Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

This week, Dan and Ian answer a reader question about Hong Kong incorporation. You’ll learn What Dan and Ian’s HK incorporation experience was like. How much incorporating costs. Why internet business owners should set up a corporation in Hong Kong. Hong Kong vs. Singapore Hong Kong vs. the Philippines The quick tips will introduce you to a tool that makes your Mac even faster, a tool that makes using your computer at night easier on the eyes and some great podcasting advice from Dan Lyons. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

In this Episode, Dan and Ian announce how the sale of their blog, OutsourceToThePhilippines.com, went. You will learn why they decided that it was time to sell this property and that Chris Ducker is the new owner. Chris is the only guy in the outsourcing industry whose products Dan and Ian have backed in the past (e.g. Virtual Staff Finder) so he’s the perfect buyer. This week’s meat & potatoes section consists of an interview with Chris Ducker. Dan and Chris talk about Chris’ future plans with OutsourceToThePhilippines. Outsourcing tips. How much you can expect to pay your home-based VA. What inspires Chris to keep working hard everyday in an environment (Philippines) where many other expats don’t have a similar drive. In the quick tips section you will learn of a piece of software that finally makes running and building membership sites both easy for the owner and usable for the customers. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

In this week’s episode, Dan and Ian talk about hustling. Most people are better at talking about hustling than actually getting it done. Tweeting that you are hustling doesn’t mean you’re hustlin’. :) Just sitting in front of your laptop for 60 hours/week is not enough. If you listen to this episode, “The Tao of the Hustle”, you’ll learn the character traits that make an authentic hustler. In the quick tips section you’ll learn of a tool that makes working at night less eye-straining. If you are a Reddit-fan you will also appreciate the Reddit enhancer that helps you waste even more time on Reddit. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

This week, Dan is speaking to you from Bali while Ian is back in San Diego after a trip to Washington, DC. In order to stick to the promised weekly schedule, this is a re-publish of Episode #28 (Dan and Ian recorded a brand new 4-minute intro.) This episode is all about visualizing. Dan and Ian visualized their target revenue to be $100,000 a year ago. As of this month, this goal is reached. You will learn how to grow your business by having a clear vision. Dan and Ian also address the difference between wishful thinking and reaching your goals. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Dan and Ian talk about 6 tips that both help you get a date and make more sales. Sales and seduction techniques are strikingly similar in many ways, studying one will also improve your success in the other area. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Dan and Ian just finalized their Hong Kong incorporation and announce a new publishing schedule for the Lifestyle Business Podcast. There has been an incredible explosion of new listeners to the podcast over the last few months. Therefore, Dan and Ian re-introduce themselves and their business beliefs in this episode. They talk about: How much money Dan and Ian are they making from this podcast Why there are too many solopreneurs out there Why you should avoid taking loans Why niche sites suck Why having real skills, not following a bullet-proof formula is going to make you successful How the technological revolution of the last decade created an incredible amount of opportunities for entrepreneurs In the quick tip section, Dan and Ian talk about the best e-commerce platform out there if you don’t wanna deal with technical hurdles and developers. Dan also provides a tip on dental health. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Dan and Ian travelled 5 different countries over the last few weeks. Each of these places comes with many reasons to do business or live. In this episode, you’ll find out why Dan and Ian travel, live and do business in the following locations: USA China Bali/Indonesia Philippines Hong Kong Besides that, we have a quick tip that will increase your email productivity and give you updates on what we’ve been up to (had a party in the Philippines, rented a house in Bali, ran a new internship.) You’ll also learn why Hong Kong is the best place to incorporate if you’re doing online business. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Did you read the Four Hour Work Week and are struggling to get your business off the ground? In this podcast episode, Dan and Ian discuss 7 common mistakes that aspiring entrepreneurs make. Building a business isn’t an easy undertaking. Listen to this podcast if you want to build a 4 Hour Work Week business, you may be making some of these deadly mistakes. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :) Pimpin an affiliate offer. Yeah Buddy! If you are involved in any kind of Search Engine Optimization activities (you should – search traffic means money), make sure to check out Market Samurai. Our in house SEO team uses Market Samurai and makes us five figures a month because of it. Try it for free.

