How to Invest Like a Boss, Start Companies, and Travel the World with Sam Marks

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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:  You know, critics of remote work say that you need meetings and face-to-face interaction in order to get things done. But we all know that communication and community are two of the most important factors for success in a location independent lifestyle. So every time you listen to an episode of this or any podcast that you find value in, I challenge you to share the wealth. Take a moment to think of one person in your professional or personal network who might benefit from listening in. Then share it with them and tell them why. Doing this will help you absorb and apply the info that most resonated with you from the episode, putting it into practice in your own life while delivering value to someone you care about. And with that, let's get on with today's show.  

Kristin:    00:02:11    Hello. Hello everybody. I think that we are live. It is Tuesday. We have a live podcast of Badass Digital Nomads with Sam Marks, who is the founder of Coworker.com. He's a long-term entrepreneur and traveler, and he's also the host of Invest Like a Boss Podcast <laugh>. So if you are just joining the live stream right now, welcome to a live recording of Badass Digital Nomads. The co-hosts of that show is Johnny fd, who was also on Badass Digital Nomads. So a lot of bad asses around here. Sam is definitely one of them. And Sam is, can I call you a serial entrepreneur? Sam, Sam's a serial entrepreneur who is the co-founder or the founder of Coworker.com, and he's gonna deliver massive value today on a variety of topics. We don't have that much time guys. We only have about 30 minutes, but Sam knows a lot about long-term travel, location, independence, online business, entrepreneurship, financial freedom, starting companies. So bring your questions, get them ready. We will answer questions from the live stream near the end of the interview, and also some questions from my Facebook group. So if you haven't checked out, Invest Like a Boss yet, go over and Google it while we start the show because you're gonna definitely wanna ask Sam some questions. So welcome Sam.  

Podcast Interview:

Sam:    00:03:38    Thanks Kristin. It's great to be reunited after some time together in Lithuania. It was great to hang out over there.  

Kristin:    00:03:45    Yeah, so actually Sam and I, we met through Johnny Fd, who's like our mutual friend, and Johnny loves to like post and share where he's traveling to. And he said he was going to Vilnius Lithuania, which is someplace I've always wanted to go. I love the Baltic states, I think they're super underrated destinations. So I basically invited myself, although he did say, does anyone wanna meet up <laugh>? So I was in Paris and then I was going to Norway, so I kind of went out of the way to go to to Vilnius, so I got to meet Sam as well, and we had, we had a good time there. So that was your home base for a while, right?  

Sam:    00:04:23    That's right. And what a perfect diversion for you. I'm, I'm sure you enjoyed it. Uh, it definitely beat my expectations, but I, I just thought it was a fantastic place.  

Kristin:    00:04:32    Yeah, I actually have a few videos coming out about Vilnius, so I know that when we were there, you filmed or you recorded an episode of Invest Like a Boss, and I actually recorded a video tour of the blockchain center there because one of my subscribers asked me to <laugh>. And so I didn't even know that place existed. So I did that. We were all kind of like running around working, uh, filming recording content and, and yeah, it's a great, it's a great spot. How long were you there total?  

Sam:    00:05:03    I was there about five weeks, and that was kind of four weeks based in <inaudible>. And then I did a little bit of tour to Belarus. Lavia didn't make it up to Estonia because I'd been before, but I just find the, the Baltics are a really exciting place and a a really quickly emerging tech scene as well. Some really impressive companies coming outta there.  

Kristin:    00:05:22    Yeah. So, well, I wanna get some of your background for people who don't know you, but what do you look for in a destination? You've been traveling for many years now, you've been to many countries. So what are some of the characteristics that you look for? Because you're not just going for fun, you're going to work, you're going to scout out new places for offices, potentially maybe set up partnerships with coworker, maybe look to hire employees. So what are some of the things that you're looking for when you choose a place to set up as a home base for a while?  

Sam:    00:05:55    Well, I would say now my travel is, is a lot less limited or a lot more limited rather than it was three or four years ago. So for instance, now I'm going to look for setting up a home base in Barcelona, whereas two years ago it was Hong Kong and a year before that it was Bangkok. And the year before that it was Singapore in a life before that I was living in Scotland for about three years, setting up a business. And most of those have a, a purpose to 'em in the case of Barcelona for our business. Now Europe is kind of the, the most central place that we can be located to handle Asia and also handle the Americas in terms of business. And then Barcelona's just a great place to be. You can also hire people for a third the price of say, Munich or London, but you get some really, really top talent there because people are willing to move there, take a pay cut, uh, and still work long hours, but they have a little bit of a better culture and a nicer city to live in that's also more affordable.  

Sam:    00:06:50    So I, I just think it's a great city really, really quickly growing tax scene. A lot of companies are, are shifting their base or opening satellite office there for the reasons that I just mentioned. And hey, it's Spain, it's the Pearl of Spain, isn't it? So it's a great place to be.  

Kristin:    00:07:08    Definitely. You know, a lot of people think that Europe is an expensive place to be, but it's really not an expensive place to live. I think it can be pricey if you're going there on vacation or your honeymoon or going there during high season, but for quality of life and cost of living I think has a really good balance. And then it also has the good infrastructure, great internet educated population, and it's generally pretty safe. So of course the weather's pretty good in Barcelona, so I think you do get a really good work life balance there. And then also the time zone, being in California this week and next week, it's really difficult because I'm 15 hours behind Asia and nine hours behind Europe. So I don't even <laugh>, I don't even know how people function here if they're working remotely.  

Sam:    00:07:57    California's a tough one, especially if you're doing international business. It's very tough. Uh, I think for international business, either being in Asia or Europe is the best. I used to spend a lot of time in Asia working with both Europe and the Americas, and you would basically get a full day to yourself working on, with your head down, doing what you need to do. And by the kind of late afternoon Europe wakes up, be able to work with them. And then by your evening time you can handle a few emails, couple check-in calls with whoever's in the America, and then you're off to bed. And so I always found it a very productive time, uh, zone to be on in Asia. But in terms of just kind of work-life balance, I think that Europe works the best if you're dealing with global customers.  

