Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

This is the sad truth of places like Cuba or North Korea. Everything is forbidden to the point that eating is difficult. So people get corrupted and the guards, etc. just want their part.

None of those things should be illegal. It is really annoying to see how a leader class kills people of hunger and make everything illegal so that now everyone is a criminal for trying to survive.

I don't know about DPRK but I have been to Cuba for a 2 weeks vacation, so I had time to go out of the default tourists spots.

What I've seen is this: Those who have access to tourists or to the government are rich. Corruption is rampant as I've seen people bribing police right at the airport to have their things sorted out.

The mainstream corruption in society revolves around casa particulars and taxis. Essentially, you have right to rent a room and you have right to ride a taxi but there are strict limits on how much you can do it. So what more entrepreneurial people do? Simply distribute the business ownership to their friends and relatives on paper and keep growing and running their enterprises.

Also, there are two different types of shops and businesses: Locals only shops, locals only restaurants, locals only buses that are at very poor quality and I believe they are free or heavily subsidised and there are better quality versions that have prices similar to the European countries(prices way beyond a person with a salary can afford). So who do you think eats at these expensive restaurants? Yes, tourists - but also people who have access to tourists and people who work for the government.

One day a wandered around my casa particular in Havana and ended up in a place with very nice houses quite close to governmental buildings. I took some photos, enjoyed the place and ate at a restaurant. Then I noticed that the restaurant got very busy with military personel and well dressed people. Those were definitely not tourists, those were people from the nearby governmental buildings having a dinner after work.

Very interesting experience overall. Almost completely positive, full of life lessons about so many things including classes in the society where they are not supposed to exists. I'm also convinced that consumerism is not the only way to a happy life and abundance and excess are not necessarily the answer. The first week was hard, the second week I was completely happy to have only 2 options for beer and 1 option for chocolate.

You missed to clarify that tourists use pesos convertibles which are artificially tied 1:1 to USD (1USD, 1 convertible) and that are basically what casas and taxi drivers accept. But you can totally go to local restaurants as a tourist (we did it a few times during our 3 weeks stay). And yeah, it can be sad to see how people lives there, and many try to flee but as you said makes you think about the real, deep impact of consumerism.

Serious question, not trying to start a debate. How does abject poverty in an openly communist country make you think about the "deep impact of consumerism?"

I'm not @darkwater but I will use this question to try to put my thoughts together a bit.

So, on my first week it was hard. I was working in very central London and I had access to peak consumers options. I like it, I was used to have anything that crossed my mind being readily accessible for me. Except for shorts that week, apparently. My order from Amazon did not arrive and I was trusting Amazon enough to skip going to a high street shop to buy one up until the last day.

So I flew to Cuba with no short pants. Turns out its very hard to buy clothes in Cuba, I didn't know how locals manage to do it and I was out of luck. If you stay at a resort, there are shops in the hotel but I wasn't going to stay in a resort. I found out that there's a shopping mall in Havana and you can even use your credit card to do purchases(I went there with very little cash as my research indicated that ATMs work fine. In reality, not that fine). The mall was nothing like the ones I was used to and the shops sell knock offs at original prices.

Anyway, I was for a rough start so I was forced to improvise and not follow my initial plan. Later the things stabilised, I was able to find an ATM that will let me withdraw cash from my HSBC account but by the time I already befriended a few local people who would give me a glimpse into the actual daily life in Cuba. I went to the places I was planing to go, great beaches and everything but my mind got occupied with the way everything works in Cuba, so I kept paying attention.

First week, I was missing my routine in London. The snacks, the entertainment, even the food. I was feeling like missing out and I had no idea how to enjoy life without those things.

Then I realised that I was feeling bad because I was expecting to spend my time the way I spend it in London but I was not in London. The consumerist lifestyle in London has defined my expectation and I was annoyed because those expectations are not met by Cuba. A nice restaurant would take the edge of it but the core problem persisted.

Then I started looking inside. Do I really need to spend money for enjoyment? Do I really need to taste a different beer every time and judge it? Does my pizza needs to be proper Italian? Do I need advertisements to give me ideas to do or buy something? I found out that no, I don't need ads and I don't need to occupy my mind with the decision making of the kind if lager I should drink tonight. Instead of riding the amusement park of consumerism, I can simply be curios and explore!

My second week was much more chill. I knew which beer I like, I like Cristal and I have no interest in Bucanero or Presidente. Big deal, it's a nice beer and available pretty much everywhere. Maybe Heineken is better but I don't care anymore, that's not something that I would spend time on.

I need something sugary? Well, it's not available on every corner so I will just not have it now and If I still want it I will buy one of the few snacks that are available. It is alright not to have it now.

I found myself to consume much less and be quite content with it and I found out that I was enjoying the stuff I consumed much more. My actions were no longer guided by the consumer infrastructure and the simplest things were giving me more joy than the speciality stuff that I had to buy to out do the regular things I buy. A fish at a local restourant tastes much better when I'm hungry than the fish I would eat at the restaurant that is highly rated and endorsed by influencers.

Don't get me wrong, I do value and enjoy the variety of food, items and entertainment in the western societies however I no longer believe that these things are the main ingredients for a happy life or society. It's nice to have those things, it brings so much culture too but if you think that your life will be less fulfilling without those you will be wrong. These are nice to have but there is a danger to give up on actually fulfilling stuff in order to live a consumerist life. Let's not try to optimize for having ever more food and gadgets and things.

You paint a good picture of Cuba, but what is life as a jaded resident of The City like?

I would definitely not want to live under that regime. Cubans are generally happy people with good lives but they lack the opportunities for higher ambitions. Corrupt, planned economy is not something to be excited for nor is the being the lowest class in a “classless” society. They are also missing out about the world outside of their borders due to the restrictions on their communications.

It’s just that the western lifestyle is not without its own faults. There’s lessons to be learned about being happy without being full blown consumerists.