TropicalMBA Internships - Get Paid to Travel the World

Written By Dan Andrews
A group of interns in a meeting

Breakout Sessions at the TMBA Summit

Tropical Work Force logo

The Tropical Workforce helps entrepreneurs find location independent interns to help them jump-start the growth of their business. If you are looking to offer a paid internship you'd like to share with the location independent community, Tropical Work Force is a great place to get started.

Tropical Workforce is currently not accepting new internship posting opportunities

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2 years ago I had an idea. If I allowed somebody to travel the world while they worked, and showed them how I built and run my business, would they be willing to take a pay cut to get the gig?

"The TropicalMBA program opened my eyes up to what is possible in terms of lifestyle, entrepreneurship from a practical perspective and travel. They didn't hand me a roadmap, and I've recently realized that no-one truly can, but they opened up my 'line of sight' or field of opportunity in a way that I didn't previously know was possible. Hiring me was only a small part of this, starting Dynamite Circle, & allowing me to see how a successful company operates and grows from deep in the trenches has been invaluable." -- Lewis, TMBA Alumn

I believe that learning directly from people in mentoring type relationships is the best way to learn. We teach entrepreneurial skills by putting aspiring entrepreneurs in meaningful roles in our growing business.

The TMBA was modeled after the job ads I wished I would have seen when I was in a dead-end job. I called the first post "Get Paid to Travel the World." You can check it out at the bottom of this page.

So far we've offered 9 paid internships to digital nomads...

Late nights, coming home from a job I hated, and a life I felt hopelessly stuck in, I surfed the wanted ads hoping some jet-set entrepreneur would be seeking a young guy like me willing to work his ass off to make his business a success. In return, all I wanted to do was to learn.

I never found anything.

I'm not exactly Mr. jet set... but once our business started to see a little success, I couldn’t resist but to offer my dream opportunity on to somebody else. It has still been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my business.

If you'd like to be notified of new paid internship opportunities and other updates from the TMBA, put your name in to the form:

Semester VI & VII

Congratulations to Aamir Chistie and Simon Stock who will be joining me at our TMBA house in Bali, Indonesia.

Semester V

Damian Thompson from BizDevSamurai.com selected! Thanks to all who applied.

Semester IV

Semester IV was a "stealth" semester announced quickly at the end of this post. I quickly needed help on a 6 month client contract and just put it on this blog... I received 14 excellent applications and chose Lewis Q. who has been great, and who I'm looking forward to meeting very shortly in SE Asia. He's learning our processes, working with the other interns, and is a full fledged member of our team and what we are doing here. I assume he'll become more visible in the coming months with his own projects.

Semester III

Dave Huss was selected. Thanks to all the 49 talented people who applied to this opportunity Dave built a successful 4HWW Muse and now blogs on Phoenix Abroad. For the Tropical MBA Semester III Dave Huss has been rocking ourAdwords accounts - cutting the cost per conversion for one of our businesses from $80 to $20. If you need help with Adwords, make sure to check out his Adwords consulting.

Read more about TMBA III:

Semester II

Dave Hehenberger from DavidH.me and instantphrases.com was selected. Thanks to all who applied.

Read more here:

Semester I

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Please note this offer is no longer live.... each semester changes. Please put your email address in the sidebar if you wish you be notified when our next internship launches.

November 19th, 2009. The first post ever on this blog.....

The Tropical MBA is a paid internship and training program with a location independent entrepreneur.

2 years ago I quit my cushy job, started a company, and took off to travel. Now I'd like you to join me.

I want to "insource" the best talent to my little slice of tropical paradise. I'll pay you enough to get by and teach you the skills required to become a location independent entrepreneur, freelancer, consultant, or employee.

We'll be sharing our course material with the world. If you want to follow our training program from home, enter your email in the form. We won't send a lot of emails.

Intro to the Tropical MBA from Dan Andrews on Vimeo.

Is the Tropical MBA for you?

The Tropical MBA is aimed at creative, computer-savvy, continual learners who have a travel bug or a desire to achieve location independence. The Tropical MBA program teaches you to create a lifestyle where you have a great deal of autonomy over how and where you spend your time. Ideal candidates are willing to make sacrifices to build a lifestyle where they can enjoy 100% freedom of time and location. What kind of lifestyle do you want to buy? This thought experiment helped me to the conclusion that my career wasn't getting me closer to my personal goal of freedom of time and location. Choose an scenario that you would prefer live in over the next 7 year period:

  1. You make $100,000 K a year salary, and work 50-60 hours a week, plus 1 hour of commute, plus 3-4 weeks of vacation / personal time a year. You live in your home country.

  2. You make $27,500 USD a year salary, work 20 to 40 hours a week, mostly on your own projects. You spend 90% of your time in developing countries like Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Argentina so you can afford an exceptional lifestyle. You love your backpack and love the minimalist approach of living in cheap hotels and furnished apartments instead of having all kinds of stuff.