Kristin:    00:08:34    Yeah, I, I completely agree. And I'll just fill people in if you're just coming onto the live stream, we have Sam Marks here from Coworker.com and Invest Like a Boss. So let us know your questions if you're in the live chat. But Sam and I are both from Florida, and what I found out when I was researching for this podcast is that we both studied abroad at 19, he went to Switzerland and I went to Costa Rica. So even though we were kind of living parallel lives for a really long time, we never crossed paths for a couple decades after that. Now in hindsight, it, it seems like this kind of lifestyle for people like Sam and I who have been fortunate enough to fall into it kind of from an early age before there was were many words to describe what it is, how to do it, how to be location independent, how to work remotely, how to work online, and how to be financially independent.  

Kristin:    00:09:29    Before these were kind of all buzzwords. We started out little by little just kind of figuring it out how it worked as we went on. So can you take us back, Sam, did you know in your wildest dreams that this was going to be your lifestyle when you got older? What were you thinking when you were in high school? Did you ever have an idea of what you wanted to be when you grew up? Did you wanna be like a firefighter or did you always wanna start a business? And kind of what was your thought process as you started getting into this kind of remote or location independent lifestyle so early on before there was really a roadmap for that?  

Sam:    00:10:10    Great question. Well, that goes back, I have to, to open up a few chapters that I haven't thought about recently. But, you know, my parents, you know, we grew up very middle class, but one thing that I always appreciated about my parents and their lifestyle was they never missed any baseball game. They were always available, do a kind of two or three day vacation a few times a year, and they really always managed their own schedule. If I got sick at school, my parents would come and pick me up. And a lot of kids, they were a lot, you know, had a lot more shiny things than I did, but, but they never had that luxury of having their parents kind of always being able to, you know, spend time with 'em and, and go to their events. And I always thought that that was something that was admirable and and worth striving for.  

Sam:    00:10:52    So from a very young age, I always wanted to build a business. At the same time. I was always extremely bored kid. I was a kid that was playing baseball and biting my nails and just couldn't wait to, to move about a little bit. So I guess a little bit of that a DD has has stuck into my DNA and kept me on the move, kept me exploring and discovering new places and trying new different types of lifestyles. But really what happened in college was when I was a freshman, I got arrested four times for underage drinking. I wanted to have my own business, but I was also very interested in doing something in criminology, like in the DEA or FBI or some type of, uh, CIA kind of secret service type of thing. I was always thirsty for adventure. And what happened when, when I got those four, you know, arrests or citations for something stupid, well all of a sudden that that was in a reality and actually getting a job was not really a reality, uh, at a high level without on your record getting outta college.  

Sam:    00:11:46    So I needed to on my own feet and for myself. So then that drive to create your own business really, really came back. And after that really hard year as a freshman in college, I took kind of what was remaining in my college fund and I'm like, you know, I need to, I need to try something new. I need a wild new experience. I need to explore something else. And that's when I decided to go to go live abroad. And lo and behold, the drinking age in, uh, Switzerland is 18. So I was able to go over there and not skip a beat in my college habits and college ways and really enjoy, you know, just a different lifestyle, but also just open my eyes to the world, you know, in, in the US or anyone living anywhere gets used to a certain lifestyle, a certain framework.  

Sam:    00:12:33    And if you stay in that framework for too long, you think that that is representative of the world. You forget that any place you go in the world is different and is gonna have different opportunities. And when I went over to Switzerland when I was 19, we basically staying at the top of a Alps village and my first impression was, wow, there's no big grocery store, there's no Walmart, there's literally these little co-ops that have half of what you need, third of what you would find in a typical Walgreens or CVS in the US. And it just, it just opened my eyes to, wow, this, this needs so much more now, actually they don't, because I was naive at the time, that's their way of life, and you don't actually need a Walmart on a small village in Switzerland. But it really got the gears clicking and thinking, wow, I can take my knowledge of what I've learned in the US and some of the advantages and development that's been created there, and maybe I can bring it to a place in the world that I might actually enjoy living more.  

Kristin:    00:13:28    So, wow. I mean, a lot of people ask me, how do you become a digital nomad? And I always say that there's as many ways to becoming a digital nomad or, you know, working for yourself, whatever it is, as there are people in the world, because everyone has their own path. And I think it's really powerful to hear how you got arrested four times in college. And then did I read that you got kicked out of college or did you finish college at all?  

Sam:    00:13:57    So I got kicked outta my major. So Dean says, you're out of criminology, you're on, I dunno if any, have you seen this movie? Uh, animal House?  

Kristin:    00:14:06    Yeah, my dad loves that movie.  

Sam:    00:14:09    My dad loves it too, and it's, it transgressed generations. But I was on this quote unquote double secret probation where if I messed up, I wasn't just getting kicked outta school, I was going to jail for a while. So they, they're like, you can stay in, but you're out of this major. The only thing you can get into, only major will let you into is business. So I had to go into business and actually my business major at Florida State University was, in my opinion, basically just a waste of time. What was good was forcing myself out of a really difficult position where my parents had pulled my college tuition, I had to get a job, you know, I couldn't participate in any of the typical college activities because if I got in trouble again, I was, I was a basically, and, um, you know, it was the first real big challenge of my life. I had to, I had to overcome that, and I just focused all of my energy into being productive, starting a business, joining all these, you know, college programs and leadership councils that I never ordinarily would've. And I think that's really what separates a very productive life and maybe a, a less fortunate life, is just learning how to overcome obstacles and turning what would a lot of people would say is bad luck into an opportunity.  