Dan and Ian talk about common traps and mistakes that people make when building an information marketing business. They also reveal the architecture of their upcoming membership sites. In the quick-tips, you’ll learn of a potentially life-changing read. Enjoy!

In this episode, Dan and Ian talk about rule breaking and rule making. As an entrepreneur, you can’t always wait for somebody else to give you permission. You have to make your own rules. In the quick tips, a few useful iPhone apps are discussed. Enjoy! If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

In this episode, Dan and Ian talk about character traits and principles that self-made millionaires have in common. Dan is currently hanging out with some multi millionaire friends in Subic Bay. These successful entrepreneurs think and act very different than the average working class person. You’ll learn of 9 millionaire principles that you can start implementing today. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Today, Dan and Ian compare going solo to hiring people and building a team. Almost everybody in the “lifestyle business” niche thinks that not having a team is the road to more freedom, less hassle, location independence or a “4 hour work week”. Dan and Ian’s case is the exact opposite: having a team and hiring people gives you more freedom (and also increases your chances of success) than flying solo. If you want to support the show, check out our first 50 episodes on sale. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Today, Dan and Ian discuss how to get started sourcing physical products from China. Furthermore, they discuss some of their own business failures. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :) This episode is sponsored by wordpress designers and developers, Gut Shot Studios.

Today, Dan and Ian talk about 10 tactics that shady businessmen use. Dan and Ian DO NOT use or encourage any of these tactics, this episode is entirely hypothetical. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :) This episode is sponsored by wordpress designers and developers, Gut Shot Studios.

Today, Dan and Ian talk about 7 ways how you (and your business) can profit from going location independent. Thanks to the Internet, globalization and tools that weren’t available a couple of years ago (e.g. Skype), it’s easier than ever before to go location independent. Not only is it fun to be location independent, it also has the potential to make you a bunch of cash. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Dan and Ian talk about 5 common myths about internet businesses. Other topics include using video to enhance your online presence, freight forwarders, how to never miss an international conference call again and a new invention that will revolutionize the world.

In this episode, Dan and Ian have a special guest: @SeanOgle. Sean is a successful online entrepreneur who works with Dan and Ian. Together, they discuss a fail proof method for success (hint: it has to do with networking). Furthermore, they talk about new findings from the SEO trenches. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

In this episode, Dan and Ian talk about 5 signs why you might be a loser. These are 5 common issues that hinder entrepreneurial progress. The right mindset is one of the most important components if you want to crush it. In the quick tips section, Dan and Ian talk about how they lost 20 pounds in 8 week without exercise and how to never forget anything ever again. Our live podcast on Ustream last week was a big success. Thanks to everybody who tuned in. We’ll have a live podcast once a month from now on. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Today, Dan and Ian continue their discussion on how to finally get started with your business for $300 or less (part 1 here). After deciding on your product, you will learn how to line out your product in more detail, come up with a unique selling proposition and test your product without actually producing it. Dan & Ian also reveal a few naughty tricks that some of their friends used. Depending on your local laws, these tricks might be illegal. It’s your responsibility to check your laws. We do not encourage illegal activities. This is the 50th anniversary episode of the Lifestyle Business Podcast. Expect a lot more to come in 2011.

A lot of people have been asking for more content focused on getting started with your online business. This is fun content for us to produce because I feel like we are always starting something new! We’ve got a lot of people around us doing the same so in this episode we start to talk about one slightly naughty approach you can take to getting started online. This is a long conversation so we’ll chunk it up into multiple episodes. Yeah buddy. We’re going to ramp up podcast production a bit and have live episodes. From now on, we will be live on Ustream.tv every Sunday from 8-9pm PST (11pm EST). Go to Ustream and search for “Lifestyle Business Podcast”. The first 30 minutes will be content. After that (at 8:30), we open for any questions from the audience. Check out our first live broadcast: Sunday, Jan 16, 8pm PST. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

Hey podcast listeners, we are back in a big way in 2011. We are going to see some incredible changes in 2011, most notably, Ian and I bought a company! In this episode we discuss 4 mistakes that we made in 2010 that cost us big time, and how we are aiming to solve those issues in 2011. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.

