Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

http://www.tropicalmba.com/gimlet2/ Last week we teased a very special guest for this week's episode. Today, Dan and Ian are very pleased to reveal that guest to be Alex Blumberg, the CEO of Gimlet Media and the host of one of our very favorite podcasts, Startup. As entrepreneurs, many of us have grown up listening to Alex's work on shows like This American Life and Planet Money. His recent foray...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/meh/ Being an entrepreneur isn't all wine and roses. Frankly, a lot of it can be described in one word: 'meh'. On this week's episode, Dan and Ian are going to be sharing five of the most tedious and monotonous things to expect when running a business. These are five things that most entrepreneurs dread dealing with, and the day-to-day experiences that aspiring entrepren...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/property/ On today's episode, Dan and Ian are going to speaking with Paula Pant. Back when Dan was experimenting with renting a place on AirBNB, he stumbled upon Paula's blog at AffordAnything.com. She is incredibly transparent in her business model, demonstrating how she created a real estate portfolio that provides her with cash flow every month. You'll hear Paula shar...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/diet/ This show has always been about finding success in your business and your lifestyle. We've talked about lifestyle in a lot of different ways, but one portion of our lifestyle that is so important, that we have rarely touched upon on this show is our health. On this week's episode, Dan and Ian are diving into a topic of health discussion that is as contentious as it...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/pickle/ One of the fastest ways to gain freedom from a location or a 9-to-5 job is to sell your skill set and your time as a freelancer. When you do that, you can create problems that might not rear their head for years. On this week's episode, Dan and Ian are speaking to Russ Perry from Design Pickle. He began his entrepreneurial career doing just that, and when we firs...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/mattfarah/ On today's podcast, Dan and Ian have decided to dig into a topic that isn't usually covered on this show. We are going to be talking about one of Ian's favorite things in the world: cars. If you don't consider yourself a vehicular aficionado, have no fear. This episode is about the journey of Matt Farah, a successful automotive journalist who rose to fame thro...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/longview/ Dan and Ian have been speaking about the lifestyle of the Location-Independent entrepreneur on this podcast for over six years. During that time, they've found that people all over the internet tend to glorify this movement, and why wouldn't they? It's exciting to be a part of. On the other hand, there are very few people online who are talking about the challe...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/investmentsfollowup/ On one of our recent episodes, Dan and Ian spoke with Joe Wirbick about some of their options for managing their money since they have sold their business. That episode elicited a very passionate response from our listeners. We got a ton of feedback from some really smart people about that episode, so we decided to do a follow up show. On this week's...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/shayna/ If you have been listening to our show for a while, you will recognize this week's guest from an episode we did about a year and a half ago called "Is It Getting Harder to Grow a Successful Business Selling Info Products?". That episode ended up being one of the most popular episodes of this show, so Dan and Ian decided to invite Shayna of Espresso English back o...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/mmm/ On this week's show, Dan and Ian had the opportunity to interview one of their all-time favorite bloggers, "Mr. Money Mustache" Peter Adeney. Peter was recently the subject of a profile in The New Yorker, and you'll hear him share his opinions about that piece. You'll also hear how he was able to retire at the age of thirty, why he believes we should be optimizing f...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/productized4/ Longtime listeners know that one of our favorite things to do on the show is to ask our guests to donate business ideas to our audience. For the fourth part of our Productized series, Dan and Ian put out a call for anyone that has used one of those ideas to come on the show. On this week's episode, you'll be hearing from Ben McAdam and Meryl Johnston, other...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/youtube/ On this week's episode, Dan and Ian are speaking with Gabby Wallace. Gabby is extremely qualified at teaching English as a second language, and has spent many years doing so in Japan. She got fed up with the traditional ways of teaching language abroad, and she decided to start her own business called Go Natural English. Gabby's business has been built almost en...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/theexit/ Jeff Giesea recently penned an article for the Harvard Business Review titled "Dealing With the Emotional Fallout of Selling Your Business". Needless to say, this article caught the eye of Dan and Ian, who have recently sold the largest business they have ever created. There are a lot of weird and conflicting thoughts that go through your mind when you go throug...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/investments/ As many longtime listeners know, Dan and Ian have recently sold their business. This has put them in a rather unique and advantageuous situation, and forces them to ask the question: what do you do with your money once you have made it? Managing your money requires a completely different skill set from building a business, and even savvy entrepreneurs often...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/dhh2/ Today's episode is the second of a two part series in which Dan and Ian are speaking with the co-founder of Basecamp and creator of Ruby on Rails: David Heinemeier Hannson. This episode is all about business relationships. You'll hear about the origins of David's relationship with his business partner Jason Fried, as well as David's many interesting thoughts on bus...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/dhh/ Today's episode is the first of a two part series where Dan and Ian are speaking with David Heinemeier Hannson. David is the co-founder of Basecamp and the creator of Ruby on Rails. Truth be told, DHH has been a huge influence on the Tropical MBA podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about a subject that some see as a blueprint to getting rich, and oth...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/ribbonfarm/ On this week's episode, Dan is speaking with Venkatesh Rao, Venkat is the author of RibbonFarm, a philosophy blog about technology and entrepreneurship. He recently launched an essay series called Breaking Smart, that explores the relationship between humanity and technology. Today's conversation covers a whole plethora of philosophical heuristics, including...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/amazongold/ Throughout the history of the internet, there have been many different entrepreneurial opportunities. People who got in on these opportunities early have historically found an incredible amount of success. What we've seen in 2016 is that the people who have gotten into the Amazon ecosystem early on are starting to see the fruits of that decision. This week, D...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/nooffice/ There is a movement in the internet business world where some companies have decided to start getting rid of offices altogether. It might seem easy for small businesses to pull this off, but lately businesses have started to do this at scale. This week, Dan and Ian are going to be speaking to a few entrepreneurs who are growing real teams for their businesses w...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/oneforthewriters/ This week's episode is one for the writers, bloggers and creators. Dan and Ian have invited Jodi Ettenberg on to the show this week. Jodi is the author of a blog called LegalNomads.com, and she makes a full time living as a writer. She recently gave the closing address at the TBEX conference, where she talked about what it takes to make a living writing...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/productized3/ Several weeks ago, we put out a call for someone who would be willing to start a productized service business on the show. Jeff Pecaro was the man that answered that call. This week, Dan and Jeff will be speaking with Brian Casel. Brian is an expert in productized services. He has not only found success with his own productized services businesses, but he h...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/enough/ Being location independent means that you don't have a boss or a corporation telling you what to do, but it also means that you have to make your own decisions on how to spend your time. You have to decide how to make your money, and you have to decide when enough is enough. On today's episode, Dan and Ian are speaking with two entrepreneurs who have put a lot of...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/michaele/ On this week's show Dan and Ian were originally going to be talking about the three different stages of entrepreneurship, but once Dan started speaking with Michael Erickson, he knew that this conversation was worth devoting an entire episode to. Michael trained hard and loved the career path that he was on initially, but a sudden change in his life-script drov...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/mentor/ On today's episode Dan and Ian are going to explore the most powerful, and potentially toxic relationship in entrepreneurship; the relationship between a mentor and a mentee. We're doing so by speaking with Tim Conley, a Dynamite Circle member who has quite a bit of experience in these types of relationships. We'll be talking about how to seek out a mentor, what...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/priorities/ This week we are chatting with Peter Griffin, a member of the Dynamite Circle who relocated to Austin, TX about two years ago. Peter is a prototypical digital nomad. Starting his own business has afforded him the ability to travel the world, but now that he's getting older, he is starting to figure out what is really important to him. We'll be talking with Pe...