Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

Dan and Ian are excited to come to you this week with a discussion on the number one sticking point for entrepreneurs at all stages of the game. From a rainy Bali villa, the fellas are bringing the heat in this episode to pack it full of actionable content for you and your start up. This discussion is a poster child for lifestyle business entrepreneurs everywhere and helps bring to surface the biggest issues and shortcomings of most entrepreneurs in the space. Everybody is working towards independence of some kind and this episode is a perfect example of what is possible if you keep your nose to the grind stone. Stick around for some hard-knocks advice from Dan and Ian in their version of the DEALs system and how you can take your business to the next level.

It’s time for another Tropical Talk Radio podcast, which gets published every Friday afternoon (Hong Kong time). Here’s the link to subscribe in Itunes if you haven’t already done so. In this week’s episode Dan has a sit down chat with Joe Magnotti from Adsense Flippers about offshore incorporations and when you as a startup entrepreneur need to start bringing on bookkeepers, tax consultants and everything else.

Happy Valentines Day from the fellas at The Lifestyle Business Podcast. Everybody’s back together this week to bring you some love. Ian has determined Tokyo to be his favorite Asian city and Dan has returned from some business (and pleasure) in the Philippines. Dan and Ian discuss hiring, when to use interns vs. VA’s vs. professionals and how this can have a profound impact on your business’ growth. They have also been getting an incredible amount of emails, reviews and feedback from everybody so the fellas take some time to answer your most pressing questions, concerns and confessions.

It’s time for another Tropical Talk Radio podcast, which gets published every Friday afternoon (Hong Kong time). Here’s the link to subscribe in Itunes if you haven’t already done so. In this week’s episode Dan catches up with Sean Cooney, a resort owner with an impressive Youtube presence and some interesting projects on the horizon. Tune in.

Dan and Ian are coming together again this week from across the seas. Ian graces us with his presence while still on his Tokyo trip with Dan getting his hands dirty down in Davao, Philippines. The fellas pull together this episode as the next chapter in the breakdown of the 1,000 Day Principle using the Rockefeller Process. This week’s discussion focuses on the next and perhaps most difficult step of growing your business through hiring employees. You’ll hear why the race to hire your first full time employee is often a crucial step in building a business instead of a job. Dan and Ian will open your eyes to the growth possibilities through hiring talent instead of ‘doing your own thing’. Grab a pad of paper or pull up your preferred note taking device because this episode is chalked full of actionable concepts.

Dan and Ian are dividing and conquering for the next few weeks but don’t shed a tear, the separation is only temporary. Ian’s off to Tokyo for sushi while Dan’s swinging through the Philippines to check up on some business and meet up with entrepreneurs. This shows the beauty of operating location independent businesses which is the main topic of this week’s episode. They boys delve into an interesting conversation on the location independent movement and why it’s not just a fad. You’ll hear some pretty powerful stuff this week from getting inspired by strangeness to cities losing their value in the modern world. Plug in, sit back and grab yourself a cup of coffee since this week will no doubt leave you reflecting on the merits of location independence.

Entrepreneurial integrity and the true drive of a hustler shine through in this week’s episode of the Lifestyle Business Podcast. With a dose of that familiar Dan and Ian banter and a sprinkle of delightful puns, they break it down in a longer than usual episode to bring you the valuable marketing mojo you’re looking for. They pick apart the rip, pivot and jam formula to make sure you’re honing in on the proper pivot and jam methods while telling you why many people get a little off track at this point. You’ll also get Dan and Ian’s riverside hut metaphor to guide you in your quest of setting up shop and getting your first customers.

During this week’s installment of the Lifestyle Business Podcast, Dan and Ian hook up from Jakarta and Bali to provide the weekly dose you crave. When discussions range from medical examinations in South East Asia to announcements for the DC Berlin meetup, you know there’s a little something for everybody in here. The boys share some of the lowest points of their 1,000 day business journey, how they ‘stumbled’ across some of their most profitable products and why the products themselves are only half of the battle. While fielding listener questions, you’ll hear again and again about the top method of building a skillset and launching a business to solve problems in the market. Listen in to hear what this concept of success is and how you can tap into it.

