If you happen to’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 concept the place it might all lead.
If you happen to 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 mainly every part 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 international locations visited, and residents of Bulgaria. Alongside the best way, 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 funds backpackers to private 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 best way again to 2008.
Like I mentioned, we had give up our jobs and we had been backpacking around the globe – residing 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 buddies 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 approach to life.
However, we had one slight drawback…our cash was operating out!
We didn’t need to return dwelling. We had been terrified that in the future 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 seaside within the Philippines.
Being on the street had change into our way of life and I couldn’t envision myself working again in Canada in an workplace, underneath 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 technique to earn cash on the street doing one thing we beloved.
The Distant Period (2012 – 2015)
Throughout that point on the street, we realized we didn’t need to simply journey. We wished to earn an earnings overseas and construct a life-style round freedom – to change into digital nomads … take into account… 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 form of place we’d go to get a wired web connection (this was again earlier than accommodations and hostels even had wifi, and we didn’t have a smartphone).
It value round $1 per hour of (very gradual) web.
I searched “the right way to earn cash for journey” and up popped a weblog publish 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 an internet site?!”
And so it started!
We ended up instructing 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 seaside hut on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand.
We shared our journey tales, how-to’s, images, and movies on our weblog, YouTube channel, and Fb web page.
We didn’t realize it then, however this was the start of our private model.
Whereas we had been increase Goats On The Highway, we taught English in China for a yr 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 may be our technique to earn cash 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 Development Period (2016 – 2018)
Sharing on-line is one factor, however to show our private tales into an precise enterprise, we would have liked actual abilities. So, we expanded our skillset and spent quite a lot of time researching and investing in programs & elearning.
We discovered search engine optimisation (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 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 displaying 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 way of promoting and affiliate marketing online.
And, since Goats On The Highway was well-known, with a loyal viewers, and many guests coming to our web site every month (500,000 individuals/month 🤯)…tourism boards and corporations flew us around the globe to inform tales about their locations and companies.
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 beloved was coming true.
The little weblog we constructed from a rickety seaside hut had was our full-time earnings.
The Schooling Period (2018 – 2019)
With the enterprise rising, we felt the following pull: train others the right way to do what we do. That is what we’ve all the time executed – we do, we grasp (or attempt to), then we train it.
So, we developed once more.
We grew to become so keen about 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 train English overseas, get freelance jobs, and construct on-line earnings 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 purpose 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 unimaginable.
(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 need to train 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 they’d 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 approach.
It shifted every part. 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 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 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 Business Shift (2020 – 2022)
These couple of years had been a problem for everybody. However, I’m specializing in our journey business specifically.
A world 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 earnings took a nosedive.
On prime of that, Google rolled out devastating updates which meant that our web site wasn’t displaying up on-line like earlier than.
New short-form video platforms grew to become fashionable (TikTok), which meant that spotlight was transferring from blogs to fast movies. Then got here ChatGPT and a flood of AI instruments.
Every little thing 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 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 abilities over time and will pivot. We simply didn’t know the way 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 start out one thing new, however let’s be trustworthy, we had quite a lot of time on our arms!
We constructed up an internet site, Instagram, YouTube channel and e-mail record for the fly fishing web site, and for the guitar/string instrument web site, that was largely only a assessment 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 cash on-line aspect of issues, moderately 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 laborious approach that platforms can collapse. Algorithms can change. Associates can come and go. World occasions can impact every part. Total 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 tip of 2023 and begin of 2024, we felt the web world as we knew it was about to utterly change. For higher or worse, AI was right here to remain, and video was (is) the medium of alternative.
Paradoxically, 2023 was our greatest yr ever financially. However we nonetheless felt like there was a shift coming.
So as a substitute 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 every part we all know from over a decade of getting cash from what you realize, constructing private manufacturers, rising social media, e-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”: Teaching, Course & Neighborhood. We provide reside 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 person joined?! We had been actually so frightened.
We had an software type, after which would hop on Discovery Calls if we felt just like the individual can be an excellent 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 reside 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 abilities, or years of expertise you’ve gotten.
We’ve been operating the Creator Kickstarter Program and Neighborhood for nearly 2 years now… and we’ve had 50 wonderful individuals enter into our group!
We train individuals what we’ve lived over time: that freedom comes from constructing a enterprise primarily based 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 discovered one factor over our a few years on this business, it’s that you simply want to have the ability to evolve and pivot within the on-line house, and most significantly: private manufacturers aren’t going anyplace.
And truly, the web teaching and e-learning markets are projected to develop considerably over the following 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 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 right now would be the ones with the liberty to journey, work from anyplace, and run a enterprise that doesn’t depend on a single platform, or doesn’t get taken over by robots.
Because of this we’re so keen about displaying individuals the right way 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 occasions, and introduced you alongside each step of the best way.
Thanks for being right here as we proceed to evolve and share with you! Who is aware of what the following period will deliver…
