TMBA Podcast Episodes
With the TMBA in your ear, you’ll no longer have to grow your business alone. Subscribe to follow along to hear about the ways we help entrepreneurs scale successful businesses.
↓ Never miss an episode or blog post!
We publish a new show every Thursday morning, 8AM EST
TMBA 230: Entrepreneurial Mindset Fundamentals
In this week’s episode, I’ve been reflecting about how far things have come since I began dreaming about working remotely. Staying true to that, we are revisiting a previous episode in which Ian and I discussed the less glamorous parts of entrepreneurship, and how to handle the necessary challenges to become a successful entrepreneur.
TMBA 229: Explaining the Entrepreneurial Worldview to Friends and Family
Damian Thompson is back after the last episode with him absolutely blew up! Erik Emsley challenged us to help him explain to his family what this lifestyle choice is all about.
TMBA 228: Getting to the Table With High Achievers
Ian is back on the Tropical MBA Podcast this week to talk about our next big idea, as well as answering some listener questions (thank you to all who’ve called our voicemail: 888-554-8428).
TMBA 227: The Rise Of Productized Services
Damian Thompson from Linchpin is back on the show this week (his first appearance here) talking with me about one of the biggest movements we see in the location independent scene. We talk about what Damian has learned during his first 1,000 days of being a business owner, and how listeners can utilize the lessons he’s learned (and the sales strategies he’s developed) to grow similar service oriented location independent businesses.
TMBA 226: How to Know When to Cut Bait? 5 Signs Your Niche Needs Changed
The boss man is back this week after a far too long hiatus and his timing is perfect for a topic we absolutely love. Kiri called in with some concerns about whether it’s time to cut her losses with her current business, or if there’s anything she can do to turn it around. Her major problems include a low price point, high shipping, an ungrateful audience, and low margins. It’s a difficult issue, and we’ve got strong opinions on it, Shark Tank style.
TMBA 225: Thoughts on Living and Working in Asia
Happy New Year! Ian is off celebrating the holidays with his family this week, and Kaiser Soze was here hanging out when a discussion came up that we thought would be good for the show. This show is mostly about lifestyle, but in case you’re looking for the good old fashioned business talk, below are some of my favorite podcast episodes on just that topic.
TMBA 224: Listener Questions, Like : "I Make $1,000 a Month, Now What?"
Since an angry fish seemed to have cut the internet wire in the ocean, Ian and I are cut off from one another. In his stead, Jesse “The Dominator” Lawler has stepped up to bring value to the masses. The listener questions continue to get better and better, so The Dominator and I are cruising through some of the quality questions from the past week, including one that I get asked a lot, “So I’ve made $1,000… now what?”.
TMBA 223: Things We'd Change if We Started Our Product Business Today
We’ve been looking back a lot to the beginning of The Valet Spot now that we’ve released the info to the public and realized that although we did a lot right, we screwed up a lot too. We figured with some of the big changes and our growth trajectory coming up, it would be a good idea to sit down and discuss what we did wrong, and what we did right so it can help some people in the e-commerce world avoid our biggest mistakes.
TMBA 222: The Full Story Behind Our First Niche
For a variety of reasons, Ian and I have never spoken openly about the first successful B2B business we ever started– TheValetSpot.com. This week we are going to change all that and go into the details of how that business got started, how we won market share, and what we are doing to grow the business in the future. Terry Lin from Build My Online Store was kind enough to interview Ian for his great podcast and I think he did a great job of extracting the real scoop. We asked him if we could share his interview with our listeners, and he was very gracious for letting us share it here. Enjoy!
TMBA 221: 5 Trends In Remote Working and Team Building
I’ve got Joe “Hot Money” Magnotti on as my co-host this week in the wake of Ian’s much needed romp in Europe. Today, we’re passing the ball back and forth about the direction things are going regarding remote working and team building. We’ve been noticing that the old norms are shifting (some have been for a while) to a new era that we’re super stoked for. We dig into a ton of meaty stuff and add a little philosophical fun at the end.
