April 29, 2025 • 16 mins
In this solo episode of The Nearshore Cafe Podcast, host Brian Samson, founder of Plugg Technologies, tackles the 7 most frequently asked questions about Nearshoring. With over a decade of hands-on experience connecting U.S. companies with top-tier talent in Latin America, Brian offers a direct, insightful breakdown of what businesses need to know in 2025.
From understanding the real difference between Nearshoring and Outsourcing, to quantifying cost savings and uncovering overlooked cultural advantages, this episode is packed with valuable guidance for scaling remote teams the right way.
Ideal for founders, CTOs, hiring managers, and operations leaders looking to grow smarter, not just cheaper.
🧠 Topics Covered:
- What is Nearshoring (vs Offshoring, Onshoring, and Outsourcing)?
- How much can companies save? (Spoiler: 40–70%)
- Benefits of time zone alignment & same-day collaboration
- Why Latin America’s resilience and creativity give your team an edge
- How Plugg Technologies differs from dev shops and typical staffing firms
- Are 2025 tariffs affecting Nearshoring?
- What roles are ideal (and not ideal) to Nearshore?
🔗 Learn More:
🌐 Visit: https://plugg.tech
📧 Contact Brian directly: brian@plugg.tech
🔊 Follow & Subscribe:
Follow The Nearshore Cafe Podcast for real-world insights on global hiring, remote team building, and Latin America's rising talent economy.
📢 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS for more insights on Latin America’s growing tech scene! 🎧🔥
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✅ Sponsor: Plugg Technologies | PLUGG.tech
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome.
Welcome everyone to theNearshore Cafe podcast.
Today I'm going solo and I'mgoing to answer frequently asked
questions about the world ofnearshoring.
For those that don't know, I'mBrian Sampson, the host of the
Nearshore Cafe podcast.
I'm the founder of PlugTechnologies and I've been doing
(00:50):
nearshoring for over 10 years.
So I'd like to give myfirsthand account to some of the
most frequently asked questionsthat we get.
The first one explainnearshoring versus offshoring,
versus onshoring versusoutsourcing.
What are they?
(01:10):
How does this all go together?
Very common question.
I like to think about it interms of workday overlap and
time zone.
So offshoring very common.
That's usually when, say, theUS is working with Asia, so one
time zone is generally sleeping,the other time zone is awake
(01:31):
and it's almost like a followthe sun model.
Offshoring is usually the leastexpensive but has the most
limited workday overlap.
The next is nearshoring, whichis usually developed countries
working with developingcountries in the same time zone.
(01:52):
So think UK with Poland, the USwith Mexico.
So same time zone, same workdayoverlap, a little less
expensive.
Then you've got onshoring,which is same country, same time
zone, most expensive.
(02:12):
Some of these could beoutsourcing, some not.
The way you should think aboutwhat outsourcing is.
Is this person part of my teamor are they part of a company
that's handling a function forme?
If they're part of an outsidecompany that's handling a
function for you say you'reoutsourcing accounting or
outsourcing marketing or SEO itcould be anywhere in the world,
(02:36):
they could be onshore, theycould be nearshore, they could
be offshore, but it's a specificcompany outside of yours,
external, that's handling acertain task or function, for
example, plug.
We're not outsourced.
This is an embedded teamstaffing.
So we're bringing near shoretalent from Latin America to be
(03:01):
part of your team.
So not outsourcing in Americato be part of your team, so not
outsourcing.
Another question that we get allthe time is hey, so let's say I
near shore, how much can Ireally save?
What's the cost savings withgoing near shore?
It does matter which countriesyou look at, but generally
(03:30):
speaking, you'll save anywherefrom 40 to 70% versus hiring in
the US, and that is reallynuanced by how expensive your US
city is San Francisco versus,say, omaha, nebraska.
You're gonna get the most costsavings with San Francisco and
Latin America, the least costsavings with, say, omaha and
Latin America.
