Establishing a business here
The legal and regulatory side of setting up in Guernsey is well served. Advocates, fiduciaries and the regulator all know their part, and Locate Guernsey does a good job of attracting businesses to the island in the first place.
What none of them do is help a business become part of the place once it arrives. That is a different job, and on an island of 63,000 people it is the one that determines how well the first three years go.
What actually slows businesses down here
Not the paperwork. It is not knowing who decides things, which relationships matter, which door to knock on and which to leave alone. It is struggling to hire because the people you want already have jobs and no reason to have heard of you. It is bringing senior people over and watching their families fail to settle. It is not understanding that goodwill here is earned civically rather than bought.
None of that shows up on a set-up checklist, and all of it costs more than the incorporation did.
What this involves
Every engagement is different, which is why there is no price on this page. Broadly it covers:
Understanding how the island actually works, socially and politically as well as commercially. Who decides what, and why things happen in one place and not another.
Deliberate introductions to the people who matter for your particular business, chosen rather than collected.
Help attracting your first hires, and the settling programme for the ones who relocate.
Connecting the business into the island's civic life, which is how organisations here earn the benefit of the doubt.
Honest counsel on what will and will not work here, including when the answer is that it will not.
What this is not
Not incorporation, licensing or regulatory advice. Not company secretarial. Not a substitute for an advocate or a fiduciary, all of whom you will still need. This starts once those are handled.
How it works
Bespoke, priced on application, and deliberately limited to a small number at a time. Start with a conversation about what you are trying to build here and I will tell you honestly whether I can help.