About

The Nearshore Explorer is an independent research and sourcing practice for US companies that make physical things and are trying to figure out whether Latin America is a real option for them.

It is one person. That is a feature, and it comes with limits I'd rather state up front than have you discover later.

Why this exists

There is a strange gap in the market. Large manufacturers hire consultancies to answer sourcing questions. Very small buyers use Alibaba. In between sits a large group of companies doing $2M to $50M in revenue with real tooling, real specs, and real exposure to whatever happens to their Asian supply chain next — and almost nobody serves them honestly.

What they get instead is brokerages. A brokerage earns a commission on what you buy, which means the answer is always yes, and always this supplier. That's not advice. That's a sales funnel with a research budget.

How I work

Flat fees, never commissions. You pay me for the analysis. Suppliers pay me nothing. If the right answer is "stay where you are," I can say it without losing money, which is the only condition under which that answer ever gets said.

Colombia is where I deliver. Hands-on work — supplier outreach, RFQs, verification — happens in Colombia. That's the honest boundary of what I can do well.

Everywhere else, I'll route you. If your product belongs in Costa Rica or Central America or Mexico, I'll tell you that and explain why, for free, on the first call. Routing you correctly costs me a project and earns something I'd rather have.

I publish the research. The guides and the company directory on this site are free and open. Read them before you hire me. If the free work isn't good, don't pay for the paid work.

My Spanish is a work in progress. I read it better than I speak it, and it's improving. For written outreach that's fine — RFQs and specs get translated and checked before they go out. For live supplier calls I bring an interpreter rather than pretend, because a misunderstood tolerance spec costs a great deal more than an interpreter does. If what you need is someone who negotiates unassisted in fluent Spanish today, that isn't me yet.

Where I come from

I'm a licensed general contractor in Washington State — ten years licensed, fifteen in the trades — not a supply-chain consultant. I've spent my career on the buying end of physical work — hiring subs, checking their work, and paying for it when the schedule slipped anyway.

That turns out to be the relevant skill. Evaluating a factory is evaluating a crew: can they actually do this, at this quality, on this timeline, or do they just say they can? I know what a supplier's excuse sounds like before the schedule slips. That doesn't come from a spreadsheet.

What I won't tell you

I won't tell you nearshoring is always cheaper, because it isn't. I won't tell you Colombia beats Mexico, because for many products it plainly doesn't. And I won't tell you I have people in six countries, because I don't.

Being the one who admits a limit is the entire proposition here.

Email austen@nearshoreexplorer.com.