To be honest, the days I’ve had to fire employees have been some of the most difficult in my entire life. Moving on these tough decisions is critical for growing your business. I’ve seen businesses struggle big time because of the inability of entrepreneurs’ to make tough personel decisions. In this episode Ian and I talk about the dirty business of firing people for the benefit of your business.

One of the most common questions I’m asked is about how to get a web application developed. Many people have great ideas for new web technologies and with Elance just a few clicks away the temptation is huge to throw some money at your idea and get it live to the world. I’m sure this can work for some people, but I’ve screwed it up royally a few times, and I can off the top of my head list 5 friends who have done the same. Hope my story can prevent you from making the same errors! :)

We’ve got so many cool things coming up here on the podcast including my made in India software screw up mid next week, our internet marketing summit in Thailand, and our auto trading product launch (we’ll be sharing all the details!). That’s just the start! This episode is about a topic that has been destroying my inbox in the past 2 weeks. So many smart people are getting hung up on analysis paralysis, and trust me people, I feel ya. Here’s our best tips. We’ve beat it before and we’ll beat it again. Have fun. Leave a comment. Give us a ring. 888-554-8428. Go make it happen! :)

an and I have both been manufacturing products in China for over 5 years. In this episode we talk in detail about our plan to be a distributor of sport bike replacement fairings and why the whole thing fell apart. This episode is sponsored by wordpress designers and developers, Gut Shot Studios.

Hey party people, I just stepped foot back in Manila and I’m catching up on mounds of email. This episode was recorded about a week ago. We have had tons more going on and a few more KILLER iTunes reviews since that time, thanks to everyone who takes the time to say nice things about the show there. Looking forward to recording another show this week! :)

YO! How are you? I’ve been back in the old USA for over one week now and I’m having tons of thoughts about it (its been over a year!) I hope to write a few blog posts about it. In this episode Ian and I discuss concepts that regular listeners of the show are probably pretty used to hearing from us. We currently have a lot of overhead in our business and we are exploring ways to efficiently deploy our staff to stuff that makes us money. Last month we had a nice little revenue hit from a new product we developed using what we call PIVOT: Position, Iterate, Volley, Outsource, and Time. If that sounds like a big fat put-on, it kind of is, but we had fun using it as a structure to talk about the way we got this done. Also there are lots of random little tidbits in this episode plus an impassioned rant during the quick tip section. Interested to hear your thoughts! I’ll be in NYC all next week doin’ some biznass and meeting old friends, if you are around LET ME KNOW HOMIES!

Hello from the good old USA, I believe this is our first 100% USA ‘cast in over a year. Yeowwwza! This is a big long episode where we talk about a wide variety of topics. In particular, we talk about why I believe Virtual Staff Finder is currently the best way to get started hiring virtual assistants in the Philippines. Check out Virtual Staff Finder today and get a free copy of my 44,000 word book The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Outsourcing to the Philippines. It’s Friday night, I’m too tired to type more! Hope you all have a great weekend :)

Hello from Bali! I really like it here. So far Bali is proving to be charming, sophisticated, and beautiful. Certainly a nice break from the Philippines which be a bit rough around the edges. It was great to record a podcast in the same room as @AnythingIan ! We’ve been getting a lot of work done this week, both on our core business and on a brand new information product we are cooking up. We are going to walk our listeners through the process of starting an internet based business from the ground up. We are hoping you find it entertaining and perhaps even useful. We are also newbies at a lot of this stuff, so we are hoping to get some help from you guys as well!

Hello from Malaysia! Well everybody I’m almost ready to hop on to a plane to meet up with @anythingian in BALI of all places. We are both long overdue to un-plug from the daily duties of our current lifestyle business, and focus on launching a brand new site that has some really cool implications for our lifestyle and current business. We are looking forward to sharing all of that with you on the podcast, and I’m sure that if we can be more transparent with our stuff on this show the listeners would be a HUGE asset to making sure we do things right. Ahem, here’s a hint: In this episode we get a great follow up from @DallasCarter about his 808FIT.NET weight loss website. If you haven’t yet seen Dallas’ incredible story clicksie this link baby and check out how a guy drops 190 and turns into a sexy beast. Issaac Dudek (@isaacdudek) also called in to ask two questions about the mindset of outsourced employees (we focused on the Philippines exclusviely) and the kinds of technology is prevalent in the Philippines. For the meat and potatoes we discuss 4 tips for deciding if a market is worth attacking, these tips are once we recently implemented as we have in the past week chosen two new hot markets to attack (very excited about that!), in terms of execution we’ll be following similar steps we took to create a $6,000 site in 6 months (that site was the last niche we selected). For the quick tips we talk about screen capturing, webex, and how to create great ebook covers in under 10 minutes.