If you would prefer option 2, you should consider the Tropical MBA for the next step in your career. The $27,500 is arbitrary relative to what is possible. There is no reason why you can't make 100,000 K a year from a beach in Thailand. I'm confident that the skills I teach are highly valuable in any corporate, small business, or start-up environment (see my experience below). I mention it to get an idea of where your values are. It's an important question to ask yourself.

What kind of experiences and things do you want to buy with all that money you are earning? I wanted to make a big salary because I thought it could buy the lifestyle I now enjoy. I didn't understand at the time that although I could afford the plane tickets and the hotels, I couldn't afford my time. Let's say you choose option one. You are pulling in about 60K a year after taxes plus putting away 15K a year in savings (in the States that's a huge accomplishment!). 7 years from now you'll have $105,000 in your bank account. (Pause for a moment to consider how huge 7 years is.) You might have a house, maybe kids, who knows. Do you think at that point you'd feel comfortable going after your dreams of traveling?

The Job Ad: Here's What I'm Looking For

"Successful location independent entrepreneur seeks intern." My business creates effective websites that sell consumer and business products (all hard goods, like furniture, and niche commercial products). I do not sell anything offensive or scammy. Keeping things honest and ethical is a priority for us. Every website we make is for our own products.

This is a great situation for a web developer because we are in charge of our own job security. We can also be more creative because we make the final call on how to market our products. I generally choose to live in locations that benefit my business (outsourcing hubs like Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines), provide very low cost of living, low cost professional services (design, copywriting, admin support) and allow me easy and affordable access to some world class travel destinations. I am not a solopreneur, and I'm not making money from telling people how to make money. But if I were to write an ebook telling you how to make money on the internet, my main piece of advice would be: stop thinking about the internet and start thinking about relationships.

I worked for many years to build a strong team of experienced freelancers and full time employees. There are 3 of us working full time remotely from Asia (the rest are in CA). If you choose to apply and are a finalist, you are welcome to discuss the opportunity with my employees to get their perspective on this opportunity. The intern I am looking for has the following skills and traits. No prior business, marketing, or website experience required.

  • Excellent command of the English language. I'm not the best writer, so if you have a love for the craft of writing it would be a great compliment to our team.

  • Fast learner, especially when it comes to computer stuff.

  • Email, word processing, figuring out how to start a blog, stuff like that.

  • Excellent with data, spreadsheets, and web-based research assignments.

  • You spend a lot of time on the internet. I hope you read blogs.

  • You love to read (webpages are okay!).

  • You are a continual and passionate learner.

  • You have a demonstrated comfort (or an intense passion for) being out of your country, and living a minimalist, mobile lifestyle. You think having freedom of time and location is almost as important as having enough money in your bank account.

  • You love creative challenges.

  • You think a career in business could be interesting because of the potential freedom it offers.

  • You don't like the odds of saving up your dough for 40 years in order to sit on a beach when you are an old person. You want to sit on the beach now.

  • Bonus points if you are an active blogger.

  • Bonus points if you are a Drupal developer.

Curriculum

The first semester will be 6 months long. My primary goal is to teach you the technical skills required to be a digital marketing professional. I am focused on marketing skills because I think it is the #1 most lucrative career for aspiring location independent professionals who do not have computer programming skills. Those with programming skills are still encouraged to apply. I'm going to list some of the key skills and technical know-how a digital marketing professional needs to know:

  • Virtual business structure.

  • Online business models.

  • Copywriting for the web.

  • Competitive research.

  • Content generation.

  • Keyword research.

  • Creative approaches to keyword markets.

  • Outsourcing 101 Team building, hiring, remote working, and project mgmt.

  • Technology standards on the web Content Management Systems -- how to choose, how to use CRMS, email autoresponders Web layout design, basics.

  • Web Advertising with heavy focus on Google adwords Keyword research

  • SEO campaign MGMT

  • Keyword tracking

  • Social media marketing, including Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, Podcasting, and much more.

  • Advanced search engine optimization (SEO) techniques

You will need to start reading / bring the following books with you.

  • The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

  • The 80/20 Principle - Richard Koch

  • Purple Cow - Seth Godin

  • Getting Things Done - David Allen

  • Maverick - Ricardo Semler

  • Lonely Planet Guide to (TBD)... but probably Thailand

All of our other course material will be digital, and we'll be sharing that with those who want to follow us.

About me

I don't have a developed online reputation. I'm so busy trying to grow my businesses, that I haven't had too much time to talk about how I'm doing it. Its a liability for me to disclose company information so openly, given we have prominent clients I don't want to be caught hot dogging about my lifestyle too much. If you get to the phone-interview stage of the process, I'm more than happy to disclose details about my business. I'm hoping a short biography will give you an idea if this could be a good fit for you. You might be able to get an idea of the kind of person I am by listening to the LifestyleBusinessPodcast.com.

I studied Philosophy in college, and thought briefly about being a professor, but couldn't face the lack of opportunities to move around the world. I went into business because I figured that business guys could define what they wanted in life and go for it. I was right about that, but I didn't figure out how to pull it off until 5 years later.

