Building the World’s First Country on the Internet with SafetyWing Founder, Sondre Rasch

Sneak Peek:

Sondre:    00:00:00    I realized that this kind of not giving up is like the best, uh, kind of insurance about dealing with any crisis in the future. And that's something that we've applied in the company and we kind of have this thing called all problems are solvable, which we repeat like much all the time. But it's true. It's a fact. But it's very important to remind yourself when you're sort of, when you can't see any way up, that's something you really want to build up your strength in, you know, in peace time, and not when the crisis hits.  

Kristin   00:00:29    Yeah,  You just have to keep going. When you stop, you just cut off all potential of that happening.

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:52    Hi everyone. Kristin from traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to episode 120 of Badass Digital Nomads. My guest today is Sondre Rasch, the co-founder and CEO of Safety Wing, the world's first insurance company for digital nomads by digital nomads. As you'll learn in today's podcast, that is just scraping the surface of all the amazing things that this innovative and visionary group of people are creating. Safety Wing's Co-founders are in the process of building a global safety net for remote workers and location independent global citizens, culminating with the first ever digital country on the internet, complete with a passport called Plumia. So what does this mean? What is a global safety net? Well, more than just an insurance provider, Safety Wing's mission is basically to obliterate borders as a barrier to equal opportunities and freedom for everyone that starts with their international travel medical insurance product, their Nomad insurance, then Remote health, a healthcare plan for individuals and teams that can cover you anywhere in the world, a virtual healthcare option through their new product, Remote doctor, and then Remote pension, a savings plan that helps you retire early.  

Kristin:    00:02:24    It's basically a 401K for digital nomads or freelancers or people from anywhere in the world. In my interview with Sondre today, we're talking about how he went from working in a boring government job in Norway to effectively building his own government. We're diving deep into what the heck the first internet country will look like, where the capital will be, which currency they'll use, how taxes will work, and lots more. We also have a lightning round at the end where we're going to answer questions directly from members of my Facebook group, Badass Digital Nomads, about how Safety Wing's insurance policies work, how fast the claims process is, and what the options are if you're 70 years or older. Sondre is also giving us some travel tips for his home country of Norway and two productivity tips that are some of the best I've ever heard.  

Kristin:    00:03:24    And overall, it's just a great time today. I can't wait to look back at this conversation 10 years from now and see what happened. Thank you so much for being here and for many ways to support the podcast. From leaving reviews to buying me a coffee, to donating crypto, or joining my Patreon team, head on over to badassdigitalnomads.com. And as usual, make sure to check out the show notes for all the resources that we mentioned today, and you can see all the details about Safety Wing's products, and also contribute to the conversation on building the first internet country. Enjoy. 

Podcast Interview: 

Kristin: Well, welcome so much Sondre to Badass Digital Nomads. I don't know if you know this, but I've wanted you to have you on the podcast since I launched in 2019.   

Sondre:    00:04:18   Wow. Yeah. Lovely to be here. Finally.  

Kristin:    00:04:20    I feel like a stalker. <laugh>, I've been following you on Twitter. I've been following you on Medium. I've been following all of the developments of Safety Wing for so long, so it's really great to have you here. And so you were saying before we started recording that you are in San Francisco right now. Have you been there during the whole pandemic?  

Sondre:    00:04:39    Uh, yes. Uh, I've been a couple of months in Tulum.

Kristin: Okay.

Sondre: But other than that, I've been here the whole time.  

Kristin:    00:04:46    And is your team there as well as I know that you're quite remote and distributed around the world?  

Sondre:    00:04:52    No. Uh, my co-founder, Sarah, has been here for parts of the time, although she now moved to la. Uh, Hans is in Norway. The rest of the team is remote. And the other team members who used to live in San Francisco, they have moved out to the, to the countryside during Covid.  

Kristin:    00:05:09    I actually wrote an article about that on Medium, how the real estate market in Silicon Valley will never be quite the same, at least probably not in our lifetimes. I was curious, how did you connect with your co-founder originally? I know you're both from Norway, but did you meet during your previous ventures or did you meet at Y Combinator or how did that come about?  

Sondre:    00:05:34    Hmm. Yeah, so it's me, Hans, and Sarah. And, uh, we, uh, met, the three of us met when me and Sarah was doing this, uh, program by the University of Oslo that where you sort of, uh, it's kind of like an exchange, but it's a master level program at Berkeley where you work in a Silicon Valley startup as an intern for, uh, I think it was four months, you know, one semester. And, uh, so that we just did both, did the program. So that was, uh, and she was studying computer science. I was studying economics. And, uh, we were friends ever since then. And we did at one point, you know, made a few kind of like projects together, so we knew how to work together as well. Uh, so it was a, a natural fit when the idea of Safety Wing came up. You know, Hans, Hans was a lawyer, she was a programmer, I was an economist. And together we had the knowledge to, uh, make the first global social safety net.  

Kristin:    00:06:28    And were you traveling nomadically at the time that you had this idea? This was back in when? 2016, 2017?  

Sondre:    00:06:37    Yes. So, uh, when I, back in 2014, I sort of discovered the idea of digital no medicine and I quickly kind of developed this vision. I was working at the Parliament of Norway at the time, uh, which was a great job, you know, in so many ways because I had full freedom. It was very impactful and meaningful, what I was doing. And then, uh, but I was also a bit frustrated because, you know, a country is a big organization and I didn't see them adapting to the change I saw coming broadly from the internet as fast as they needed to. But I also then discovered digital nomadism and this idea that if I worked freelance for like a day a week, I could found a company with two or one or two other digital nomads with very little funding. And so I started, I made this plan that I would sort of quit my job, and the plan was then to move to Berlin. You could live very cheaply in Berlin back then. It's not as possible as it was. Anyway, that was the plan. And then I started my previous company, SuperSide. Uh, now as it happens, that company kind of took off and we got into Y combinator. Uh, so by the time I quit my job, I sort of, uh, had only been kind of nomad for a couple of months. Months. And, uh, and then I moved to, to San Francisco. But I did, uh, touch through some places.  

Kristin:    00:07:54    Okay. So did you have, I've heard on another podcast that you said that you were basically your first client,  Um, how did that come about?  

Sondre:    00:08:04    Yes, so, uh, I did learn my lesson, you know, with the other startup. I went for the route of just, I mean, I had travel insurance, but that would time out and then I would go home and reset it. But I also didn't care that much about it. And I had the experience, which some people unfortunately do of going to, uh, medical place in the us which is crazy expensive. I just did some tests and it came out of like $2,500 for like a half an hour visit. And that was sort of the moment where I, you know, realized that, oh, I actually, uh, I can't, I have to have some sort of insurance. So as we were developing, you know, SafetyWing, and we started with, uh, even though our kind of end vision was to make a global social safety net on the country, on the internet, the starting point was to make Nomad Insurance for myself, <laugh> and for Sarah and Hans. And Sarah was a seasoned digital nomad. So she had been sort of nomad ing around for years, you know, trying to get her sort of music published <laugh>, because she's also a musician. And, um, and going on these, you know, long meditation trips. And, and that was kind of life she was living. So, and, and Hans too. So we were all nomads and we were definitely solving our own problem with Nomad Insurance. We, of course, knew exactly the pain points we, we needed to solve.  

