Setting up an online business is one of the easiest ways to become a digital nomad.

There are lots of ways to earn income online as a digital nomad. It comes down to your skills, resources, and passion.

As you’re traveling around the world, this business will help to fund your lifestyle, so that you don’t end up thousands of dollars in debt. It’s also the foundation of a lifelong career that forms your legacy.

It can be hard to come up with your own business idea for the digital nomad lifestyle, so I wanted to put together a few for you. I’ll divide them up based on the obligations required to keep them going, and hopefully get your mind churning as to ways you can set up that location-independent income source.

Here is a quick video to show you exactly how to get started.

If you’d like more guidance, you can check out my step-by-step blueprint for becoming a digital nomad, which covers the lifestyle, career, and locations more in-depth.

Service-Based Businesses

A service based business is one where you trade your time for money. You can also have subcontractors or employees work underneath you and trade their time for money.

The pros of a service-based business include: 

• Easy to set up with minimal investment
• Faster to make income online
• Opportunity for growth over time

The cons of a service-based business include: 

• Limited profitability in the long-run
• Selling time, so not as scalable
• Requires regular management and communication

Here are some easy digital nomad service business ideas: 

There are SO MANY business ideas out there. All you gotta do is pick one sophisticated tool… and master it! You’ll be surprised how many business ideas can spring out of this kind of framework.

Marketing Agency: You can start a new marketing agency that helps business owners or individuals get exposure for their products and services. This could include organic marketing, influencer marketer, content marketing, paid media buying, PR, and more.

Blog Post Writing and Editing: You can become a freelance writer and editor. This will give you the segue to start a writing and editing business, where you hire subcontractors do do things like write articles, books, whitepapers, ebooks, and more.

Podcast Transcription and Show Notes: Many companies now a days are looking for help managing their podcast. They want to hire writers who can help them produce a quality show transcript, and show notes for the accompanying blog post.

Podcast Management Agency: You’ll take care of all the scheduling of podcast guests, setting them up with the host, scheduling the shows to go out, and even promoting the episodes. You’ll also help the show get iTunes reviews.

YouTube Video Editing: Why not offer YouTube editing services to major businesses that are looking to expand their web presence. You can help them put together educational videos, or edit any that they have already. You an even help them manage their channels using TubeBuddy.

Instagram and Facebook Videos: Many companies are looking for specific videos for Instagram and Facebook. These could be simple commercials, educational content, or engaging videos. You can use tools like Typito or Animoto to do this.

Visual explanations and Infographics: By mastering a simple application like Videoscribe or an infographics tools like Piktochart, you can set these up for your clients.

Photo Editing and Illustration: Now a days, with blog posts, YouTube videos, Facebook pages, and more, there’s in need of an affordable service that will handle all your graphic design needs. You can use simple apps like Canva to offer this.

Simple Website Design: I can’t count the number of people who are clueless about simple apps like Shopify, SquareSpace, and even WordPress. If you know the ins and outs of these simple tools, you can brand yourself as an “ecommerce website expert” or an expert at helping people upgrade their blog, using marketplaces like Themeforest.

Virtual Assistant: This works best if you specialize in some kind of industry. For example, you can be a virtual assistant that helps writers research for their books. That would be an example of specializing.

Digital Product Businesses

I recommend that all aspiring digital nomads dabble in the digital product game. These types of businesses are freakin’ powerful. They are very easy to scale, can create passive income, and make it so you don’t rely on selling your time.

Pros of a digital product business:

• No cost to deliver product, very profitable.
• Highly scalable when a good marketing avenue is found.
• Can be a source of passive income

Cons of a digital product business:

• Typically requires an investment of either time or money
• Marketing knowledge is required
• Make take longer to begin to earn revenue

Here are some easy digital nomad digital product business ideas: 

Most of these businesses would exist in a larger niche, like fitness, wealth generation, dating, cooking, etc. Just take any non-fiction book genre, and usually you’ll find a vertical within that.

Develop Website Themes and Plugins: You need a bit of coding knowledge to be able to do this, or you gotta hire a programmer. You can develop WordPress themes and plugins and either sell them on your own website or through an online marketplace. I have a friend doing this on Shopify making thousands and thousands per month.

Books, ebooks, and audio books: If you have an expertise, then this is the way to go for sure. I’ve written seven books and they are a powerful source of passive income. If you love writing and know what you’re talking about, they’re also a great way to expand your brand.

Online courses and programs: Simply getting started on a website like Udemy or Skillshare is good. You could then graduate to selling courses through your own marketing and using sophisticated systems to charge high-ticket prices.

Membership websites and mastermind groups: These are ALL the rage in the internet marketing world. They’re attractive because you can charge a subscription membership price to be a part of one of these, meaning you’ll get dependable, recurring revenue.

Online Coaching Hybrid Programs: You can typically combine the above business ideas with some type of coaching business, where you either do group coaching or high-ticket one-on-one coaching. This is selling your time, so it’s more of a hybrid model.

Selling Photos and Music: You can license photos that you’ve taken and sell them on websites where marketers like me go to buy great-looking pics. Shuttershock is a simple example of this for photos. There are many others.

Mobile Apps: Another way that you can start a digital product as a digital nomad is to launch a new mobile app that users pay to use, or that has in-app purchases. This may require an investment.

Physical Product Businesses

In my travels, I’ve also met a lot of digital nomad entrepreneurs who have physical-product ventures. This means that they are selling real physical products to customers. They have some kind of a storefront, like Shopify, and sell it that way.

Pros of a physical product business

• Can feel “more real” and be rewarding
• More scalable than services
• Ability to build a team around business

Cons of a physical product business

• Requires upfront investment
• Relies on supply chain
• Hard to enforce patents or trademarks

Here are some easy physical product digital nomad businesses: 

Drop shipping a product: This is when you are able to negotiate a deal with a manufacturer and have them send the products to your customer directly. It’s great because you don’t have to hold any inventory. But, there are downsides also.

White labeling a product from Alibaba: This is when you find a product on a website like Alibaba and sell it under your brand name. This way, you don’t have a design a product from scratch. You just gotta find one to sell and differentiate your marketing.

Designing your own product: It’s a bit more complicated, but you can design your own prototype, buy a minimum order quantity, and sell it. I wouldn’t say this is the fastest route, but it can create a solid business.

Selling on TeeSpring: Technically, this is a physical product that you’re selling, but thankfully, it’s all “print on demand” so you don’t need to hold inventory. You just need to invest in high quality designs and market your products. You can sell others types as well like leggings, hats, or dress socks.

The Best Type of Digital Nomad Business

Personally, I think the best type of digital nomad business is to become an expert using a MAJOR content hub. This could be a:

• YouTube channel: Put out educational videos on a specific topic. You can use this to build a fanbase
• Podcast: Start a podcast where you interview guests and you share their expertise with the world.
• Blog: Start a blog where you write articles to attract an audience .

The great thing about an “expert” business model is that you can begin with one of the above content hubs for FREE and then use it to engage in things like affiliate marketing, where you sell other people’s products online. It’s like magic income.

You can also branch out and make money through online ads, sponsorships, and promotional packages. Then, you can further branch out by writing ebooks, putting together courses, and offering your services on a freelance basis.

Basically, the expert business model is all about creating a STRONG foundation that you can monetize in multiple ways. This way, you have many different residual income streams, and you can also sell your own time on top of that. You can sell your time through freelancing or online coaching.

If this sounds interesting to you, then I think you’ll like my course showing you exactly how to become a digital nomad. You can check it out here (no obligation) and I hope that it helps you on your journey!