Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

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TMBA 676: Let’s Talk About DCBKK2022 Nov 17, 2022

Show notes

It’s been three long years since DC members were able to gather in Bangkok to share great food, experiences and talk business. And DCBKK2022, our ten year anniversary event, with almost 400 attendees, was not only our biggest event but also such a blast.

So this week Dan, Ian and Jeff Pecaro get together to talk about not only the highlights of DCBKK20220 - one of which was definitely a 100 strong Tuk Tuk parade which ferried people through the streets of Bangkok to the closing party - but also takeaways, trends spotting from the conference floor, and things that are up for improvement next year:

“We're always gonna have speakers, we're always gonna have meetups, we're always gonna have presenters, we're always gonna have structured conversations. But one of the pieces of feedback that we've been getting for years is: how can we bring people together to just do things?”

TMBA 675: The Art of Personal Blogging Redux Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

There are big changes in the wind at Twitter, with Elon Musk suggesting he might further open the platform to longer form pieces, and also paid content. Might this open up greater opportunities for those with established blogs, or looking to start one?

On today’s show we revisit a favorite episode from our back catalogue focused on personal blogging and what it means to write on the internet. And to help tell this story, which is close to his heart, Dan invited two writers who both have a long and rich experience in the blogging space.

Taylor Pearson has been a frequent guest and contributor on this podcast. He is the author of The End of Jobs, and he runs an excellent blog on his website.

Amanda Cook is an author, a podcaster, herbalist, and the founder of a business called Wellpreneur. Over the years, she has published online about a wide variety of projects, but the one consistent thing is that she’s always had an excellent blog, which you can find at AmandaCook.me.

Join us for this round table discussion about the past and future of blogging on the internet, tips for those starting out with a personal blog, some of our favorite blogs to read today, and so much more.

TMBA 674: Going Viral For Saying ‘I Live Better In Thailand Than I Did In The U.S.’ Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

When Jesse Schoberg, Co-founder of DropIn Blog, shared his thoughts about the huge benefits of living in Bangkok with CNBC, as part of their ‘Make It’ series, he had no idea it would go viral - both inside Thailand and abroad.

The piece, titled ‘I live better in Thailand than I did in the U.S. — here’s how much it costs’ received lots of appreciation but also a stream of more negative comments from some members of the backpacking and expat retiree communities. They criticised how much Jesse chooses to spend on accommodation, food and travel in a place often seen as a mecca for cheap living.

“A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, for $8,000 a month, you can live anywhere … no, you cannot live like we live here in New York, which is an equivalent city, for $8,000 a month. When we were in New York recently, the apartment we were staying in was a small studio, and it was $4,200 or $4,400 a month. It was nothing near the type of service or quality that we would get in Bangkok for much less.”

On today’s show Dan and Ian talk to Jesse about why he decided to participate in the series in the first place, the very different reaction he received from the Thai audience and some possible reasons why ‘spend shaming’ exists.

TMBA 673: Side-Hustle to Multi-million Inc500 #98 Business Oct 27, 2022

Show notes

Side-Hustles, which - with a lot of hard work - evolve into full-time businesses are a theme of many entrepreneurial journeys. We’ve covered a fair few on this show.

But Brenden Marquardt’s story is particularly interesting for a few reasons: even though he was in a well-paid finance job, and knew he wasn’t great at ‘ideas’, he did the groundwork to be ready for when the opportunity he was looking for presented itself.

On today’s show Brenden, Co-Founder of Homestead Brands talks to Dan about how a chance click on a website led him to buy Lori Beds, his methodology for working ‘on’ not ‘in’ the business

“When I hired my first executive team member Dodes, who manages our product - the manufacturing, relationships, logistics and things like that. Even before I hired him, just talking with him, I realised we had set our goals way too small, because I didn't know how to do any of those things that he spent every day doing in the furniture industry”.

And why Brenden takes inspiration for working with other family members in his business from ‘The Sopranos’.

TMBA 672: Marketing by Building In Public: From Hobby to Major Business Opportunity Oct 20, 2022

Show notes

It started as a hobby at college, and was also the way he met his wife but now ‘Dumpster Diving’ has become a major business opportunity for Dave Sheffield, Founder of Buffalo Bottle Craft.

In today’s show Dave talks to Dan about how a Vice documentary, currently watched by nearly 1.5M people, and subsequent media interest has made him consider the many different ways a ‘Dumpster Diving’ enterprise could grown: from selling physical products from dumpster finds, to creating online content showing how others can do the same:

“If I find some new material in the dumpster that I know that I can source at scale … I just make a video and I say, ‘Hey, guys, look at this cool thing. What do you think I could make from it? What would you make from it?’ And that's my product research right there.”