It’s Dan and Ian coming to you from Bali once again this week. They’ve been working on some hot projects coming down the pipeline and getting everything ramped up for the DC Berlin meetup. If you think that’s exciting, wait until you hear what they’ve got in store for you during this week’s episode. Dan and Ian go kamikaze this week with six marketing stunts designed to get you and you’re product or service some eyeballs. They share their first hand accounts of how these tactics have worked for them, and how you can rip, pivot and jam your way to a bump in website traffic.

While spending a ruckus New Years in Bali with Brendan Tully and Tommy Schultz, Dan and Ian are ringing in the new year with a few beers, yoga and bike rides; though not all at once. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all fun and games. They’ve also been working on putting together some Tropical MBA resources for the community, polishing off a book and simply taking care of business. This week’s discussion is centered around moving you forward in your business and social settings. Dan and Ian share their number one method to getting ahead, and show how they’re still using this process to further not only their businesses, but their friendships as well. You’ll also hear their approach to handling nay-sayers when a listener shares his experience of unsupportive parents.

Dan and Ian are now back in Bali just in time for the New Year’s festivities. Between celebrations, they’ll be putting together their game plan for 2013 and setting some lofty goals for 2013. The turn of the new year marks Dan and Ian’s fifth year in business which sparks a discussion on goal setting and identifying keystone habits. These help form their New Year’s resolutions where they’ll push past just talking revenue and business growth. You’ll hear about Dan’s professional aspirations, Ian’s plan to step up his business relationships and the pairs’ health focus that will inspire you to set some New Year’s resolutions of your own.

Almost back in Bali! Ian’s heading to join Dan in Bali in just a few days for the end of the year. They’re going to take a look back at their businesses in 2012 and look forward at how to grow their businesses in 2013. They’ve realized that in order to continue to scale, they need to get even more focused on creating documentation and standards of procedure. They took a look at the literature and brought their experience from their e-commerce company together to bring you a step-by-step guide to start creating SOPs that let you save your profits right out of the gate.

Dan and Ian are making plans to rendevous in Bali again. Dan is still there working on his book, while Ian is in Orlando avoiding the M3 service industry guys and spending time with his family. Ian’s recent trip to a race prompted a discussion between the guys about deferred life plans. There’s a built in assumption that retirement is worth 30 years of investment, but is that true?

It’s time for another Tropical Talk Radio podcast, which gets published every Friday afternoon (Hong Kong time). In this week’s episode Dan hands off the mic to a recording of David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech given in 2005 to Kenyon College in Ohio. It’s inspiring and thought-provoking. Give it a listen.

Dan’s set a Sunday deadline for finishing his first book and getting it to a group of Beta readers. Ian and Dan have laid out the upcoming meetups for DCers with definite meetups in April (Europe) and October (Bangkok – #DCBKK) and a potential get together in the Phillipines in March. In today’s episode Dan and Ian make some predictions for 2013 and beyond. Turns out, they think Seth Godin is a pretty smart guy.

It’s time for another Tropical Talk Radio podcast, which gets published every Friday afternoon (Hong Kong time). Here’s the link to subscribe in Itunes if you haven’t already done so. In this week’s episode I respond to a few reader emails I received this week.

It’s getting late in the year and we all know what that means: Buck season. While Ian is stalking the big bucks back in San Diego, Dan’s writing binge in Bali continues. Content Marketing is a hot topic in the internet marketing world right now, but what does content marketing really mean? Dan and Ian define what great content really is and show how you can use the Rule of 6 to spring load your content marketing efforts.

It’s time for another Tropical Talk Radio podcast, which gets published every Friday afternoon (Hong Kong time). In this week’s episode I respond to a few reader emails I received this week.

Dan has adopted the Tim Ferriss book writing method and isolated himself from everything except Evernote. Ian on the other hand is tearing it up in San Diego and prepping for a motorcycle race. In this week’s episode, Dan and Ian explore the benefits of being a “sociopath” (it’s not what it sounds like). Inspired by a Ribbonfarm post from Venkat, they discuss the relationship between sociopaths, the clueless, and the losers.