Kristin:    00:09:25    Yes, I've been living abroad since 2002, was my first interaction with international health insurance and travel medical insurance.  And I remember going to a physical insurance office with my mom, 'cause I was in college at the time, and her explaining to the insurance agent the type of insurance that I needed. And I actually had that same insurance for many years until that policy was no longer available, which was around the time, I think it was around the time that Obama was in office and they were redoing the, the healthcare system. But I, I also remember having travelers checks at that time. So it's like thinking of the trajectory of everything that has changed since then. It's really, it's really quite crazy. But I love that you guys did this on your own. You're doing something that's so ambitious in such a nonchalant way, and I feel like the entire world is going to, at some point, be looking at you guys.  

Kristin:    00:10:24    I hope you're gonna be prepared for that moment when it comes, because the insurance industry in general is so powerful and no one has the foresight or the insight to do something like this. And so I think it's gonna catch everyone by surprise, kind of in the same way that Bitcoin caught central banks by surprise and a lot of other things that are happening at the same time right now on the planet. But, um, yeah, it is like you're just nonchalantly creating the first global country on the internet, creating a social safety net for travelers and remote workers and digital nomads, which I'll ask you about in a moment. And then also reinventing the concept of insurance and creating like this borderless insurance company. So, I mean, take me back or take us back all the listeners to that moment where you realized that you just have to do this yourself, that no one else is going to create the idea that you have. And so just being, you know, quote unquote normal people traveling the world, making music as their side, hobbies, meditating, things that many of us can relate to, not really having a plan, not knowing where you're going to then saying, okay, we're gonna just go for it.  

Sondre:    00:11:35    Hmm. Yeah, I mean, that, that's, that's beautiful, uh, observation and you, you made there, by the way. I just have to comment on that first because, you know, we certainly have that experience where everyone, nobody is opposed to what we're doing, which, you know, everyone seems to, regardless of their background to support it for different reasons. But I think the, the most they will do is not think we can do it in a way. And, uh, but we're kind of fine. I think that's almost good for us. <laugh>,  

Kristin:    00:12:05    It's less pressure.  

Sondre:    00:12:07    Yeah. So, uh, and, uh, but of course, you know, that's becoming more real by the, by the minute. And, uh, but for some reason we, we were always very confident from the start, uh, in that we could, and at least that it was possible, but certainly that it was necessary. And, uh, but yeah, so to take you back to that moment, so the, I mentioned that part that I had worked in government with the social safety net of Norway, of course. And Norway does have a well-functioning social safety net in many ways. And, uh, and I, I was working on both learning that and improving it. So I had that very particular background, which of course not, not many have. And then I ran this freelancer platform and we at some point looked into providing benefits for freelancers on the platform. And we spent some time trying to, you know, get offers to, and probably realized that what we wanted didn't exist.  

Sondre:    00:13:03    Because what we wanted was, as we're not talking about, it had to be borderless, it had to be digital. It ideally also had to be flexible because freelancers come and go and, and maybe even have an API like many things, which were not in the vocabulary of the people who we were talking to. And then I tried for a year and a half to get someone else to build the global social safety net. So I went to like founder friends, and I said, you know, I have this massive thing. Someone has to make this thing and will be your first customer. So it was a fairly convincing pitch I thought, and I almost got one person to do it. But in the end, you know, that effort failed year and a half later, nobody's doing it. And I, I see this as overdue in a sense, and, uh, and, and necessary, you know, that the world is changing in this massive way.  

Sondre:    00:13:55    And it's like that disruption that the internet did with other industries, like the music industry, that if we aren't sort of proactively building the new, it will be this extremely painful transition where someone will solve the problem accidentally. Um, it's kind of like, you know, it's 1994 and, you know, we can see what's happening with internet, but instead of sort of like heading into this kind of all this mess that happened in the music industry, you could sort of try to preempt it by just building Spotify right away, you know, in, uh, you know, and, and that would've been much more pleasant for everyone involved, including the artists. And I think a lot of the industry, that's kind of what we're doing. We're, we're sort of seeing this great change ahead of us, and we're thinking, if we start now, we will be able to build a good alternative in time, and also before someone accidentally builds an alternative that isn't made for the purpose.  

Sondre:    00:14:51    So anyway, that's kind of, uh, that's the, that's the big idea. That's the draw. Like we think, I think it's really important. So I'm, I'm at that point pretty convinced that this might be the most important thing I could do. So I decided to leave the company SuperSide to build it ourselves. And, uh, we were with, I was with Hans and Sarah at the time, we were back for, in Norway, in Oslo, uh, for Christmas holiday. And we had this conversation where we sort of realized nobody's gonna do this and we have to do it. And then we decided to do that and started. And, uh, and this is, uh, kind of how far we've gotten so far.  

Kristin:    00:15:29    You've made so much progress in, in such a short amount of time. I mean, I think back to Safety Wing launched in February of 2018, correct? yes. And that seems like it was a minute ago. I mean, it feels like it was just a, a year or so ago. I mean, it really was just a few years ago, and now you have so many products that are coming out and planned for the end of the year next year. So we'll talk about that. But I think it's a really important, what you brought up about digital nomads building what they want. And I use the word digital nomads, so inclusively, you know, location, independent people that are working wherever and working remotely, because it's probably the first time in history that a subculture of people is creating their own tool set and their own products and their own community at the same time.  

Kristin:    00:16:20    Like when you related it back to the music industry and Napster, it came, that disruption is always coming from somewhere else. And the weird thing about the digital nomad revolution, so to speak, is that we are just kind of silently building this lifestyle and this web of products and services and helping each other, unlike a parallel universe to what the rest of the world is operating in. And so it is a really cool opportunity for us to, we have a lot of programmers and developers in our community, you know, for, we have a lot of makers, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people with ideas, and we're just kind of implementing things as we go along and creating this digital society, digital economy. It's such, uh, an exciting time to be alive, and I'm so happy to be a part of it. Amazing. What you guys have done. So let's talk about what is a global social safety net. So this is something that when I first heard it, I was, I wondered the same thing. I'm like, okay, well what does that consist of? So for people who haven't really even conceived of this term, because it's not something that exists what are the elements of a global social safety net, and why should people be excited about that?

Sondre:    00:17:34    So there are a couple of different approaches we've used to, to get at what it is we're trying to build. So one is this broad kind of old history approach. So I can do that in a few lines. So that's kind of saying that, you know, know we used to be nomads like pre agriculture, like thousands of years ago. You know, we lived in this nomadic tribes, which we often moved like 150 people. And, and what's the benefit of having a tribe? And the benefit of having a tribe is, yes, you have someone to talk to, but more importantly, you have someone who will take care of you if you got sick or injured or, or otherwise. And so the tribe was your social safety net. It was social meaning other people, and a safety net meaning that it would, you wouldn't be left behind if you, something happened to you.  

Sondre:    00:18:24    And that's sort of the, the, the ancient history of, of it. And as we're kind of entering into a time where that sort of lifestyle and logic becomes more, more real and accessible, economically possible, then, you know, it's broadly that part we want to, to supply. We want to, you know, provide the social safety net, meaning the community of people that doesn't, you know, allow you to fall behind when something happens to you when you're sick or injured or dying or otherwise in distress. That's one approach to it, uh, that we definitely use. Another approach is just what we're coming out of the countries, right? So you can imagine in Norway there is a social safety net. It has a name and it has, you know, health, retirement income protection that it has developed over time. And so we are looking at recreating that then borderless digital way to make it available for digital nomads and remote workers.  