Kristin:    00:15:18    And it's interesting of how both of us ended up in this similar place, at least with our own businesses, but came through very different ways. And so for people watching or listening, just to know that you can do that, even if you get in trouble, even if you mess up, even if you get arrested or almost get arrested, it doesn't have to be follow these exact rules and go to this school and then get these grades and get this job. I don't believe you've ever had a real job either. I haven't had a real <laugh>, I've never had a, an actual salary job. I went straight from college to working for myself in real estate, but I was kind of the opposite in college where I was more of a goodie two shoes. I never got in trouble my entire life. I never even got detention.  

Kristin:    00:16:05    I was getting straight A's I was following the rules, I was teaching my teacher's English class, you know, because she didn't feel like teaching it. So she'd be like, oh, Kristin will do it. So I kind of was this goody two shoes who followed all of the rules, but still didn't fit into the expectation of what was supposed to happen after you graduate from college and, and get a job. And so I became kind of a self-inflicted outcast when I studied abroad at 19. And I had similar realizations where I saw that you could live in a different way. And I was kind of annoyed, like, why didn't anyone tell me I could live in Costa Rica? And I li-- I lived in Costa Rica because I got a scholarship. So again, like that kind of nerdy lead scholar over achiever mentality, but it just goes to show that, that whether you have this plan or goal or you're following all the rules, or you are a kid with a lot of energy who's maybe getting into trouble on accident, you can still end up figuring it out for yourself and kind of making your own path.  

Kristin:    00:17:13    So I think that's really cool to share with people. So even if your parents expected something of you, you were like, well, I think I'm just gonna go with this because this is what feels legit or this is what feels authentic. And then you find yourself in that situation. So what, what did you do after college?  

Sam:    00:17:32    So after the studying abroad, actually that seed was planted for me. I mean, I just loved getting on a train and whipping around Europe and you know, when I was doing it then I was doing it on absolute shoestring. A lot of times if hostels were too expensive, we'd sleep outside at parks or in train stations, didn't skip a beat. Absolutely loved it. So when I got back to the US I was immediately thinking that after college I wanted to, I wanted to go to Europe and be a traveling salesperson and just ride trains around and do some type of sales, even though I never really had a background in sales, just thought that would be really interesting. But what happened in college was as I got closer to graduating, I realized the same thing. It's gonna be very difficult to get a job, so I need to need to actually start something.  

Sam:    00:18:17    And at the time, Facebook had just opened up maybe at five or 10 colleges. It was mostly Ivy League, and then they were opening up to all colleges, and then while I was still in college, they were opening up to, they were planning to open up to the rest of the world. What I wanted to do was take Facebook and apply it to Greek life, which is fraternities and sororities. Mm-Hmm. And I was plugged pretty deeply into the network. So I ended up starting a social network, it was called the Greek Faces. And after, when I became a senior, we ended up selling that company to someone that I've now done business with my entire life. And then I went and worked for this, this company. But what I realized was for about the year after college, I was able to work remote in a sense that the office was in Miami and I was in West Palm Florida, for your listeners, that's about an hour driving distance.  

Sam:    00:19:05    And I didn't have to go to the office. I was just so comfortable working from home and on my laptop, going to the pool at lunch and walking around in flip flops. But then they opened an office about a year later and I was required to go down there every single, you know, four days a week where the five days a week. And I really, really regretted it. It was one of the biggest regrets of my life, even to today, because I had the ability to be anywhere in the world. And I chose to sit in my apartment in West Palm Beach and work from home. And looking into the future, I'm like, I don't know how many more opportunities I'm gonna get like that I could get married, could have kids, I could never have that opportunity again. I may have just blown it.  

Sam:    00:19:44    And I decided then on the spot that I'm gonna find something to do international, because you never know when you're gonna get that opportunity again. And I, I just thought I had blown it. And that's, that's what kind of reignited this fire to get international. And this was, this was 2007, so it was really before the digital nomad movement. It's before too many people were working effectively abroad and running around <laugh> with big clunky HP laptops and things. But yeah, that was it. It became an absolute drive for me and, and uh, and then I just was sure to make it happen.  

Kristin:    00:20:15    And then did you sell, so did you sell that company or, I was listening to your first episode actually of Invest Like a Boss, and you were talking about how you went from having like no money in your bank account to a large sum, I don't remember, was it six or seven figures or eight figures or something like that. Did that, I mean, was that kind of a life changing moment for you? Or were you already like, I'm gonna live this lifestyle whether I'm living on a shoestring budget or whether I'm flying business class?  

Sam:    00:20:46    Yeah, it's, that's actually a good point. So the first episode of Invest Like a Boss, we don't actually dive too much into the story. We kind of dive into why we're starting the podcast and just a brief history. But generally what happened was that company I ended up getting stock in, I told the company too, a company, and then that company gave me stock and I was having to go down to Miami four times a week. And I looked at how much stock I had in the previous history of the owners and they had sold businesses before. And I figured with what I have, I, I think I could probably make a million dollars, but I think it will probably take another three years of having to go down to Miami, you know, three, four times a week. And I just looked at my future and said, wow, I mean that, that's amazing and all, but I just don't know that it's worth it.  

Sam:    00:21:32    Like I, I don't know that staying here in Miami where I've spent 24 years of my life is worth that type of money. And those in the next three years of my life, which I really, really value. I would rather probably be a taxi driver in say Costa Rica than potentially make a million dollars over the course of three years, but stay in South Florida. And so what I did was I had some online marketing skills and what I decided to do was start a business, surrender my stock, uh, as scary as that was and my, my, my job and my paycheck and I was gonna go to the United Kingdom and I wanted to start a business there and just try it, you know, I was also going through a breakup at the time and I was like, you know, I just, I wanna get out of Florida and it's just as easy to go to London or Scotland as it is to go to New York or California.  

