By Austė Sargytė, LRT.lt.

Forty-two million views and over 48 thousand followers on social media. A new venture – the Skanaus discount card – already counts 50 partner restaurants in over 100 locations, a partnership with Vilnius University and more than 700 members just a few months since launching. And it was all built in Lithuania – by a foreigner.

Earlier in October, LRT.lt reported on Lithuania’s ongoing challenge to retain international talent. Data from the Vilnius relocation and integration centre shows that only one in twenty foreign graduates of Lithuanian universities stays in the country to work.

Lithuania-based British entrepreneur Corey Payne responded to the report, saying that despite the challenges, he hopes to show other foreigners that Lithuania offers plenty of opportunities for those who remain consistent, work hard, and tune out the negativity.

Corey, who has now lived in Lithuania for over a year, admits he was hesitant about moving to the country. Although he wanted to support his partner’s wish to raise their son closer to her family, he worried about maintaining the creative agency he had worked so hard to build in the UK.

“My God, I really didn’t want to move to Lithuania because I’d never even heard of it,” he recalls. “I was expecting to see apartment blocks that looked like Chernobyl everywhere. And I had so many arguments. I was like, ‘My business is going to fail. This isn’t going to work.’ But then I came here. And I loved it. Literally. Everything is incredible! It’s clean, it’s peaceful, and I’d say in some aspects, it’s even more advanced than the UK.”

Read more: LRT.LT