Sondre:    00:19:25    But of course, we want to set simultaneously do that in a way that is high quality and like modern, you know, where it's, you know, instant super good help, uh, something that would, would work in the future. So if you kind of pair these two ideas, then you're starting to see what we're kind of forming to get, you know, we have this sort of digital futuristic idea of like a product that works amazingly well. You have this sort of all the learnings we've had from making national social safety nets. And then you have this like, ancient true approach to a social safety net as fundamentally a community and a community, uh, offering. So yeah, those are, uh, three kind of frameworks you might use to approach it. But fundamentally it's uh, you know, uh, health retirement, you know, and later disability, income protection, and then a membership, which we hope will look something like this, that you, there is a membership, there's some requirements to be a member, maybe you're invited and then you pay 10% of your income so that it can kind of go up and down with your income. And then you get the whole social safety net. And then that's what, then we would say version 1.0 is done when this is ready.  

Kristin:    00:20:36    Okay. So that would basically be like a tax,  

Sondre:    00:20:40    Like a tax. Exactly. 10% seems to be, to be the right amount for them to include, for example, retirement,  

Kristin:    00:20:48    The pension and everything. Okay. So we'll get into those into the nuances of those in, in a few minutes. But I liked what you said about, about going back to, you say medieval times or, or basically pre-industrial times, because I've talked about this a lot. I wrote about it in, um, it was in 2018, an article about why companies should adopt work, uh, remote work. But I talked about how this, uh, post-industrial period would basically be like a blip on the radar screen and humanity, because humanity was one way for so many thousands of years. And then we had this few hundred years of the industrial boom. And now we have this era where people have gone completely the opposite for a while, for a, a few decades, for maybe a hundred years, where we're all living in separate boxes and we've lost that community aspect.  

Kristin:    00:21:46    And there is definitely no social safety net in a lot of places, at least in the United States, it's very slim to none. And there's problems in all different countries. So it's interesting how we're now kind of going back to basics where people are working from home again, whereas they used to work from home. And there's more of a focus on entrepreneurial work versus going to work in a factory. And, you know, before people used to work at Home Garden Farm, um, weld things, you know, make things, they had the baker, everyone had their own role, and now we're kind of coming into this new era where everyone can have their own role, but it's, it's location independent and mobile. And so the idea that your idea is so novel, it's so surreal to me because it's actually so logical. What's not logical is having everyone broken into these invisible borders.  

Kristin:    00:22:42    'cause we're one planet, we're one global humanity. Why don't we have something like this? And I think the answer to that comes through just human, like money and power and these human desires and other things that make life so messy. But yeah, I mean, in a way it's kind of futuristic to think of, was it Star Wars or Star Trek where, you know, each planet has its own global government, so to speak, but it does make sense that we would have, um, some sort of passport or some global identity for people who don't necessarily fit in with where they were born.  and don't live there anymore. Or maybe even never live there. Maybe they were born in another country as a US citizen, but they, they then have to renounce their citizenship to get rid of it, but they also can't really be stateless because we don't have a safety net for stateless people.  

Kristin:    00:23:32    That's like a big no-no. So, um, I like this idea, and you wrote, you talk also about how becoming a country will be competitive. So if you create a digital country that people can voluntarily join, that actually makes the concept of government into a marketplace which I thought was really interesting that we're already starting to see with the digital nomad and remote work visas. But that will just give people another option to, you know, voluntarily relinquish one citizenship and opt into this other one that has better benefits, a better value proposition, and a better cost structure. So, uh, let's talk about some of these, uh, elements individually.  So the first element that you made is the Nomad insurance.  So can you kind of define that for us, and then we'll just layer each one until we get to the country in the digital country? 

Sondre:    00:24:31    Yes. Okay. So, well, well, I, I first, you know, I, I just have to comment on, on that because, you know, your takes on this are great. By the way. I'm, I'm learning, uh, a lot on you reading the, uh, back a lot of this. You're adding a lot of new things and it's so great to listen to. But, um, the countries being in competition, by the way, I just have to, you know, one humble right here is this is one area where some of our wildest predictions have already come true. You know, we have it kind of on the books, you know, Sarah and at Web Summit, for example, making this prediction that we see this kind of competition between countries and cities, and we exemplify that with emergent of no matter remote work visas or cities kind of making marketplaces of providing incentives to recruit digital No. And internet companies. And that has totally come about. So  

Kristin:    00:25:22    Very quickly.  

Sondre:    00:25:24    Very quickly. Yeah. So, so that's, you know, an evidence that this is indeed happening. And, uh, so yeah. So no insurance.  

Kristin:    00:25:32    I add one thing to that because I, I wrote an article on the future of remote work before the pandemic, and one of the things I talked about was that there would be some type of global citizenship or taxation system. And then I think you wrote an article on Medium like few months later that was explaining your, the co the country concept. And I almost fell out of my chair. I'm like, that's exactly what we need. So I think it's only a matter of time. I mean, it obviously is only a matter of time before we have this in, you know, in real life. But I, I love that, that so many of us who have struggled with these issues for years are, are now just kind of making, like we ran out of patience, basically. Or I'm not creating my own country, but Right. I know <laugh>, after you've struggled with something for a few years, you're like, okay, let's just go ahead and do it, and then people will get on board later.  

Sondre:    00:26:25    Hmm. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So Nomad Insurance, so the, the way we think about the whole project is that we, I knew what a social safety net was, but I also knew that if we tried to build it all at once, it would take so long to be done with version one. So it was better if we took like pieces and made it into a product, and that we would start with a center piece. And we saw broadly what you earlier said, which is that digital nomads are just, they're early adopters of a new, of like, the new world in a way. Like they've, people who have seen the possibilities that the sort of new frontier opens up for and have taken advantage of it, but what they do now, everyone else does later. So that was sort of the analysis of why, and we knew that because of course we were, we were nomads and you know, even if you look out pre, you know, us, like early users of co-working spaces, certainly co-living, but even coworking and like Airbnb were a much higher degree of nomads.  

Sondre:    00:27:23    And then of course it went super mainstream later. So, so that's that. And so Nomad Insurance we saw as the sort of centerpiece product. We, we, we, we still have some improvements we wanna make to it so that it works in your home country as well, which is a later product improvement we wanna make. But the idea was to sort of like base package <laugh> sort of, so it's, uh, what is it, 40, $40 a month when you don't have the US add-on, and, uh, it covers it, it's the base package of everything that annulment might need. So that includes, uh, the health insurance kind of up to $250,000. It has certain key exclusions, but it's broadly, it's a lightweight health coverage when you're abroad. And then it also covers sort of like liability evacuation, which became extremely important during covid. We evacuated a third of our customers in, uh, March and April.  

Kristin: Wow.

Sondre:    00:28:16     Because we also cover like political evacuation and natural disaster evacuation. And, and you know, that's, I think that's a really key part actually of a nomad, a great nomad product. And then of course, it has this ability that it's fully flexible and sold directly to individuals, because the user we had in mind was ourselves. So we had to be able to imagine ourselves buying it. And so we knew we were buying it when we were abroad. We knew that we don't know exactly when we might go home. So it has to be this full flex thing, month to month to be relevant, month to month thing. So that became just the basis, and I think it was a great place to start. And then right after we had that, we started working on remote health, which was this, it's also health, but more complete and most importantly, including home country coverage.  

Sondre:    00:29:01    And then, you know, we had some add-ons to that and to maternity. And then later, you know, in a few months there's Remote doctor coming out, which is, that will be included in the insurance roughly, but it's so that you can talk to doctor virtually in any country and including getting prescriptions and referrals. And then at the end of the year, the remote retirement product is coming out, which we've also been working on almost since the start, because some of these things are hard to figure out the sort of legal and financial infrastructure, uh, we need to make. And, uh, so that's, those are two really big ones that I'm extremely excited about this year.  