It’s time for another Tropical Talk Radio podcast, which gets published every Friday afternoon (Asia time). Here’s the link to subscribe in Itunes if you haven’t already done so. In this week’s episode I respond to a few reader emails I received this week.

Dan’s bean bag sitting in Bali, intermittently nuking himself off the internet to make sure he gets his book taken care of on time while Ian’s in San Diego taking care of business like a boss. After getting some inspiration from the Adsense Flippers, Dan and Ian decided to go for a knock down drag out four-rounder this week. They asked Taylor, the new guy on the team, to put together 4 unique business premises. Dan and Ian come up with unique solutions to each premise and it’s up to you guys to decide who came out on top.

This week I totally geek out on one of my favorite topics: how do various locations in Southeast Asia stack up to each other for internet entrepreneurs? During the conversation I share a lot of anecdotes from my last 5 months on the road, along with a few new pieces of information I’ve picked up along the way. Hope you enjoy and curious to hear your thoughts as always.

Dan’s still in Bali grinding out his first book while Ian’s back in San Diego working on taking the product business to the next level. Inspired by a talk Cal Newport gave, Dan and Ian reveal that the script to success, however you define it. While success is something each person decides on, there is a script that everyone can follow to get themselves there. With all the talk in the blogosphere about “passion,” the true story about achieving success and happiness seems to be a little more complex.

I’m back in Bali hoping to take advantage of the inspiring scenery and lifestyle to get a ton of work done. I was excited to hop on the mic solo-style this week and address those of you who plan to spend the weekend hustling away. In this week’s show I talk about some digital nomad hot spots as well as 10 business red flags that prevent you and your business from achieving maximum velocity.

Dan and Ian are homeward bound. Ian just got back San Diego and Dan’s headed to Bali for November to write his first book. Both still coming down from the high and energy of DCBKK, they wanted to tackle a tough question on the real meaning of wealth and entrepreneurship. Everyone knows that society has certain scripts and most people blindly assume the numbers support those. Dan and Ian sit down to look at the facts of a 20 year trajectory for a professional job vs. an entrepreneur and then look at how they and their network got there.

We had a blast at the DCBKK conference over the weekend, but we’ve got more big plans lined up. The CEO-yeah is heading back to the good ole’ U.S. of A. and I’m heading up to Chiang Mai to do a little scouting and see if it could be worthy of being the next TMBA compound. Starting this week, I’m holding my feet to the fire and saying that all you weekend warriors will be getting a brand new episode of Tropical Talk Radio in your earbuds every Friday to keep you jammin’ on your business all weekend long. In this weeks episode, we get called out on our Modern Cat Furniture business by listener Shayna and invoke the “do as we say, not as we do” maxim. We reveal our 3 step process on how to know when it’s time to hire and the differences between what we do, small businesses, and startups.

After the first annual Dynamite Circle DCBKK Conference in Bangkok, Dan and Ian blew it out Bangkok-style. But first, they sat down with SEO guru Travis Jamisonfrom Supremacy SEO to discuss some of the latest Google algorithm updates and how Travis is adjusting. Lots of site owners have been left scrambling after the Google Penguin updates and refereshes over the past months, not to mention the Exact Match Domain update that rolled out a few weeks ago. While the rest of the world screams “SEO is Dead,” Travis reveals how he’s still crushing it with top rankings

After two weeks in Puerto Galera with the October TMBA session, Dan and Ian celebrated Dan’s birthday in style at the classic Filippino restaurant TGIFriday’s and then curled up under a staircase in the Mall of Asia to bring this episode to you. Having done three sessions with various TMBA participants and being asked weekly similar questions from folks starting their own businesses, they’ve come to notice some consistent things that happen with every new business owner. The good news is that these are generally fixable, you just need to know how to adjust your mirrors.

