The more I learn about the lifestyle business movement, which is epitomized in Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, the more I’m coming across an interesting subset of entrepreneurs who consider themselves to be “digital nomads.” These entrepreneurs typically have some kind of online venture or sell an online product and frequently travel around low-cost countries like Thailand.
Granted, a lot of these entrepreneurs also smile and say how “you too can live this kind of lifestyle,” before getting you to opt into their email list and then buy some kind of product. There’s nothing wrong with that, though I think it would be kind of ironic if that was their main product, the way that you get rich selling a book how to get rich, like Robert Kiyosaki has appeared to with the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!.
I’ve always been more interested in tech startups than the lifestyle business or lifestyle design goal. However, I’ve come to the conclusion in the past year or so that building up a healthy cash flowing lifestyle business would be a great way to fund continuous development on new tech startup ventures.
Not really the kinds of ventures that go after a very defined niche, but the kind of “swing for the fences” ventures that will either work in a large way, or won’t.
I never knew what a digital nomad was, other than being called that sometimes by my friends and family, but after some research, now I do! Check out my findings below.
What is a digital nomad?
A digital nomad is someone who loves traveling or living in different areas of the globe and has structured their life such a way that they can work from a laptop anywhere.
It seems like a lot of the digital nomads I’ve come across were fed up with their meaningless or monotone 9-5 job and decided that they didn’t want to wait to experience vacations or a nice climate when they are old and retired. They want to experience that kind of lifestyle right now!
Depending on their skill set, it also appears that this urge to build a business that they can “run from anywhere” eventually leads the upcoming digital nomad to stumble upon internet marketing and the various subsections including PPC. SEO, blogging, ecommerce, and selling informational products.
How do you become a digital nomad?
The first component is a willingness to take risks. Not many of your friends or family are likely to take a few months off and travel to Thailand or another country in order to build up a business or to run your existing business.
The second is building up a reliable stream of income. Given my experience online and my research, this could be derived from:
– Advertising/Sponsorship (3rd party or adsense)
– Affiliate marketing (selling other people’s products)
– Informational products (selling your course or ebook)
– eCommerce store (drop shipping or developing and manufacturing your own product)
– Consulting/Service (typically via skype or telephone)
– Online or in-person paid events or business-related retreats.
– Software product or apps (iPhone, wordpress plugin, website theme, etc)
– Buy and selling online properties like domains, websites, etc.
If you have others that I’ve let out, let me know in a comment below.
Where do digital nomads live (or not live)?
With regards to locations, they could be all over the world! However, I do think a big majority are concentrated or tend to be traveling around low-income countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Having been adopted from El Salvador, you can bet that my parents have always stated their reservations about my traveling to a third-world country or a country that does not have a stable political environment. After all, they went through so much effort to get me!
While I would never consider setting up shop in a gang or violence ridden country like El Salvador, I think that Thailand could be an interesting travel location and seems to have mainly safe areas. I’ll probably travel there at some point, though I also really want to become immersed in silicon valley at some stage of my life and check out the acting scene in LA. Seems like there’s a capital for everything.
How do I find out more?
If you’d like to learn out more about this lifestyle, check out the The TropicalMBA Podcast. I also found this post really interesting on the pros and cons of starting a company in Thailand, along with this one on a few reasons to consider moving to Thailand.
Let me know in a comment below what business you are working on!