For those who’ve been following us from the start of our journey into this freedom-filled way of life (since 2008!), you’ll know that we didn’t begin off as coaches, bloggers, creators, or enterprise homeowners.
We had been simply two, 24-year-old funds backpackers with 65L packs, a dream of journey and freedom, and no thought the place it could all lead.
For those who don’t know our story… right here it’s from 2008 to now:
Again in 2008, we give up our jobs in Canada, offered our condominium, our car, and principally the whole lot we owned. We swapped a 9-5 at a company workplace and graveyard shifts at a packaging plant, for one-way tickets to Southeast Asia and a lifetime of whole freedom on the street.
After that first style of journey, we had been hooked. We knew we needed to construct a life round journey…we simply had to determine how.
Now, right here we’re 17 years later…greater than 80 nations visited, and residents of Bulgaria. Alongside the way in which, we’ve constructed 4 companies, and created 4 on-line programs.
We’ve taught over 1,000 individuals easy methods to launch their very own private manufacturers…and 50 individuals have personally been coached by us.
That is the story of how we went from funds backpackers to non-public model coaches, and the way Goats On The Street grew, shifted, and reinvented itself over greater than a decade on-line.
The Backpacker Period (2008 – 2012)
Let’s rewind a bit right here. All the way in which again to 2008.
Like I stated, we had give up our jobs and we had been backpacking world wide – dwelling on $30 a day at one level.
We’d sleep in bamboo huts, experience on the roofs of buses (not beneficial!), and doc our journey on a free weblog platform and Fb for our household and pals again dwelling.
Throughout these years, we backpacked throughout Asia, the Center East, Africa, and couple of locations in Europe. The longer we stayed on the street, the extra we fell in love with the life-style.
However, we had one slight downside…our cash was operating out!
We didn’t need to return dwelling. We had been terrified that at some point we’d have to return to our regular jobs.
And so when the cash did begin operating out… I truly ended up having a meltdown on the seashore within the Philippines.
Being on the street had develop into our way of life and I couldn’t envision myself working again in Canada in an workplace, beneath florescent lighting all day.
We would have liked to determine one thing out. And quick.
So, we regrouped and dove head-first into determining a strategy to earn a living on the street doing one thing we liked.
The Distant Period (2012 – 2015)
Throughout that point on the street, we realized we didn’t need to simply journey. We needed to earn an earnings overseas and construct a life-style round freedom – to develop into digital nomads … remember… this was earlier than the time period “Digital Nomad” was even a factor!
I keep in mind it prefer it was yesterday, we stopped in at darkish web cafe in Delhi, India. The sort of place we’d go to get a wired web connection (this was again earlier than inns and hostels even had wifi, and we didn’t have a smartphone).
It value round $1 per hour of (very gradual) web.
I searched “easy methods to earn a living for journey” and up popped a weblog submit by, Johnny Ward of OneStep4Ward. He stated he was making $1,500 a month from his weblog!
I turned to Nick: “Can you determine easy methods to construct an internet site?!”
And so it started!
We ended up instructing ourselves WordPress and primary coding so we might construct our web site and model “Goats On The Street” – which we began in February, 2012 from a seashore hut on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand.
We shared our journey tales, how-to’s, pictures, and movies on our weblog, YouTube channel, and Fb web page.
We didn’t understand it then, however this was the start of our private model.
Whereas we had been build up Goats On The Street, we taught English in China for a 12 months to complement our earnings. And whereas we loved that period of our lives, instructing English was solely a stepping stone for us – we knew we weren’t going to work for another person after that.
As soon as we began creating our web site, writing content material and networking with different bloggers (there have been solely a handful of us!), we realized we actually loved it. We had a sense this might have potential and we knew this could be our strategy to earn a living on the street.
We’d be our personal boss, make our personal schedule, and proceed our dream of journey and the unconventional way of life we’d been main.
The Progress Period (2016 – 2018)
Sharing on-line is one factor, however to show our private tales into an precise enterprise, we wanted actual abilities. So, we expanded our skillset and spent a lot of time researching and investing in programs & elearning.