Coming to you live from Badladz Resort in the Philippines, complete with patented LBP cafe noise and janky wi-fi upload speeds. This week Dan jumped on the phone with the man, the myth, the Aussie legend in content marketing and helping customers online, James Schramko of Super Fast Business and one of Dan’s new favorite podcasts Freedom Ocean. A super-sized episode that caused Dan to spend the past week to say to Ian “Did I tell you what Schramko told me? Have I told you about my interview with Schramko? James has this baller way of dealing with that.” Needless to say Dan and Ian’s mancrushes run high – after listening to the interview you’ll develop a mind-crush too.

Do you know where you were and what you were doing five years ago this week? Five years ago (October 2nd, 2007 to be exact) Dan and Ian were sitting at brunch when Dan got a notification on his original iPhone that they had gotten paid for their first product sale. Sure, there were some problems. Like the fact that they didn’t actually have a manufactured product to ship out at the time of the sale. But that email was the confirmation they needed. Starting that day they set their sights on a business trajectory that has taken them five years, multiple product lines, 10+ employees, world-wide travel destinations, a publishing venture, private mastermind community, and top iTunes podcast into the future.

This week Dan is the one hard at work and Ian is asleep on the job. Stranger things have happened…ever seen a tabloid alien story? Dan took the opportunity to chat up Prateek Dayal, founder of startups like Muziboo and recently SupportBee. Dan and Ian met Prateek as they traveled across Vietnam this summer meeting up with folks from the Dynamite Circle and LBP listeners. Having started companies from India, Santiago Chile, and now Saigon Vietnam, they knew they had to have him on the show to learn more about his travel adventures and success as a location-free entrepreneur, including: How Solving Your Own Problems Can Inspire Your New Business The Net Different in Lifestyle and Business: Chile vs. Vietnam Cafes, Laptops, and the Sexy Saigon Wi-Fi Scene Using Known Quantities in Blogging To Get Hacker News Quality Traffic

Dan and Ian are both in the States and working on their next big thing – the Dynamite Circle Conference in Bangkok in October. Planning conferences is a lot of work that you never even thought of until the hotel was asking what kind of breakfast menus you would prefer during your third break on the second day. Who has a breakfast menu during their third break?! They decided to call in a pro and chat it up with Rob Walling, the founder of MicroConf (The Conference For Self-Funded Startups.) With two successful events under his belt, he had a ton of great information on How To Profit From In Person Events, including:  How To Pitch Your Audience  Getting Speakers and Sponsors – Who Is In and Who Is Out?  Keynotes, Breakouts, Speaker Sessions, Workshops – What Is The Best Schedule of Events  and How To Get Your Event On Hacker News

Dan and Ian got so many great questions from last week’s carefully orchestrated listener request that they decided to keep a few for future episodes that needed more than a quick answer. In this episode they tackle this frustrating issue that plagues many an information product or intangible service provider Head down and pencils up – this episode is full of pricing insights and strategies you need to have a successful online business, including:  When To Offer Your Customers Credit  Why The Guy Who Asks For Bro Pricing Isn’t Really Your Bro  How To Compete With Custom Pricing – The Bundled Pricing Trick That Works Everytime  What Price Anchoring Is  And The Most Important Pricing Model In Online Business

Dan and Ian spent the past week working diligently to poll the LBP audience and find the deepest darkest unasked listener questions. Or they sent a Tweet before the show started. We leave it up to you to decide what really happened. Either way, they ended up with some great questions and requests for advice from the LBP community, many of which were from listeners they’d never heard from before. Which made Dan grin, cause he loves you silent majority folks.

Dan and Ian spent a fair amount of time (ok…they spent a session) learning Crossfit from Joe Bauer in the Philippines during the recent Tropical MBA session. After they managed to drag themselves back to the microphone, they realized there was some techniques to work out on the LBP. The thing with starting a biznass is that it isn’t all rainbows and puppies. There’s some heavy lifting that you have to do to get that baby off the ground, and we’re not talking reps with a tropical umbrella drink. Sure, everyone wants the 4-Hour Work Week, but you gotta put in the work to make that happen.

