I often make an analogy that an around the world trip is like running your own company. You are your personal CEO. Your photos, your blog…these are your products. Trip planning is your forecast. Reviewing your bank account is tracking your actual results against the forecast. Destressing your life may generate creative juices, it may energize a slumbering entrepreneurial spirit. You may want to start your own business. At the end of your trip you could turn this analogy into reality.
I made Hong Kong and Singapore my final destinations with the intention of finding long-term employment in these city states. For as vibrant as these cities are, the days became long…there’s only so much you can see and do on an island nation. I spent the majority of my days searching for job openings, printing, then hand delivering resumes. Rejection after rejection. I started thinking “I’d be better off starting my own business.” Initially the thought was a sarcastic comment to myself, however, I said it frequently enough that the sarcasm went way, and I acted.
My natural entrepreneurial inclination was to focus on a travel-related business. I spent enough time in a Hong Kong hostel to understand that every traveler says they want something unique, they want to go to the dim sum place that’s off the beaten path, the restaurants the locals know about. Then what do they do? They wind up eating at one of the two dim sum spots that everyone visits. I knew from experience that on the list of top ten dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong there was little degradation in the quality of dim sum from one restaurant to the next. I felt that the experiences at the places lower on the list, from where they were located to the energy in the restaurant, made them better options. Travelers would discover I had been in Hong Kong for six months and ask where to eat and where to go—they wanted to eat at a unique restaurant. I always recommended Sun Hing in Kennedy Town for dim sum and to visit any attraction other than the Tian Tan Buddha and the Peak. When I talked to them later, I learned they ate dim sum at either Lin Heung Tea House or Tim Ho Wan (not a bad options but still…) and after visiting the Tian Tan Buddha and the Peak they were too tired to do anything else. Every…single…time. People aren’t going to visit the good places on their own, they need a handler.
I decided to start my own food social group to experience the lesser known dining establishments of Hong Kong. I learned a funny thing about human psychology—if you give someone a free recommendation for a restaurant, they’ll dismiss it, but they’ll willingly pay $10 to be guided to that same restaurant. I started to lay the foundations for this business but headed to Singapore before fully implementing the idea. I had guilt about not being an expert on food, but I think people still would have appreciated someone taking them to a great, undiscovered restaurant. Three years later I saw Airbnb offering local experiences and knew I was on the right track.
A minor success with a business endeavor can extend your travels. It wasn’t unrealistic to think that I could earn $50 a day as a local food guide ($10 per person for a group of five) and cover my daily living expenses. I didn’t need to be a huge success, I needed to hustle.
I kept the entrepreneurial spirit alive when I returned to the U.S. I want to generate a form of passive income to enhance my earnings and provide a non-401(k) stream of cash when I retire. I sourced a product from China to sell on Amazon. I learned that selling on Amazon is tricky. Like Google searches, there was an internet-style land grab several years ago when people realized they could order an item in bulk on Alibaba, slap a logo on it, and sell it on Amazon for five times the price. These sellers have the sales history and positive reviews to stay at the top of the product search result lists. Even if you have a better product, at a cheaper price, it will be difficult to disrupt the algorithms and have your product reach the top of the search results.
There’s not much depth of knowledge required to sell on Amazon but there are three concepts to understand—product selection, shipping, and fulfillment. First, product selection requires significant research (because of the land grab) to identify an untapped product. Product selection is a little bit of art, a little bit of science, and a whole lot of grinding it out trial and error. Second, find a product that is cheap and easy to ship, something that fits in a USPS flat rate delivery box or is extremely small and light. Third, evaluate the positive/negative tradeoffs of Amazon fulfillment (Amazon fulfillment allows the product to be included in Prime shipping, which will increase sales because the customer doesn’t need to pay extra for shipping, but requires a high transaction volume to justify the Amazon warehouse storage and fulfillment costs).