Kristin:    00:29:34    Yeah, that's a great lesson in productivity, by the way, to take something so ambitious, like creating a, a global social safety net for millions, potentially billions of people and breaking it into small pieces. So whenever I think of things like, I'm trying to write a book right now, and I get really overwhelmed by all of the chapters in the book, but all you can do is write one word of one sentence, of one paragraph, of one page, of one chapter in one day, you know, and then you can add on to that later. So here, you guys took a really ambitious and overwhelming goal, and some would say even audacious, and you just broke it into its components and you started on one at a time, and just over time it was, they complete themselves. So we have, for people listening and we'll, we'll go over some of those questions from my Facebook group at the end on like the technicalities of what's covered and what's not.  

Kristin:    00:30:27    But, so we have the Nomad insurance, which is basically an emergency, uh, travel medical insurance, that short term that people can get month to month if they're going just on vacation somewhere, they don't have to be digital nomads, but they could also have it for years. They can stay on that insurance if they're traveling around. And then the Remote health insurance, the difference with that is that you offer company plans, so companies can ensure their employees and contractors under it. And then normal people, individuals can also get it at a, a higher rate than the travel medical insurance, but it can cover preexisting conditions and things that are more specific to their health and wellness versus an evacuation or an accident, like a car accident or snowboarding or something like that.  

Sondre:    00:31:17    Yep. Okay. That's a great, that's a really great summary. So  

Kristin:    00:31:22    <laugh>, I can, uh, also work for you guys. And then after that we have the virtual doctor option that's coming out, which I think is gonna be really useful, especially during this time of the pandemic. And then how is that pension going to work? Hmm. Can you give us some insight into the foundation of that and how people will pay in, what currencies can they use? What investments are they buying? What kind of returns are they getting? 

Sondre:    00:31:54  yes. In the sort of first version of the product to first talk about some of the things, how does it work? Which doesn't even touch the customer or, or you who are buying it, but which is, you know, how does it work, uh, on the backend? And essentially we create a trust for each person because there's one thing you wanna solve is you want, we want it to be portable so you can keep caving into saving into the same pension plan when you switch companies or, or customers or sort of clients if you're a freelancers. And also to be able to move to different countries. And also not to have to pay for it tax twice, which is a sort of big problem we had to avoid. Uh, and if you pay it, if there's a regular savings account, then you pay it when you get it without getting it.  

Sondre:    00:32:38    And this, this was sort of like the way to avoid that. So you have get this trust where you're the sole beneficiary essentially, and, uh, the company has the dashboard and then they sort of just add this on to one of your things together with the health insurance and, um, uh, that is then made available in a fund. So we're not making the fund, we're just contracting with a big fund company that's providing those funds. In our product development, we have put a lot of emphasis, emphasis on simplicity. So if you think about like, who is this for? This is not for the, let's say fire, although we have actually been greatly inspired by some ideas from fire, financial independence, retire early community. And I'll tell about that actually. It's been a key. Innovation comes directly from the Fire community, but, uh, we we're kind of going for just making it possible and really, really simple.  

Sondre:    00:33:28    Uh, so we're sort of going with fairly default funds, uh, collection of, for the most sort of standard portfolio as the default, because most people go for the default, which is something you can look into the data for, but most people just click next, next, next. Only some people are very motivated to, to research. So getting the default right and simple and good is something we put a lot of effort into. So, so the, the base is just that, you know, it's, you save 5% and you save into this portfolio, which is a very good one with, uh, sort of global equities being the, the central, which kind of is naturally balancing because it's worldwide, you know, it's in, uh, all around the globe.

Kristin: Okay.

Sondre:  And it's, uh, and it's stocks later we wanna do more on the investment side, but in the beginning it's just the simplicity and availability of it we're trying to make happen. And then we later wanna kind of,  

Kristin:    00:34:21    Oh, where would the trust be held in which country  

Sondre:    00:34:25    That might still actually, um, change. So I, I, I would want to update it is kind of going in a direction, but I will opt Okay. It's still, uh, kind of six to nine months away this product. So, uh, that could change. So I think I'll update on that later. But it's, it's going to be in one country and there are just a handful that's sort of up specialized in this sort of trust agreement, but that's, um, so I'll have to come back on that. I also wanted to add one innovation we're doing. So this is like, we're offering this baseline product, which is the one when we talk to users, they're most likely to add as a benefit.  

Kristin:    00:35:01    So this could be any individual. So you could be a freelancer from any country this would basically supplement any sort of retirement accounts they get from their company or if they're self-employed, if they have a Roth IRA or something like that in the US. This is just an extra, um, retirement fund that it's kind of crazy that more options like that don't exist.  

Sondre:    00:35:24    Yes. It's like an extra retirement, uh, fund. And, uh, as for like, so we avoid the double taxation as for the tax subsidy that varies by country, if you can like deduct this. Uh, so you don't get taxed for it, it, because it goes to the trust. But if you have to do the, if you can also get an incentive for it, which that is true in some countries, but we will kind of release this plan country by country, that's a bit complicated  

Kristin:    00:35:49    Because you'd have to communicate with each country, I'm guessing, or with lawyers from that country to figure it out.  

Sondre:    00:35:57    And then the other, the only sort of the innovative thing we have is that you can either choose this sort of standard option, which is like you retire at a specific age to target age, but we also have this other option target amount, which is that if you choose that the product works like this. And this was us trying to solve the issue of like, how can I get myself to save for this, uh, retirement, given that I'm a very risk willing person. This was what we came up with, which is that it's this idea of a perpetual or fixed income. If you only save a little bit more, you can get the amount forever, which means that you can retire whenever. And, uh, so we have this thing where you can choose your retirement place. So if you, you know, have a world map on the calculator, and you know, if you choose Buenos Aires, then we will show you which amount you need to save to be able to quote unquote retire in this location forever, because we pay it out differently as a so perpetual. So you get an amount every month for the rest of your life, even if you retire when you're 40.  

Kristin:    00:37:01    Wow. So as long as you invest to the exact amount for that place, basically your return can cover your cost of living in X country.

Sondre: Yes.

Kristin: It's so important because I went to grad school, and when I got out of grad school, I had to Google how much money I needed to save for retirement. And I went to business school. They didn't even tell us. I just used to read the Wall Street Journal on campus, and I figured out that I needed these retirement accounts. And I mean, at no point in my education, including higher education in grad school, did anyone ever mention this calculation or how to do it, or how much you should save for, it's just like, I guess education. They, the system just expects you to go into the workforce and then take whatever retirement option your employer offers. And so people end up locked into this system where they can get vested at a certain age, but then they don't even know if that money is going to cover their living expenses once they retire.  

Kristin:    00:38:02    And so then they also rely on social security to supplement that income. So here we have a situation where you guys are crunching the numbers for people and giving them very clear options. If I wanna live in Thailand, then over the next 10 years, I need to contribute this much money to my retirement fund. And then if I wanna stop working, I can or at least it takes away the, the pressure that you have to earn an income. And so you can live on that money if you wanna live cheaply, go to Bulgaria  uh, Southeast Asia, and then you have this creative freedom to work on your side hustles and your projects and change the world and all of that stuff without having to worry about how you're gonna pay your bills. That's really cool.  

Sondre:    00:38:48    Yes, exactly. That's exactly it. And that's exactly how we think about it. Uh, you know, what makes me motivated about that? I mean, I would rush to save that up exactly for what you're saying, not to retire, but to be free to work on whatever I want to. And, uh, that will indeed be, you know, more voluntary based projects, more side projects than, than it would've been otherwise. And, and that's what's inspiring about it.  

