Owning Your Own Nano-Economy
I want to tell you about something that is very significant and, to be very honest, I’m concerned that I’m not going to be able to convey how important this thing is.
This picture is of my right hand holding a thumb drive. The value of what is on this thumb drive is enormous to me. It’s worth more than a million dollars, believe it or not. But it’s really only worth that much to me.
It’s what I call my nano-economy. I define a nano-economy as a personal economy, largely under the control of the individual who owns it, equal to one-billionth of the global economy. The global economy these days generates about US$75-trillion per year. One billionth of that is $75,000.
This contains every e-product Connie and I have created since 2001, every book we’ve written, every webinar conducted, reports, podcasts, videos, spreadsheets, web pages and databases that comprise the nuts and bolts of several online companies.
Importantly, this thumb drive also contains the names, e-mail addresses and other contact information of many thousands of people who have purchased something from Connie or me, or simply subscribed to one of our email lists because they share a common interest and might become a customer at some time in the future. If needed, it could also contain the cryptographic information for any amount of cyber-currency (like Bitcoin) we want to use as operating capital.
This thumb drive is a business, a product line, a market and even capital. It’s a complete economy. A tiny, nano-economy. More than one, in fact, since the definition of one is $75K/yr and this one generates more than that. What is on this thumb drive has generated several million dollars of revenue over the years and continues to generate our ongoing income.
What is the most important element of all? It’s the information on how to directly contact the tens of thousands of people who know and trust us because they have followed our work for years, bought things directly from us and know we do what we say we’ll do.
This is an economy that we own. It’s unique to us. Even if someone stole this thumbdrive it would be of little value to him. Because the market contained on it does not trust the thief, they just trust Connie and/or me.
I don’t say any of this to impress you. I say it because I want you to realize you can have the same thing. In fact, I think this is the way of the future. I think the explosion of personal technology we see around us every day — particularly the ability to communicate with people anywhere on a one-to-one basis — means each of us will be able to create our own nano-economy.
Because all the business on this thumb drive is conducted online, this nano-economy is completely portable. It can be taken from country to country at will. It requires no import permits, no employment visas, no local office to lease, no landline phones to have installed, no employees to hire at the new location, no local bank accounts to set up. It can operate today from Paris and next week from Bangkok and the week after that from Jerkwater, Idaho. In fact, the whole thing can exist in ‘the cloud’ and not require anything to move anywhere, not even the thumb drive.
This is a giant concept and we’ll be discussing it several times in future e-mails. In the meantime I’d like you to think about this and try to get your head around how fantastically liberating it would be if you had a similar thumb drive containing your own, personal nano-economy that generated, say, two or three times what you are earning now. That’s the power of this.
The Takeaway
Today we have the technology to easily create our own tiny, independent, personal economy. It consists of a product or service of clear value that we can offer directly to a market of people specifically interested in that product or service. It is portable and specific to each of us and can be operated from any place on earth with an Internet connection.