We realized website positioning (search engine marketing) and had been even requested to discuss it on podcasts, and at digital occasions…and finally, we created a course round it.
We additionally realized electronic mail advertising and marketing and the ability of social media, and naturally, we continued with storytelling – one thing we’d been doing since 2008.
We saved exhibiting up on-line, networking, studying and sharing. And slowly…momentum occurred and it was like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering velocity and rising because it went!
Our model began incomes actual cash by means of promoting and online marketing.
And, since Goats On The Street was well-known, with a loyal viewers, and many guests coming to our web site every month (500,000 individuals/month 🤯)…tourism boards and firms flew us world wide to inform tales about their locations and companies.
It was surreal!
Our imaginative and prescient for creating a life-style of freedom by means of our personal enterprise, whereas sharing with others and doing one thing we liked was coming true.
The little weblog we constructed from a rickety seashore hut had changed into our full-time earnings.
The Schooling Period (2018 – 2019)
With the enterprise rising, we felt the subsequent pull: educate others easy methods to do what we do. That is what we’ve all the time completed – we do, we grasp (or attempt to), then we educate it.
So, we developed once more.
We turned so keen about running a blog, website positioning and constructing a private model, that we needed to share it with the world. We couldn’t consider extra individuals weren’t doing it!
So we began to share about easy methods to begin blogs, develop with website positioning, and construct private manufacturers. We shared about easy methods to educate English overseas, get freelance jobs, and construct on-line earnings streams.
If we’d realized it and lived it…we shared it and taught it.
Our website positioning course was our first actual paid course and the objective was to assist others begin and develop on-line manufacturers of their very own. Greater than 1,000 individuals joined our programs, and the suggestions was unbelievable.
(In case you’re curious: Sadly, we stopped promoting the website positioning course on the finish of 2023. We really feel that website positioning has been taken over by AI and doesn’t have a future, so we don’t need to educate it if it’s not a viable enterprise anymore.)
Little by little, our college students began emailing us and telling us they had been incomes sufficient cash to give up jobs they didn’t love.
They had been making a side-income so that they had more money whereas at dwelling, and/or, they had been travelling full-time from the earnings of their manufacturers!
Receiving these messages was the second it actually sank in for us… that one thing we created might truly assist another person’s life in a significant manner.
It shifted the whole lot. It wasn’t about us anymore, and that realization genuinely humbled us.
Seeing numbers on a display screen is one factor…like pageviews, followers, and analytics.
However then, when individuals begin emailing and saying they’d taken our programs and made sufficient cash to give up jobs they’d been wanting to go away for years….
… that meant the world to us.
These years had been a whirlwind. Our web site was rising, our programs had been doing nicely, and our little nook of the web was serving to individuals construct new lives.
It felt greater than something we anticipated after we first began out with backpacks and a dream.
However then, the world shifted…
The Trade Shift (2020 – 2022)
These couple of years had been a problem for everybody. However, I’m specializing in our journey trade specifically.
A worldwide pandemic paused all journey…and companies associated to journey actually suffered throughout this time. With that, a lot of our affiliate partnerships dropped off – that means our earnings took a nosedive.
On high of that, Google rolled out devastating updates which meant that our web site wasn’t exhibiting up on-line like earlier than.
New short-form video platforms turned standard (TikTok), which meant that focus was transferring from blogs to fast movies. Then got here ChatGPT and a flood of AI instruments.
All the things modified in a single day!
We shortly realized that this wasn’t simply one other pattern… issues had been altering and we needed to pivot if we needed to maintain doing this job we love.
We needed to evolve once more.
Most individuals panicked, and so did we for a bit, however our panic didn’t final lengthy. We had constructed quite a few abilities through the years and will pivot. We simply didn’t understand how at first – then it hit us.
Diversifying our Earnings
With journey at a standstill, and nobody looking for journey associated issues, we determined to create two new manufacturers round two matters that weren’t associated to journey.
The matters had been two of Nick’s passions: fly fishing and guitars.
We had been nervous to begin one thing new, however let’s be trustworthy, we had quite a lot of time on our fingers!