Kristin:    00:39:13    Very interesting. I'll definitely contribute. I have investments in all different countries. It's very unorganized, <laugh>, but I have found that there's better interest rates outside of the us That's a topic for, um, for another podcast though. So. Okay. Let's talk about the name of your country on the internet. So the name of it is Plumia. What is your, uh, well first I'll review this from your, from your medium article, the reasons that you, it talked about the motivation for creating a country. You have five things listed here. The first being that geographical borders are basically impractical. The second thing is that a lot of countries are basically bad value <laugh>. They provide very minimal services and benefits and return for your taxes. And then they're led by these corrupt and incompetent people who aren't qualified in a lot of scenarios. And then they're out there telling people what to do. The third thing he wrote is that people want a tribe, but don't have one. The fourth thing is that new technology opens up the possibility to make better countries. And most of the countries we have date back to hundreds of years ago. And then the fifth thing is that innovation and competition in the arena of citizenship would be good for everybody. Good for humanity. Um, is there anything that you would like to expound upon on any of those five things that you think is important for people as a takeaway?  

Sondre:    00:40:49    Well, I guess I would, since that was also mentioned earlier, I do think that that part about going from monopoly to competition in citizenship and for citizens is, if I were to boil it down to one thing, like if I was like, if this was the only conversation I had and I had to like share the central insight that, you know, we have to act upon is that we, that's a dynamic shift. And that is, we're in the middle of, so we are going from competi --monopoly in, uh, in countries to, to competition. And that completely changes what's possible to do within a country. And it opens up great vista of opportunity for countries or digital countries to attract citizens and, and companies. And, um, yeah. So, so that, and I do think that is good, but of course it will be a transition. And uh, you know, one of the things that really, the digital nomads, they, we got it right in the sense we're early adopters, but I think we also have a responsibility to kind of like, get everyone with the program, because I think it's about, it's kind of happening and the, the old world, it will kind of fail in all kind of funny ways 

Sondre:    00:42:04     you know, in the transition. And it won't always be clear what solution is, but if someone can find, you know, a place in the new world, right. And I would say by the time you have an online income, you have a place in the new world. Like that's, that's the, that's the key part. But then there are other parts, you know, like social safety net and other infrastructure that has to be rebuilt. And, um, if you believe that that's happening and that a lot of this infrastructure has to be rebuilt in a globalized, digital way, you know, there is a lot others that we aren't building and someone has to build. And, you know, I would say law contracts, you know, what you do today, you know, we hire someone, it's a contract. It's, it could be a contractor agreement from here to Argentina or a service agreement.  

Sondre:    00:42:46    How is exactly, is that enforceable? You know, it's, it's not really. So, you know, someone has to obviously build a, a digital court where people can make contracts, and then we'll provide a set of a set of judges. That's one example. Uh, global digital credit score. I know some people are working on this, but, you know, we'll unlock the whole, a lot of the financial industry on the internet so that you can, you know, be, you know, get, uh, mortgages as your nomad and other things like that. So, um, so these are some other kind of big things. There's a whole set. So I, um, and, uh, so that needs to be built and these are enormous opportunities as well. They're necessary, but they're also enormous opportunities. That would be, uh, my kind of like current going around trying to sort of shake people <laugh> into starting companies. It's, uh, the rest of the infrastructure needs to be rebuilt as well.  

Kristin:    00:43:38    I think it's definitely a mindset block because we've been living in this certain way for so many generations, and especially with war and weapons and violence, with the governments kind of being able to hold people down by force and the concept of a digital country, it kind of takes away that element because I mean, I guess you could have cyber warfare mm-hmm. But you no longer have violence over physical territory because you know that your passport, your citizenry, it's good everywhere. And your safety net doesn't care where you are. So I find that to be pretty interesting. And then also, we know we're still early adopters because of the mainstream media narrative, like I wrote a couple years ago about how the incentives for, uh, employment incentives are changing from incentives for Amazon and big companies to incentives for people, individual people to come work remotely from Kansas or Nebraska or all of these different places.  

Kristin:    00:44:49    And workers, I don't think have mentally grasped this shift of power and how quickly it happened. Like it, like it went from, you know, being employed by somebody and them owning you for 40 hours a week to, and now, like we, we basically set our own course and we make the rules as we go, but it's only that way if you grasp it <laugh>. And so a lot of people still haven't because it's scary or it seems scary. They haven't taken that initiative to really depend on themselves versus this other system. So I think that what you're making is actually making it so much easier for people because in creating this community, people see what they want reflected in the other people that are living in that safety net. So people that can travel anywhere, that have a health insurance, that have a retirement fund, <laugh> that have other, um, maybe you're doing meetups or retreats or things like that where people get to meet in real life and see like, these are other real people.  

Kristin:    00:45:52    And the more people that experience that when we hit a critical mass, it then becomes normal for, for this to be a way of life and for other people to, um, to join that. So yeah. I, I guess the big thing is going to be how do you get other countries to recognize that you're a country and to recognize, you know, to accept your passports coming into the airport. How do you protect yourselves from this inevitable backlash that comes from governments and politicians brushing you off, or like literally trying to take you down or take you out because it threatens their way of life. 

Sondre:    00:46:36     Yeah. So we do have a plan, uh, for that. And, uh, so I, I also just have to comment one thing on the set, which is that this image flashed in my mind of this like New York, it kind of, I have this like, uh, New York Times cartoon or Dilbert cartoon of like someone who's like inside a cage and like rattling the cage and screaming, and then the door is open.

Kristin: Yes.

Sondre: Like just turn around, like, which is, you know, how it sometimes feels like,  

Kristin:    00:47:02    Wasn't there like a, a science experiment or, or psychology experiment where they, I think it was testing with animals where wouldn't let the animals jump out of the box or out of the cage, and then they took the lid off and then they stayed in it. Anyway, it's like that <laugh>,  

Sondre:    00:47:18    It is very much like that. Yes. Yeah. The, this flea flea mosquito flea, uh, circus explos.  

Kristin:    00:47:23    Oh yeah. The fleas. Yep.  

Sondre:    00:47:25    That's right. For that. Well, you know, roughly our plan is we're building the global social safety net, and then, but it's for the first country on the internet, which we are developing in, in parallel and started that project. Now the, the, the, let's say the research part of the project, which is Plumia, and there is, uh, now the, the, there is something there called the passport project within Plumia. And, and then there's the community project and the Passport project, you know, has some great people on it, like people who absolutely know how this works, who's been, you know, been involved in setting up digital med remote work visas for different countries and for that have been involved in, in government and passport and, and also digital identity crypto thing. So we have, uh, that's a great group of people. The, the only, as for like preliminary, you know, there, there are some different approaches to it and depends where we start.  

Sondre:    00:48:15    So we had this idea from the start, like the very first merch safe wing made was a passport holder, which was shaped like a passport. And <laugh> that was, uh, the passport becomes this very salient object. But of course, it's also a very practical one that you use to cross borders. And, um, as we kind of over the first couple of years, we search different ways if you want to be recognized that I think it's more possible than people think, but that's a tall order. You, you sort of, you need a little piece of land and then you need to be declared that, uh, country and then, uh, you need to get everyone to acknowledge that.  

Kristin:    00:48:50    Right. I was gonna ask, are you having a capital somewhere like an island?  

Sondre:    00:48:55    Yeah. So I mean, our rough ideas was to set up embassies used the embassies system, which is a brilliant thing in the old world system. And we, we do use this thing where we kind of try to build on the old world infrastructure when it's relevant. That was the rough idea. In fact, the house I'm sitting is now, you know, the internet we've had for a couple of years was called, you know, it's the SafetyWing Embassy. We, we started as thinking this is the first SafetyWing embassy, because embassies of course is like a, a piece of land the size of like a house or a block that is a sovereign country.  