Sam:    00:22:24    I mean, it's literally about the same in terms of risk, in terms of comfort level, in terms of cost. So why not go abroad? I know I loved Europe. So I went over there and then I started a business. That business was called Sky originally started it as Interland marketing and online marketing was an affiliate for e-cigarettes. I figured out that it worked. I saw that we could improve the product and at that time in Britain there was basically no e-cigarettes. They were starting to emerge in the, uh, in the USA as everyone knows now, there's Juul and a million other products around the US and on the news. And uh, we sold that company in 2013. It was about four years later actually, to an American tobacco company. And that, that was a super exciting story. I was over there for four years. I ended up traveling back and forth between China and and Scotland almost every month. And uh, it was just, it was a whirlwind and a super exciting time of my life.  

Kristin:    00:23:17    I didn't even know that, how do you actually start these companies? People are always asking, and I'm always curious of how people do it because you started all these companies in different industries and it seems like it's mostly by yourself and then maybe you bring partners in. But when you have an idea for a business, what do you do first? What is your process?  

Sam:    00:23:39    So being ignorant actually really helps. There's a lot of venture capital will in people that have been successful before. And there's other ones that will only invest in people that have been successful. But the reason that the ones don't invest in people that have been successful is because they know those people know how hard it is to actually take something from start to say a hundred million dollar exit to actually really scale a business. I mean, it's just, it's absolute torture to founders, uh, in most cases and in most cases for me, I have a short-term memory when it comes to painful moments. And in that case with a company in Scotland, I just had no idea what I was getting into. I was 25 years old when I started it. I knew a couple guys from, from internet marketing background and they were helping me do some of the, and the Drop shipping's a very popular product, uh, categories, self-starter business, now affiliate marketing as well.  

Sam:    00:24:34    You don't actually have to touch product in both of the cases in this, in this case, I had a couple of guys that were willing to front me to buy some product. It was worth about $20,000 worth of original product. And crazy as, as it sounds to get that company started, I had the product sent to me in London at age 25. I rented a a wagon car, I stuffed the back of the car full of product and I started driving around the UK living out of the front seat of the car. And I would go pub to pub with our e-cigarettes. And I put on a phony British accent and I went into the the pub and said, found people that were smoking and said, Hey, you don't have to stand outside and smoke. You can use this product inside and I'll give it to you for free if you just gimme a video testimonial and you know, just post some photos and tell your friends about it, it's worth like 40 pounds.  

Sam:    00:25:23    Which back then was worth like $60. Our costs were maybe like 30. So it was literally giving someone $30, you know, with no sales, no revenue. And I'm like, all I want in return is just a, a quick video of you using it. And that's literally how we started the, the company. You know, we gave out about $10,000 worth of product over a couple weeks. And in all the products we put a referral code, we built a little cheesy website and this product was great. You know, people went in, they loved that we were giving it out, they told their friends, they start smoking it in the pubs <laugh>, everyone comes over, what is this? Oh my God. Oh, what is this? You know, really it was just, it was good timing, good execution, and a hell of a lot of fun  

Kristin:    00:26:02    And good girlilla marketing and good word of mouth.  

Sam:    00:26:06    Yeah.  

Kristin:    00:26:06    We're, I don't wanna keep you too long 'cause I know you have a meeting after this, but let's jump ahead to now because I actually messaged you a couple weeks ago because I was writing an article about kind of the implosion of WeWork and I was saying how everyone's too focused on WeWork and their business model and what the CEO is doing and blah, blah, blah. When really we should look at the real innovators in the coworking space, which are people who aren't just doing office leasing, but people and companies, startups that are creating different ways for people to work. Because I believe that people are gonna be working however they want in the future and it's gonna be a really fractionalized market. So you said something that was really a compelling, you said by 2030 we believe 1 billion people will be accessing a coworking space annually.  

Kristin:    00:27:02    Coworking is not dead, it's just beginning. And so now here you are as the founder of Coworker.com. Can you give us a little bit of insight into how you guys see people working in the next 10 to 20 years and tell us about this new membership that you have that's going to be available for people in 2020? Because just even for me right now in California, I'm like looking around for a place to work and I ended up working at the library yesterday and I know I personally can't wait for this membership that you guys are creating so that I can access places to work everywhere in the world. So yeah, we, I would love to hear what your insight is on how you kind of see the future of work going and what you guys at Coworker are cooking up for independent freelancers, entrepreneurs, and remote workers to be able to have a better work life balance and more convenience.  

Sam:    00:28:01    Exactly. Yeah. And great article by the way. It's fun collaborating with you on that. WeWork is all over the news.  

Kristin:    00:28:07    <laugh> Yeah. Today too.  

Sam:    00:28:09    You know, sky, the previous business in Scotland was a fantastic experience, incredible ride it, it's hard to replicate that experience, that office experience was just a really, really good environment. But as it got bigger and bigger, and we ended up, when we sold the company, it was about 80 employees, it started feeling to me a bit claustrophobic and a bit like a prison, although I enjoyed it to the very last day as the company grew, it felt like the walls were getting higher and there was, there was no escape to the point that I started traveling to China more than necessary. And basically living at a factory because I enjoyed getting away and not having to be in the same spot at the same like every single week. And I know if I felt that the, our employees felt it even more, even if they said it or not, after we sold the company, I went to Hong Kong and I went into my first coworking space in 2015 before WeWork was making the news every single day.  

Sam:    00:29:08    And most people at that point do, you asked a room of 10,000 people, probably only a hundred would raise their hand that say they'd had been to a coworking space in the year of 2015. Now, I would say most people listening to your channel or, or you know, our podcast, most of them have been to a coworking space. But in 2015 it was brand new. But what I saw there was not only people like you and I, Kristin, but also much larger companies. Uber was taking out space and Tesla had an office that was their little Hong Kong branch. And it was like this incredible collection of, of both digital nomads on up to remote employees all the way up to big executives and, and, uh, very impressive enterprises that were taking, making a home out of this, this shared office space. But not only that, you had amazing coffee and beer on draft and, and sunbathing areas outside, like in the middle of Hong Kong.  

