Friday, September 19, 2008
Nomad Business
This blog has shifted to a new web site called Nomadic Home. Click here to see it.
What sort of business is going to be practical when living in a nomadic home? What are the limitations to running a business from a nomadic home? What can be some advantages for running a business out of a Nomadic home?
I think these questions are a good way to evaluate possibilities for earning an income on the move.
Starting with the limitations, I think that lack of physical space and no permanent fixed address are the two biggest ones. This limits us to either selling a service, very small products, or products which are shipped to the customer by a third party.
The main advantage I see is being mobile. You can always move to fresh market opportunities. This can be especially good if you are manufacturing arts and crafts. The customer base is much larger if you are traveling from market to market, rather than just working one market continuously. If you are providing a service, you can travel to new areas for new customers, increasing the available pool from what exists in any one area.
So what are some examples of specific businesses that can be run from a mobile home? I think to start with, people should be trying to come up with their own ideas based on the above principles, but here are a few ideas that people are already doing. Jeweler, Writer, Musician/Performer, Retailer(markets,fairs, door to door etc.), artist, IT services.
New technology is opening up possibilities that were not available until very recently. For instance, this post has been written and posted on the internet, on an Asus eee pc with a G3 mobile service using a Vodafone Vodem, while I am sitting on my yacht in the middle of a harbour.
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2 comments:
I recall reading about a woman living in a House bus in Australia who machine embrodiered beautiful Australian native flowers: she had an embrodiery sewing machine and every thing - she also had a heavy duty generator!
Ive heard of grey nomads in Australia making a living of managing campsites on a seasonal basis: basically doing handyman/catertaker stuff in return for free camping.
For me the key is broadband coverage - and its poor in Australia - poorer in NZ I guess? So althouigh I trying for a location independent business I really want to develop passive income so I can alternate work and travel
The key to doing something like the woman in the house bus, is finding a way to market it while on the move. A common method here in New Zealand is to travel with the gypsy fair and sell direct to the public on fair days. Alternatively you could freight your products to a wholesale or retail outlet, or sell directly by mail order. With the flexibility of the internet and cell phones, this is much more straight forward to do than in the past.
Annie Hill (Voyaging on a small income) has a very traditional approach to her passive income which has worked well for years, but you would have to simplify your life considerably to be able to achieve what she has done in the time it took her.
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