Ask HN: 'Nomad' startups?

[J-dawg]

I've recently become interested in the 'Digital Nomad' lifestyle of living in places with a lower cost of living while working remotely.

I'm interested in any examples of whole teams doing this together. Have you founded a startup in a lower-cost country? Started off in your home country and moved somewhere cheaper?

'Nomad' is perhaps the wrong word as a company is more likely to stay in one place for longer than an individual, but you get the idea.

I ask because there seem to be lots of resources out there for the solo DN (e.g. NomadList) but seemingly not so many examples of companies operating like this.

[fuqted]

Check out this job ad for an idea of what some of these businesses are like. https://www.amztracker.com/blog/jobs/ I'm subscribed to GetApprenticeship.com. They sent me this last week.

>In the past year our team has grown from the 3 original co-founders to an amazing team of well over 40 people around the world. >Be prepared to move to Bangkok Thailand by December 1st for at least the first 3 months of your employment. (We cover travel expenses!) >Live anywhere after that. (although I would love for you to stay with the team wherever our next home base will be)

As far as tech goes, beyond very well known examples like Basecamp, off of the top of my head there's ConvertKit - an email marketing startup - and JungleScout - another SaaS tool for Amazon sellers.

You'll notice many of these cater to the marketing crowd. Even Rob Walling's startup is an another email marketing SaaS called Drip.

A good idea might be to get a job out there and let yourself be exposed to this community. These guys talk business like most guys talk sports.

What do you have in mind? I've spent most of this year consuming this stuff non stop before deciding to learn to code. I've easily spent about 20 hours listening to silicon valley founder interviews and things like Startup School. Even more reading blogs, watching conference talks and listening to podcasts from this world.

If you want to shoot ideas around my email is ryanacalvo at gmail.

MicroConf talks are also a good source, https://vimeo.com/user12790628

[jasonkester]

I don't think you'll find many examples of companies doing this. There's a fundamental flaw in the concept that I've observed again an again over the years, and is best summed up by "Your friends aren't going to go."

Stated plainly, no amount of planning and coordination can get a group of people to go traveling together for any length of time. Yes, there are examples, but in general if you try to plan your trip to accommodate everybody, your trip will not happen. People are flaky. They say things you want to hear, when in fact they want something else. They even try to fool themselves, but for the most part they don't want to leave their comfort zone.

I fought against this for years, trying to get friends to come along on my various trips. And ended up not going to some places that would have been really cool because friends flaked. In the end, I resigned myself to reality: If you want to go somewhere, just book the flight.

Tell your friends and encourage them to come along, go out of your way to meet up with them if they do manage to get out to the right part of the world for a while. But under no circumstances rely on anybody to actually go. Because 90% of the time they won't.

Knowing that, you can quickly calculate the probability that you'll get your entire team out to that cool house up in the mountains of Bali.

A better plan is just to make sure it has good internet and go by yourself.

[hongloumeng]

"Digital Nomad" is not the keyword you are looking for. The Digital Nomad narrative targets individuals who are trying to escape the prototypical rat race, so most of the focus is on what can be done with a small set of technical skills, like setting up a Wordpress website and building landing pages, email marketing, sourcing from Alibaba, building web courses, Amazon stores, Shopify and Teespring, etc. You sound like you are interested in small tech startup teams that are location independent. Try Rob Walling's podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. And, for a more general and non-technical but still informative view, try TropicalMBA.com. If you are more interested in joining a traditional startups that lets you remote work, try remotebase.io/companies

[fuqted → hongloumeng]

I see digital nomadism as more as a freelancer / consultant, typically non technical though this isn't a rule, who may or may not have an addiction to traveling.

There are terms like lifestyle entrepreneur, location independent entrepreneur or micro multi-national but these are just words. Any one of them can be the founder of a tech startup or private label consumer products, manufactured in china and sell them through a combination of Amazon FBA and digital marketing. In some cases, they do both.

[J-dawg → hongloumeng]

> You sound like you are interested in small tech startup teams that are location independent

Thanks, this is exactly right. I will check out the links you suggested.