Sam:    00:30:04    And I just thought this was this incredible place that everybody would wanna be. I mean, my dad should wanna be there, but also Elon Musk would probably wanna spend some time there. And of course everybody, you know, like, like ourselves would wanna spend time there. But yet I looked around and it was impossible to find where coworking spaces were located or find any information except for just finding their, their lonely websites on Google. So in 2015, set out to basically solve that, solve the discovery element of that. And that's been kind of a three year development process. And building Coworker.com. Now we have about 90% of the co-working spaces in the world listed. So you can go in any city in the world, 2,400 cities, 71 countries right now, and you can find co-working space. And then what we realized is, okay, now that there's, you can find coworking space and now everyone's becoming familiar with it, there's still an access problem.  

Sam:    00:30:56    And I know this 'cause I'm a user and I travel to 30 or 40 countries a year, and I always wanna use coworking space, but I rarely do. And that is because the booking process for even a day past a coworking is extremely inconsistent and fragmented. So oftentimes you'll have to, okay, a use the whatever booking service that they have to pay for it, cash, run a credit card, sometimes bank transfer. Uh, booking options are few and far between. You'll oftentimes have to get a membership sales pitch and then you have to put down a security deposit sometimes even for a day pass. So we kind of look at coworking spaces. The, the booking and check-in process is much more similar to hotels 20 years ago. So you have all these people like us business travel is blowing up in an era of, you know, video conferencing, business travel still has no signs of slowing down.  

Sam:    00:31:47    It's gonna be $1.6 trillion next year. Kristin, 24% of Europe's travel is business related. Get that, it's crazy. 470 million domestic business trips were done in the US alone last year. So I mean, business travel is going crazy and all these business travelers need coworking space. They wanna be in a productive workspace even for a day or two. But the problem is it's on average globally, $24 for a day pass. It's hard to access coworking spaces. So what do people do? They stay in their lobby, they go to a cafe where they work out of the room. So if you can solve that access problem and bring the price down to something more manageable and reasonable, then you welcome in tons and tons of people into coworking spaces that wanna be there. But right now it's a price and access problem. So we built this product called Global Pass, which the easiest comparable is for Priority Pass for lounges. Priority Pass is 1400 lounges. They did a billion dollars in revenue last year. It's a great product. I have it on my phone through Chase Sapphire Reserve.  

Kristin:    00:32:49    Oh, I have that too.  

Sam:    00:32:50    Do you, have you, have you gone to, to Priority Pass? Have you used it?  

Kristin:    00:32:53    Yeah, I, I use it a lot.  

Sam:    00:32:55    It's amazing, right? Yeah. I mean it makes travel so much better and that, that's kind of the, the concept. But with Coworker Global Pass is we want you to be able to, to go to a co-working space as easy as you can go to a lounge anywhere in the world. Spaces want it, users want it. It's just a, a tech technological innovation that was needed in the industry. And that's, that's kind of what's driving our passion right now. We're basically building it for ourselves because we need it and we're hoping other people want it as well.  

Kristin:    00:33:25    This is something, this is one of those business opportunities that when I, when I found out that you were, that you started Coworker.com, I was like, I'm so jealous because it's one of those things that's just hiding in plain sight. Like this morning for example, I went to a Pilates class and then I went to the grocery store afterwards and okay, so next door to the Pilates class there is a cafe which was packed with people working on their laptops with their iPads. And there's just people everywhere in Starbucks and cafes around the world, which cafe is okay, but it's not ideal to work there every day. It's like a place you might wanna work in a coffee shop like maybe one day a week or two days a week because it's really not the optimal work environment. Or maybe you wanna go there to like answer email for an hour or so and then leave.  

Kristin:    00:34:13    But there needs to be more flexibility. So I see all these people at this cafe and the sun is just coming right into the window so people can't see their screens, they're like squinting. And it just didn't look comfortable. I was like, I'm not working here 'cause I had my laptop in my car, then I go to the grocery store. No joke, there are people working in the grocery store. It's this natural grocery store called Lazy Acres in California and it's full of freelancers and writers and people just like sitting in the cafe. This can't be the best environment, like the best work environment. There's kids crying and whatever, but people need a place to work. And yesterday I was in the library and that's by far the best place I found around here. 'cause it had the fastest wifi, it was quiet and that place was packed too full of people working. And so I love seeing coworker coming up with this membership where you can use the same monthly membership in a hundred plus different countries and thousands of coworking spaces. Because even just a couple months ago I was living in Amsterdam, I had to, I'm not joking, I had to, um, pay three or four different deposits to be a member of a coworking space in Amsterdam for one month last year.  

Sam:    00:35:36    That's great to hear, Kristin, that's great to hear. <laugh> it took me,  

Kristin:    00:35:41    It took me eight months to get my deposit back. I was like, this is crazy. Like what is going on? And I mean, this is 2018, so thank you for providing this. And it launches in January, right?  

Sam:    00:35:54    Launches in January, the first coworking space I ever went to in Hong Kong. As much as I loved it, same thing. It took me about six months to get back my deposit that I had to put down for a week access in coworking. And that's, that's gotta change even in Lithuania when we were there and there's a great coworking space in Vilnius and I went in for two days and I had to fill out paperwork <laugh>, no lie, 12 pages.  

Kristin:    00:36:17    I had to sign contracts in Dutch, like long contracts. I was like, I don't even know what I'm signing right now. <laugh>.  