The breaking point for me was making 100,000K+ a year in salary. It was the level I always aspired to without really questioning it too much. Once I arrived there, I realized that my life wasn't any better and I wasn't getting any closer to the freedom I desired, and had experienced as a traveler. During my career I helped grow a small firm to one of INC's fastest growing companies in America as the Vice President of Operations. During that time I was fortunate to forge business mentoring relationships that will stay with me for many years to come. Before that I worked in the corporate world at a fortune 500 company. At my last job I spearheaded our investment in a web marketing department and was inspired by the material and the guys on my team-- I started moonlighting on the web learning how this stuff works.

Eventually I used that knowledge to earn a large equity stake in a start-up manufacturing firm. I generally spend about 3-6 months in a location. I am currently in the Philippines working directly with some freelance staff and hiring full time workers. Before the Philippines I spent 6 months in San Diego working on a new business unit. Before that I was motorcycling around south east Asia, and before that I was living in some nice digs in Saigon. When I'm on the road, I consider myself a "flashpacker." That's a backpacker who has some means of generating income from the road and who generally uses higher tech equipment. Ultra light gear, laptops, video cameras, etc. I use dry fast clothing (merino wool and athletic dri-fit shirts) and pack everything in a day pack. I haven't yet come across a better backpack for long term travel with a laptop, I absolutely recommend it: Surge by North Face. I love to talk packing and gear.

I am 27 years old, work hard, like to play sports, hang with the locals, sniff out the best food on the planet, and I rarely say no to a good party. This position isn't good for people who are seeking prestige, get-rich-quick, or super structured environments.

The Terms of the Deal

The first semester of the Tropical MBA begins January 5th, 2010. Application deadline is November 30th, 2009.

  • You must have your own laptop.

  • You must pay for your ticket to Bangkok, Manila, or Hanoi, or similar (TBD). This is your investment.

  • If you don't want to dig into your savings, you'll have to be willing to stay in backpacker style accommodations (always clean and safe, but often sharing rooms with others) and eat (mostly) local food. I know for a lot of people this is asking a lot. I am targeting this opportunity for people who see getting paid to travel at this level is an opportunity, not a chore.

  • The salary will be country dependent, and will be enough to stay in the lowest level of safe backpacker accommodation plus eat well. That range of your salary will most likely be $700 to $1000 USD monthly. This is more than enough to live a very nice lifestyle, experienced backpackers will recognize this.

  • At the end of each of the first 6 months I will put 100 dollars into a Paypal account. At the end of 6 months you'll have access to the 600 dollars to spend on airfare or whatever. You could use it as angel funding! That's 500 more than I started with!

  • About 80% of your "working" time (meh.... 25 to 50 hours a week depending) will be spent working on my businesses (with guidance and training) and 20% of your time will be spent reporting what you've learned back to the followers of the Tropical MBA. We are happy to help you get your own projects off the ground "after hours" if you have interest in that.

  • Like any good MBA program, there are likely many opportunities that will be available after you finish the initial 6 months, like launching a new partnership, your own company, or continuing on for a second semester or full time employment. It's difficult to explain, but opportunities just seem to start popping up once you jump 100% into this lifestyle.

How to Apply (and What I'm Looking For)

The first semester of the Tropical MBA begins January 5th, 2010. Application deadline is November 30th, 2009. Phone interviews are December 2nd, 2009. I'll announce the winner on the weekend of the 4th (and thereafter the winner and I will coordinate travel plans!). First, here's how to make a successful application:

  • No need for creative or clever approaches. I'd prefer to see your creativity in what you've done before the application.

  • A demonstrated love of internet based work.

  • A strong love or desire for a long term travel/expatriate/backpacking lifestyle.

  • Exceptional command of the English language.

IT'S EASY TO APPLY.

You can either send me an email at Dan @ tropicalmba. com or make a blog post at a free blogging service like posterous and send me the link. Here are my recommendations for applications.

  • A blog post (about 100 to 400 words) with the topic: Why This Opportunity is Huge for Me.

  • A headshot *or* picture of you drinking Asian beer A brief and relevant resume.

  • A quick anecdotal story (100 to 400 words) on why you are uniquely suited for business backpacking / expatriate lifestyle.

  • I'd love to see a Youtube video or podcast audio with a personalized message to me, although it's optional.

  • Please be available for phone interviews on December 2nd.

You might have questions. Please email them to Dan | at | tropicalmba.com. I'll post the answers to questions that I think are helpful to the site within 48 hours. Want to follow the Tropical MBA and learn along with us? Just let us know your favorite email address. We won't send a lot of emails. Promise.

A big hat tip to Seth Godin. His Alternative MBA is what inspired this program.

This opportunity is also mentioned in Episode #10 of the Lifestyle Business Podcast, an Insider's Look at Outsourcing in the Philippines.

If you want to talk with me, try email Dan@TropicalMBA.com or twitter, @TropicalMBA.

Dan Andrews
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