A digital nomad is an individual who makes a living working on the Internet in different locations of their choosing instead of a fixed business location. How can someone earn a living online successfully?
- Start before you are ready.
Don’t print your beautiful business cards first. Don’t perfect your website. Don’t hire employees/contractors at the beginning.
Start now by proactively looking for clients/customers on the Internet. Test your ideas. The sooner you get started, the faster you receive feedback. As a result, you know how to adjust what you do next.
Perfection is literally a joke as it doesn’t even exist. Just start to do stuff because stuff leads to stuff.
For example, when I got started in this industry online, I was a relationship coach’s virtual assistant. At that time, the relationship coach was my only client, but because she paid me a reasonable salary, I was able to make a living while traveling the world.
Later on, the relationship coach introduced me to her friends who are also running similar businesses online, so I’ve become a freelance ghost-writer for various clients, a true digital nomad. I have worked on my laptop in trendy cafes and romantic restaurants all over the world because I love good food and drinks.
- Remember the key principle: profit first.
When you begin to make money as an online freelancer or business owner, be sure to take some money from your business for yourself every month – this is called ‘owner drawing’ in accounting – because you have to look after yourself and think about your future. Perhaps you want to start a family and send your children to university. Maybe you want to take care of your parents and build wealth for retirement.
Some online freelancers and business owners make this mistake: When they make some money, they invest all the profit into the business again, e.g., buying a better computer, hiring a graphic designer to make their website look fantastic, etc. But most of those bells and whistles are probably not necessary.
The most important thing to remember is to focus on your passion. Do something that you are truly, genuinely passionate about as a digital nomad. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a sustainable online business that is always viable in the long term. I hope my advice is relevant and helpful. 😊
“The beauty of doing everything by yourself when you start a business is when you hire someone else later on, you know which questions to ask them during the job interview as you’ve done it all.”