TMBA 671: The Rewards Of Finding Your Niche Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

This week Dan is speaking to Andy Morgan, creator of RippedBody, a blog and coaching program targeted at committed but frustrated fitness trainees who have hit a stall in their progress. What’s interesting about Andy’s story is the way he’s found a niche not only in the fitness space but also in the market in Japan.

Andy discusses why he only does bi-weekly email check-in with his clients, how a DC mastermind has prompted him to start hiring coaches, and the methodology behind his successful Instagram strategy:

“The problem was I had too many content possibilities and I couldn't decide what to create each day. The solution that I came up with was to list the topics that I could talk about, the types of content that I could create and the formats that I could create in and then rotate through them. And so what that did is - it constrained my choices and allowed for tight creativity”.

TMBA 670: Business Updates: Remote First Recruiting, How Much Is Enough, And a Return To ‘The Europe Question’ Oct 06, 2022

Show notes

In this week’s show Dan and Ian share their Q4 business updates, including the reasons why they have decided to launch an agency - Remote First Recruiting, which is targeted at startup founders, under the Dynamite Jobs umbrella.

“The best customers of a job board typically have super strong hiring practices that are built over the years … (they’ve) hired for the same position multiple times. Whereas with an agency customer, which are typically startup founders, they're seeking to buy those systems into their business. They know they need to hire, they might be hiring 10 times a year. But every time it's a little bit different, and they want to purchase the systems. That's what the agency does.”

Plus, responses to some great listener questions, including: how much money is ‘enough money’, the mindset challenges of living off capital, and some further reflections on ‘The Europe Question’.

TMBA 669: Working Backwards And The ‘Write First’ Culture Sep 29, 2022

Show notes

Books: seeking out good ones, talking about them, and implementing some of the things we discover in their pages has long been a theme of this show.

However, as longtime listeners will know, Dan is often disappointed by one category in particular: business books. But one he read recently, ‘Working Backwards’ by former Amazon executives Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, really blew him away. And he was thrilled when one of the authors, Colin Bryar, agreed to drop by the show.

Colin joined Amazon in the late 90s, and worked closely with Jeff Bezos. That time at the company covered a period of incredible innovation - Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Echo and Alexa, and Amazon Web Services

Dan talks to Colin about the principles and practices, many of them counterintutive to traditional business thinking, that drove that incredible succes, and how they can also be applied to the smaller businesses many of us are growing.

They include: ditching the powerpoint in favor of narratives at meetings, why it’s essential for your best people to take on key projects in ‘single-threaded leadership’, and much more.

TMBA 668: 5 Small Ways To Go Big Sep 22, 2022

Show notes

The summer of cycling and tapas in Barcelona, Spain has come to an end. Dan and Ian are back in Austin, Texas inspired by the conversations and feedback they’ve had over the past few weeks as listeners and friends have dropped by one of our favorite European cities.

One of those people is someone we’ve had on the pod before, telling the early part of his story. So much has happened in his life that we thought it was high time to catch up with him again.

Coran Woodmass’ entrepreneurial journey has spanned ecommerce, building a successful business brokerage, to multi million dollar deal maker at Billion Dollar Exits. He’s also an investor.

Today he and Dan are going to discuss ‘Five small ways to go big’. These include why it’s sometimes necessary to ‘slow down to speed up’, the power of doubling down on your core entrepreneurial skill and the power of investing for cashflow. And just a caveat: as with all discussions about investing, this is not advice, it’s just some perspectives you might want to think about (or not).

TMBA 667: Catching The Right Wave At The Right Moment Sep 15, 2022

Show notes

Today’s show started, as so many of them do, as an in-person conversation in a dark bar in a cool city. That’s where Dan met Brent Zahradnik, founder of Amazon PPC agency AMZ Pathfinder.

Now ‘the agency model’ is a recurring theme on this show because they can be spun up in a weekend, are often very profitable, and they can provide side income to what you’re already doing in a business. But done poorly, agency owners can find themselves trapped in the grind of ‘wrong’ clients and staffing woes.

But Brent seems to have nailed it, and found a profitable business that also allows him to live in Montpellier, France and enjoy the great outdoor lifestyle that Mediterranean city offers.

Topics covered include: the mistake of not getting ‘A players’ on your team earlier, why Brent feels his nomadic lifestyle held back his business for a while, and some ideas for agencies you could start today.

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