Kristin:    00:49:27    Right.  

Sondre:    00:49:28    But anyway, that's not our, our the most realistic plan we've found, just to skip right to that on passport is, is to kind of like, to use a meme word is to spac a country. It's, uh, what that means is to cooperate with a micro nation who has a passport that is already recognized and essentially, you know, if, if that, you know, whoever is running that country is interested to kind of create that, create like a secondary passport and use that to kind of like fast track a very us useful passport to market that we could sort of then have as a, as a, as part of our membership. So, so that's in terms of like realism, that's the most realistic one that we've found that is likely to work that we have seen work in other places  

Kristin:    00:50:16    Because there's this whole, I mean, God, it's, so, it's quite tragic actually the way that the passport system works now because so many peop-- it's so racist basically, and so many people are excluded. It's like, how powerful is your passport? In theory, your passport should be accepted in any country. It should be the world's most powerful passport because a lot of these restrictions on countries are either economic or related to some sort of conflict in the region or terrorism or something. So if you don't have you know, war, and you have a group of people that is economically sound and that also has this pension system and everything, then on paper, you know, your passport should be accepted in every country in the world. But I wonder how that will pan out. 'cause a lot of these micro nations have rather weak passports that aren't, you know, that they have to apply for the visas if they wanna go places. And I think a lot of digital nomads from Western countries would maybe end up having this one as like a novelty, but using their more powerful passport so they could have visa free travel everywhere. Well, maybe that won't be relevant if we have digital nomad visas in every country anyway. But I don't know. Yeah. If you guys thought about that,  

Sondre:    00:51:34    I mean, yeah, I mean we have, so I mean those we've been talking to, and there's one con one where we have, I wouldn't, I'm not sure if I could say advanced conversation, but at least conversations and uh, and that's a strong passport. So there are some micronations that have stronger passport than you would think, uh, because they have some relationship with the English Commonwealth or the EU. So, so there are some exceptions, but, uh, but that, I also wanted to answer the other part of your question, which was how would we deal with, um, you know, countries being posted to this? And you, you mentioned, you basically kind of answered the main part of that question, which is that we will, our guess our prediction is that the, all the people who are early to discover this will cease the opportunity, not revolt against the threat. And those who are all events, the threat will do it when it's too late. Sort of. That's how kind of I would predict that it plays out because it's first an opportunity. And like you said, if you have a social safety net and you have income on the internet, that's the major kind of complaints people will have for someone entering your country for a while. Right. Gone. 

Kristin:    00:52:37    Right,  Right.  

Sondre:    00:52:37    And, uh, it's only win. So the logic becomes closer to tourism, uh, even, you know, as far as the countries are concerned. And, and that's something you want, not something you, you drive out. And so that's number one. And, uh, so the opportunity will, will outweigh the, the threat. We are also working very positively. So we have this policy project where we are writing out policy recommendations to best adapt to this world for geographical countries. And our plan is to kind of complete that and then send it out to ministers in all the countries, uh, with the hope that they would take the positive, the, the seize the opportunities attitude instead of kind of like, you know, rebelling, I guess, uh, threats. And so our approach is broadly friendly. Like, we we're encouraging and I think that's the only way to succeed, right. Because we wanna have a great passport. We wanna, and that means we wanna have a friendly relationship with Landholding countries.  

Kristin:    00:53:32    <laugh>. Yes. <laugh>. Yeah. It's, it's, well this is something that I've asked other people to build. Maybe you guys wanna build it. I'll, I'll happily collaborate, but we need like a kind of remote work lobbying effort that is a representative of remote workers everywhere. Um, it, especially the US needs one because our whole country is built on financial interests and lobbying efforts, but also for the world. So I think you guys would be a good, um, organization to take that on. Um, working for individual rights on behalf of a community of people from all different backgrounds that, you know, individually our voices get drowned out, but together as a group, soon we might be one of the biggest countries. <laugh> by citizenry.   

Sondre:    00:54:20    Yes, exactly.  

Kristin:    00:54:21    <laugh>,  

Sondre:    00:54:22    No, I think that's right. And uh, I will definitely Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. And maybe blew me up is the right entity for that.  

Kristin:    00:54:29    Will you guys be, um, do you have any plans for maybe having an official currency like Bitcoin or anything like that, integrating crypto into your nation state?  

Sondre:    00:54:40    So our approach to, uh, Plumia with the exception of the passport, which is a very practical project, that is where we're kind of looking to get a passport to market in a sense. Like for, for the membership. Our approach to billing country and the internet is that we want to start by learning everything and, and kind of developing. So we are, we started this community that we're inviting people to participate in, kind of inspired by the sort of federalist papers before the United States finding, which was this kind of like community blog, I don't know, like collecting all the sort of wisdom and knowledge that had accumulated because you kind of, you wanna do it right. Uh, for such a project to succeed. And so that's the sort of project that we're, we're organizing. Now it's in some ways an intellectual project to, to gather and develop all the, the knowledge, uh, that is relevant that has come up through, that people have found out over the last couple hundred years. Uh, not least, of course the most relevant, which is that thing that is peculiar about internet countries, which is the possibilities you have for crowdsourcing knowledge and funding and, and you know, the great opportunities you have to use crowd technology to make the countries like massively better. Yeah. So anyway. And, and this --

Kristin:    00:55:55    like  an API for a country <laugh>.  

Sondre:    00:55:57    Yes, exactly. An API for a country probably should have an API <laugh>. So that's <laugh> that's broadly our, our approach, uh, to that is that we, we haven't, with the exception of that, we will make a passport that we'll have a digital and, and a physical component and will work. We haven't committed to the, the structures of the country yet, but we've started the effort to decide to figure out.  

Kristin:    00:56:23    Okay. Exciting. And then just playing devil's advocate here, there are a lot of people, I don't know the exact number 'cause we have such scant data on this population of people, but hopefully that changes too. But there's a lot of people, let's say the Flag theory community, um, Nomad capitalists, community of nomads or location independent people that believe that taxes theft. And I'm not saying that all of them believe that, but a lot of them think that and a or they want to pay zero taxes. So they want to be able to live in the world anywhere with paying zero taxes. What would your rebuttal or argument be for people that have been paying zero taxes? Because the old system doesn't work anymore. It doesn't make sense to them, which I totally get Um, but they also need to live on land and use some public services at some point does PLUMIA and the social safety net then make that argument no longer applicable because you're offering citizenship in a country with the safety net, with the benefits so that when they are paying 10% quote unquote taxes, they're getting value in exchange for that.  

Sondre:    00:57:45    Yes. So I would broadly say that the difference is that it's voluntary and competitive. So which means that it, but the vol, but ethically speaking, the voluntary part is the crux here. So, you know, many people try to kind of like shoehorn, you know, if I were to steelman the, the, that sort of libertarian critique, you know, you know, would say that Burke and some others, they try to sort of shoehorn the consent and non-live part of a nation state by saying that's, uh, it's a social contract. But is it really though, sort of like that would be their critique? Like you're born into it and you can't really get out of it. And and that's true when it is a monopoly. And so, but when something is voluntary, meaning that you can just pause your subscription, you can right then  

Kristin:    00:58:34    And you can opt in,  

Sondre:    00:58:36    You can opt in and you can opt out. It becomes like a product. And there's nothing unethical about buying a product, right. If you, because by default you believe that it is worth paying the next month. And by the way, I should say that that 10% thing, that's just an idea we have. That would be super simple and you know, I hope we can succeed with it. 