Sam:    00:36:25    So you talked about the future of work, Kristin. I I think that's actually a really interesting topic it's worth touching on. And I think that, you know, looking forward 50 years from now, going and getting a a a meat cheeseburger is probably gonna be pretty difficult. And being required to go into a, um, an office five days a week and work eight to 5:00 PM I think is, is gonna be not non-existent, but you're gonna have to get paid a real premium to do that. Now there's, this isn't for everyone. The your lifestyle, my lifestyle, our choice and desire for, for variety and workspace and workspace of our own, you know, preference, that's not for everybody. Some people do want to have a very strict routine and have a stable, secure, personal place to go work every day that's provided for them. But not everybody will.  

Sam:    00:37:12    And I think the majority of people, especially millennials going forward, want flexibility in their physical environment and their working hours. And I think that's absolutely going to be required by a lot of people in the future to take jobs. I think a lot of people are willing now to take pay cuts to be able to go work in different locations or be able to have flexible hours. And that's absolutely what we're, we're building a coworker with our team is that, hey, we don't, we're not paying the, the San Francisco salaries, but hey, you can go live anywhere in the world you want and you don't have to be working at 9:00 AM on every morning, take flexible hours. And what we ask of you is don't take a month off of holiday, but instead, you know, take afternoons off but be available also on Friday evenings or Sunday afternoons to talk about something. And I think if you can create that work-life balance that is much more manageable on a daily basis. People don't like build up and bottle up all this, I need to release and get away from this or really need to make so much more money because they just enjoy the work and where they're working and who they're working with. And I think that is really the future of work for a lot of people.  

Kristin:    00:38:23    I think you nailed it. And I was just in Norway living at a co-living co-working space there. And me and this guy Sam were working in the office one Sunday and someone was like, oh, working on a Sunday. And Sam goes, I don't do week like weekdays or he's like, I don't do days of the week. He's like, that's not a thing for me. Like, I work whatever day I want, whatever time I take off whatever time. And I think pe this is resonating with a lot of people. Actually the most interesting thing about this article is the comments. So I'll just read a couple comments and then we'll get to some of the livestream questions. But it's exactly what you were saying, it's people from all different ages, backgrounds, industries. One woman named Louise said, I've lived all the options, love them all, but having been that tethered corporate employer or employee and the freelancer consultant, the flexibility is what matters. And you know, she's like, yeah, you have ease, accessibility and great coffee at coworking spaces. And even though she was in a corporate environment before, she loves that flexibility and yeah, it doesn't matter what you do or how old you are or or or what your expertise is. And um, then another guy wrote the fact that in 2019 the streets and highways of every major city are congested for most of the day with people commuting to physical locations is beyond ridiculous. And I'm like, yes,  

Sam:    00:39:59    Give that guy a high five because he's, he nailed it. That is when you see these congestions and people commuting, I was just in LA a couple weeks back and it's like two hours to get anywhere and I just wanna choke my myself on the highway. Uh, it's, it's just, it's unneeded and coworking can really change a lot of that. You have coworking spaces that are, are really expanding out from center of the cities and it's just gonna allow people to stay outside of center of the cities in the suburbs. You could go live in the desert, you know, and I think it's, it's really gonna be a good thing for the world. And as corporates start adopting it, allowing their employees to start working remote, Hey, if you don't want 'em working from home, that's understandable. Get 'em a coworking membership. Allow 'em to work three days a week or two days a week or even a, a day a week from a coworking space. It's good for their e energy, it's good for their mental state and it's good for networking outside of your, you know, your corporate office.  

Kristin:    00:40:55    Yeah, it's good for ideas, inspiration and it's good for companies to save money because companies are offering these amazing perks to their remote workers, free computers, free coworking space memberships because they know that they're still saving money. And, and that's why I was even talking about the corporate de location packages the other day. On Medium, there's only one company publicly paying employees incentives to move away from big cities like LA and San Francisco. There should be thousands of them doing that. So I think that's gonna catch on as well.  

Sam:    00:41:30    Kristin, I was just gonna ask you, do you have, do you have a, a particular coworking space that stands out in your mind that you really, really love or thought it was a great experience? You wanna go back?  

Kristin:    00:41:38    You know, actually I really love this space in Amsterdam. I think it's Rent 24 owns it and they own a ton of coworking spaces, so they've acquired a lot of them. So I don't know if it's necessarily, they were the ones that that made it, but I found that through Common Grounds, which is actually a mini version of the Coworker Global Pass, they are based in Sweden and so in Stockholm and Amsterdam and you can pay one monthly rate to access 30 or 50 different coworking spaces in the city. And so what I like to do is I like different coworking spaces for their different personalities and vibes. So depending on the work that I'm doing, I like to kind of link it with a space. So if I'm going to do deep work, I'm not gonna go to a very social coworking space 'cause I won't get anything done and I won't be able to focus. So yeah, I like to theme my days and choose the type of work I do and then go to an environment that supports that. And that to me is sensible.  

Sam:    00:42:39    Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I would just suggest any of the listeners that are listening, there's probably 15,000 coworking spaces in the world right now. Every one of them is a different experience. So whether you're like Kristin and you wanna, you know, just match your workflow to that environment or you just wanna get out and try new things, I think going to different coworking spaces is just a great element to have in your life. It's, it's a new experience each time and you'll take something away from all of them.  

Kristin:    00:43:04    Yeah, and I, I linked to a couple of really cool companies like Space Mize is one that are turning luxury hotel lobbies into coworking spaces and then there's other places that do restaurants. So it really just depends on your mood that day. You can pick something that works for you and, and it's like choosing what you wanna wear, what you wanna eat that day. I think it's fun. So, okay, I'll get in a couple live stream questions before we sign off. The first question is from Delphine. She lives in Paris, France, and she says, if you had to begin all over again with your investing strategy, if you had a hundred thousand dollars or $200,000 from scratch with everything that you learned from your experience so far, what would you do? Like how would you allocate your investment portfolio if you were starting from the beginning and were investing for the first time?  

