While changing jobs may be a relatively easy thing to do, those who want a change of scenery and go explore the world may not be as fortunate. That is until Teleport came into the picture with its core offering — Teleport Cities. This service promises to find users the city that's best-suited for them with only their salary, rent and whole lot of Teleport's own data.
On their log in page, Teleport simplifies the moving process into three steps: Explore, Prepare and Execute. Once signed in, users are required to provide details of their current location, their monthly salary, monthly rent, the kind of job they do and a host of other preferences. To be honest, the list is pretty long and signing up through Facebook seems like a less time consuming affair.
Teleport then analyses the data to provide the user a list of all the places that are best suited for them. The cities are scored across several parameters and the combined score is compared to the user's current location. As your preferences become stricter, the number of cities that could prove to be a potential match shrinks.
Teleport, curiously, sheds heavy emphasis on start-ups, asking users whether a city's start-up culture is important and even giving users reasons to set up a business in different cities.
Once the list of ideal cities is populated, Teleport presents something they call "Δ Budget." By comparing costs, average pay scales and more, Teleport calculates whether the move is going to leave the user financially better off or worse off. In our test, we learnt that a move to Mumbai from Bangalore is not going to end well. However, a move to Wellington, we found, is going to leave us with a lot of spending money.
Once a user has decided on the city they'd like to move to, users can avail the other features Teleport has to offer. Teleport Scouts is Teleport's paid service that promises to take care of any issues you might be facing. From visa-related queries to finding a job or a house, Teleport's local experts will have all the answers for you and after answering a few basic questions, Teleport Scouts will give you a free quote. An off-shoot of Teleport Scouts is the free service Ask A Local, however, when we tested it out, it didn't work.
Teleport also offers another service called Teleport Zen, a personalised to-do list that's broadly divided into 'Plan the move', 'Make the move' and 'Unpack and settle'. Each of these sections consists of a variety of important tasks, under which users can nest sub-tasks. One by one, users can check them off and add to as required. Tasks can even be delegated to Teleport Scouts.
Teleport seems like a novel idea — a simpler way for a user to pack their bags and leave behind a jaded life or an opportunity to see the world and experience new cultures. However, the one question one really needs to ask is whether in uncertain times like these, where most of the world is witnessing sustained slowed growth, would starting a new life in a new country be possible unless you've got the foundations of the next billion-dollar start-up hidden somewhere up your sleeve.
That said, the entire Teleport team is spread across five countries, embracing a culture of "Remote Work." Teleport believes that work doesn't need to take place from an office and prefers to build relationships in person and maintain them over video calls, chat applications, basically embracing the power of the internet to bring everybody closer.
Whether you're exploring the airid lands of the Gobi desert or sipping pina coladas by the beach, Teleport and their philosophy could give people the opportunity to live life like adults without having to make the sacrifices typically associated with being one.
