How I built a $12k/month online business and traveled the world before my 21st birthday
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Michael GardinerFrom Florida, USAFounder of Nomads with Solutions
Business Model: Agency$12,000+monthly revenue$8,000+monthly profitAll info self-reported by intervieweePublished February 27, 2020Reviewed and edited by Rita Epps
Who are you and how do you make money online?
My name is Michael Gardiner, and I am a 20-year-old digital nomad and serial entrepreneur born in Stuart, Florida. I have been an entrepreneur since the age of 15, when I started my first business.
My main business is called Nomads with Solutions and it is a digital marketing agency specializing in Facebook lead generation. Our customers pay us to find them qualified leads that in turn make them more money.
I have been able to leverage this business to meet incredibly successful people, travel full time to over 20 countries (+10~ independent territories) by the age of 20 and build myself a multiyear safety net.
I can safely say, starting young in business was the best decision of my life.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
My favorite thing about Nomads with Solutions is that it is run completely remotely. I have employees across the United States and contractors all over the world.
In 2019 (my first year traveling close to full time), I was able to visit 15+ countries at the age of 19.
This year I have already booked trips to 11 countries that I will travel to over the next 4 months.
I don’t particularly have a set routine, as I prefer to work around the activities I plan. It is hard to keep a routine with time zone changes and being in consistently new and exciting environments.
The things I do try to keep consistent include:
Eating relatively healthy.Getting some physical exercise. I am a huge adrenaline junkie so I love skateboarding, mountain biking, skydiving, etc.Waking up before 8:00am.Getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
Currently, I am working around 5-7 hours per day between my businesses. That’s generally 7 days per week. However, if I wanted to work less I could.
One of my specialties is outsourcing and building teams.
This means that I am able to spend most of my time doing what I enjoy the most, which includes planning, thinking of new ventures – and hiring the right people for them – and sales.
Most of the other elements of the business I have a strong understanding of.
However, I just oversee someone else performing those tasks.
What’s your backstory and how did you come up with the idea for your business?
When I was 15 I was a sophomore in high school and primarily interested in normal kid things, including basketball, track, skateboarding, video games, hanging with friends, etc.
I happened to get injured playing basketball and in my free time applied for a job at a local pharmacy store.
I had a really terrible interview process where the person interviewing me took very little interest in me…
…and I thought to myself that I wanted to make money on my own terms.
Although my family has no entrepreneurs, nor did I know any, I got an idea for my first potential income stream.
I had always followed themed accounts (nice cars, luxury houses, travel) on Instagram and figured I could build a big page to eventually make money with it (and show off to my friends).
Short story…I ended up growing a network of Instagram accounts to over 1,000,000 followers within a year and sold the network and used that money to fund my other ventures (of which most failed).