And then there's also nuanceswith how expensive places are in
(03:55):
Latin America.
As you'd imagine, buenos Airesor Sao Paulo or Rio might be
more expensive than, say, ruralBolivia, so take all that into
account, but generally, 40% to70% is what you'll save.
What are some of the majorbenefits that a company might
(04:17):
get when they nearshore?
By far the most importantbenefit is time zone alignment.
You're going to be working withpeople on your time zone.
That means when you send aSlack message, you'll get a
response right away.
Project management software,emails, phone calls, zooms
(04:40):
they're all on your time zone,so it's instantaneous
communication.
I think that matters a lot in2025 and beyond of collaboration
.
People want to share ideas,especially when you think about
return to office.
What you really want in returnto office is collaboration.
(05:01):
You want instant feedback.
You want to be able to bounceideas off, kind of that water
cooler chat.
So time zone alignmentobviously number one.
Now let me tell you about myfavorite benefit.
Latin America, for for better orworse, is volatile.
You've got governments that aresometimes unstable.
(05:22):
You've got inflationinstitutions that have many
flaws.
And I'm not saying the US isperfect.
Us has certainly its share offlaws, but when you grow up in a
country where you can't trustthe government, the currency,
the institutions.
You have to think creatively,you've got to find workarounds,
(05:48):
you've got to be a problemsolver Things that would totally
stress me and my friends out inthe States.
It's just a regular Tuesday inmany countries in Latin America.
Take that as an advantage, nota disadvantage.
These people are adaptable,flexible, gritty, scrappy,
(06:12):
they're not afraid of chaos andthey can find solutions to chaos
.
That is by far my favoritebenefit of working with Latin
America.
Another question I get is howdoes Plug differ from its
competitors?
Well, as the founder of Plug,I've been nearshoring for over
(06:34):
10 years and I've had a chanceto see the different angles and
frames that companies can take,and I think there's really four
buckets that exist today, in2025.
Bucket number one is thetraditional dev shop, and often
you'll have a lot of people inthe middle architects, project
managers, directors ofengineering, and that's all
(06:58):
great, but there's two majorissues with that.
The first is there's a lot moreoverhead you're dealing with,
and when a company has moreoverhead, they've got to charge
you more to make up for it.
So is that extra overhead worthit?
The second is you might not begetting the best engineers
period.
You're getting the ones thatare the most cost effective for
(07:21):
the dev shop and in some casesthey're the ones that they're
just dying to get off the bench.
So they don't have to.
They can turn that cost into aline item on their income
statement of positivity.
But there's a trade-off rightAgain, it's someone they're
(07:42):
dying to get off their bench,dying to remove as a cost center
.
You're the one paying for it.
So there's the other threebuckets, which are traditional
staff augmentation.
Staff augmentation is basicallycontract recruiting.
It's bringing talent that issupplementing or augmenting
(08:02):
whatever you've got going onwithin your team.
There's three buckets here.
There are the companies thatare strictly US based, and we're
seeing a lot of that, you know,as there is a big land grab and
rush for Latin America.
The 2020s, in my opinion, arethe decade for Latin America.
(08:22):
That means you've got a lot ofUS staffing companies that are
seeing flat revenue and they aretrying to hack nearshoring, but
they're doing it from the US.
You know US recruiters, uers,us salespeople.
They haven't had experience inLatin America, they don't have
the infrastructure, the payrollsystems and they don't
(08:43):
understand the culture, so it'sreally hard.
Now you've got the opposite ofthat and you've got true Latin
America headquartered firms.
In this case, they understandthe talent quite well, but they
don't have the understanding ofthe US environment.
Us contracts they're asking youto send these international
(09:04):
wires.
Sometimes the contracts don'tfeel clean and clear.
There's just a way that they'redoing business that doesn't
totally map to the US.
And then there's Plug and wekind of live in the center of
that.
We're a US entity, us contracts, US bank accounts, easy
(09:29):
QuickBook invoices and we've gotmultiple people on the team,
myself included, who have beenexpats in Latin America.