Yeah buddy welcome back to another episode of the Lifestyle Business Podcast, got a little hung up there on timing we’ve been doing a lot of traveling and have been VERY busy with visitors, investments, and having a little fun too! In this episode Ian and I break one of our social standards– in general we are very AGAINST unsolicited critical feedback (UCF!) but we had a nice discussion talking about Dallas Carter’s great website. None of this applies to Dallas necessarily because there are plenty of business reasons why he might be doing what he’s doing or he could just be busy like the rest of us, but we thought it was fun to discuss a website on air so we broke the rule. We love to receive UCF so if you wanna send us some lovin’ feel free to drop some bombs in the comments. We talk about tons of other stuff in this episode and plow through as many listener questions as we could and still get out under the 30 minute mark. If you want to ask us a question or have us take a peak at your website, don’t be shy we’ll probably get back to you! Good times:)

I’ve been spending so much time responding to emails it finally dawned on me that I could respond with a podcast. WOW. Sometimes I am slow. That’s the new policy. In most cases we’ll answer questions that can benefit the whole community. Not only is this more valuable to everyone listening to the show, but I’m sure it will work out well for the person asking the question as well. I have opinions, but I’m absolutely certain that our collective audience knows way more about these issues than me alone. I just proofed parts of this episode and there are even things in there I could phrase a totally different way or see from a different angle– I’m sure there are some things in there we are just flat WRONG about… that’s gonna happen a lot. I’m cool with being wrong– its way better than not publishing a podcast. Enjoy the show ! We’ve made a lot of broad sweeping generalizations about entire countries in this episode. I’m interested to hear your opinions about some of these questions….

Hey you guys are good for a lot of things but nobody stepped up to tell me getting an office was one big fat stupid idea! JOKE! Kidding…No, I think as entrepreneurs growing a new kind of business, there aren’t any hard and fast rules so we end up testing out a lot of new ideas to see if they stick. One of this year’s big experiements was starting a brick and mortar office here in the Philippines. I learned a TON from doing this but it wasn’t really creating the explosive growth we thought it had the potential to do. We’ve also decided that scaling into more “lifestyle” focused internships is a much more effective way to grow our business in the short term than radically increasing our overhead and support stuff (um… duh?) So its not that the office was outright BAD, its just that everyone made big sacrifices to make it happen, and most of them hit home where it hurt most. We were having less FUN and spending more time on stuff like commutes and pushing ourselves to work outside of our natural rhythms. The key thing here is going to bat. We change our minds about what is working in our business very often, and to me thats a sign that we are pushing in as many ways as possible to look for ways to grow our business and have more fun.

Heya everyone– I gotta say I feel I am SUPER qualified to talk about stuff that you shouldn’t do in your business. I’ve made a million mistakes, and some of the stuff we bring up in this episode is so damn tricky for me I still can’t get it right. I had a great time in Palawan this weekend– WOW what a place to visit, so quiet, so much to see and do and although there isn’t much of a tourism industry, its still very easy to make your way around. More on that on the next episode!

Part of the reason Ian and I love Gary Vee so much is that he talks about some basic business fundamentals that don’t get brought up by many online business gurus. The two biggest things that have made us money? Hustle, and getting on the damn phone. <—- watch this awesome Gary Vee cold call video. This episode is about the dirty side of building a lifestyle business– we bring up 5 more “alternative” principles that have helped us to get our business off the ground that you aren’t going to hear from the gurus. I briefly touch on an issue I want to flesh out a bit more in future episodes– “cost free travel.” I hate when my peanut brain tries to drag me in to an office in order to be productive or make some money. I want to be on planes, boats, and buses to exotic locations to meet with awesome people AND be making money while I’m doing it. I had an experience this weekend that makes me believe I’m getting there, more on that soon…. After that, we dedicate a full 7 minutes plus to Ian’s first run at a used car guide. For many entrepreneurs, transport makes up WAY TO MUCH of your yearly budget, and Ian is an absolute ninja at keeping those costs in line. If you are a car owner, we are hoping his guide to budget used car buying can be of some use. Enjoy! Get in touch if you have any questions on comments for the next Episode!