TMBA 220: Thoughts on Email Marketing (60% of Our B2B Customers Open Our Emails on Mobile!)
In the process of launching and iterating on Valet Up, our new SaaS app developed for valet companies, Ian and I have been working on refining our email marketing strategies and how we can snag some extra customers and improve our closing average. On top of this, an email came in from Mark from Art Of Baseball and he asks how he can improve his email marketing to gain more customers. With the timing being as perfect as it was, we had to share our thoughts.
TMBA 219: 5 Lifestyle Business Thought Experiments
Ian and I are both in the “on the road” mindset this week– we’re both mentally preparing to head out traveling or a little while. In that casual spirit we’ve both been dreaming a bit about what the future might hold. We asked some team members and listeners to help us out with some entrepreneurial and lifestyle thought experiments, and what we recorded were some of our raw thoughts on issues from “what makes success?” to “what’s your favorite place to live?”
TMBA 218 : The Consultant’s Handbook - How to Make Location Independent Income Quickly
We’ve gotten a few phone calls recently that set us off on a path to the discussion we had this week on the Tropical MBA Podcast. Making location independent income quickly is very doable, especially going the route of the consultant. There are a few keys to making it work the right way and eventually being able to move it into something bigger, and that’s what this episode is all about.
TMBA 217: Selling the Assets of Your Business in a Strategic Sale
Cam Collins runs a business that helps marinas manage their boat inventory. He recently sold the assets of the company in a strategic merger, and we’re pumped that Cam came by the podcast to share the lessons he learned during the process.
TMBA 216: Carnegie on How Young People Can Get Ahead in the World
Ever dream of changing your life and getting ahead in the world? Andrew Carnegie gave a speech to ambitious college students over 100 years ago outlining his best advice, and despite his poor understanding of search engine optimization, it rings just as true today. In this week’s podcast Ian and I go over Mr. Carnegie’s advice and relate it to our own experience.– you can read the full text here.
TMBA 215: DCBKK 2013 - What Our Speakers Taught Us
After this weekend’s incredible DCBKK event, Dan and Ian sift through the mountain of helpful information, solid business advice and entrepreneurial savvy to bring you the highlights of the event. This episode’s cup is overflowing with takeaways that the fellas gleaned from each speaker’s presentation. You might want to grab a notepad for this one.
TMBA 214: 10 Predictions For 2014 and Beyond
As we approach DCBKK, we wanted to have a little chat about our predictions for the future of business as we know it. There’s a shift that’s slowly happening as we progress and we’re starting to see a massive rise in the growth of location independent, professionally run businesses. Kaiser Soze himself is hanging with Ian and I for a super fun discussion.
TMBA 213: What Makes a Great Conference Talk?
The fellas are switching things up and coming to you from Europe this week. Having just finished speaking at the MicroConf event in Prague, they’ve got insights coming out of their ears and just couldn’t wait to share them with you. You’ll hear about some of the spotlight speakers from the event and the incredible frameworks, modalities and systems they employ to see wild success in the software and SAAS industries.
TMBA 212: Building Distributed Software Teams in Asia
Hollywood filmmaker (with an imdb profile!), software programmer, podcaster, and most importantly, The Dominator of all things, Jesse Lawler is on the show this week to discuss a few of my favorite things. Jesse was working in L.A. as a filmmaker when the economy took a nose dive and no one would even think about funding an indie flick. He made the ever-so-difficult decision to pack his bags and head off to Vietnam and build a distributed software team. It isn’t quite as simple as it sounds, which is what makes this episode so intriguing.
TMBA 211: How Is It Possible To Raise $100,000 In 4 Days Without Giving Away Equity Or Taking A Loan?
So many people struggle to get a great idea off the ground because they didn’t validate and ask the market to vote with their wallets. Jimmy and Doug from Minaal have completely turned this on its back. Not only were they meticulously calculated about the launch of their killer travel bag designed for location independent entrepreneurs, but they launched a Kickstarter which generated $100,000 in only 4 days! I’ve got them cornered to hear an in depth analysis of how they built this business from nothing and used Kickstarter to become a force in the travel bag industry.