Building a Location Independent Business
When I read 4-hour Work Week, I thought we’ll get there in 6 months.
Turned out to be 3 years instead.
The process was stressful and wonderful in the same time. Most of all, it was confusing.
Criteria
Work for myself or in non-hierarchical team. Definitelly no boss.
Work on something I love working on.
Full location independence.
Work on something that is meaningful and contributes to transition towards GameB.
Financial freedom.
These are how I see it now. When I quit my job in 2017, I didn’t have it all figured out. To be fair, it’s not like I really do right now. It’s a constant work in progress.
The Process
Recalibration – I quit my job in Epilepsy Scotland and went sailing for some time. Nothing clears my mind like some time at sea.
Intention – Silvia and I set the intention to create a location-independent business together.
Exploration – Wonderful 2 months in Lisbon and Porto, trying to figure out what we’d like to do.
Anton Stroboshark – The most fucking random thing. We decide to bring back Anton Stroboshark, a toy shark I have been travelling with for many years who has his own facebook page and gained a surprisingly large following.
We work our asses off and launch our first product – Make Friends Travelling: Anton Stroboshark’s Guide for Meeting People in a New City. Total revenue: $0. Surprise, surprise.
Honeyboom – One rainy day in Edinburgh we registered our Limited Liability Partnerhip HOONEYBOOM LLP and it definitelly felt like things are getting serious. We began with Medium (Silvia, Michal) and a youtube channel, and eventually started coaching.
Our main focus was sharing tools for vibrant relationships. By then we have spent 4 years together, and did A LOT of intentional work on our relationship–we figured that other couples will be interested in that, especially since our friends kept regularly asking us for advice on the subject.
The problem was that we could never really quite figure out the marketing side of things, and while we were making some cash, it was very far from covering our living costs. We were also getting distracted and kept jumping from one project to another.
JournalSmarter – TBC (that’s where the fun begins)
Most Impactful Resources
4-Hour Work Week, Tim Feriss – I guess that’s an obvious one. It’s the book that opened up the possibilities in my head.
The Company of One, Paul Jarvis – I wish that would have been the book I’ve read immediately after the 4-Hour Work Week. It would have saved me so much time and prevent me from slipping into the rabbit hole of obsessing about scaling and automating.
Microsolidarity, Richard Bartlett
1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
Meeting Francesca Pick and Manel Heredero shifted my entire thinking and sent me on the track I’m today. I’m forever grateful 🙏.
This is Marketing, Seth Godin
Peter Sandeen’s work – zero bullshit marketing. No tricks, no tactics.
Freedom Machine Online Course by SmartBlogger – the “supported” version of this course catalysed JournalSmarter to exist. I can’t vouch for the auto-pilot version though.
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