So we've had to live it andlearn it all firsthand so we can
provide this special firsthandadvice on how to properly set up
(09:50):
in Latin America the differentnuances.
These are all things we've kindof lived going through customs,
eating at restaurants, takingtaxis.
We understand all this.
And then we have the LatinAmerica infrastructure
recruiters in Latin America,operations in Latin America,
(10:10):
payroll hardware, onboarding allthese things that are set up
for long-term success, loyal andcommitted team members.
It's 2025 and Trump is presidentof the US, so a question we're
getting all the time now istariffs Are tariffs impacting
nearshoring?
(10:31):
And my answer here is notreally, but it's not a
definitive no.
That's not a definitive yes,nearshoring if it relates to
goods like products think cars,watches, clothing, certainly and
we're in this war basically ofreciprocal tariffs or tariffs
(10:53):
going on a pause or a hiatus.
China obviously is the biggesttrade antagonist right now for
the US, so if you have productsmade in China they're going to
be a lot more expensive.
Now, latin America nearshoringthere's a lot of friendly,
friendly relationships with theus, so you're not getting as
(11:16):
many um reciprocal type oftariffs um, but if there are,
probably applies more to goods,it hasn't hit services yet, so I
think software and staffinghasn't really impacted that
quite so much.
Now the thing that is kind ofin the air is when companies are
(11:42):
getting hit with tariffs orcosts go up, so they might be
looking for an outlet on how tosave money elsewhere.
Funny enough, nearshoreservices might be a really
interesting way to go in 2025 astariffs are top of mind.
So your costs might go up inone line item, but they can go
(12:06):
down in labor and staffing byconsidering nearshoring, can go
down in labor and staffing byconsidering nearshoring.
I'm often asked to give advice,you know, on companies that
maybe are nearshoring for thefirst time in their history.
What should they do?
How should they think about it?
The best advice I would give isthink about your risk profile.
(12:31):
So is nearshoring a little morerisky than onshore?
Yeah, but the risk you take,the trade is usually cost
savings.
So if you nearshore, you hopeto win in that trade and get
(12:51):
more benefits than the risk thatyou're taking.
Again, you know saving moneythat way.
But then if you're already optedin for nearshoring, every
country kind of has a differentrisk profile and that's what
Plug is usually able to helpwith is understanding the
different risks, the nuances,everything from currency
(13:12):
volatility to customs hardware,onboarding, talent pockets,
things like that.
So I'll give you an example oftwo countries that are neighbors
, say Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Costa Rica is, by most accounts, more developed.
There's no standing army, long,consistent democracy.
(13:34):
Many companies have been therealready, you know, between
Microsoft and Intel and so forth, but therefore it's more
expensive.
But then you've got Nicaragualess expensive, maybe a more
volatile past, but in my opinion, a much bigger upside and
opportunity, bigger population,a lot of English speakers.
(13:55):
So it really depends on, like,where you are maybe in that bell
curve, and the more open torisk, the more upside and
potential arbitrage that youhave.
The last question that I get arehey, brian, what roles should I
even think about nearshoring?
(14:17):
What are the common roles thatpeople look to Latin America for
?
I think the try true testedstarts with software development
.
That was one of the firstthings offshored and it's also
one of the first things that wasnearshored and it's also one of
the first things that wasnearshored.
So think your full stackdevelopers, backend developers,
(14:41):
frontend developers, qa, devops,tech, adjacent UI, ux, things
like that Very common.
You'll find tens, if nothundreds of thousands of capable
talent all over Latin Americathat fits this profile.
Secondly, central America isreally making a run for a great
place to install a call center.
(15:02):
So think help desk, customerservice, even customer success
type roles.
They're right on par with thecall center of the world, which
is the Philippines, and I tendto like it because you get a lot
more unscripted people that canthink on their feet in Central
America at relatively same cost.
(15:26):
What I probably would notnearshore are executive roles.