[hackerboos → hongloumeng]

Digital Nomad is a bit of a misnomer anyway. Nomad implies continuous travel whilst most people just stay in one place.

[mushishi0]

Distributed companies like Buffer are possible and Github has a pretty good list of remote friendly tech companies (of which a portion are distributed).

https://github.com/jessicard/remote-jobs

The fundamental issue with whole teams travelling together is that everyone has different lifestyles and tastes. Finding someone who's a good fit for your company is difficult enough; throwing in lifestyle matches is adding a big dose of complication.

As a digital nomad and someone who's moved continuously for the past 2 years, I can say moving non-stop actually can be draining (unless you've enough funds to pay for all the comforts that you want no matter where you move to).

Nevertheless, maybe you'll find your co-founder along the way. Hanging out in digital nomad hubs like Chiang Mai might be a good place to find someone who has a similar mindset. Good luck with your startup!

[rafapaez]

I know about a dozen of startups that work as a distributed team. Some of the startups/founders are 'Nomads' while others have the team distributed around the world. You can check them on my site [http://www.transparentstartups.com/, search by "remote" :)]

[gregjor]

I have met people doing this, but they have mostly built a team while traveling or after settling somewhere. I'm more familiar with remote teams that meet in the same place from time to time.

The main problem staying in one place for long is visas and work permits. Every country has its own rules for setting up a company, hiring, work permits, visas. You may have to prefer locals or hire some percentage of locals. There's no general rule, it varies by country and type of business.

[graaben]

My co-founders and I have been building our company https://triphappy.com while traveling for about a year now. We've lived in 6 different countries so far on 3 continents. We travel and live together, renting AirBnBs as we go, and normally stay in one place for 1 - 2 months at a time.

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a 'digital nomad', but more of a startup founder that just happens not to have a home base. Other than living abroad, my lifestyle is not all that different than when I lived in the US.

[ontoillogical]

I think http://payrollhero.com/ used to do this, where they would travel as a team...

[Mz]

I think what you are talking about is not actually anything new or digital or weird. You should read up on economic geography. Companies are routinely founded where it makes the most sense to found a company and sometimes move later.

Microsoft was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They moved to Seattle later.

Y-Combinator was founded in Cambridge. After getting proof of concept, they moved to the Bay Area.

Aflac was founded in Columbus, GA because there was no major insurance company there. They also were the first foreign insurance company in Japan and one of the three founding brothers was a lawyer who negotiated a deal that protected them from competition for a decade, IIRC. So, for ten years, they were the only foreign insurance company in Japan. Last I heard, Japan constituted about 80% of their revenue.

These days, in theory, certain kinds of companies can be founded "anywhere" -- or, to use your term, they are location independent -- because a lot of modern companies are service businesses and, these days, a lot of services can be provided over the Internet. Industry tends to be very location dependent because you need to be where the physical resources are -- although this varies some, depending upon the specific industry.

Anyway, my point is that a small group of people getting together to found a company and then moving someplace that gives them some kind of competitive advantage seems to me to be incredibly common. You are talking about low cost of living as the draw, and this is a potential advantage.

Historically, big new businesses are often born during depressions. During boom times, you can sell just about any piece of crap. During a depression, if you are going to make money, you have to bring real value for the buck. Also, you have to keep costs low and costs are often lower during a depression.

Which is to say that low cost of living is not a terrible criteria for a place to live, but it probably should not be your number one priority either. There are any number of business related metrics that need to be met in order to succeed. Placing too high of a priority on low cost of living may be a recipe for failure and may reflect a poverty mentality and lack of confidence in your ability to succeed.

So, I say that many businesses can be founded "anywhere" in theory because, in reality, where you go can impact a great number of business metrics critical to the success of your business, such as available internet speed, time zone, availability of talent, weather and no doubt many other factors I can't begin to guess at, depending upon what you intend to do.

There is a reason Y Combinator moved to San Francisco after achieving proof of concept: Silicon Valley. So, in theory, they could have funded startups from anywhere. In practice, it makes more sense to be someplace with the right infrastructure, the right people, etc.