How To Become A Digital Nomad Entrepreneur And Work Wherever You Want

The technological era ushered in a new age for the exploratory types. A relief for those who feel imprisoned in offices by the chains of industrialization, the enforcement of suits, and the unavoidable in-person encounters. This is an era for digital nomad entrepreneurs. But who are they really?

Digital nomads are people who work remotely and travel to various locations regularly. In the morning, they choose to work in the coffee shop, in the afternoon the park, and the evening on the carpet of their dining room—preparing to start the following day’s work in the library. The freedom to move grants them the space to be their best self and, in turn, do their best work.

What You Need To Become a Digital Entrepreneur

The traits of a digital nomad

Agreed, some of these digital nomad traits are inborn, and some you can integrate into yourself. What matters, in the end, is that you’ll have them to make your life a little bit easier:

Adaptability

Digital nomads bring in something fresh. The traditional methods do not particularly tickle their fancy. Don’t traditional people prefer routines and structure? These are two things that inhibit traveling, like nomads love. It is necessary to adapt to new time zones, fast, as the contrary would affect the quality of work. Find ways, such as napping in between flights and regularly, to cope with the changes in time zones.

A Weird Mix of Organization and Spontaneity

Remote clients tend to keep their hours, which might not be at par with yours when traveling. It’s easy to work with local clients since you share a timezone. Organization comes in when you advance to acquiring clients from different time zones. When you are first starting, you might have no choice but to choose clients from all over the world to boost your social presence and your work portfolio.

Curiosity

The craving for knowledge on a particular subject and the ability to inquire on specifics is intrinsic in digital entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship relies heavily on research to know what is scarce in supply, who needs the rare goods/services, and any other information. Studying is a critical component of entrepreneurship—digital or otherwise.

Initiative to Specialize and Advance

“Without action, Knowledge is mostly useless.”

After being driven by curiosity to acquire the knowledge, you begin the journey to specialize and advance your skills. Over time, you will realize that though being a jack of all trades is an excellent way to understand the market, it is not as rewarding as being a specialist in a particular field. Read broadly about your area and, gradually, you will get to the point of specialization.

Easily Reachable

A digital entrepreneur ensures that clients can easily reach them through set up communication channels like Skype or Slack. If you are not reachable, you guarantee to get back to them the soonest possible. Like a business with poor customer care services, your digital entrepreneurship journey suffers from a lack of quick responsiveness.

Self-Motivation

Working away from teams might not be the best way to remain motivated as there is little to no external pressure. You will need to be proactive to be an effective digital nomad entrepreneur. This proactiveness will prove resourceful to your clients, too, since you will counter challenges they had not yet fathomed.

Result Orientation

The source of fulfillment should be pristine quality and timely execution of your work. Among the many reasons, this is the primary one that creates a demand for digital nomads.

Transparency

A digital nomad offers clients the trust they need. They vividly highlight what they will do for the client and relay to them what they need. Without transparency, the quality of work (along with it the quality of the relationship) goes down the drain.

Independence

Since you are not an internal member of a company, most of the difficulties you come by will have to be solved—you guessed right—by you. You’ll have to figure out how to deal with technical errors, acquire needed pieces of equipment, and learn new programs that you are not familiar with. In the long run, being a digital nomad entrepreneur shapes you into a wholesome independent person who can be relied on.

The Setup for a Digital Nomad Entrepreneur

Starting a Business

For starters, it is better to have everything simple. A sole proprietorship is the ideal business entity starting point. After you start registering regular income, it will become easier to transition to an LLC for better legal benefits (and, of course, taxes).

Paying Taxes

In some countries (especially America), citizens must file their taxes regardless of their country of residence. But there are exceptions like the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion that protects you from paying taxes if you spend most of your time outside the U.S. To save up on taxes as a digital nomad, it is better to base your business in countries that tax less. Singapore is an example of a country that has loose tax chains for digital nomads.

Proper Network

Fast, reliable internet is the first thing a digital nomad looks for in places of residence. Some applications tell you how fast the WiFi speed of an area is. 5Mbs is an acceptable speed, but over 25Mbps is better. Acquiring virtual phone numbers will also make your operations smoother.

Banking Infrastructure

There are limitations to card use in travel. Some cards cannot be used overseas. To navigate this, you should have a borderless card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred. This card carries no foreign transaction fees, offers you flight points upon regular use, and has an inexpensive annual fee. Preferably, you can set up accounts with providers such as Wise in addition to a PayPal account. Payoneer is a great alternative too.

Insurance Coverage

Anything can happen. You ought to be prepared. As with the banking infrastructures, the majority of insurances cannot be used worldwide. However, there are some health insurance exceptions for digital nomads. Two insurances that are heavily relied on are World Nomads and Safety Wing.

Emergency Funds

When things go wrong, home is where the heart longs for. Your finances should help you get there. In your funds, you should have an extra $3,000+ for any emergency that arises. Be ready to ride any storm that comes along.

Fields in Digital Entrepreneurship

It is impossible to tell you which field in digital entrepreneurship you should venture in. The areas are dependent on your tastes and preferences. I can only list some for you:

Close to full-time entrepreneurship opportunities

• Virtual assistant
• Book-keeping
• Freelance writing
• Online tutoring
• Influential blogging

Part-time entrepreneurship opportunities

• Graphic design
• Website design
• Marketing automation
• Photography
• Voiceover artistry
• Technical writing
• Medical transcription
• Online chat support
• Search engine optimization

Other entrepreneurship opportunities

• Running a recruitment firm
• Dropshipping services
• E-commerce store owner
• Selling digital courses
• Owning a travel agency
• Retail arbitrage
• Sales and business agency
• Account and finance firm

List of Top Successful Digital Entrepreneurs

Neil Patel—A master in inbound marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, and other digital marketing practices. He moved from selling vacuum cleaners to a net worth of approximately 35 million dollars.

Barry Swatchz—Now the CEO of a website service firm Rusty Brick and Search Engine Roundtable, Barry provides value to his clients with a SAAS (Software As A Service) platform. His input is hardly needed, but his earning is excellent.

Byron White—Content marketing is the domain for Bryon White, and White is its master. After advancing his career, he created a platform where clients can meet freelancers and still earns from it.

Syed Balkhi—Syed is the founder of WPbeginner, CEO of Awesome Motive, cofounder of SeedProf, WPForms, WP Mail SMTP, OptinMonster, RafflePress, and MonsterInsights. Syed is an investor and marketing guru. He started as a website blog writer teaching readers how to use WordPress.

Fernando Raymond—Fernando runs Sri Lanka Based Solution and ClickDo™; SEO and online marketing agencies. Within these firms, there are copywriting, mentoring, consultancy, and web hosting services. He aims to get 100 million people on the internet by offering web hosting services.

Is it Smart to Become a Digital Nomad Entrepreneur?

It takes time to get up and running as a digital entrepreneur. Because of this, it is better to stick with your current job and work on your digital entrepreneurship business on the side. Alternatively, you can save enough money to buy you uninterrupted time setting up your digital business. Like all good things, a good work ethic, consistency, and patience will get you there.

Have you launched your own digital nomad entrepreneur business? Let us know down in the comments.

This article originally published on GREY Journal.