Should you’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 house owners.
We had been simply two, 24-year-old price range backpackers with 65L packs, a dream of journey and freedom, and no concept the place it will all lead.
Should you 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 automobile, and mainly all the pieces 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 wished 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 the right way 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 price range backpackers to non-public model coaches, and the way Goats On The Highway 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 mentioned, we had give up our jobs and we had been backpacking around the globe – dwelling on $30 a day at one level.
We’d sleep in bamboo huts, trip on the roofs of buses (not advisable!), and doc our journey on a free weblog platform and Fb for our household and associates again residence.
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 approach to life.
However, we had one slight downside…our cash was working out!
We didn’t wish to return residence. We had been terrified that sooner or later we’d have to return to our regular jobs.
And so when the cash did begin working 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, below florescent lighting all day.
We wanted to determine one thing out. And quick.
So, we regrouped and dove head-first into determining a approach to earn money on the street doing one thing we cherished.
The Distant Period (2012 – 2015)
Throughout that point on the street, we realized we didn’t wish to simply journey. We wished to earn an revenue overseas and construct a life-style round freedom – to develop into digital nomads … consider… this was earlier than the time period “Digital Nomad” was even a factor!
I bear 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 motels and hostels even had wifi, and we didn’t have a smartphone).
It price round $1 per hour of (very gradual) web.
I searched “the right way to earn money for journey” and up popped a weblog put up by, Johnny Ward of OneStep4Ward. He mentioned he was making $1,500 a month from his weblog!
I turned to Nick: “Can you determine the right way to construct a web site?!”
And so it started!
We ended up educating ourselves WordPress and fundamental coding so we might construct our web site and model “Goats On The Highway” – 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, photographs, and movies on our weblog, YouTube channel, and Fb web page.
We didn’t comprehend it then, however this was the start of our private model.
Whereas we had been build up Goats On The Highway, we taught English in China for a 12 months to complement our revenue. And whereas we loved that period of our lives, educating 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 is able to be our approach to earn money 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 expertise. So, we expanded our skillset and spent a lot of time researching and investing in programs & elearning.
We discovered search engine optimisation (search engine marketing) and had been even requested to talk about it on podcasts, and at digital occasions…and ultimately, we created a course round it.
We additionally discovered e mail advertising and marketing and the facility 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 pace and rising because it went!
Our model began incomes actual cash by way of promoting and affiliate internet marketing.
And, since Goats On The Highway was well-known, with a loyal viewers, and plenty of guests coming to our web site every month (500,000 individuals/month 🤯)…tourism boards and firms flew us around the globe to inform tales about their locations and providers.
It was surreal!
Our imaginative and prescient for creating a life-style of freedom by way of our personal enterprise, whereas sharing with others and doing one thing we cherished was coming true.
The little weblog we constructed from a rickety seashore hut had was our full-time revenue.
The Training Period (2018 – 2019)
With the enterprise rising, we felt the subsequent pull: educate others the right way to do what we do. That is what we’ve all the time accomplished – we do, we grasp (or attempt to), then we educate it.
So, we advanced once more.
We turned so obsessed with running a blog, search engine optimisation and constructing a private model, that we wished to share it with the world. We couldn’t imagine extra individuals weren’t doing it!
So we began to share about the right way to begin blogs, develop with search engine optimisation, and construct private manufacturers. We shared about the right way to educate English overseas, get freelance jobs, and construct on-line revenue streams.
If we’d discovered it and lived it…we shared it and taught it.
Our search engine optimisation course was our first actual paid course and the aim 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 search engine optimisation course on the finish of 2023. We really feel that search engine optimisation has been taken over by AI and doesn’t have a future, so we don’t wish 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 extra cash whereas at residence, 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 means.
It shifted all the pieces. It wasn’t about us anymore, and that realization genuinely humbled us.
Seeing numbers on a display 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 depart for years….
… that meant the world to us.
These years had been a whirlwind. Our web site was rising, our programs had been doing effectively, 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 Business Shift (2020 – 2022)
These couple of years had been a problem for everybody. However, I’m specializing in our journey business specifically.
A worldwide pandemic paused all journey…and companies associated to journey actually suffered throughout this time. With that, lots of our affiliate partnerships dropped off – which means our revenue took a nosedive.
On prime 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 well-liked (TikTok), which meant that focus was transferring from blogs to fast movies. Then got here ChatGPT and a flood of AI instruments.
All the pieces modified in a single day!
We rapidly realized that this wasn’t simply one other pattern… issues had been altering and we needed to pivot if we wished 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 expertise over time 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 sincere, we had a number of time on our arms!
We constructed up a web site, Instagram, YouTube channel and e mail checklist for the fly fishing web site, and for the guitar/string instrument web site, that was principally only a overview web site and didn’t have a social media presence.
Inside simply a few months, we noticed progress with the fly fishing model. This was undoubtedly thrilling and gave us the push to maintain going.
Throughout this time, we additionally pivoted Goats On The Highway to focus extra on the distant work and methods to earn money on-line facet of issues, slightly than specializing in the journey facet of our model.
And it began rising once more.
We additionally began spending extra on social media, e mail, and YouTube. Successfully diversifying our enterprise throughout extra platforms than simply the weblog.
Throughout this era, we discovered the onerous means that platforms can collapse. Algorithms can change. Associates can come and go. World occasions can impact all the pieces. Complete enterprise fashions can disappear.
However there was an upside and optimistic takeaway to our expertise: we remembered that our private model, our story, our expertise, and our data are issues that no platform or pandemic can contact.
The Teaching Period (2023 – Current)
In direction of the tip of 2023 and begin of 2024, we felt the web 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 selection.
Sarcastically, 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 & search engine optimisation), 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 wished to have extra of a reference to our viewers and followers, and actually present extra arms on steerage.
That’s when our subsequent period started.
We took all the pieces we all know from over a decade of being profitable from what you recognize, constructing private manufacturers, rising social media, e mail advertising and marketing, and creating digital services…
…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 personal neighborhood.
At first, we had been tremendous nervous and not sure if anybody would even have an interest. What if we launched this program, however then no one joined?! We had been truthfully so anxious.
We had an software kind, after which would hop on Discovery Calls if we felt just like the individual can be a great 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 undoubtedly out of our consolation zone.
It’s loopy how the thoughts can trick you into believing you’re not ok – irrespective of what number of expertise, or years of expertise you’ve.
We’ve been working the Creator Kickstarter Program and Neighborhood for nearly 2 years now… and we’ve had 50 wonderful individuals enter into our neighborhood!
We educate individuals what we’ve lived over time: 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 probably the most significant chapter of our journey to this point.
The Future
If we’ve discovered one factor over our many years on this business, it’s that you just want to have the ability to evolve and pivot within the on-line area, and most significantly: private manufacturers aren’t going wherever.
And truly, the web 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 undoubtedly getting into the most important shift the web has ever seen – and the individuals who begin sharing their story now would be the ones main the area later.
Those that construct a private model right now 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.
For this reason we’re so obsessed with exhibiting individuals the right way to launch their manufacturers, step-by-step.
As you’ll be able to inform from studying this text, these previous seventeen years have been a wild trip 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…