I probably would not near shorelike my first developer or
second developer, but I wouldthink about it as staff
augmentation, as ability toaccelerate and grow my team with
(15:47):
really minimal risk.
I don't worry at all about IPtheft or anything like that.
I think near shoring is reallythe way to go as you look to
grow and scale your team andagain, not necessarily
outsourcing.
These people are truly eager tobe embedded as part of your
team and think what's best forthe business.
(16:08):
So there you have it my topseven FAQs frequently asked
questions about the world ofnearshoring.
If you have it, my top sevenFAQs frequently asked questions
about the world of near-shore.
If you have any questions, youcan always contact me personally
and our website is plugP-L-U-G-G dot tech.
You're listening to the NearShore Cafe podcast.
(16:32):
Thanks again and we'll see younext time.
Welcome.
Welcome everyone to theNearshore Cafe podcast.
Today I'm going solo and I'mgoing to answer frequently asked
questions about the world ofnearshoring.
For those that don't know, I'mBrian Sampson, the host of the
Nearshore Cafe podcast.
I'm the founder of PlugTechnologies and I've been doing
(00:50):
nearshoring for over 10 years.
So I'd like to give myfirsthand account to some of the
most frequently asked questionsthat we get.
The first one explainnearshoring versus offshoring,
versus onshoring versusoutsourcing.
What are they?
(01:10):
How does this all go together?
Very common question.
I like to think about it interms of workday overlap and
time zone.
So offshoring very common.
That's usually when, say, theUS is working with Asia, so one
time zone is generally sleeping,the other time zone is awake
(01:31):
and it's almost like a followthe sun model.
Offshoring is usually the leastexpensive but has the most
limited workday overlap.
The next is nearshoring, whichis usually developed countries
working with developingcountries in the same time zone.
(01:52):
So think UK with Poland, the USwith Mexico.
So same time zone, same workdayoverlap, a little less
expensive.
Then you've got onshoring,which is same country, same time
zone, most expensive.
(02:12):
Some of these could beoutsourcing, some not.
The way you should think aboutwhat outsourcing is.
Is this person part of my teamor are they part of a company
that's handling a function forme?
If they're part of an outsidecompany that's handling a
function for you say you'reoutsourcing accounting or
outsourcing marketing or SEO itcould be anywhere in the world,
(02:36):
they could be onshore, theycould be nearshore, they could
be offshore, but it's a specificcompany outside of yours,
external, that's handling acertain task or function, for
example, plug.
We're not outsourced.
This is an embedded teamstaffing.
So we're bringing near shoretalent from Latin America to be
(03:01):
part of your team.
So not outsourcing in Americato be part of your team, so not
outsourcing.
Another question that we get allthe time is hey, so let's say I
near shore, how much can Ireally save?
What's the cost savings withgoing near shore?
It does matter which countriesyou look at, but generally
(03:30):
speaking, you'll save anywherefrom 40 to 70% versus hiring in
the US, and that is reallynuanced by how expensive your US
city is San Francisco versus,say, omaha, nebraska.
You're gonna get the most costsavings with San Francisco and
Latin America, the least costsavings with, say, omaha and
Latin America.
And then there's also nuanceswith how expensive places are in
(03:55):
Latin America.
As you'd imagine, buenos Airesor Sao Paulo or Rio might be
more expensive than, say, ruralBolivia, so take all that into
account, but generally, 40% to70% is what you'll save.
What are some of the majorbenefits that a company might
(04:17):
get when they nearshore?
By far the most importantbenefit is time zone alignment.
You're going to be working withpeople on your time zone.
That means when you send aSlack message, you'll get a
response right away.
Project management software,emails, phone calls, zooms
(04:40):
they're all on your time zone,so it's instantaneous
communication.
I think that matters a lot in2025 and beyond of collaboration
.
People want to share ideas,especially when you think about
return to office.
What you really want in returnto office is collaboration.
(05:01):
You want instant feedback.
