How to become a company-of-one digital nomad?
Exploring diverse forms of company-of-one, sharing practical experiences from 6 partners in different fields, and common challenges and solutions when running a company-of-one
"One person is also a company." This sounds cool, but it's not easy to actually practice.
In our last nomadic tea discussion, we talked about the differences between domestic and foreign digital nomads and digital nomad communities. We mentioned that the main ways to become a digital nomad are finding remote work or building your own online business. And a company-of-one is one possible form of building your own online business.
In 2023, we introduced online businesses in our community:
Creating online businesses is simpler than physical entrepreneurship, and the costs are relatively low. Often online businesses are conducted by individuals or small teams. The business types I've observed include: selling influence (content creators, podcast hosts, content creators, etc.), selling your services (skill teaching, project consulting, life coaching, healers, etc.), selling your knowledge and experience (knowledge products, online courses, etc.), selling online products/works (individual developers selling apps, writers selling e-books, Shopee e-commerce), etc.
Over the past two years, more partners trying company-of-one have joined the community, so we held an online discussion about "company-of-one digital nomads." Six partners from different fields shared their experiences and thoughts on exploring the company-of-one path.
The diverse possibilities of company-of-one
Five partners participated in the discussion, each exploring different company-of-one models:
- Jiameng, who does insurance brokerage, is building client trust through personal branding
- Qilin, who quit the legal industry and now focuses on mindfulness coaching
- Sophia, who plans to do permaculture consulting and is visiting 100 ecological farms across the country
- Dameng, who wants to do online yoga teaching and is sharing her experiential life through her content creation account
- Ameng, who's skilled in various outdoor extreme sports and hopes to transform personal experiences and resources into an information platform
From everyone's experiences, you can see that company-of-one doesn't have a fixed model or form, but can be built according to personal interests and expertise as an ideal lifestyle.
Common challenges and thoughts when running a company-of-one
Although everyone is in different fields, they all face some common challenges:
How to position your products and services?
Some partners mentioned that their skills and experience are too rich, and they can't find their product's core positioning. Others found that their product positioning doesn't match the actual market effect. How to find your product positioning and make positive adjustments? We discussed several feasible methods:
- "Value is determined by demand"—use Minimum Viable Product (MVP): First create a simple product model, test market reaction, then continuously optimize based on feedback.
- Reference successful cases: Study successful personal brands and business models in the industry, learn from their experience, and find positioning that suits you.
- Seek professional guidance: Take relevant courses or consult professionals to get more professional guidance and advice.
How to find target users?
As a company-of-one, besides creating products, you also need to acquire customers yourself. Many partners chose to get traffic and customers through content creation. When doing content creation for this purpose, the focus isn't on pursuing viral hits, but finding people who truly need your services. As one participant shared: "Rather than doing tool-type content creation to attract traffic, it's better to be your authentic self and find people who resonate with you."
How to overcome the fear of "being rejected"?
Whether it's product pricing being considered expensive, or product services facing public bias, it's easy to develop a fear of being "rejected" when running a company-of-one. This fear can easily lead to self-doubt and questioning your own value. This is actually a very common emotion when starting a business. We discussed several coping methods:
- Find more like-minded customer groups. Starting with customers who already have awareness of your product will make it easier to get positive feedback.
- Treat rejection as normal. Don't overly amplify negative emotions. Learn to coexist with "rejection" and desensitize to "rejection."
- Accumulate experience and cases. Consciously accumulate success cases, prove yourself with actual results, and enhance customer trust at the same time.
At the end of the discussion, we also shared nine types of passive income compiled by famous YouTube creator Ali Abdaal, providing more possible monetization methods for company-of-one. These methods aren't mutually exclusive, but can be combined to form multiple income sources. Using a diversified income structure can resist the highly uncertain current environment.
In the two-hour sharing discussion, we also talked about more gains and challenges of running a company-of-one. Everyone shared experiences and acted as each other's think tank for their respective challenges. This is the original intention of doing online nomadic tea discussions—letting friends from different industries communicate and see each other, while also eliminating the loneliness on the digital nomad path!