Nomad Startup

[nomadstartup]

Two more days

So I’m slowly getting rid of all my possessions that I won’t be taking with me. It’s a really great feeling to be able to give away stuff to people that you know you don’t need and they do.

 I fly in two days to a new life that I’m slightly terrified of. The fact that I’m leaving everything and everyone I know is finally starting to sink in...

[nomadstartup]

So on one hand...arthritis

On the other hand, I want to curl up in a ball and weep. And hope that the curled shape that I form is in some way able to fix my back.

I just posted a quote from the Dalai Lama because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. 

Amidst all this biz talk and startup-iness, health can go by the wayside. I had an x-ray recently, and it revealed that two of my vertebrae are not where they should be. I’ve been having back pain for awhile, but I didn’t realize it was this serious. Oh, plus minor arthritis. That was a pleasant addendum. All of the specialists I’ve seen have told me I have to strengthen my abdominal or gluteal muscles to try and fix the problem. So this got me thinking:

If you were told that you had to work out to exhaustion 5 days a week, every week, for the rest of your life, and if you missed one week, you’d become paralyzed, would you do it? 

I’d think most of you would. Yet most of us also allow our health to deteriorate in ways that are completely preventable. I’m equally guilty of this.

Hearing this news about my health was completely terrifying. It was the first time a doctor has ever told me that there is something legitimately wrong with my body. So in my ‘goal-setting, you-can-do-it, raaaaaah!!!!!’ mentality, my strong thought is that I’ll work my body as hard as I can to fix this issue. 

But what if that doesn’t work? Well, then I guess being a fit person with a crap back and some arthritis is an adequate consolation prize. Sadly though, the fit part isn’t there yet. It’ll take inner strength to push me to work that hard, so I hope I can find it.

[nomadstartup]

Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Dalai Lama

[nomadstartup]

app? App. APP! NOW!!!

Over the past 3 months, I’ve been enrolled in a for-profit program to help start this whole company. They give out assignments every week to founder like me that are intended to push you forward with all the parts of the company that you need to assemble. This includes social media accounts, marketing strategies, testing assumptions, that sort of stuff.

This week we had to create a mockup of our product. In my case, a mobile application.

And I nearly dropped out.

I started this week by freaking out over having no idea what this supposed app would look like, how it would operate, or how one goes about determining those two things.

I confided to another founder that I was contemplating my exit, but he helped convince me to stay. A benefit of this program is that you get feedback from others on your strategy, and I decided that this information was too valuable to pass up.

My strategy was just drawing pencil sketches in a notebook, and seeing where that took me. Weirdly, the very act of sketching this out helped to calm me down. It started to make the idea just a little more real.

I guess sometimes you just have to shut up and work.

[nomadstartup]

And on other weeks...

You begin to question every decision you made. And by you I mean me. But maybe also you - maybe you’re in that mood too? If so, read on. If not, also read on. You’re already here.

The main concern is that if my company concept is fundamentally flawed, what does this say about the rest of the decisions I’ve made? My startup is not being designed as some profit centre, but rather as a grand social experiment. Based on my view of the world, it is something that I think people could experience new emotions from. If proven wrong though, I worry that I may not get some solid lesson from the failure. While the startup community loves to prize failures, what if this doesn’t work out, and main feedback is “Nope! Wrong. You don’t understand humans. Next idea.”

So that next idea is yours, I raise my nearly empty coffee cup to you.

[nomadstartup]

Nomad Achievement Unlocked

After making my decision a few weeks ago, I was thinking the next 60 days before the flight to Asia would be filled with worry, hesitation, and possibly even regret.

None of this has happened. Every single emotion I have on this decision is positive. It feels right. It feels like this is the way to become the absolute richest person in the world. As the title suggests, I of course do not mean money. Money certainly can buy possessions and experiences, but cannot always buy freedom. 

Reading the previous book I posted, "Vagabonding", it talks about how in many of the Hollywood bank robber movies, the happy ending often involves the protagonist(s) ending up on some beach. They have found their freedom. This is their Valhalla - achievement unlocked! Freedom Get!

Does a large salary give you freedom? Usually you work for someone else, and the salary size often implies that you do difficult work for long hours. The emotional satisfaction a job provides is often inversely proportional to how much money you make. There are stock traders or corporate lawyers who have to work 12 or 16 hour days. How could they not lavishly spend their money on booze or cars or houses or drugs? I'd do the same. How else could you balance out the emotional dissatisfaction from working such crazy hours?

In the title, I could've replaced the word 'freedom' with time. Total control of my time is greater to me than anything money could ever buy.

[nomadstartup]

Making a nomad startup is digging a hole

Creating a successful startup is hard. Becoming a nomad is hard. Both have their own respective emotional trauma. For both, you commit to radically changing your life.

You start by digging a hole.

You leave your friends, the comfort of your routine, most of your possessions. Every goodbye makes the hole deeper and deeper. You are abandoning what you know.

You leave familiarity. You keep digging.

The hope is that one day, a stronger person will emerge from its depths.

That's why there are serial entrepreneurs - they're addicted to the pain, to the large scale gambling. They must be able to convince themselves that the current business idea is somehow something they personally care about. As it is a gambling-based activity, their number one priority becomes profit. In absence of profit, it causes sufficient enough pain so they now have an even deeper hole to leap out from.

I want to build a world that I want to live in. It's ability to make tons of money isn't as important. If I am able to sustain an entire life expressing myself through this world, and find a few others who enjoy it as well, that would be enough.

[nomadstartup]

The Digital Nomad Forum is a a question and answer site for remote workers and digital nomads to exchange information on working remotely from different places around the world such as Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Bali and Medellin. It's 100% free, no registration required.

[nomadstartup]

Sometimes it feels like...

Like for this startup to be successful, you have to see the matrix. You have to understand all the different scenarios on how a person may emotionally connect with your product. Why do they like it? Why do they come back? We always come back because of some emotional connection we have. That's why I keep typing 'fa', then press enter in my browser bar to go to Facebook. It's a built in flicker of positive reinforcement that perpetually draws me back. Reddit was the same, but I set up more browser extension defensives.

Even this blog is its own test. If I write well, will people connect with me better?

[nomadstartup]

Vagabonding

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal lifefrom six weeks to four months to two yearsto discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Potts gives the necessary information on: financing your travel time determining your destination adjusting to life on the road working and volunteering overseas handling travel adversity re-assimilating back into ordinary life Not just a plan of action, vagabonding is an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit. Visit the vagabonding communitys hub at www.vagabonding.net.

[nomadstartup]

Digital Nomad

Today I told my parents that I decided to move to Southeast Asia so I can focus full time on building my startup company.

It's scary.

And painful. The decision to uproot your entire life based on the hopes that the new place may bring you more happiness - what if it doesn't? What if the grass isn't any greener? You realize that things are not working as well here as maybe they should have. The lifestyle here doesn't suit you, but what if you hate the new lifestyle too? 

I only learned a few months ago that the term for someone who can work from anywhere in the world from their computer is called a digital nomad. Amidst this fear, it gives me hope that there are other people just like me all over the world. I hope I can meet them.

Anyways, I'll keep you posted.