You want to be able to bounceideas off, kind of that water
cooler chat.
So time zone alignmentobviously number one.
Now let me tell you about myfavorite benefit.
Latin America, for for better orworse, is volatile.
You've got governments that aresometimes unstable.
(05:22):
You've got inflationinstitutions that have many
flaws.
And I'm not saying the US isperfect.
Us has certainly its share offlaws, but when you grow up in a
country where you can't trustthe government, the currency,
the institutions.
You have to think creatively,you've got to find workarounds,
(05:48):
you've got to be a problemsolver Things that would totally
stress me and my friends out inthe States.
It's just a regular Tuesday inmany countries in Latin America.
Take that as an advantage, nota disadvantage.
These people are adaptable,flexible, gritty, scrappy,
(06:12):
they're not afraid of chaos andthey can find solutions to chaos
.
That is by far my favoritebenefit of working with Latin
America.
Another question I get is howdoes Plug differ from its
competitors?
Well, as the founder of Plug,I've been nearshoring for over
(06:34):
10 years and I've had a chanceto see the different angles and
frames that companies can take,and I think there's really four
buckets that exist today, in2025.
Bucket number one is thetraditional dev shop, and often
you'll have a lot of people inthe middle architects, project
managers, directors ofengineering, and that's all
(06:58):
great, but there's two majorissues with that.
The first is there's a lot moreoverhead you're dealing with,
and when a company has moreoverhead, they've got to charge
you more to make up for it.
So is that extra overhead worthit?
The second is you might not begetting the best engineers
period.
You're getting the ones thatare the most cost effective for
(07:21):
the dev shop and in some casesthey're the ones that they're
just dying to get off the bench.
So they don't have to.
They can turn that cost into aline item on their income
statement of positivity.
But there's a trade-off rightAgain, it's someone they're
(07:42):
dying to get off their bench,dying to remove as a cost center
.
You're the one paying for it.
So there's the other threebuckets, which are traditional
staff augmentation.
Staff augmentation is basicallycontract recruiting.
It's bringing talent that issupplementing or augmenting
(08:02):
whatever you've got going onwithin your team.
There's three buckets here.
There are the companies thatare strictly US based, and we're
seeing a lot of that, you know,as there is a big land grab and
rush for Latin America.
The 2020s, in my opinion, arethe decade for Latin America.
(08:22):
That means you've got a lot ofUS staffing companies that are
seeing flat revenue and they aretrying to hack nearshoring, but
they're doing it from the US.
You know US recruiters, uers,us salespeople.
They haven't had experience inLatin America, they don't have
the infrastructure, the payrollsystems and they don't
(08:43):
understand the culture, so it'sreally hard.
Now you've got the opposite ofthat and you've got true Latin
America headquartered firms.
In this case, they understandthe talent quite well, but they
don't have the understanding ofthe US environment.
Us contracts they're asking youto send these international
(09:04):
wires.
Sometimes the contracts don'tfeel clean and clear.
There's just a way that they'redoing business that doesn't
totally map to the US.
And then there's Plug and wekind of live in the center of
that.
We're a US entity, us contracts, US bank accounts, easy
(09:29):
QuickBook invoices and we've gotmultiple people on the team,
myself included, who have beenexpats in Latin America.
So we've had to live it andlearn it all firsthand so we can
provide this special firsthandadvice on how to properly set up
(09:50):
in Latin America the differentnuances.
These are all things we've kindof lived going through customs,
eating at restaurants, takingtaxis.
We understand all this.
And then we have the LatinAmerica infrastructure
recruiters in Latin America,operations in Latin America,
(10:10):
payroll hardware, onboarding allthese things that are set up
for long-term success, loyal andcommitted team members.
It's 2025 and Trump is presidentof the US, so a question we're
getting all the time now istariffs Are tariffs impacting
nearshoring?
(10:31):
And my answer here is notreally, but it's not a
definitive no.