Kristin:    00:58:56   A flat rate. Yeah.  

Sondre:    00:58:56    Something, but it might be indeed be sort of 10% or a certain amount for example. Right. For, for people who prefer to do that,   

Kristin:    00:59:05   that would be really amazing if people from especially outside of the US could actually change their tax domicile to <laugh> Plumia and, you know, to avoid double taxation or, you know, maybe either way they could write it off or deduct it, credit it to their tax base in, in another country. It's more complicated with the US of course, whether we're talking about healthcare or citizenship or taxation. But, um, yeah, we'll have to see how things turn out. Um, when do you expect to have Plumai launched, if that's the right word, word for it? Founded, officially founded?   

Sondre:    00:59:42    We, uh, we, we have been sort of a bit hesitant to publishing the, the timeline. We, we do have an internal timeline, but, um, I, I, I should describe the reason is that same thing I pointed to earlier, which is that we're in this research and development phase and we wanna be confident before we, we announce, but um, the Passport project is live, that has a timeline. The community project is live. So participating in the creation of the first country and the internet is something we, you know, that is possible to participate in. And we would encourage anyone who feel called to participate in that to, to reach out. And um, but uh, if I were to sort of say, you know what, my guest timeline, I would say that something you know, will happen probably within two years. That's, uh, but what exactly will be, that's still too early to say.   

Kristin:    01:00:36    Okay, We'll take that for now. You guys have accomplished a lot in two years anyway, so I know we're going a little bit over time, so I'll use the lightning round then to get to some of the questions from my Facebook group. I saw on your website that all new policies will include Covid-19 coverage. And Beverly asked, has anything changed with coverage since the pandemic started? And do they need to read any fine print when it comes to that to see if they would be covered for Covid or any pandemic in the future?  

Sondre:    01:01:09    No, we should probably re-rephrase that because that was relevant for a while. But by this point I think yeah, by this point everyone will, will have a policy that, uh, that is the new policy. So, uh, so no, uh, there, uh, if she bought the policy within the, since August last year or, or restarted it, like, meaning that it has been more than 12 months during that time, then she will be on the, the new text automatically.

Kristin: Okay.

Sondre:  Um, so, so no, no need to read, uh, fine print. It will include covid and, uh, quarantine coverage.  

Kristin:    01:01:44    Great. Yeah. Everyone hates fine print <laugh>. Okay. Paul asks, um, if you get sick or in an accident, do you have to pay out of pocket upfront and then get reimbursed? And if so, how long does that process take? I think I saw something where you can get either pre-approval or if it's an emergency you can pay and then get reimbursed.  

Sondre:    01:02:05    Yeah. The best I would say user experience is to reach out in advance when you're going to, to a medical provider because then we will send an, an arrange with direct billing so that you won't have to pay and get reimbursed. And that's by far the best.

Kristin: Oh, okay.

Sondre:  Uh, if you are in an emergency, there's a, another, a different thing called a guarantee of payment, where we also arrange with pay, because that can be expensive, then we will pay the hospital directly. If you don't do any of these, you can still just go to any hospital, pay yourself and then send the claim after on the website. But, um, that's more like the sort of plan B. The best is to, to, to reach out, to call us, uh, when you're, when you're going to the hospital.  

Kristin:    01:02:47    Okay. And if people don't do any of that and they just go through the regular claims process, Allie asked, do the documents have to be translated into English? And how friendly is that process? How long does it take? Because all of us who've been through a claims process with an insurance company, like their motive is to not pay you it seems like. Yes, with Safety Wing, it's just to pay within the terms of the policy efficiently. So yeah. What do you need to translate things into English or like how painful is that process for people to get out of successfully?  

Sondre:    01:03:25    Yes. Well, so, so we are about to go live with something that improves it quite substantially. I'll mention that. So usually it just takes, I would say, what is the, the standard is less than seven days, which is too long.

Kristin: Oh wow. That's so fast.

Sondre: Um, yeah, but, but I should say that sometimes the thing that can happen is that some pieces of information is missing and you know, so sometimes when you have these things where things take long, it's that that's usually the cause we are implementing, you know, a new way of handling claims that makes it much more lightweight, uh, and reduces it to sort of one to two days for smaller claims and, and up to three days for, for larger ones, which we've been working on for a long time. And that's going live in, in a couple of months. So that's going to be a great improvement. Uh, as for the documentation, no, that doesn't need to be, uh, translated, just attached.  

Kristin:    01:04:16    Okay. Wow. That's still fast compared to what I've experienced. Um, Karen asks, what covers prescriptions? Would the nomad insurance cover it or remote health for pre-existing conditions?  

Sondre:    01:04:28    For preexisting only remote health for, uh, so Nomad Insurance would cover prescriptions you get after you got the insurance, but it wouldn't cover something you like. If you have an ongoing treatment plan, an ongoing subscription, and then you buy nomad insurance, then you can't use the insurance to pay for like the, the thing. But if you got the diagnosis after you got it, then it would be, uh, eligible.  

Kristin:    01:04:53    Okay.   

Sondre:    01:04:54    That's the word it is. 

Kristin:    01:04:54    Ted had a similar question about that, but I wanna add to his question. Like he's asking about different types of therapy that you guys would provide for remote health. Are non-traditional health therapies approved, like acupuncture for example, or mental health or any natural therapies?  

Sondre:    01:05:15    Yes, there is some coverage for that. I don't have the sort of text top of mind, but yes, if you scroll through you will find it and there is some, some coverage for that.  

Kristin:    01:05:25    Okay. And then David asks, what happens when he turns 70? This is a big one because you know, it goes up to 69. I have not been able to find any sort of comparable insurance that covers people 70 and older. So why is that? Does that have something to do with the underwriters or the industry?  

Sondre:    01:05:47    Yes. That has to do with, uh, the, the underwriter we are as mentioned shifting. So that might be improved in the future as we take on more responsibility. I mean, eventually we have this project to be completely independent of other factors and then, you know, we can indeed make the product the way we want it to be and remove the remaining constraints that we, the product currently has, this being one of them. And another one being the home country coverage. 'cause ideally we want no insurance to also work at home.  

Kristin:    01:06:17    Okay. And that leads me to a question from Tammy who is a licensed insurance agent. And she's asking, is there a way to get life insurance through your company?  

Sondre:    01:06:28    We have not made that yet. Uh, something like life, certainly a very cool version of life disability is on a roadmap, however, so we will get to that, uh, later. However, it does require a bit of creativity because, uh, we have some ideas we want to, to do, but, uh, that is on a roadmap and likely next year.  

Kristin:    01:06:50    Okay, great. Let me think of, there was another thing I just wanted to tell people because we do have a lot of US citizens listening. So the US citizens, there's a box on the nomad insurance that can cover you in the US but it excludes US citizens. So this would be for international travelers that are traveling to the US so they can get coverage in the US for that. And then the remote health would be also for US citizens, but um, would that cover US citizens in our home country, any amount of time per year,  

Sondre:    01:07:29    If you buy remote health but you don't have home country in the US, uh, you can get this add-on then and it can be up to six months in the us That's for the base baseline remote health product that the standard pricing. Okay. Uh, with this add-on that you can see on the website, we also have this possibility to buy an insurance in the US is, but that's actually something we've made together with UnitedHealthcare. We're not fully happy about that because it's not on the main, but it is possible to buy if you're like 12 months out of the year or more than six months out of the year in the us. So those are sort of the two option and that one costs more, more money. The US health insurance regulations are very difficult on this to, to figure out. And we're still working on what we of course want to do, which is that US citizens can buy the standard product at the same price and be up to 12 months in the, in the US.  

