Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

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.