At The Audiencers’ Festival in London this June 24th, Panos Sarlanis, Co-founder of IamExpat Media, invited by kind invitation by code.store, the media tech and low-code experts, shared their journey of empowering expats navigate every aspect of life in a new country.
The secret? Understanding their audience’s needs, building revenue streams around this and continuously innovating to serve evolving needs.
From personal need to pioneering platform
Panos’s own expat journey began in 2007 when he moved to Rotterdam with one of his co-founders for his studies and met the rest of the founding team there. A year later, after moving to Amsterdam, the idea for a comprehensive platform for internationals moving to the Netherlands was born.
“When you move to a new country, there are so many challenges you have to deal with. You may have no network, you may not speak the language, you don’t know who to trust for the main services you need.” This sense of insecurity sparked the creation of IamExpat.
The platform’s core mission is to empower the expatriate community by providing essential resources, tools, and a community to more confidently navigate life in a new country. This includes a wealth of content: news focused on expat life and local culture, crucial guides on topics like taxes and healthcare, articles from experts and even a dedicated job board and a housing platform.
Today, IamExpat is active in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, welcoming a million users monthly and collaborating with over 800 companies annually, ranging from banks to real estate agencies and healthcare providers.
Evolving beyond traditional revenue streams to consider user needs
In its early days, IamExpat focused on building the brand through “evergreen content,” such as guides on applying for work permits. This foundational content continues to perform, and has provided an important advertising space for monetization.
But as the platform grew, the team began exploring other revenue streams based on their user’s needs. The question they kept asking: “What essential needs can we solve with new products or services?”
This led to the launch of directories, helping users find trusted professionals, from tax advisors and language schools to English-speaking dentists, lawyers and career coaches. These have become a significant part of IamExpat’s business model.
Recognizing the challenges of finding accommodation and employment in new countries, IamExpat also launched a housing platform (aggregating rental properties from partners) and a job board specifically tailored for their international and multilingual audience.
These “classifieds”—directories, housing, and job boards—now account for a considerable part of their revenue. Directories contribute the most, and this highlights the high value and conversion rate of these specialized services that focus on user needs.
From online to offline, to online again
IamExpat’s journey didn’t stop at online services. “What if users and clients could actually meet in person?”, leading to the creation of the IamExpat Fair in 2015. These events bring readers and advertisers together under one roof, fostering direct connections.
Since their inception, the fairs have attracted over 40,000 visitors and 600 exhibitors across four locations in the Netherlands and Germany.
The COVID-19 pandemic, while initially impacting revenue, spurred further innovation. The need for personal advice remained, prompting IamExpat to shift from offline to online with webinars. What started as a temporary solution has become a permanent and successful part of their business model, with events and webinars (primarily the fairs) now being important revenue contributors. This diversified approach not only serves their existing advertiser base but also attracts new clients who may not have considered online advertising.
Today, IamExpat boasts a remarkably balanced revenue model in the following areas:
- Online Marketing (banner ads, content marketing, email marketing)
- Classifieds (directories, job ads)
- Events (fairs, webinars)
- Affiliates
However, Panos emphasized the need for constant vigilance in the rapidly changing media industry, citing concerns like platform shifts, cookie deprecation, the rise of content creators, and the uncertainty surrounding AI.
A crucial first step in further diversifying IamExpat’s portfolio was a significant technological upgrade. Recognizing their outdated website was a “big pain point,” they decided to rebuild everything from scratch. Partnering with Code.Store, they adopted a modern tech stack, including a headless CMS (Directus), Vercel for front-end hosting, Cloudflare for caching and CDN, Algolia for powering search, and n8n to import jobs and properties.
With the close support of the team at Code.Store, this overhaul dramatically improved performance and user experience, while maintaining an SEO-first approach.
Vertical expansion and community spaces
Looking to the future, IamExpat is considering different expansion plans. Ideas for diversification include:
- Vertical expansion: Identifying opportunities from popular products and services for expatriates
- Membership programs: Offering packages with special discounts and offers from existing clients, potentially as a company benefit for international employees.
- Merchandise: While not expected to be a major revenue driver, it could enhance offline branding.
- Physical IamExpat spaces: A bold vision for a blended short-stay, co-working, café, and restaurant space where expats can live, work, learn, and connect. This concept draws inspiration from media companies like Time Out, which have successfully integrated online and offline experiences.
- Geographic expansion: Bringing their proven model to new international destinations in Europe and globally.
What can you take away from IamExpat’s diversification strategy?
- Diversification is crucial to reduce exposure to industry volatility – new products and services are no longer optional
- New products must be aligned with the core mission and users to expand reach and influence.
- Build products with cross-functional teams that unlock synergies
- Be open-minded for opportunities to emerge
- Offline experiences will become even more vital for building connections and trust – direct client contact is invaluable for distributing and selling new products.
- The right technology and partners are essential for scaling – keep the tech fresh to unlock speed, scale and innovation.
IamExpat is open to strategic partnerships to support its growth plans. Interested? Contact their team via https://www.iamexpat.com or connect with Panos.
"IamExpat shows what we do at code.store: help clients pick the right stack and make the move without pain. We retired their costly Drupal 7 system and migrated to Directus Cloud + Vercel. Our team handled the migration end-to-end—data, content, SEO, editor workflows, and deployment—without downtime. For media and publishers, we provide practical, full-scope IT outsourcing, from CMS, Data, Mobile apps to subscriptions. The relaunch of IAmExpat is a good example: with the right stack and a focused team, you get a faster site, lower costs, and room to grow."
- Maxime Topolov, Founder & CEO at code.store