That's not a definitive yes,nearshoring if it relates to
goods like products think cars,watches, clothing, certainly and
we're in this war basically ofreciprocal tariffs or tariffs
(10:53):
going on a pause or a hiatus.
China obviously is the biggesttrade antagonist right now for
the US, so if you have productsmade in China they're going to
be a lot more expensive.
Now, latin America nearshoringthere's a lot of friendly,
friendly relationships with theus, so you're not getting as
(11:16):
many um reciprocal type oftariffs um, but if there are,
probably applies more to goods,it hasn't hit services yet, so I
think software and staffinghasn't really impacted that
quite so much.
Now the thing that is kind ofin the air is when companies are
(11:42):
getting hit with tariffs orcosts go up, so they might be
looking for an outlet on how tosave money elsewhere.
Funny enough, nearshoreservices might be a really
interesting way to go in 2025 astariffs are top of mind.
So your costs might go up inone line item, but they can go
(12:06):
down in labor and staffing byconsidering nearshoring, can go
down in labor and staffing byconsidering nearshoring.
I'm often asked to give advice,you know, on companies that
maybe are nearshoring for thefirst time in their history.
What should they do?
How should they think about it?
The best advice I would give isthink about your risk profile.
(12:31):
So is nearshoring a little morerisky than onshore?
Yeah, but the risk you take,the trade is usually cost
savings.
So if you nearshore, you hopeto win in that trade and get
(12:51):
more benefits than the risk thatyou're taking.
Again, you know saving moneythat way.
But then if you're already optedin for nearshoring, every
country kind of has a differentrisk profile and that's what
Plug is usually able to helpwith is understanding the
different risks, the nuances,everything from currency
(13:12):
volatility to customs hardware,onboarding, talent pockets,
things like that.
So I'll give you an example oftwo countries that are neighbors
, say Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Costa Rica is, by most accounts, more developed.
There's no standing army, long,consistent democracy.
(13:34):
Many companies have been therealready, you know, between
Microsoft and Intel and so forth, but therefore it's more
expensive.
But then you've got Nicaragualess expensive, maybe a more
volatile past, but in my opinion, a much bigger upside and
opportunity, bigger population,a lot of English speakers.
(13:55):
So it really depends on, like,where you are maybe in that bell
curve, and the more open torisk, the more upside and
potential arbitrage that youhave.
The last question that I get arehey, brian, what roles should I
even think about nearshoring?
(14:17):
What are the common roles thatpeople look to Latin America for
?
I think the try true testedstarts with software development
.
That was one of the firstthings offshored and it's also
one of the first things that wasnearshored and it's also one of
the first things that wasnearshored.
So think your full stackdevelopers, backend developers,
(14:41):
frontend developers, qa, devops,tech, adjacent UI, ux, things
like that Very common.
You'll find tens, if nothundreds of thousands of capable
talent all over Latin Americathat fits this profile.
Secondly, central America isreally making a run for a great
place to install a call center.
(15:02):
So think help desk, customerservice, even customer success
type roles.
They're right on par with thecall center of the world, which
is the Philippines, and I tendto like it because you get a lot
more unscripted people that canthink on their feet in Central
America at relatively same cost.
(15:26):
What I probably would notnearshore are executive roles.
I probably would not near shorelike my first developer or
second developer, but I wouldthink about it as staff
augmentation, as ability toaccelerate and grow my team with
(15:47):
really minimal risk.
I don't worry at all about IPtheft or anything like that.
I think near shoring is reallythe way to go as you look to
grow and scale your team andagain, not necessarily
outsourcing.
These people are truly eager tobe embedded as part of your
team and think what's best forthe business.
(16:08):
So there you have it my topseven FAQs frequently asked
questions about the world ofnearshoring.
If you have it, my top sevenFAQs frequently asked questions
about the world of near-shore.
If you have any questions, youcan always contact me personally
and our website is plugP-L-U-G-G dot tech.
You're listening to the NearShore Cafe podcast.
(16:32):
Thanks again and we'll see younext time.
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