The Birth of a Digital Nomad — My Journey Towards Location Independence While Building Nomad House.
NOTE: French native speaker practicing my English writing skills.
“I want to work and travel the world while staying in places with like-minded people”. My thoughts 8 months ago.
2 months later…
“Arthur, stop talking, build it!”. Pieter told me on #nomads.
One day later I had booked my flight from Paris to Bangkok.
I was lucky enough to have my awesome friend Axel join me on the adventure. We had met in Montreal only 2 months ago, while he was searching for a digital marketing internship. Who can dream better than traveling and working on something that solves a common problem? Not me.
Prague — 5th January 7:10 am : Boarding flight OK534, feeling great.
1 hour later
Frankfurt — 5th January 4:05 pm : Boarding flight DE1376, feeling crazy and anxious.
11 hours later
Feeling amazing at the start my journey as a digital nomad.
My biggest problem was accommodation. So my first week in Bangkok, was in a hostel in Sukhumvit Soi 4 (Nana plaza).
First, it’s not my type of place, but I was there only for a week. So instead of complaining and being furious about noise, ladyboys trying to hook you up and other nuisances. I was smiling, being open-minded and judgement-free.
The result: I was happy, but I felt disconnected with the goal I was trying to achieve: a digital nomad.
Not judging, while still smiling and being open-minded I was able to meet awesome people
The first digital nomad that I met was @youjindo. She’s shooting an awesome documentary about the digital nomad lifestyle called One Way Ticket. Go support her, she is doing an incredible job.
I also met Stefan, a really nice guy from Austria, Pete, a wonderful photographer from Thaïland, and a lot of other incredible people that help me.
But where did I meet them? HUBBA, the best coworking space I’ve had the opportunity to work from. I felt like I’d been welcomed into a small family. Cheers, if you are reading it ;)
It is important to be attached to a coworking space, you can share your knowledge, meet people and ask for help. But forget it if you want to be super-productive
Why? because there are so many good distractions to keep you away from your work.
To combat this, I used a mix of coffee shops where I can be alone in my small corner and a co-working space where I meet like-minded people.
“Arthur, what are you working on?”. This is what everyone was asking me.
I was working on Nomad House, a startup you haven’t heard about but will in the next year, I hope.
“Why are you building this instead of staying at an AirBnB?”
I’ve been in many Airbnbs before, but I felt alone. As I wasn’t meeting like-minded people I tried to fill that gap with meetups, which I have to admit suck most of the time. For some, they may be very beneficial but I feel that the majority I’ve been to were just filled with bragging and self-centred people.
The result: Boring and annoying.
From that the reason why I was building Nomad House beginning to become clear in my mind. For me this was a lightbulb moment, an opportunity to ‘scratch my own itch’ of living with like-minded people while continuing my journey towards location independence.
Two concerns for a fresh digital nomad are loneliness and meeting the wrong people.
Being with the same 10 nomads every day is more interesting than spending three hours at meetups
I decided to put that lightbulb moment into action. Before I knew it, Nomad House Berlin was born. We had our first co-living space up and running with 10 amazing nomads during the DNX global.
Living with 10 other like-minded nomads was an incredible opportunity to learn from other entrepreneurs. It also gave me the opportunity to meet even more amazing people just because everyone was bringing someone!
We had some late night discussion with kebab and beers. We didn’t care about the number of rooms, private or shared, the number of bathrooms. We were just enjoying our time together.
The end result was awesome and unforgettable.
This gathering led me to shipping Nomad House into Beta!
Everything looks great on the papers, but trust me it’s way harder than I expected.
Some facts from the beginning:
I though I just need to build the platform and show it to my fellows nomads. Then, I could fulfill our first project in Bali in a week but I was so wrong …
In reality, the first customer came after only three months and the experience wasn’t great.
The whole journey was so frustrating. I had an idea that my nomads love but have no one are booking.
Build a MVP (15%), Get feedback (15%), Market your platform (70%)
I’ve come to realise that building an MVP (15%), getting feedback (15%), promoting your platform (70%) is the ratio need to tackle to really get it out there to the right people.
Nowadays, building an MVP is a great start but you need to stop developing new features and market your product.
That’s what we’re starting to tackle at Nomad House, the 70%!
Stay hungry, Stay foolish.
What are the next steps?
Fill our upcoming retreats, it’s time to hustle.
Building an amazing community, because it’s so powerful to be surrounded by like-minded even if you are not in a Nomad House.
Becoming a trustful brand, it’s really important for me to have a quality product with an extremely reachable customer support.
Expand the network, attracting new houses in our network. The purpose is to have one big house in each city of the world.
Provide help for people who want to try this lifestyle. I know so many people who want to be a digital nomad. They are struggling with the fear of loneliness. So, if you want help or know anything else about this lifestyle just let me know.
If you like this article, please recommend it to help others find it!
