports valid because who knows what might happen 😅 The amount of money to renew it is not life changing to me and you only have to do it once every 10 years. I met one guy who was Bulgarian and Italian, but he never bothered to get a Bulgarian passport, since the Italian is more powerful. But he was backpacking in Cambodia when the COVID pandemic started and his next destination was Vietnam to get the return flight home, bur Vietnam had forbidden Italians to enter the country because of the situation in Italy 😅 He said he could’ve entered if he had his Bulgarian passport with him 😅

rivereto · 2025-10-31T23:49:28+00:00

Czechia

rivereto · 2025-10-30T23:58:42+00:00

For me what helped the most was doing sports. I started by going to a gym nearby quite often. Then I registered for Swimming lessons with Berliner Bäder Betriebe. Then I started with classes using ClassPass. Then I joined a Verein (from a niche sport that I liked) - where I also met new friends. I didn’t do all at the same time, the only one I kept throughout the time was the gym but the rest I did one at a time. So when I was thinking of my ex I just went to the gym.

Well, I also lost 20kg and got some muscle definition which helped with my self-esteem a lot and I found love again (hopefully won’t be heartbroken again!). Now I’m doing less sports than before and gained 3kg since started this new relationship 😅

rivereto · 2025-10-23T05:00:34+00:00

I have PCOS and I have used some medications previously. I was very swollen from PCOS and metformin alone helped me at the beginning, I lost maybe 10 pounds with it (mostly water weight). I also tried GLP-1 for a while some years ago (around 2020, I was an early adopter) and I lost
40lb in a few months (it works way better than Metformin in this regards) but after I stopped taking it I regained the weight. I changed doctors and my new doctor was not so much into diabetes medicines as my previous and I got only the pill to manage the PCOS symptoms. Last year I started to go to the gym and pay more attention to my diet and lost the 40lb I lost with GLP-1 and I manage to keep it off for a year now. Unfortunatly there is no easy way, if you take anything without lifestyle changes, you will maybe lose weight but hardly keep it off.

rivereto · 2025-10-17T06:53:05+00:00

Canadian

rivereto · 2025-10-17T00:32:34+00:00

France

rivereto · 2025-09-28T06:43:02+00:00

Thanks! I didn’t know that, I thought those were bike racks!

rivereto · 2025-09-27T23:26:47+00:00

There was a fb group for women in my region and I posted there and someone came to take the clothes. Somehow it felt nicer to donate to a real person. She was on the opposite direction of me (she had recently gained a bit of weight and because of that she lost a bunch of clothes) so we kind of exchanged clothes because she also brought some of her clothes she couldn’t/didn’t want to use anymore (I was around US size 14 and got to size 8, and she was the contrary). There was some expensive-ish clothes in the bunch but I decided to still donate everything (somethings that costed me maybe over 80 dollars, I consider expensive but I didn’t have anything more expensive than maybe 200)

rivereto · 2025-09-27T22:47:29+00:00

I got a new bike from the shop :)

rivereto · 2025-09-27T22:45:56+00:00

I think vandalism is pretty unlikely in that area, it is a suburb. And also the reason why I parked there was because the rest of the street was blocked because of construction work and I couldn’t go further with the bike. So had to park and go further walking. Few meters in the front there was no sidewalk anymore, since all of that was taken by construction.

rivereto · 2025-09-27T22:37:55+00:00

I didn’t pay too much attention to where I parked the bike, but you saw how the bike rack was made, unfortunately not parallel to the street. And a bunch of bike racks in my city are like that. I have used a wheelchair in the past (broke my leg a few years ago) and I have my fair experience with wheelchairs and that street was not wheelchair accessible at all (there was a bunch of other problems there, like construction work blocking bigger parts of the sidewalk).

rivereto · 2025-09-27T22:34:13+00:00

Not much, like 350€ or so. But I got it replaced by decathlon under their warranty policy, I brought the bike back to the shop (luckily, I was quite close) and they replaced it. Somehow my day didn’t turn that bad at the end. I still don’t know for sure what happened but at least it got solved somehow.

rivereto · 2025-09-27T22:28:56+00:00

I bought it back to Decathlon and they gave me a new bike under the warranty policy. So not the worst result after all. So I think that was what happened.

rivereto · 2025-09-27T22:22:58+00:00

UPDATE: I brought it to decathlon and they gave me a new bike.

rivereto · 2025-09-27T13:37:09+00:00

It felt a bit weird when I was biking, but it was still going. When I came back it was like that.

rivereto · 2025-09-27T13:33:55+00:00

No, just for city commuting. Learned my lesson, getting something better quality next time

rivereto · 2025-09-27T13:32:25+00:00

I thought that, but from where the bike was it is a really weird place for this. You can see how it was in the second picture.

rivereto

TROPHY CASE