Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

"Dropshipping" is one of the most used and abused terms in Digital Nomad circles. It refers to the practice of selling items without keeping inventory on hand, relying instead on a third-party manufacturer to ship the items directly to the customer. The term recently reached a much broader audience through a widely-shared piece in Wired magazine by Sirin Kale titled “‘It’s bullshit’: Inside the weird, get-rich-quick world of dropshipping”. On today's podcast, Dan and Ian weigh in with some of their own thoughts about the article, whether dropshipping can be used to create long-term success, and the pros and cons of the business model itself.

In our book Before the Exit, we reflected on many 'thought experiments' that we wished we had run before we sold our business in 2015. One of those experiments was called 'The Mediocre CEO Test', which questioned whether it was smarter to hire someone to run your business than it was to sell it. Today's guest did just that. JP Ji is the founder of Pro Teeth Guard, an eCommerce business that manufactures custom dental mouth guards. When JP decided to shift his focus away from Pro Teeth Guard, he chose to hire a General Manager to take over the day-day-day operations of the business. In today's podcast, you'll hear why JP decided to hire a general manager, the challenges of finding the right candidate, and why that relationship ultimately didn't pan out. 

One of the most widely read and recommended books about business management is Gino Wickman’s 'Traction'. When Gino’s team reached out to say that he had a new book coming out that was aimed at helping would-be and early-stage entrepreneurs, we jumped at the opportunity to invite Gino on to the podcast to talk about it. On today's podcast, Ian sits down with Gino to discuss the ideas raised in his new book, ‘Entrepreneurial Leap’. In this wide-ranging conversation, you'll hear Gino's thoughts on the value of going to college, whether you should be following the passion or the money, and why not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur.

Whether you’re saving a runway for a new business, or you need to cut your expenses to the bone due to the current economic climate, we know a lot of people are being forced to make some difficult financial decisions right now.  On today's podcast, we are revisiting one of our most popular concepts, and something that we've discussed many times over the years as a sure-fire way for an entrepreneur to live a little more frugally. We're talking once again about the "Entrepreneurmobile", or how you can get a reliable car that is generally inexpensive to maintain and fix, and that can save you a lot of money.  In this episode, we take a comprehensive look at what makes a great Entrepreneurmobile, which cars you should avoid, 10 cars that are great deals under $10K, and some luxury vehicles that are extremely affordable as well. 

One of the things we love about our online community of entrepreneurs, the Dynamite Circle, is that the members of that community are not only incredibly globalized but oftentimes deeply ingrained in the cultures and economics of the places they live. Brian Miller is the founder of Easy China Warehouse, a third-party logistics company that helps entrepreneurs who sell online consolidate products in China. Brian was in a rare position where he was able to see the Coronavirus unfolding as he lived and worked in Shenzhen, China. Brian joins us today to talk about his experience in China as the virus began to spread, the trajectory that China has been on since January, and what the future could possibly look like for the rest of the world.

In this week's episode, we've invited one of our favorite bloggers and thinkers to pull up a virtual chair and share some of the burning issues he’s been writing about. Nat Eliason is the founder and CEO of a marketing agency called Growth Machine, as well as the author of a fantastic blog at NatEliason.com. Nat is not only a successful agency owner, but he has some incredibly fascinating theories about entrepreneurship and scaling a multi-million dollar agency that we were just so excited to pick his brain about. Nat joins us this week for a wide-ranging discussion, where he opens up about his aversions to "struggle porn", the distinction between money and wealth, and the true nuts and bolts of running a successful agency.

One of the silver linings to the strange times that we've been living through in the past few weeks, is that we've been able to reach out to some of the brightest minds in our community and get a sense of how they have been responding to the crisis. Travis Jamison is no stranger to longtime listeners of this show. Travis is a bonafide SEO expert and the founder of Smash Digital. He has also successfully exited a business for 8 figures and is a very active investor as well. Travis recently shared something of an essay on Twitter that we felt captured a lot of our feelings about the current situation that we are all facing. We invited Travis on to the show today to explain those thoughts a bit further and to talk about how we might survive the economic downturn that so many of us are bracing for in the coming months.

As we've been practicing social distancing, the majority of our discussions about business and entrepreneurship keep coming back to the COVID-19 outbreak. In this week's podcast, we've invited one of the most prescient minds about this topic on to the show. Taylor Pearson is a long time friend of the show and has been sounding alarms about the coronavirus for much longer than most. Like us, Taylor is a huge fan of the writings of Nassim Taleb and joins us today to talk about why Taleb's writing has been so relevant in thinking about the ongoing crisis, the global economic impact of events like this, and what the future might hold for us in a post-outbreak world.

The topic of today's podcast is unavoidable. We simply have to address one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, the global shutdown brought about by Coronavirus, or Covid-19. The impact that this pandemic has had on businesses around the globe, including our own, has been enormous. In today's podcast, Dan and Ian are talking about their decision to cancel DC Austin, which would have brought 150 entrepreneurs from around the globe to the city of Austin, Texas in just a few short weeks. You'll also hear our thoughts on the economic implications of the virus, as well as the challenges and opportunities that such a radical event presents for entrepreneurs everywhere.

In today's episode, we are reaching into the TMBA mailbag yet again and responding to some interesting questions and comments we've received from our listeners. There is a word that gets tossed around in the entrepreneurial community, and it's actually something that is worn as a sort of badge of honor. We see it on t-shirts and social media, and it's usually represented by entrepreneurs who have rejected working for an employer at a job where they held no equity. But is it really a good thing to be "Unemployable?" You'll hear our thoughts about that on today's episode, as well as some insight for people who have become frustrated by meet-ups and networking events that aren't providing enough value.