I wanted to purchase an inflatable neck brace to provide support after staring at a computer screen all day. From the Amazon search results I could tell the neck brace sellers were reselling items previously purchased on Alibaba—there were instances when the seller’s Amazon product page even used the Alibaba stock photos. I decided to order twenty neck braces from Alibaba and try selling the neck braces myself. The Alibaba ordering process with a vendor involves contracts, but Alibaba provides clear transaction instructions. Two weeks after the initial contract discussions I had twenty neck braces. Two years later I sold all the neck braces. I made money but selling one neck brace a month won’t make retirement last too long.
In a separate business attempt I created my own product from an idea that developed during my travels. I performed inventory cost calculations to determine my gross margins. A graphic designer on Fiverr created a snazzy logo for me. I ordered adhesive product labels that attach to the packaging. The product was legitimate, the sales were not. Neither of these business attempts were a crash and burn fail. They were both learning experiences.
You need to be extra careful when you are paying for product and services online instead of face-to-face. The internet has made it incredibly easy to transfer money to a third-party. It’s made it incredibly easy to transfer money to a fraudulent party. Always try to use established payment channels—if you find a vendor on Alibaba, use Alibaba to execute the transaction. If you are sending someone money for the first time, call them over the phone and use specific information to verify one another prior to confirming the wire instructions and sending funds. Send a small amount first and have the person confirm the amount they received.
The travels stopped but my entrepreneurial spirit remains. I constantly think of and pursue new ways to generate income, trying to generate enough cash to purchase an apartment building, which is the ultimate form of passive income. Having an entrepreneurial mindset helps in my current employment role—the best way to identify value-added opportunities is thinking what you would do if you owned the company. Thinking this way helps with personal development. Even though I failed at my own business initiatives, I’m a better employee because of those failures.
When I returned to the U.S. there was a month between my arrival and when I started working full-time. I accomplished more entrepreneurial goals in that first month than I have in the five years since—no regrets, I’m simply stating that it’s difficult to pursue entrepreneurial goals when you have a more important full-time job. I weighed focusing on full-time employment versus starting my own company, and every time the scale lands on the full-time employment side. I don’t want to jeopardize my long-term career spending 100s of hours chasing $2,000 a year in passive income.
I still maintain long-term entrepreneurial ambitions and at a minimum will use the first house I purchased as a rental property to help supplement my retirement income. I need to figure out how to purchase the second, third, and fourth rental properties.
My natural entrepreneurial inclination was to focus on a travel-related business. I spent enough time in a Hong Kong hostel to understand that every traveler says they want something unique, they want to go to the dim sum place that’s off the beaten path, the restaurants the locals know about. Then what do they do? They wind up eating at one of the two dim sum spots that everyone visits. I knew from experience that on the list of top ten dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong there was little degradation in the quality of dim sum from one restaurant to the next. I felt that the experiences at the places lower on the list, from where they were located to the energy in the restaurant, made them better options. Travelers would discover I had been in Hong Kong for six months and ask where to eat and where to go—they wanted to eat at a unique restaurant. I always recommended Sun Hing in Kennedy Town for dim sum and to visit any attraction other than the Tian Tan Buddha and the Peak. When I talked to them later, I learned they ate dim sum at either Lin Heung Tea House or Tim Ho Wan (not a bad options but still…) and after visiting the Tian Tan Buddha and the Peak they were too tired to do anything else. Every…single…time. People aren’t going to visit the good places on their own, they need a handler.
I decided to start my own food social group to experience the lesser known dining establishments of Hong Kong. I learned a funny thing about human psychology—if you give someone a free recommendation for a restaurant, they’ll dismiss it, but they’ll willingly pay $10 to be guided to that same restaurant. I started to lay the foundations for this business but headed to Singapore before fully implementing the idea. I had guilt about not being an expert on food, but I think people still would have appreciated someone taking them to a great, undiscovered restaurant. Three years later I saw Airbnb offering local experiences and knew I was on the right track.
