Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle

http://www.tropicalmba.com/meetings/ In this episode Dan and Ian offer thoughts, suggestions and ideas on the best way to handle meetings as your business – and number of employees - grows. You’ll also get the chance to ‘listen in’ on a Tropical MBA/Dynamic Circle team meeting involving Dan, Ian, Jessica and Alex – and hear about Dan and Ian’s very different styles of management.

http://www.tropicalmba.com/smartdrugs/ Many entrepreneurs have dabbled with "smart drugs", also known as "cognitive enhancers" or "nootropics" but few have studied them as closely as Jesse Lawler. In his weekly podcast Smart Drugs Smarts, Jesse talks to range of specialists and academics about different aspects of brain chemistry, including the effects of smart drugs. In this week’s TMBA episode,...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/3dprinting/ In this week’s episode Dan and Ian invite you to share in one of Bossman’s many interests: 3D printing. This technology has been around for a while - mostly used by designers and engineers to conceptualize and test prototypes. But, as 3D printers become cheaper and more sophisticated, might it begin to revolutionize not only the world of retail but also DIY?...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/cutbait2/ Starting out as an entrepreneur can be scary – but it’s exhilarating and rewarding too. In the first part of series of episodes about the ‘different stages of the entrepreneurial journey’, Dan and Ian revisit some advice they gave Kiri Masters who, in 2013, was still in her day job as a highly successful corporate player whilst struggling to set up a business t...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/tax/ One of the major issues that location independent entrepreneurs, who spend time outside their home country, grapple with is tax. Let’s be honest: we’re all looking for ways to pay less of that! Phil Hodgen is a leading lawyer in this field, advising his clients on the relative advantages of foreign earned income exclusion, acquiring overseas residency or even, in so...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/productized2/ A few weeks ago we spoke with Jeff Pecaro. Jeff is starting a productized service business and he offered to let us follow along with his journey on the show. This week we are catching up with him to find out how his business has progressed and he has managed to weather the storm of some tough criticism.

http://www.tropicalmba.com/writingabook/ Is it possible to go from being successful blogger to writing a book that tops the Internet charts within the space of a year? In this week’s episode Dan talks to Taylor Pearson, an author who has done exactly that. Tune in and find out how.

http://www.tropicalmba.com/laura/ Laura Roeder was one of our keynote speakers at DCBKK a few weeks ago and she really wowed the audience with her talk. Dan and Ian got a chance to sit down with her after the conference to talk about how she has been able to start Edgar, an extremely successful social media tool, with little to no experience in tech.

http://www.tropicalmba.com/speaking-at-a-conference/ Don't panic. We've got it covered with Dan and Ian's handy guide. It includes: how to handle nerves (yep), slide design, the pros and cons of bullet points and what to do if your Q+A session is greeted by a stunned silence (yep).

http://www.tropicalmba.com/productized/ Today we are going to be doing something really special. A new business is actually starting on this week's show. We've been having a lot of trouble with email marketing lately. We're on a very basic email marketing platform and we have kind of outgrown it. There are more robust email platforms out there, but a lot of them are really expensive and hard to op...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/mailbagz/ A lot of our Podcast listeners write into us with questions. We've decided on this week's episode to play a round of TMBA Mailbag. Ian and I are going to take some time to answer a slew of questions from our listeners including whether we are planning on taking a break after selling our business, how selling your business can affect a marriage-model business pa...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/aplayer/ This week we are talking about hiring. If you have a business that has less than 15 employees, every single employee has to be an A Player. You can't afford to have B and C level players working for you. This is specifically aimed at everyone out there who should be hiring, or has hired employees. This episode is full of 301 and 401 level material, and you absol...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/underoptimization/ A few years ago, I was at a mastermind in the Philippines and the people that were involved were a pretty intense group. At that event one entrepreneur stood out that was a little bit different than the rest of us. For must of us, we are always in the hustle mindset and we will do anything that it takes to grow our business. Mark Brenwall is almost the...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/sold/ This is an exciting episode for us. Bossman and I are pleased to announce that we have sold our product business. The sale process was over a year and a half long, and we are going to be telling some pretty interesting stories about what happened along the way. We'll also be talking about what we have learned from exiting a business that has been such a big part of...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/productlaunchlessons/ Today I posted our first ever public ticket offering to DCBKK. We've launched so many of these events now, and we've learned from a lot of our mistakes over the years. I wanted to take an episode to sort of walk through some of the lessons that we've learned in doing our product launches, and specifically doing event launches. I've invited Damian Th...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/packing/ Ian is on vacation this week in Greece, and I am getting ready to fly back to the United States. I was in the process of packing my bags, when I received a call from a listener named Josh who was curious about what kind of stuff we have been traveling with recently. I have written about my travel kit many times on the blog, so if you don't want to hear me talk a...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/culture/ A lot of people have been saying that our recent episodes have been targeted towards beginners. This is because we're fascinated by how people use a business model to go from scratch to building revenue. We thought it would be appropriate to do a 300 level course for our 300th episode. Today we're going to talk about how to create a culture that allows you to ma...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/bcn/ One of the things that I've always loved about the Tropical MBA is that our listeners have found so many different ways to interact with our show. Today we're going to be talking about how to get out from behind your computer and connect with people in real life. I've invited Chris Reynolds and Alex McQuade on to the show this week to talk about just that. Alex is t...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/10trueclients/ A common misconception in business today is that you have to build an audience of hundreds or thousands of people in order to sell something successfully. The fact is, when you're getting started, you won't have an audience like that. We have talked over and over again about why we believe in starting with ten true clients. One of our longtime podcast list...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/endofjobs/ This week longtime friend of the show Taylor Pearson drops by to talk about his new book, The End of Jobs. We don't typically invite guests on to the show to promote their books, but Taylor has had such a huge part in the growth of our product business. His new book also stemmed in part from some discussions that the two of us had after the Dynamite Circle Con...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/greenbelly/ http://www.tropicalmba.com/greenbelly/ Podcast 31:36| Download | Stitcher | iTunes | Comment After taking a brief sabbatical, we return to the show this week with a very unique guest. Chris Cage ( Chris@GreenBellyBar.com ) is an avid hiker, biker and outdoor enthusiast. Chris started Greenbelly in 2014 and has been creating high-calorie meal re...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/tokyo/ This week on the show, I'm talking to Chris Kirkland from the Hobo CEO podcast. His show explores the philosophical side of the digital nomad movement. Chris is a veteran of the location independent scene, having founded his first location-independent business Artweb in 2005. One of Chris' more recent ventures is TokyoCheapo.com, a content-based business dedicated...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/apprentice/ One of the most frustrating parts of the entrepreneurial life script is that when you first hear about it and understand the benefits, you probably aren't ready to start a business. You know the answer is starting a business, but you aren't quite sure how to get there yet. We have long been advocates for seeking out an apprenticeship, but it's not always that...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/swas/ I recently came across an article on TechCrunch that caught my attention, all about the rise of "Do-It-For-Me" businesses. Big businesses have been doing "Do-It-For-Me" for decades, but small businesses remain a relatively unconquered frontier. This is essentially about selling time to entrepreneurs, and I don't know anyone who does that better than Mat Newton from...

http://www.tropicalmba.com/art/ Is it possible to build a business and monetize your art? This is a question we get asked a lot. One of our listeners got in touch with us this week and challenged us to speak about how we would apply some of our entrepreneurial principles to a career in art or music. If you are an artist of any kind, this is the episode for you. We'll be talk about what we believe...