Comment by jawngee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jawngee | Hacker News Reader

I kind of do this, though I hate the digital nomad moniker.

I used to split time between NYC and Vietnam. NYC for client work, Vietnam for bootstrapping my publishing platform (shameless plug our eat your own dog food first magazine is coming out soon: http://vimeo.com/100580125). However, for the last year, I've been in Vietnam full time, giving up my apartment in NYC and "relocating" to Nevada for tax purposes. I did this partly because I was getting closer to finishing up the first phase of the publishing project, but also because I found out I was going to be a father ;)

The hardest part is keeping work coming in at a constant enough rate. In NYC I was always booked solid, 24/7, but in Vietnam it comes and goes in spurts. Partly because some of the work I did in NYC has hardware requirements that can't be met here in Vietnam (large retail experiential installs) and partly because business is slow for my main client. Finding new clients to fill the gaps has required some serious email/linkedin networking hustle, but it can be done.

I've had people interested in hiring me for local projects, but I've had a hard time lowering my rates to a level acceptable for both parties. Even though they are regaled by the amount of experience, developing countries might not be so focused on quality over quantity. Which is OK.

If you take the time to get TEFL certification, that's a possible fall back. I'm a college drop out, so that's no bueno.

Anyways, wouldn't trade the experience for anything. YMMV.

>The hardest part is keeping work coming in at a constant enough rate. In NYC I was always booked solid, 24/7, but in Vietnam it comes and goes in spurts. Partly because some of the work I did in NYC has hardware requirements that can't be met here in Vietnam (large retail experiential installs) and partly because business is slow for my main client.

The only way I got around this was by building my own platform that brought in clients. I teach the LSAT, and chose to live in Montreal. It's French, not a major city for English speaking law school admissions.

NYC is the major market. I would have been booked solid if I lived there. But I likely also would have hit a local maximum, doing lots of $200 an hour tutoring and teaching $1200 classroom courses.

Instead, I had to develop products to reach students in the USA. Eventually ended up taking a page from Michael Hartl's business model and released a version of my books here:

http://lsathacks.com/explanations/

Now a lot of people find my site and I get tutoring requests organically. I'm about to do nine hours today (I just consult Saturdays).

Not everyone should do this of course – it's a lot of work to create your own product or marketing platform. Local work of mouth and advertising is SO much easier.

But for anyone considering a transition abroad, think about reaching prospects who google solutions.

Hey, just wondernig how your model works. I'm an SAT tutor and want to implement something similar. So you give away the explanations for free online, and charge for PDF? And get tutoring opportunities from the free book marketing. Do you teach online?

Eventually I'm going to make a course. Right now adding free explanations boosts the number of people who like and trust my material. I do sell the PDFs and get tutoring inquires from the site though.

This site does something simliar for the SAT, he has two well selling books as well:

http://pwnthesat.com/wp/

thinking of going to vietnam for boostrapping burposes, just wondering how you chose it and what city? what kind of rent are u paying per month?

I came here about 3 years ago to train some iPhone devs for a friend's company. Ended up making a lot of friends out here in the process. Even though it's mostly an illusion, there is a certain sense of freedom here. It's also the safest of the SE Asian countries, imho.

I live in a more upscale part of Saigon, so my rent isn't typical. But compared to what I was paying in NYC, it's not a lot. I pay $700 for a 2 bedroom in a high rise, about $100 for electricity. I have fiber internet, 40mbps, which is about $75 a month. 3G on my phone is about $5-10 a month. The sum of all of that is almost a quarter of what I was paying in NYC every month.

how is the language barrier? do you speak decent vietnamese or can you get by with mostly english?

In Saigon you can get around with only english. In other cities, it varies and I'd recommend learning some vietnamese or having local friends.

I'm living in Vietnam as well. Dalat is up in the mountains, has cool weather all year round, and is much cheaper than Saigon. A room for rent is about $100 per month, a Banh Mi roll is about 10 cents. The main disadvantage of living up there is that there is no programmer community. But, if you just need to sit in a room and code and save money, it's perfect! Also, the people are super friendly. :-) Best experience of my life.

My wife is from Dalat. Tied with Da Nang for my favorite city in Vietnam.

If you ever come down to Saigon or I head up to Dalat, let's grab a beer!

Sent an email to your interfacelab email address. :-)

I spent a while in Mui Ne near Phantiet. And a little bit in Dalat. From my experience Dalat is incredibly nice place

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