Hey guys, Mikkel here,
Quick one from me today.
My partner Patrick Hiebert asked me to share a note with you today, and I was more than happy to do it.
Anyway, right to it. Here’s what Patrick wanted to share:
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Patrick Hiebert, the founder and CEO of Veritas Villages.
I'm originally from Canada, where I spent much of my career in technology, founding and eventually selling several software companies. After those exits, my son Spencer and I spent time living aboard a boat and sailing the ocean.
I learned a great deal about being self-sufficient and found a lot of joy in learning how to live comfortably with less reliance on the systems and governments I had grown increasingly dissatisfied with over the years. (and yes, I am intentionally being gentle about how I really feel).
I left Canada for Latin America because I wanted a life where I could be more independent and exercise my freedoms as I saw fit (mind you, the year-round warm weather, family-centric values, and tax-related benefits didn’t make leaving any more difficult).
Today, Panama is home, and has been for the past several years.
In 2022, I officially established business operations here and set out to bring my idea for Veritas Villages to life.
I got into the business of building modern, luxurious, freedom-first communities because it became increasingly obvious (particularly after COVID) that there were a lot of people like me who wanted to live in Latin America, but weren’t content to settle inside a traditional expat-oriented privada.
Basically, I had two options: live inside some little suburban, cookie-cutter type neighbourhood (many of which are now adopting the worst of Western attitudes), or drop off the map and build my own place on some land away from “the real world”.
Neither felt remotely reasonable to me.
I figured many people were facing the same bad compromise and that there would be a market for what I envisioned as the ideal place to call home.
As the lifelong entrepreneur I am, I decided I would be the one to build what was missing.
So I did, and that set me on the path to build the kind of place where I would want
to live. Somewhere with the independence and resilience I deemed necessary, and somewhere I could do it alongside other freedom-minded folks, who viewed the world as I did, and valued similar things.
My idea of independence and resilience (or off-grid living, as many say) has never been about disappearing into the woods, giving up modern comforts, or trying to disconnect from the rest of the world.
I just didn’t think it was too much to ask to have greater independence, stronger rights, and more resilience without sacrificing the quality of life I’ve worked my whole life to create for me and my family.
Safe, ungoverned access to water and energy, plus easy access to nearby towns so catching a movie at the theatre or grabbing dinner out wouldn’t become a day-long affair, didn’t seem like too much to ask.
Today, 4 Veritas Villages are officially rising throughout Latin America, with plans for more in the years ahead.
Our large-scale, amenity-rich, master-planned communities include homes that run on solar power and battery systems, rely on water from our own wells, support food production through orchards, gardens, and other agricultural systems, and let residents live without depending on outside utility providers.
We’re well capitalized, have an amazing team and are on a real mission to create the very thing I think more and more people like us are in search of.
Look, just like the next guy, I like air conditioning, a nice, modern house, and of course, I like being able to kick my feet up and watch TV while dinner is in the oven.
I’m not willing to give that up. Neither have the more than 100 families building homes or planning to break ground soon in one of our existing Veritas communities.
Self-reliance, self-sufficiency, independence - whatever you want to call it, wanting it shouldn't mean having to take a backwards step into the Stone Age.
What my team and I are doing with our Veritas communities proves exactly that.
Our Veritas communities are already proving that “off-grid living” can mean a high-quality, modern life without sacrificing comfort.
We incorporate our own water systems, wastewater solutions and food-production infrastructure because true resilience requires boatloads more than sticking a few solar panels on the roof and generating enough power to run your appliances for a few hours a day.
That's what we've been building here in Panama and in Nicaragua over the past few years.
Now, we’re taking on Costa Rica.
Our newest Veritas community is being developed in Atenas, in Costa Rica’s Central Valley.
I'd like to invite you to hear more about what we’re building in Costa Rica (if you’ve been keeping up with Mikkel’s newsletter, you may already have heard that we’re building a 450+ homesite community on over 340 acres of land there).
I want to give you a better idea of the nitty-gritty behind a project of this scale, so I have decided I am going to use my time as a guest speaker at Mikkel’s Online Summit Event to do exactly that. Here is where you need to get your free ticket to the event so you can come to my presentation: Free Ticket Here
I will only be speaking for about 30 minutes, so I won’t have time to cover everything, but I am going to give you a clear picture of what exactly we’re building, why we chose Costa Rica, why we chose the region of Atenas specifically and tell you about everything we have learned by developing our earlier Veritas communities.
More and more of us understand the risks and downsides of continuing to outsource control to third-party systems, and as such, more and more of us are actively working to hedge against those risks.
Mikkel has been involved with Veritas for years, so he knows exactly how much work has gone into getting us to this point.
I’m excited for you to have an inside look and see for yourselves why our Villages are attracting so many freedom-oriented families who want to secure a home, sometimes simply as a place they can vacation in or head to if things get crazy back home, and how my team and I are leading the charge in reimagining what going off the grid can look like.
Mikkel’s Summit is free to attend. Here is where you can get yourself a ticket and register for the event: Register Here
Thanks for your time,
Patrick Hiebert
Founder & CEO
Veritas Villages (Autris Group)
Mikkel here again.
I've obviously had a front-row seat as the various Veritas communities have come together, and I’m excited for Patrick to pull back the curtain and give you a deeper look into our venture into Costa Rica.
Now… because many of you reading this likely still have a horribly outdated idea of what off-grid living can mean, allow me to leave you with this….
What we are building in Costa Rica will appear, at first glance, to be a normal, high-end suburban community. The difference is that the homes are fully self-sufficient, and the community will offer a level of amenities, activities, and shared infrastructure that most people would never associate with off-grid living.
I’ve barely scratched the surface here, but Patrick will fill in the gaps and show you just how much thought has gone into what we’re building.
I hope you can make it to Patrick's Summit presentation this Friday, October 2, at 1:30pm, Panama Time. Please make sure you’re registered beforehand.
Free Ticket Here: Expat Money Online Summit 2026 Ticket
Speak soon,
Mikkel
