Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

Latest Episodes:

TMBA556: Navigating the Dip Jul 30, 2020

Show notes

On today's podcast, we are sharing some personal updates, as well as three specific updates about our core businesses.

We are also announcing that for the first time in nearly five years, we are hiring a Community Facilitator for our private membership group The Dynamite Circle.

Later on in the episode, we'll be exploring the idea of the moment in a business that Seth Godin refers to as "The Dip".

You'll hear why this "middle period" of running a business is so difficult, how it feels to be in that dip, and why so many people just can't get out of it.

TMBA555: Are Productized Services Overrated? Jul 23, 2020

Show notes

Productized services have long been a subject of discussion on this podcast.

They are a relatively attractive business model, especially among first-time entrepreneurs, and we've shared many examples over the years of how to create these kinds of businesses and scale them.

Meryl Johnston, founder of the online bookkeeping firm Bean Ninjas, recently started a rather lively debate in the members' forum of our online community The Dynamite Circle with a post titled, ‘Are Productized Services Overrated?’

We've invited Meryl on to the show to find out why she decided to raise that question and to hear her thoughts on a business model that she has personally followed for the last five years.

Meryl joins us today to discuss what a productized service really is, the strengths and weaknesses of the model, and why she's wondering whether her own company needs to evolve past it.

TMBA554: A Healthy Equilibrium Jul 16, 2020

Show notes

Christopher Gimmer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Snappa, a SaaS (Software as a Service) business that allows users to create online graphics quickly and easily.

Christopher caught our attention recently when he opened up with a post on Twitter about the emotional cost of being an entrepreneur.

We invited Christopher onto the podcast this week to discuss his own journey as an entrepreneur, how difficult it can be for entrepreneurs to find and maintain what he calls "a healthy equilibrium", and how he works to achieve his own balance.

You'll also hear why Christopher feels that having a business partner has been key to Snappa’s eventual success and what he sees as the pros and cons of SaaS businesses.

TMBA553: Protecting Your Passion Jul 09, 2020

Show notes

It started with an innocuous-looking image of a yellow aeroplane and ended with a number of threatening letters from a law firm on behalf of the travel site Expedia.

In today’s episode, we bring you the denouement of the story of why we decided to remove ‘that plane’ from our branding.

And, to find out whether we really needed to do it, we’ve invited back our good friend and Intellectual Property (IP) attorney Sarah Kornblet Waldbuesser from Destination Legal.

You'll also hear Sarah's thoughts on the best way to protect your brand or logo, how to differentiate between "trademark scams" and what should be taken seriously, and a whole lot more.

TMBA552: The Art of Buying and Selling Web Domains Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

On today's podcast, we're excited to finally reveal that our remote jobs platform Dynamite Jobs is officially a ".com business".

After three years of running the company with a .co domain, that .com marks a huge symbolic change for our company, but it didn't come cheap.

Enter Rob Barbour of DomainSOS.com and DomainVIP.com.

Rob has worked in the domain space for over twenty years and he owns a substantial portfolio of his own domains. He also specializes in helping people acquire domains that are difficult to obtain.

In this week's podcast, Rob joins us to talk about his history as a domain broker, how the industry has changed over 20 years, and how he helped us secure DynamiteJobs.com for our business.

TMBA551: Transitioning from Freelancer to Running a Business Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

If we had to pick one word as our greatest motivation, it’s ‘freedom’. Freedom to live life on our terms, where we want, with the people we choose.

Ali Marsland is the director of ‘The Effective English Company’.

Ali began chasing her own freedom at the age of 18, as she traveled around the world for a year before embarking on a successful career in corporate communications.

The corporate world eventually made her feel trapped, and when the opportunity arose to become a freelancer, she decided to chase that freedom once more.

Ali joins us on this week's podcast to describe how she ‘stair-stepped’ her way into entrepreneurship by first becoming an on-site freelancer to outsourcing work, and eventually growing her own successful agency.

TMBA550: Revisiting Our 2020 Business Goals Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

At the beginning of the year, we recorded a podcast where we outlined some of our business goals and aspirations for 2020.

We're now halfway through the year, and it's safe to say these past six months have been a period of disruption for entrepreneurs all over the world.

Given the unexpected circumstances that we've all experienced, we thought it would be interesting to revisit those goals that we shared on this podcast back in January.

In today's episode, we're looking back at how our business goals have played out thus far in 2020, how our plans have changed since we first recorded that podcast, and what we've learned from the last six months.

TMBA549: 10 Tech Tools We Use In Our Business Every Day Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

In 2009, we published an episode of this podcast called 10 Great Software and Tech Services We Use to Run Our Business.

Over 10 years later, we've been challenged by one of our listeners to revisit that list and to talk about the core software and services that we are using to run our company today.

In this week's episode, we are sharing ten of the most important tools and services that we are using behind the scenes in our business.

You'll hear the specifics of how we are using these tools, and why they have become an everyday part of our business in 2020.

TMBA548: The First 1,000 Days of Running an Agency Jun 04, 2020

Show notes

We've talked about the '1,000 Day Principle' at great length on this podcast.

The idea is that it takes around three years of full-time effort for an entrepreneur to replace the income from their day job.

But what does that principle look like in practice?

Johnathan Solorzano is the founder of Solo Media Group Inc., a remote agency of web developers that are primarily based in Latin America.

Johnathan joins us this week to share the story of his first 1,000 days running an agency, how he has found clients and fostered relationships with them, and where he plans on focusing his energy for the next 1,000 days.

TMBA547: How Coronavirus is Disrupting the Events Industry May 28, 2020

Show notes

Here at the TropicalMBA podcast we have been inspired and motivated by the stories of resilience and adaptation that you’ve been sending us.

One such story that we received recently resonated strongly with us, in part because it was about an industry that we have been working in for years.

William Griggs created Virtual Reality Rental just over four years ago.

He built a ten-person team that brought VR experiences to conferences, parties, and other corporate events across the United States.

Then COVID-19 struck and it all collapsed literally overnight, forcing him to reduce his staff by more than half.

William joins us today to share his strategy for waiting out the current uncertainty in the events industry, and how he's challenging his remaining team to grow into the new roles that are necessary for these times.

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