Sam:    00:43:59    It really, really does depend on your risk tolerance, who you are, what you wanna do, how hands-on you want to be. Uh, if you wanna live in a digital nomad lifestyle and you wanna be extremely passive, you're gonna invest a lot different than someone who's willing to live in one location all year and really wants to grow their wealth and isn't afraid of being hands-on. Uh, so I can only say for, for me, how I would start over. I made a lot of mistakes early on. All those mistakes are very costly and all of it on emotion, emotion. And if you take compounding interest, which is a really remarkable thing, and you look at it for any period of say more than 30 years, and you take kind of a conservative growth rate of say six or seven, 8%, the effects are enormous. I mean, there's, there's literally no way that you can't become a millionaire by investing a few thousand dollars a year in an index fund for a period of say, 40 years.  

Sam:    00:44:57    Um, the numbers just work unless something happens and capitalism dies or the world goes to crap. But what can destroy that entire equation, your entire retirement plan or life plan or investing plan is just one mistake. And that's what happened in the 2007, 2008 recession is people made that one mistake and it destroyed 30 years of saving, 20 years of saving their retirement plan. Now you have people that never recovered, uh, and they're still, they're still working. So that's an emotional error and that's a, that's an intelligence error because people don't learn about the asset classes that they're investing in. And then when times get hard, now it's not even say a big recession, but they have a big life event, there's a divorce, there's a health issue, they panic, they pull their money out at the wrong time and they're never able to recover.  

Sam:    00:45:45    So what you really, really wanna do is you wanna invest in things that you understand. The easiest thing for someone probably to understand is a physical piece of property like a house or an index fund like the SMP 500. And with, you know, with enough reading and research, you can really understand how that's gonna operate and link it back to historical data. So learn about it. You have to learn to take the emotions out because investing is really, should be really a boring thing. And if you keep it boring and you kick stick to a plan, chances are you're gonna be really, really successful and very wealthy in the future. So yeah, I would just, I would avoid my mistakes by understanding things before I invested in them and not making the mistakes I did in, uh, 2008 as so many people did, and getting out of stocks at the wrong time and making a mistake that easily could have been, um, damaging for the rest of my life.  

Kristin:    00:46:39    And, and I would just add to start where you are, like there's no amount that's too small to start out with. If you just start saving a couple dollars a day and now there's tools to automate your savings and things like that. If you just do that over the long term and invest in just kind of low risk things and don't touch it, then that's good. But when you're trying to make a lot of money fast, at least I lost a lot of my portfolio in this 2008 crash because I put too much of it in one company. So I diversified so much <laugh> since then. Yeah, I just put too much of my nest egg into one thing and then I lost it when that company failed to launch because it was in 2008. And so that was a huge mistake. I would yeah, go with real estate and mutual funds.  

Kristin:    00:47:34    Actually I opened an IRA out of college a Roth IRA, not because I learned it in business school. I don't know why they didn't teach us that, but just because I used to read financial stuff in the library in between classes, I thought I was being smart, like, oh, I'm gonna read the Wall Street Journal. But on my own accord I opened a Roth IRA with a thousand dollars and then in Charlotte, actually where you are right now is like the headquarters for Bank of America and I lived next to the Bank of America building and I was consolidating some of my accounts because as you know, when you're traveling a lot, you can end up with a lot of like random bank accounts and stuff. So I was moving my IRA from Vanguard to Merrill Lynch, which I don't recommend necessarily. I think I ended up paying like extra so the other  

Sam:    00:48:20    Way, yeah, <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:48:22    But the guy who was like an executive at Merrill Lynch, he was like, how did, how are you getting these returns on your Roth IRA? And I was like, why are you even asking me that? Like, I don't know what I'm doing. All I did was read the prospectus, like I would just read about the funds before I would invest in them. And that simple thing, I didn't go to like finance class or anything like that. I just literally read about the funds that I was putting my money in and apparently that was a good strategy compared to this guy who was managing the entire investment team in Charlotte. I was like, that's really doesn't inspire much confidence in your, in your ability, but yeah, nobody should like downplay their skills. Just start where you are.  

Sam:    00:49:06    Right? Um, yeah, it's, it's a big learning process and I think that's the key to it too is learn it because you're, you know, you put a year into it just reading, listening to podcast, researching, you'll probably be smarter than the guy that you would take your money to manage for you.  

Kristin:    00:49:23    Totally. A lot of the times they just passed some exam or they don't even have any qualifications, they're just working there. Let's see, we have a question from Walt and he just says, given the tariff wars out there, what do you think is the best type of e-commerce business to operate over the next few years? Do you have any recommendations on that?  

Sam:    00:49:48    So e-commerce, Johnny, uh, my co-host on Investec boss has also been on this. He thinks drop shipping's the future. He thinks that everything should move in that direction and there's a lot of people that think drop shipping's gonna be a thing of the past. Um, so I don't stay up to date on the, on e-comm trends so much. There's always gonna be a need for affiliate marketing and if you, if you can learn how to do online marketing effectively, I think the best way to start is either, you know, your own little e-comm store, Amazon FBA, or just do what I did, which was become an affiliate. Find something that you're passionate about. In my case, I was interested in, um, Jeep Wranglers. So I started selling products online for Jeep Wranglers 'cause it was something that I could get behind, I could research it, I could, I could study content, take photos of products, I could, you know, write a lot of content about it.  

Sam:    00:50:37    So if you just pick something that's strictly around the money, it's harder to get into the weeds and do all those things. Um, so I started there and then I realized I'm pretty decent at it. I went to places and, and bought people coffee and wine and figured out how to do it better. Uh, and then I went into more lucrative things like online dating and all types of, uh, health and beauty products of, of and stuff. And then you made more money. So I don't know if this guy's got experience in doing e-com stores. I mean, if, if he doesn't, of course the best thing to do is get started, pick something, get started. Absolutely don't delay another day. But in terms of what I think will be good in the future, yeah, it's, it's funny because when I was doing it heavy. It was like all gaming and dating and that stuff is so saturated now, but I just find something that you're passionate in and you'll, you'll find a way to make money in it.  

