Tropical MBA – Location Independent Entrepreneurship

On today's episode, Dan and Ian are going to speaking with Paula Pant. Back when Dan was experimenting with renting a place on AirBNB, he stumbled upon Paula's blog at AffordAnything.com. She is incredibly transparent in her business model, demonstrating how she created a real estate portfolio that provides her with cash flow every month. You'll hear Paula share her story about how she started from scratch to build a successful collection of rental properties.

One of the fastest ways to gain freedom from a location or a 9-to-5 job is to sell your skill set and your time as a freelancer. When you do that, you can create problems that might not rear their head for years. On this week's episode, Dan and Ian are speaking to Russ Perry from Design Pickle. He began his entrepreneurial career doing just that, and when we first heard from him in 2014, he was in the process of dissolving his first business and starting from square one. In less than two years, Design Pickle now has 20 full-time employees and just last month, they billed 90k in recurring revenue. On this show, you'll hear all about that journey, as well as a pretty in-depth discussion about our collective affinity for delicious pickles.

As many longtime listeners know, Dan and Ian have recently sold their business. This has put them in a rather unique and advantageuous situation, and forces them to ask the question: what do you do with your money once you have made it? Managing your money requires a completely different skill set from building a business, and even savvy entrepreneurs often have to seek the advice of a professional. On this week's episode, you'll hear from Joe Wirbick, the president and co-founder of Sequinox. Joe is sharing some of his best tips on how to evaluate financial professionals and how to identify whether or not they can help you.

On this week's episode, Dan is speaking with Venkatesh Rao, Venkat is the author of RibbonFarm, a philosophy blog about technology and entrepreneurship. He recently launched an essay series called Breaking Smart, that explores the relationship between humanity and technology. Today's conversation covers a whole plethora of philosophical heuristics, including blind spots in the digital nomad community, the difference between passion and work ethic, what it means to be power-literate and so much more.

Being location independent means that you don't have a boss or a corporation telling you what to do, but it also means that you have to make your own decisions on how to spend your time. You have to decide how to make your money, and you have to decide when enough is enough. On today's episode, Dan and Ian are speaking with two entrepreneurs who have put a lot of thought into this idea. Daryl Mander and Nathan Berry have both proactively made the call to scale back their workload in order to improve their quality of life. They will be sharing their experiences, and their thoughts on when and how to say "enough is enough".

On today's episode Dan and Ian are going to explore the most powerful, and potentially toxic relationship in entrepreneurship; the relationship between a mentor and a mentee. We're doing so by speaking with Tim Conley, a Dynamite Circle member who has quite a bit of experience in these types of relationships. We'll be talking about how to seek out a mentor, what makes a successful mentor, and how these relationships evolve over time,

This week we are chatting with Peter Griffin, a member of the Dynamite Circle who relocated to Austin, TX about two years ago. Peter is a prototypical digital nomad. Starting his own business has afforded him the ability to travel the world, but now that he's getting older, he is starting to figure out what is really important to him. We'll be talking with Peter about why he decided to move to Austin, and what happens to digital nomads when their priorities start to change.

In this episode Dan and Ian offer thoughts, suggestions and ideas on the best way to handle meetings as your business – and number of employees - grows. You’ll also get the chance to ‘listen in’ on a Tropical MBA/Dynamic Circle team meeting involving Dan, Ian, Jessica and Alex – and hear about Dan and Ian’s very different styles of management.

Many entrepreneurs have dabbled with "smart drugs", also known as "cognitive enhancers" or "nootropics" but few have studied them as closely as Jesse Lawler. In his weekly podcast Smart Drugs Smarts, Jesse talks to range of specialists and academics about different aspects of brain chemistry, including the effects of smart drugs. In this week’s TMBA episode, Jesse shares what he’s learned about the effects of Smart Drugs, things to consider when using them, and their appeal for all ages.

In this week’s episode Dan and Ian invite you to share in one of Bossman’s many interests: 3D printing. This technology has been around for a while - mostly used by designers and engineers to conceptualize and test prototypes. But, as 3D printers become cheaper and more sophisticated, might it begin to revolutionize not only the world of retail but also DIY? What are the opportunities and potential pitfalls for entrepreneurs? Lawyers like Alan Rothenbuecher are already advising firms on how to handle the growing number of IP issues that crop up in relation to 3D printing. TMBA also talks to one of the co-founders of The Pirate Bay, Tobias Andersson, about why he thinks 3D printing is going to have the same impact on design as file-sharing sites have had on the music business.

Starting out as an entrepreneur can be scary – but it’s exhilarating and rewarding too. In the first part of series of episodes about the ‘different stages of the entrepreneurial journey’, Dan and Ian revisit some advice they gave Kiri Masters who, in 2013, was still in her day job as a highly successful corporate player whilst struggling to set up a business that would give her the lifestyle and kind of satisfaction that she felt she was missing. What advice did Dan and Ian give Kiri? Did she follow it? What's happening with her business today?

One of the major issues that location independent entrepreneurs, who spend time outside their home country, grapple with is tax. Let’s be honest: we’re all looking for ways to pay less of that! Phil Hodgen is a leading lawyer in this field, advising his clients on the relative advantages of foreign earned income exclusion, acquiring overseas residency or even, in some cases, expatriation. In this week’s show we bring you advice that could save you thousands of dollars. And yes, we’re talking dollars. This guidance is mostly applicable to U.S. citizens but Phil also talks about general principles that other nationalities will find useful too.

A few weeks ago we spoke with Jeff Pecaro. Jeff is starting a productized service business and he offered to let us follow along with his journey on the show. This week we are catching up with him to find out how his business has progressed and he has managed to weather the storm of some tough criticism.

Is it possible to go from being successful blogger to writing a book that tops the Internet charts within the space of a year? In this week’s episode Dan talks to Taylor Pearson, an author who has done exactly that. Tune in and find out how.

Laura Roeder was one of our keynote speakers at DCBKK a few weeks ago and she really wowed the audience with her talk. Dan and Ian got a chance to sit down with her after the conference to talk about how she has been able to start Edgar, an extremely successful social media tool, with little to no experience in tech.