Business
A recent Upwork survey found that 92 per cent of digital nomads felt happier and more productive when freed from the shackles of the physical workplace. Some 59 per cent had actually seen an increase in income and a startling 79 per cent claimed they would freelance forever.
REMOTE OPTIONS Perhaps that’s why many companies are adding remote working options as they realise the benefits of opening their talent pool globally and increasing productivity from happier employees. Millennials have shown they value experiences over things, and companies have been forced to adapt to retain the top talent. Dutch entrepreneur Tom Sam launched his startup NoBu.gs on Kickstarter this year – an insectrepellent clothing brand that targets the outdoor travel market in developing countries that are at risk of malaria and dengue fever. With an initial fundraising goal of $5,000, NoBu.gs exceeded all expectations, raising an impressive $100,000 via crowdfunding. Based in Siem Reap, Cambodia, Sam believes location matters. “When you’re grinding out a new company, you’re able to reduce outgoings a lot, which gives you a much longer runway. If I’d started a company from San Francisco, we’d have needed millions to get started. “I strongly believe that a business needs to have a healthy balance sheet right from the beginning.” As a digital entrepreneur, Sam hires nomads for his content marketing. He offers this advice for employers: “The only way you should hire a nomad is to pay them on performance. For things such as social media management, this is easy to quantify. In the end, for a company it doesn’t matter if it takes someone two hours or five minutes to do the job, as long as the result is there. Some digital nomads are great but there are a lot of slackers out there as well, so make sure you have the right guy for the job.” We may not all choose to live a nomadic lifestyle, as glamorous as it sounds, and many professions will always require a fixed location, but we can look at current trends and guess where the digital and creative industries are headed. Faster, cheaper air travel, ever speedier internet, less home and material ownership, fewer marriages. It all creates a foundation for a worldwide location-independent workforce – an office that knows no bounds. So drop in, turn on and grind out – the world is your office. #DigitalNomad. n
Photographs kindly supplied by James Abbott, Founder, KoHub
Millennials have shown they value experiences over things, and companies have had to adapt
Life’s a Beach At the risk of provoking jealousy in the reader, I’m writing this from the blissful idyll of Koh Rong, a remote island off the south coast of Cambodia. These past four months, I’ve been travelling solo across South-East Asia, managing to subsidise my travels through freelance writing. It took time to build momentum, and I needed a kitty of two months’ savings to get started, but I now have a portfolio of clients that give me enough hours to sustain my nomadic lifestyle. My clients are mainly UK-based and, despite the six-hour time difference, this works seamlessly. I find new assignments through Upwork, and I use LinkedIn to reach out to prospective clients. I’ve learned to make myself marketable by enhancing my skills in SEO writing and social media and perfecting the art of the pitch. I’ve had to run myself like a business and stay disciplined when travel buddies coax me out for beers on a Tuesday night. I’ve been struck by the thriving community of digital nomads I’ve met across Asia. I would have been lost without this support network, freely dispensing advice on the cheapest apartments, visa top-ups, healthcare and co-working spaces. So far, it’s been quite a ride. But just to caution anyone considering a working life on the road, it’s not all massages and mojitos. There are times when clients are chasing copy as you battle through tropical storms and power cuts, when internet speeds are glacially slow, when the simplest request for an iced coffee in a cafe (if it even sells coffee) is met with the blankest of stares … Essentially, I’m a hobo with a laptop, but it has its rewards. I enjoy a level of freedom I’ve never had, and greater spending power. With a relatively cheap cost of living, I can afford to rent a decent apartment, eat out every day and live an affluent lifestyle for as little as £200 per week. Working remotely in Asia gives me the luxury to choose what I work on. As a single young professional, this suits me very nicely. Life is an ever-changing horizon, a dizzying carousel of new people, places and experiences. There may come a time when I hanker for the creature comforts of home (possibly during monsoon season!) but for now I’m King of the Road. And available for hire, by the way. Another hard day at work for Ben Jordan
BEN JORDAN is a digital nomad, currently based in Cambodia
48 september/october 2017
www.blglobal.co.uk