A minor success with a business endeavor can extend your travels. It wasn’t unrealistic to think that I could earn $50 a day as a local food guide ($10 per person for a group of five) and cover my daily living expenses. I didn’t need to be a huge success, I needed to hustle.
I kept the entrepreneurial spirit alive when I returned to the U.S. I want to generate a form of passive income to enhance my earnings and provide a non-401(k) stream of cash when I retire. I sourced a product from China to sell on Amazon. I learned that selling on Amazon is tricky. Like Google searches, there was an internet-style land grab several years ago when people realized they could order an item in bulk on Alibaba, slap a logo on it, and sell it on Amazon for five times the price. These sellers have the sales history and positive reviews to stay at the top of the product search result lists. Even if you have a better product, at a cheaper price, it will be difficult to disrupt the algorithms and have your product reach the top of the search results.
There’s not much depth of knowledge required to sell on Amazon but there are three concepts to understand—product selection, shipping, and fulfillment. First, product selection requires significant research (because of the land grab) to identify an untapped product. Product selection is a little bit of art, a little bit of science, and a whole lot of grinding it out trial and error. Second, find a product that is cheap and easy to ship, something that fits in a USPS flat rate delivery box or is extremely small and light. Third, evaluate the positive/negative tradeoffs of Amazon fulfillment (Amazon fulfillment allows the product to be included in Prime shipping, which will increase sales because the customer doesn’t need to pay extra for shipping, but requires a high transaction volume to justify the Amazon warehouse storage and fulfillment costs).
I wanted to purchase an inflatable neck brace to provide support after staring at a computer screen all day. From the Amazon search results I could tell the neck brace sellers were reselling items previously purchased on Alibaba—there were instances when the seller’s Amazon product page even used the Alibaba stock photos. I decided to order twenty neck braces from Alibaba and try selling the neck braces myself. The Alibaba ordering process with a vendor involves contracts, but Alibaba provides clear transaction instructions. Two weeks after the initial contract discussions I had twenty neck braces. Two years later I sold all the neck braces. I made money but selling one neck brace a month won’t make retirement last too long.
In a separate business attempt I created my own product from an idea that developed during my travels. I performed inventory cost calculations to determine my gross margins. A graphic designer on Fiverr created a snazzy logo for me. I ordered adhesive product labels that attach to the packaging. The product was legitimate, the sales were not. Neither of these business attempts were a crash and burn fail. They were both learning experiences.
You need to be extra careful when you are paying for product and services online instead of face-to-face. The internet has made it incredibly easy to transfer money to a third-party. It’s made it incredibly easy to transfer money to a fraudulent party. Always try to use established payment channels—if you find a vendor on Alibaba, use Alibaba to execute the transaction. If you are sending someone money for the first time, call them over the phone and use specific information to verify one another prior to confirming the wire instructions and sending funds. Send a small amount first and have the person confirm the amount they received.
The travels stopped but my entrepreneurial spirit remains. I constantly think of and pursue new ways to generate income, trying to generate enough cash to purchase an apartment building, which is the ultimate form of passive income. Having an entrepreneurial mindset helps in my current employment role—the best way to identify value-added opportunities is thinking what you would do if you owned the company. Thinking this way helps with personal development. Even though I failed at my own business initiatives, I’m a better employee because of those failures.
When I returned to the U.S. there was a month between my arrival and when I started working full-time. I accomplished more entrepreneurial goals in that first month than I have in the five years since—no regrets, I’m simply stating that it’s difficult to pursue entrepreneurial goals when you have a more important full-time job. I weighed focusing on full-time employment versus starting my own company, and every time the scale lands on the full-time employment side. I don’t want to jeopardize my long-term career spending 100s of hours chasing $2,000 a year in passive income.
I still maintain long-term entrepreneurial ambitions and at a minimum will use the first house I purchased as a rental property to help supplement my retirement income. I need to figure out how to purchase the second, third, and fourth rental properties.