Kristin:    00:51:26    Yeah, I, I agree with that. We had another question about, oh, it was more about taxes, I think for people with like tax and accounting questions, even involving like international trade wars and tar wars into one drop shipping store or e-commerce store. I think for people who are just getting into it is just to keep it simple. So can keep your domestic structure, um, you know, don't worry about going international automatically. Just start with one product, you know, with one store and test things and don't overcomplicate things. You can always make that more advanced and more complex later if you're growing a lot. So I think everyone can just start where, you know, in their home country without, without going international and just see what works. 'cause a lot of times, like what's happening on a macro level is not necessarily gonna affect you in your daily life. And we also have questions about the Global Pass. So will there be, Amar says, will there be corporate level partnerships as well, or just individual partnerships and what is the pricing on that?  

Sam:    00:52:38    So start with pricing. Pricing's $50 for five credits. That's where it's starting. That'll be what we're calling a Founder's Launch. Probably be the first 500 people that buy it and then they'll be grandfathered into that program indefinitely as long as they're a subscriber. And then it'll go to $50 for four credits. So that basically brings access per space down to $12 globally right now, 21, about $22 is global average. And you know, actually where we've gotten the most traction of space is opting into the program, oddly enough where we thought we were gonna struggle. The most tier one cities, New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, all those cities have over 15 spaces already opted into Global Pass. So no shortage of coverage there. And then of course places that are less expensive, ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, San Jose, Costa Rica, places like that. Still plenty of coverage. Somewhere around eight spaces in, uh, in Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh.  

Sam:    00:53:34    So there's, right now there's uh, with 1200 spaces that we have now, then we have another 800 that we have to get confirmed that would put us at 2000 spaces, uh, and 440 cities. So truly global product partnerships, corporate, absolutely. Well, we'll be working primarily with channel partners to start so that we're starting with, uh, channel partners, so people that will bring their teams or membership members to the, the product. So we're talking large financial institutions, including Chase Sapphire Reserve and Amex Platinum. Um, our goal is to go live with the introductory partner of one of them being on board. Of course, if we get that commitment, that's gonna keep us massively busy and, and, uh, our hands full for a while. But after that we'll definitely be working more on corporate partnerships. It's something that I think will bring a lot of value to the product and network.  

Kristin:    00:54:27    Cool. Well thank you so much, Sam, for coming on. I'm so excited to be able to just go to a new place and not interrupt my flow and the flow of business by researching coworking spaces and trying to book day passes or week passes. Although Coworker has made it a lot easier to book a day passes compared to signing these fat contracts with security deposits in different languages. And also I think that price is really good. I mean, 10 to $20 when you think about how much it costs to buy a coffee out these days, we're talking like three to $5 or more depending on where you are if you're in New York or, or California. But you wanna buy something if you go and sit in a cafe. So, and then sometimes you end up getting a snack or getting lunch and then all of a sudden you've spent 10 or 15 bucks anyway.  

Kristin:    00:55:17    So I think it's really nice to be able to have access to a legit coworking space where you can bring food with you or you could take a lunch break and come back and, you know, not have to pack up all of your stuff with you and then you have access to that community of other people. So we'll definitely have more. And for anyone who's a subscriber on my channels or to the podcast, we'll definitely announce that whenever it comes out in January because I wanna test it. So, so you guys, if you want more, I know we could talk to Sam for like hours and hours and days, but if you want to learn more about what Sam does and how he invests his money and more personal anecdotes, stories, travel tips, things like that, then make sure to subscribe to his podcast, Invest Like a Boss with Johnny Fd and you'll want to follow him. Um, add him to LinkedIn. He's quite active on there. And where else can we find you, Sam?  

Sam:    00:56:17    Pretty quiet outside of that, but, um, I have an Instagram account that usually I just post if I'm in a new location. Uh, nothing too fancy, but feel free to follow me. Just the letter I, letter m sammarks.com. So I'm Sam Marks and hit me up there, or like Kristin said at the podcast, uh, in my email is Sam@Investlikeaboss.com. I'm pretty active there as well.  

Kristin:    00:56:40    And congrats on Invest Like a Boss because I just saw you guys have more than what, 130 episodes?  

Sam:    00:56:46    130? Yep. So it's, uh, it's been a marathon, but like, you know, it's, it starts building up after a while and you get into a routine and then all of a sudden it's, uh, it's no longer any type of work. It's, it, it really is just a hobby for us. It's our Sunday afternoon golf outing because we don't like golf. So yeah, it's fun.  

Kristin:    00:57:03    That is the perfect tip to end off on guys. Just start whether you're starting a podcast and you go from never doing it to doing it every week for 130 weeks, there you go. Or if you're like Sam and you start a company and you're driving around driving trucks around the UK offering people free samples, you just start where you are. <laugh>.  

Sam:    00:57:25    Have fun doing it. Don't forget to have fun. That's an important part,  

Kristin:    00:57:29    <laugh>. Exactly. All right guys, well, we'll see you here on youtube.com/digitalnomad or here every week with either a podcast or Digital Nomad News or on Traveling with Kristin with a travel video every week and my Sunday live stream over on Traveling with Kristin. So make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and thank you again, Sam. We will see you guys later.  

Sam:    00:57:54    Thanks Kristin. Bye guys. Bye.  

Kristin:    00:58:05    Thanks for listening. Remember to leave a review and share this episode with someone in your network. And if you want more tips and advice on working remotely, make sure to sign up for my insider list at TravelingwithKristin.com/subscribe, where you can find links to download free resources like My Digital Nomad Starter guide. Of course, also subscribe to youtube.com/digitalnomad so you don't miss any of our weekly videos, Digital Nomad News or Live Streams. See you there.