It’s a special podcast here at the LBP. Dan and Ian are joined for a bonus-length episode as they host the Summer Marketing Mashup guys (Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, Jason Van Orden & Jeremy Frandsen from Internet Business Mastery, and Tim Conley from Foolish Adventure) to talk shop on niche selection. So sit back, grab your beverage of choice and a notebook (or Evernote), and check out the final installment in the Summer Marketing Mashup series.

Dan and Ian and the folks in the August TMBA session have made it through 40 days and nights of rain and wind in Puerto Galera. Ok, it’s more like 7 days, but 40 sounds way more intense. With all these businesses working on taking their businesses to the next level, marketing is a key piece of the conversation. Yet there’s so many options when you are setting up your marketing strategy. Some are quick and dirty, some are putting in for some long ball. How do you choose? Dan and Ian went back to their notebooks and online archives (thank you GMail!) and sorted through to find the most profitable marketing strategy they had ever implemented. Only problem? It’s also their most expensive. But when you’re a serious lifestyle business baller, you realize that sometimes you’ve gotta make the investment of resources to get the explosion of customers.

How does a lazy blogger increase their email subscription rate by 257% and in the process get an automatic sales machine working for them and generating sales in their sleep? Well– you could hire John McIntyre— but for those of you who have teams or willing to do it yourself, we invited John on the show to get the details on how he did it. It’s also time for us to offer another Tropical MBA internship here at Badladz resort in Puerto Galera, Mindoro (sorry, so much for the “no more interns” thing), so it’s good timing to ask John about his experience here in the Philippines plus the business and skills he’s been building over the past year.

Happy Friday everyone! Today Ian and I are joining you from Puerto Galera, Philippines. We found a few minutes away from the events here at the Tropical MBA to discuss a topic that’s been on our minds lately: How do we frame up this new style of multi-national small business entrepreneurship, and what are some related business opportunities? A lot of people have been talking about this trend lately, we dug up this article to serve as the basic structure for this episode. We believe the opportunities to create services and products for people just like us– global-thinking lifestyle entrepreneurs– is massive. We also take a few minutes to discuss some of the feedback we received on our last episode

It’s been a really rough week for Dan and Ian. This is mostly due to the fact that they arrived in the Philippines to meet with 14 bright eyed participants of our August TMBA Session and it was a bit of a challenge. Not because of the participants. Instead they encountered a slight typhoon wreaking havoc on Manila, Batangas City & Pier, Mindoro, Puerto Galera, and Badladz Resort. In other words, they were surrounded by the storm. What should have been a fun 3-hour tour of the Philippines to get to the resort turned in to an adventure of epic proportions. But everyone arrived safe and sound, amped up on the adrenaline of their adventure, with huge grins on their faces and dates with their beds. Which is to say, in true internet meme fashion, sometimes owning a business isn’t all double rainbows and Tiger Blood. Sometimes, you are killin’ it and sometimes you are struggling to get it all done, through some pretty adverse situations and circumstances.

Happy Friday afternoon! We are back with our weekend podcast with the hopes of giving you a little fuel for your projects over the next few days. Today I discuss with the CEOh-yeah and issue we’ve brought up a few times before. One of the biggest questions we get asked is: should I start a personal blog for networking purposes? I don’t think these are benign decisions and I take this question very seriously. When you are just getting started and need to find strategic levers to get as much energy channeled into your business as possible, and your decision on when and how to blog or otherwise put content onto the interwebs can have a big impact on your future.

We know that Dan and Ian are consumate consumers of information and business theory. So it was a bit of a somber moment earlier this week when we learned that Dr. Stephen Covey, the author of 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, had passed away. Covey’s book “has been a top-seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity” per the description on his website. Couldn’t agree more.

Hey there weekend warriors! This week’s happy hour drink sponsor is Orangina, a beverage with a special place in the heart of @AnythingIan. Today we are going to talk about high level content strategy. First, it’s worth taking a look at Karol’s notes from reading Turning Pro. Many of you know I’m a huge War of Art fan, and I just got started with Turning Pro today based on Karol’s suggestion. “The amateur allows his worth and identity to be defined by others. The amateur craves third-party validation.” Ouch that’s harsh! In this episode we’ll explore strategies content marketers can employ to avoid the amateur trap.