We constructed up an internet site, Instagram, YouTube channel and electronic mail listing for the fly fishing web site, and for the guitar/string instrument web site, that was largely only a assessment website and didn’t have a social media presence.
Inside simply a few months, we noticed development with the fly fishing model. This was positively thrilling and gave us the push to maintain going.
Throughout this time, we additionally pivoted Goats On The Street to focus extra on the distant work and methods to earn a living on-line aspect of issues, relatively than specializing in the journey facet of our model.
And it began rising once more.
We additionally began spending extra on social media, electronic mail, and YouTube. Successfully diversifying our enterprise throughout extra platforms than simply the weblog.
Throughout this era, we realized the laborious manner that platforms can collapse. Algorithms can change. Associates can come and go. World occasions can impact the whole lot. Complete enterprise fashions can disappear.
However there was an upside and constructive takeaway to our expertise: we remembered that our private model, our story, our abilities, and our data are issues that no platform or pandemic can contact.
The Teaching Period (2023 – Current)
In the direction of the top of 2023 and begin of 2024, we felt the net world as we knew it was about to fully change. For higher or worse, AI was right here to remain, and video was (is) the medium of alternative.
Satirically, 2023 was our greatest 12 months ever financially. However we nonetheless felt like there was a shift coming.
So as an alternative of clinging to what used to work (running a blog & website positioning), we leaned into what we had been good at and what we’ve all the time been about: Serving to individuals lead a freedom-filled way of life, whereas incomes cash doing one thing they love.
However this time, we needed to have extra of a reference to our viewers and followers, and actually present extra fingers on steering.
That’s when our subsequent period started.
We took the whole lot we all know from over a decade of earning money from what you understand, constructing private manufacturers, rising social media, electronic mail advertising and marketing, and creating digital services and products…
…and turned it into a brand new enterprise: Creator Kickstarter Teaching Program. It’s a blended mannequin with the “3 Cs”: Coaching, Course & Community. We provide stay calls with us, pre-recorded course materials, and a non-public group.
At first, we had been tremendous nervous and uncertain if anybody would even have an interest. What if we launched this program, however then no one joined?! We had been truthfully so apprehensive.
We had an software type, after which would hop on Discovery Calls if we felt just like the individual can be a very good match for this system.
Like most individuals really feel when beginning one thing new, we felt that imposter syndrome creep in, adopted by self doubt. Who had been we to show this?!
To not point out, doing stay calls was one thing completely new for us and it was positively out of our consolation zone.
It’s loopy how the thoughts can trick you into believing you’re not adequate – irrespective of what number of abilities, or years of expertise you’ve.
We’ve been operating the Creator Kickstarter Program and Group for nearly 2 years now… and we’ve had 50 superb individuals enter into our group!
We educate individuals what we’ve lived through the years: that freedom comes from constructing a enterprise based mostly on who you’re.
We love serving to individuals develop impactful manufacturers that in flip, assist others. Serving to individuals assist individuals – that’s the ripple impact. And it’s essentially the most significant chapter of our journey up to now.
The Future
If we’ve realized one factor over our many years on this trade, it’s that you just want to have the ability to evolve and pivot within the on-line house, and most significantly: private manufacturers aren’t going wherever.
And truly, the net teaching and e-learning markets are projected to develop considerably over the subsequent 5 – 10 years…making this a large alternative for anybody constructing a private model and providing programs or teaching.
We’ve been feeling it for the previous few years now. We’re positively coming into the largest shift the web has ever seen – and the individuals who begin sharing their story now would be the ones main the house later.
Those that construct a private model at the moment would be the ones with the liberty to journey, work from wherever, and run a enterprise that doesn’t depend on a single platform, or doesn’t get taken over by robots.
This is the reason we’re so keen about exhibiting individuals easy methods to launch their manufacturers, step-by-step.
As you may inform from studying this text, these previous seventeen years have been a wild experience for us. We’ve tailored and reinvented our enterprise(es) a number of instances, and introduced you alongside each step of the way in which.
Thanks for being right here as we proceed to evolve and share with you! Who is aware of what the subsequent period will convey…