Kristin:    01:08:21   Okay.  So we'll link for everyone listening, we'll link to everything in the show notes so you guys can check out the pricing and all the different add-ons and features and options and coverage limits and all that great stuff. So, okay. Before we let you go, since you are Norwegian, and that's one of my favorite countries, I have this <laugh> question, this story prompt of something that you learned while being a sniper in the Norwegian army that you still use today. What is the skill that you learned in the Norwegian Army?  

Sondre:    01:08:52    Yes. So the, the <laugh>, right? So yeah, so I I was, there's a draft in Norway I should add. So like you, you have to go to the military. There was one time where we, or several times I had this experience where we were part of like an exercise and we would walk through the mountains in like 30 degrees to just like northern Norway. It's very cold. It was during the winter. And because we sort of were snipers, we always had to go ahead as part of these exercises. And uh, we, uh, at one point in particular, I remember we had been dragging for 36 hours, you know, carrying sort of 50 kilos on and also dragging this kind of bag behind us. I don't know what the name is, but, um, so we went, we were exhausted and it was so cold.  

Sondre:    01:09:37    And then we'd also gone down in a valley where for like a little while it just went over zero and then it rained. So we were extremely uncomfortable and we hadn't eaten either, by the way. And then we had to dig ourselves down into the snow to kind of make a position in this like war game. We were playing this exercise as it's called, and it, we were five people. And so this, like, we kind of hit the sort of the edges of like human, what people can tolerate. Yeah. And uh, and we, it happened like one by one people sort of gave up. That was a very interesting thing, which I also saw many other kid times in the military, which is that when things are like real crises, the thing that people do is actually that they give up. They just stop doing things.  

Sondre:    01:10:17    Even that's also true in the opposite crisis, like when it's in emergencies, like fire on a plane. But, you know, we had some situations like that just inaction is the panic response, which I didn't know. So, and, uh, you know, the, the lesson of this from the company and like one by one they fell out and eventually it was just me and one person left and several of those people had to like, cut off toes after that evening. It was like super cold from, from Frosts, the step down in the snow

Kristin: from Frostbites.

Sondre:  Yes.

Kristin: Wow.

Sondre:  So the, the lesson from that that it also took, you know, were, was that I realized that this kind of not giving up is like the best, uh, kind of insurance about dealing with any crisis in the future. And that's something that we've applied in the company and that we kind of have this thing called all problems are solvable, which we re repeat like a mantra all the time. But <laugh>, it's true, it's a fact. But it's very important to remind yourself when you're sort of, when you can't see any way up with the right knowledge, there is nothing kind of standing between you and, and where you want to be than knowing how to, and I think that's, that's something you really want to build up your strength in, you know, in peace time and not when the crisis hits.  

Kristin:    01:11:28    Yeah. I love that. I, I have this quote, I forget who said it, but it's the only way out is through. Yeah. You just have to keep going and, and in that way things will change. The situation will change, it will resolve itself, but when you stop, you just cut off all potential of that happening. And the only option then is failure because you didn't keep going. So that is a good motto. And you kept all of your toes, I'm guessing.  

Sondre:    01:11:57    Yes, I have all 10 toes.  

Kristin:    01:11:58    So it was a win-win. <laugh>. <laugh>. What are a couple places that, um, for people who've never been to Norway, maybe some off the beaten path towns or destinations that they should go check out?  

Sondre:    01:12:12    I, you know, I'm from Bergen. It's a beautiful town. If you're going to fly in, I would definitely use that as your base. It's a beautiful city. Yeah. It like, hasn't changed in a thousand years. It's so quaint and cute and   

Kristin:    01:12:24   I love it there, 

Sondre:    01:12:24     you know, just beautiful. And uh, and then, uh, I would say if you take the train from Oslo to Bergen to stop at, uh, Finse Station and do biking down to Rallarvegen, which is a, this is an amazing trip and it costs nothing and there is this, but just taking this train is amazing because it goes over the mountains so you sort of get to see everything and then you stop at the station and you can, uh, sort of bike downhill for a long time because the train is up the mountains. So this is, uh, I don't know many people who do this, but it's amazing and I really enjoyed it when I was growing up.  

Kristin:    01:13:04    So where, where does that train start at?  

Sondre:    01:13:07    Uh, uh, Oslo or Bergen and then, uh, the stop is Finse.  

Kristin:    01:13:12    Okay. We'll put that in the show notes. I did the train from Oslo to Bergen and that was really nice. And have you ever taken the ferry up the coast, like Trondheim or Lofoten?  

Sondre:    01:13:25    <laugh>? Uh, I have, uh, I have actually not, uh, taken that. I have been through the fjords lot though, uh, but never with that particular, uh, boat. Although I hear it's, uh, amazing. It goes all the way up. Yeah,  

Kristin:    01:13:38    I haven't done it. I'm gonna do it next time. 'cause I've only done the trains, trains and planes. But I saw, I think where was I, I think maybe in Svolder there and I saw where the ferry stops there and how big it is. And it just looked so beautiful, the scenery, and I was very jealous of all of the people getting on and off the ferry. I was like, next time I'm gonna do that. It's the slow way, but I think it takes a day or so to get from, maybe it's Oslo or I don't know where it leaves from, but it goes up the whole coast of Norway. So anyone listening, definitely check that out. And then my last question for you would be, you've been working remotely, you've been working for yourself and startups and freelancing for so long. What is one productivity tip or tool for other people that are working from home or working remotely while traveling?  

Sondre:    01:14:31    I mean, the one that took me long to discover is set by a thousand people. But if you're not working a separate place from where you are relaxing, you will not be productive <laugh> because you will run your leisure habits through your workday. But, uh, you know, another one that I do, which is, you know, if, if you want to have slack in your life, you have to prioritize. So like most of the output from the things you do comes from the few things. And the way you discover that is by doing the most impactful thing. And once you've done that, then you can be, give yourself a lot of slack, uh, at the same time, be really crooked.  

Kristin:    01:15:03    Yes. That's something I've been trying to apply more and more in my life and just saying no to more things, cutting more things away, eliminating the non-essential things. And I saw something that you had posted on Twitter about how your team does planning and decision making. And one of the things that you do at the end is once you've come up with the action items, uh, on the most important steps towards your goal is that you only do the top 20% of them <laugh>. So that's Yes, <laugh>, that's a good way to do it right there. Just cut off 80%. Yeah,  

Sondre:    01:15:40    Exactly. And you shouldn't do them. Like, this is the key part of prioritizing is to know what to not do, which is a lot.  

Kristin:    01:15:47    Yeah. Very, very good. Not adding 10 productivity apps, just eliminating 80% of the things that you do <laugh>.  

Sondre:    01:15:55    Exactly.  

Kristin:    01:15:56    Well, thank you, Sondre. This has been such an enlightening conversation. I'm so excited to see what, uh, Safety Wing builds in the future. And I hope that everybody listening joins in on that conversation, on building the first digital country. I know that I will. So I'll reach out with your team and would be happy to contribute and collaborate, answer any questions. And I would love to be a part of building the first country on the internet, so happy to help.  

Sondre:    01:16:24    Thank you, Kristin. Uh, it, you know, it's been such a, a pleasant conversation and I've learned a lot, so really, really enjoy it. So thank you very much.  

Kristin:    01:16:32    Thank you so much. Bye everyone.