Dan is all about the public peer pressure on Ian. Getting him to sign up for email lists. Getting him to go to NYC with him in September. Getting him to divulge his espionage trade secrets in a future episode. What else is this podcast gonna get Ian into?! This week the guys are slowly making their way to meeting up with each other in Saigon for a couple weeks before the next Tropical MBA session in the Philippines in August. As they work on getting back in the same space, they discuss the various niches and products they have pursued over the years (they edited out the 30 minutes of feisty heated discussion in circles) and how they decided to pursue them.

Hey there weekend warriors! I’m happy to announce that Tropical Talk Radio (iTunes link) will now be a weekly show for entrepreneurs seeking some weekend inspiration. That means I’ll try to get you new episodes by happy hour on Friday evening. This week I’m joining you from from Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi. Tiger beer (via nearby Singapore) is my unofficial sponsor. If a brand manager is reading this post, why not send me a tank top or something?! QUICK NEWS: Most of you know we opened up our October Tropical MBA event 24 hours ago to the readers of this blog. We currently have 4 spaces open for the event. If you’d like to join us, I’m hoping you are able to make a decision fast. I’d like to sell these spots so I can get down to business with the crew! If there is anything I can do to help you make a decision, drop me a line Dan at TropicalMBA.com.

Dan and Ian have been busy hopscotching across SE Asia the past couple weeks (Bali, Philippines, China, Vietnam) and have plans to continue the journey later in July with a motorbike excursion in Cambodia. All this travel got the guys thinking about the places they go and the things they love/hate about each place. More importantly, how a location independent entrepreneur can live and work from these locations and still be straight hustlin’.

Dan and Ian are jet-setting around Asia for the next month between Tropical MBA sessions, currently doing some money biznass in Hong Kong. After the first Tropical MBA was so much fun and so successful, not only did they decide to host yet another session in October 2012, but the effectiveness of the program caused them to stop and re-evaluate their online priorities. All good businesses grow and change, and Tropical MBA is doing that as well.

This week Dan and Ian were reminded of a great project that you have all helped us to grow in the Lifestyle Business Podcast community. To date you guys have raised over $5000 on Kiva micro-funding businesses and entrepreneurs in developing countries. That’s pretty baller. Check out our Kiva page to pay it forward cause that’s what entrepreneurs do. What else do entrepreneurs do? Well, what an entrepreneur does depends a lot on what type of entrepreneur they are.

Want to be the first to hear the details of our October Tropical MBA? You can check out the information here, and we’ll email you the final details on Friday. I managed to sneak away from the start-ups here at the first Tropical MBA in Puerto Galera Philippines for a few minutes in order to share some of the lessons we’ve been learning together. Today we ask the question: what mindsets are critical to developing to ensuring your business success? You might be surprised by some of the answers we’ve developed.

We’re a few days in to the first Tropical MBA Startup Session here in Puerto Galera and the entire team is buzzing with excitement and motivation working with these guys. Basically Dan and Ian just wander around with huge grins on their faces helping the guys with their startups. If you walked in to the think tank on Monday night of 11 entrepreneurs with their noses buried in laptops hustlin’ their little fingers off on keyboards. Most past midnight. They were up by 8-9 AM the next morning and back at it. Entrepreneurs hustle hard. Which means they need to party hard too. And last night the folks at Badladz Resort did it up right and threw a party, complete with amazing live band and Filipino delicacies like balut & fried chicken heads. Which left some folks a little fuzzy headed this morning. This Tropical MBA thing seems to work. The participants are working, learning, growing, building, and spending some time escaping all that with people who are going through the exact same thing. Talk about a cure for entrepreneurial loneliness! Does this make you a little misty that you weren’t able to sign up for our summer sessions? Well. There’s good news for you. We’re going to be hosting another session in October of this year. Drop your email in the form below to sign up for early notification and get the details privately by email before we announce them to the public.