How I built a startup traveling to 20 countries

• A year ago, I left San Francisco, sold and gave everything I had, and “moved to a big backpack”.
• I traveled 45 cities in 20 countries, three Disneylands and one island with rabbits .
• I also managed to work 50 hours a week, developing and launching a startup
• It cost me less than the price of renting an apartment in San Francisco.

Travel is not a vacation.

The Internet is actively developing the digital nomad community. These are entrepreneurs, developers, designers, journalists, engineers - representatives of professions related to the online sphere, who enthusiastically do their work and at the same time travel the world.
I made sure that travel is an effective way to build a company. My startup Moo.do is an online product with big ambitions.
I develop it on my own from different parts of the world. Going on a trip is the most important choice for the good of my company, my finances and my personal development.

I became a nomad by chance

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Three years ago, I decided to leave my job at Microsoft, go to San Francisco and create a startup. When I shared this decision with a friend, he asked: “Why go to San Francisco if you can work on a computer from anywhere in the world?” The question seriously puzzled me. Later, I thought a lot about him and began to doubt many of the principles of "normal life" that have little to do with the reality of the modern world.

I do not recognize the ridiculous "working hours"

I want to explore the world while the sun is shining, and not sit in the office and dream of the next vacation.

I do not recognize the need to settle down

I want to learn new cultures and try new dishes, and not get stuck in the area of ​​the city.

Boredom is alien to me

I am constantly surrounded by new places, people and new impressions. I did not miss from the moment I began to travel. During the travels I did not even think about watching TV or playing video games.

Making a list of what I need to achieve in life is not for me.

I have a list of things to do and I do them.

With these crazy ideas about life, I went on a journey. Spent six months traveling in Australia, Asia and Europe. But everything went very smoothly.
I gave up and returned to San Francisco. Traveling was great, but I had a good business idea and I had to focus and work on it. Is there a better place than Silicon Valley to build a startup?
Soon I realized that I was too comfortable and I began to slow down, get bored, watch TV for a long time. I sat at the computer for 12 hours a day and, despite this, did not feel productive.
Once I went to New York and when my friends went to work, I went to work at a cafe in Central Park. Suddenly I began to notice that I was able to do a lot more work in a cafe during a trip than in 12 hours at home. The same thing happened a few months later when I was in London. My ideas were much more interesting in the new environment that stimulated my brain.
Noticing an interesting pattern in this, a year ago I left San Francisco to devote myself to traveling. But this time there was a feeling that I revealed the secret. I am happy, productive, meet new interesting people, study real global problems and successfully launch Moo.do.
This is what I understood over the last year.

Traveling is cheaper than staying at home.

These are my expenses with my personal habits. Your numbers will be different.



This is my average for a month living in Seattle, one year in San Francisco, a year traveling in 20 countries and one month in a hotel in Bali. Travel is much cheaper. But since my main expenses are trains and airplanes, it is still cheaper to stay in one place.

My friends from San Francisco and Seattle often ask me: “How can you afford to travel so much?” The fact is that I cannot afford not to travel. I run my company and life in San Francisco devoured all my savings.

The total cost of my travels around the world is 2,921 dollars a month. Now I live in Bali for 1200 dollars per month. But living in Chiang Mai (Thailand) is possible for 641 dollars a month .

I am more efficient when traveling

When I first began to travel, I was a good tourist - I photographed everything around and did everything that was written in tourist guides. After a couple of grueling weeks, it dawned on me that this was not a vacation. Now this is my life. I paused and realized that there is a whole month to explore the new city, and there is no hurry. I can walk around the city several hours a day and still have time to do the necessary work.

I was extremely surprised to see how much more productive time is when traveling. This has its meaning. If I came to Rome for just a week, why should I waste time on Facebook? Being constantly surrounded by novelty does not leave me time for boredom and improves my concentration, even makes me feel healthier and more creative.



My performance in Seattle in June compared to travel in September, measured using RescueTime.

I went back to Seattle in June to work alongside a colleague and work out plans for the future. The results of the development were worse than the results obtained during travel. I sat at the computer as much, but was easily distracted by the TV or the Internet.

In September, traveling to six cities, I was extremely efficient working 48 hours a week. Self-discipline while working helps to better spend your free time, it turned out to be extremely important.

Work from 9 to 5 is ineffective

Instead of working during the day and having fun in the late afternoon, I prefer to have fun during the day and work at night. I get up faster when I have to walk, and if I don’t need to go anywhere, then I have much more time during the day. I like to work seven days a week with a flexible schedule so that I can take a day off on any given day or enjoy an empty cinema at two in the afternoon.

When I worked at the office, a lot of time was wasted because of the need to get to the office and frequent distractions on the Internet. Now I distribute work throughout the day and I can take long breaks to familiarize myself with the world around me. After I worked for several hours, I leave to travel around the city until I want to work again. Or, if I rest on a problem that I can’t solve in any way, I’m walking until I solve it. Frequent changes between entertainment and work make the day less stressful and make me less prone to chronic fatigue.

Stopping at Livit in Bali was the most fruitful time in my life. This place combines a place for work and life (including food) - all so that I can focus on work and not take care of anything at all. And all this costs $ 1,500 a month, cheaper than just renting a home in many large technological cities. This is a great trend and I'm glad to see similar startups appear in Bali and other parts of the world .

Travel expands my horizons

I now have friends all over the world whose life experiences are very different from mine. They bring a new angle to my ideas. I learn about the real problems that affect the whole world, such things make me a successful entrepreneur.

While traveling it is easy to find good people from whom you can learn something new. In many cities there are a large number of coworkers, where the “Internet nomads” can meet people from all over the world and find people with whom they can work. Travelers give each other valuable tips on traveling and working in Reddit or on the forum , there are already over a thousand of us (but we are still growing) in the hashtagnomads chat, the community also organizes rallies around the world.

findings

For travelers, the time has finally come when it became easier to work and live, traveling. Traveling is cheaper, more fruitful and more inspiring than staying at home. Working in an office is an anachronism of the past.

The revolution of the Internet of nomads is just beginning, and I am glad that I will assist in this way in every way. I hope that we will meet sometime, somewhere there.

** Thanks to Marina Yaneiko for help with the Russian language