Dan and Ian discuss a post by Jason L. Baptiste of Cloudomatic made on Hacker News on how to be a millionaire in three years (or a really short time). They talk extensively about six out of the thirty seven tips from Jason’s post, such as leveraging skills you already know. In this new format, they also answer two reader questions: choosing a niche that makes money, and how to go about purchasing a laptop. (Dan’s Tip: Buy a Mac).

Dan and Ian talk about how they built a site that generates $6000 in revenue in five months and some great tips on niche selection. They also discuss why it’s important to have a phone number on your site, a great service to sell products, and a rant on the limitations of Quickbooks.

Dan and Ian discuss why you should become an expert in your industry, and ways you can become one. They also talk the importance of networking, and how being a part of a mastermind group will give you that social network, but also a support system. A critical part of an entrepreneurship. They also mention a couple of clever Gmail hacks, two SEO tips, and one file sharing software that has made their business easier.

Dan and Ian talk about how they manage their finances, the challenges of an LLC and how to hypothetically minimize your tax burden. Dan also briefly discusses three software tips while waxing on his new MacBook, while Ian reveals one program that could potentially change their business.

Dan and Sean talk about the importance of getting to know your team, old school marketing tips that will really get you to hustle, as well as Sean’s experience on the Tropical MBA and his first impression of the Philippines.

Dan and Tyrone Shum discuss how to build a membership site, how to execute a successful pre-launch, and how to cultivate online relationships with other entrepreneurs.

A housekeeping episode where Ian and I talk about the future of this show and how our business is evolving around it. Its a good one for you folks who have been around a while!

The audio quality of this podcast starts off pretty rough and then improves around the 2:00 mark. Chris Ducker and I got together in Manila last week to talk about a broad range of sweeeet business goings ons, we turned on the tape recorder for some of it. Here I’ve published the parts pertaining to the lifestyle elements of running his business.

Sean is the recipient of the first paid internship for aspiring digital nomads, The Tropical MBA. As you can tell from the interview, Sean is a super sharp guy and doesn’t need the Tropical MBA to achieve success. Ian and I are really fortunate to be able to work with him for the first semester of the program. Sean brings up tons of awesome principles in the interview. You can find Sean at Location180.com.

This episode is in interview style. Ian thought it would be cool to dredge up the whole narrative of how we got inspired to start outsourcing and all the mistakes we made along the way.

Heya everyone, this is the first episode where we get in to deal-making. We’ve been really busy as I’m sure you can tell if you listen to the episode! We are excited to touch base with everyone who is listening. It’s been so great to hear from everyone who’s contacted us. I really like this kind of content and I’m hoping we can do more high-level deal making stuff in the future. We also talk a lot about outsourcing opportunities in the Philippines.

This episode was recorded in the same room(!) in Phuket, Thailand, on one of our quarterly global meet-up brainstorming extravaganzas. Hope you’ll enjoy some ideas we are cooking up. You can connect with us on twitter, if you are in to that kind of thing.

Hiya podcast listeners, thanks for dropping by our site. Ian and I are currently on a goal-setting retreat in Krabi province, Thailand. On Saturday we are going to the famous (infamous?) Koh Phi Phi to have a blast, but for now we are busy setting goals and working on some big projects for 2010. Here on the podcast we’ve committed to producing at least 1 new episode every week. We’ll focus a lot more on content and try to step up our level of professionalism and usefulness. On your end, we hope our rapidly growing community will continue to weight in to the conversation by sharing with us your tips, your sticking points, and letting us know the specific ways we can help you grow your businesses (or get them off the ground!). We’d love to get to the 1,000 listener point sometime within the next 8-12 weeks, we hope you’ll continue to share the show with your like-minded friends. In this episode we are sharing 8 business principles we wish we would have known before we got our business off the ground. As we pulled the list together, we realized these principles are all things we need to constantly be reminding ourselves as well, so we hope it can be helpful no matter what stage you are at in the entrepreneurial journey.