Check out the video!
Check out the interview with Luke Tierney. Who has lived for years at a time in Colombia, Portugal and Argentina, all while building his own businesses. He’s the owner of Ecod2c – an Amazon marketing company, among other businesses. This interview is part of my 4 question series where I ask successful digital nomads from all over the world and all walks of life to answer the 4 questions we all want to know the answer to.
- Who are you? Tell us about what you do and how you got where you are.
- Where is your favorite place to work remote?
- What are 2 tips you would give someone who wants to work at your favorite place?
- What are (or were) your biggest fears around working abroad? And how did you address these?
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Transcripts Of The Video
00:00
hey this is lauren with the four
00:02
question series
00:03
today i’m here with luke not tyranny
00:06
tierney tierney here with luke tierney
00:09
so luke is the owner of
00:10
eco d2c so
00:13
as you know starting off kind of
00:14
introductions so a little bit about
00:16
yourself obviously i told them about the
00:18
business that you run
00:19
kind of how you got into digital the
00:20
digital nomad lifestyle
00:22
um where you’re at now where you’ve been
00:24
stuff like that
00:25
yeah sure so um when i was in my mid-20s
00:29
i moved
00:30
down to medellin colombia as part of
00:33
just a life goal to become fluent in
00:35
spanish i moved to south america
00:37
i was not aware of anything regarding
00:42
digital nomadism or digital marketing um
00:44
even at the time
00:46
um but i moved there uh i taught english
00:49
ended up founding my own
00:50
uh spanish immersion institute there
00:52
actually if you’ve been in columbia and
00:53
beyond to
00:54
take classes at columbia immersion that
00:56
was my first business huh
00:58
see i didn’t know that yeah um and so in
01:00
the midst of founding
01:02
that uh we just identified an
01:03
opportunity money was growing really
01:05
quickly we thought we could do better
01:06
than a lot of other schools
01:07
um but in the midst of doing that i came
01:09
across the digital nomad scene as
01:10
anybody who’s probably just lifestyle is
01:13
in that region they’re probably aware
01:14
that many is kind of a hot spot for this
01:16
and i was uh really intrigued by all
01:19
the obvious um you know advantages to
01:22
you know
01:23
living a digitally nomadic lifestyle i
01:25
was
01:26
definitely on a high after having you
01:28
know a successful
01:29
um my first business you know some life
01:32
reasons that breathed into that
01:34
and so uh you know eventually when when
01:36
i left columbia
01:37
[Music]
01:38
i was really hell-bent on um
01:41
figuring out a way that i could uh keep
01:44
on
01:45
you know starting businesses but maybe
01:46
more of you know focused on online
01:49
sure so i founded a website
01:51
nomadplayground.com which
01:53
collects reviews of where people are
01:55
finding online work and then
01:58
through this school that’s where i
02:00
started doing digital marketing in the
02:02
first place
02:03
and then through a bunch of subsequent
02:05
projects i got really heavily involved
02:07
and
02:08
uh the way i came to found egodc
02:11
was in a before any of this i used to
02:14
work at environmental nonprofits
02:16
and so i wanted to find a way to return
02:18
to environment like
02:19
something with environmental focus while
02:21
still doing for-profit have it be
02:23
online and flexible and i’ve gotten
02:26
involved
02:26
you know digital marketing with you know
02:30
amazon sellers and so i thought why
02:31
can’t we just connect you know do amazon
02:33
for brands that are making things that
02:34
are better for people better for the
02:35
environment
02:36
and that’s what we do with egodc so i’ve
02:38
been running um
02:40
this agency for the past three years and
02:42
it’s been uh
02:43
well like starting this always it’s a
02:45
hell of a ride
02:47
a couple of things i wanted to say in
02:49
there is he he attempted and
02:51
uh as far as i can tell one had fluency
02:54
in spanish
02:55
yeah so you know yeah he has flew in
02:57
spanish he was pretty badass which i
02:58
didn’t actually know until
02:59
uh about a year after i met him pretty
03:02
funny
03:02
uh yeah we ran into each other at a
03:04
spanish exchange actually which is
03:05
really fun yeah for sure
03:07
but yeah so luke as an example i would
03:09
say of everyone i know i think
03:11
luke has lived the most digital nomadic
03:13
uh lifestyle
03:15
um you also spent some time in portugal
03:17
could you talk a little bit about when
03:19
was that so in the uh
03:21
chronological oh so i was in columbia
03:23
for a couple years and then
03:24
uh one osiris um every year and then
03:27
portugal lisbon specifically for about a
03:30
year
03:31
and then after i was outside the u.s for
03:33
about half my 20s and then i
03:35
moved from portugal to denver okay and
03:38
then uh
03:39
you know trips abroad you know here and
03:40
there but i came back to
03:42
the uh i’ve always been i’ve always
03:46
moved around fairly because there are
03:47
lots of people that
03:48
i’ve known that like to move to a
03:50
different country new city like every
03:52
like month or a couple months
03:53
i’ve always been more to stay in one
03:55
place for a long period of time
03:56
yeah and so that’s one distinction that
03:58
i think a lot of
04:00
people who are starting their digital
04:01
movement lifestyle i know for me example
04:03
or for me as an example was i have to be
04:06
traveling all the time there’s some sort
04:07
of weird
04:08
like pressure or expectation not
04:10
necessarily so you can i mean you can do
04:12
it like luke for sure or you can kind of
04:14
have more of a home base
04:16
and then kind of just travel whenever
04:17
you want for two or
04:19
six weeks or even a couple days right
04:22
yeah
04:22
yeah the point is the flexibility for
04:24
sure exactly yeah having the choice
04:26
that’s
04:26
that’s really what i like okay so
04:30
what is your favorite place to work
04:32
remote at
04:33
and why i okay so i love a lot of places
04:37
but for a lot of different reasons
04:38
um but as far as just like having the
04:41
infrastructure
04:42
having a really solid like digital nomad
04:44
like crowd
04:45
um they’re really consistent people were
04:47
very experienced uh
04:48
lisbon’s got a very special place
04:51
for that it’s just there’s a lot of
04:53
great people a lot of fun
04:55
[Music]
04:58
as opposed to other places that i’ve
05:00
worked like
05:02
you don’t have to worry as much about
05:03
you know internet just going out for a
05:06
day or
05:06
a couple of days which sometimes
05:09
depending on where you are like half the
05:11
city
05:11
might be or electricity in some case
05:14
cases right depending on where you’re at
05:15
for sure okay so you can do you can
05:17
obviously do this safely from a number
05:19
i would if i had to pick one i might be
05:20
good lisbon so what two point what two
05:24
points of advice would you give somebody
05:25
who is interested in working
05:28
um it depends on
05:31
so depends on where you are in your life
05:33
so i had the i have a unique
05:35
um maybe not unique but i had
05:38
my my position when i was first figuring
05:41
all these things out is like i didn’t
05:42
have
05:42
i didn’t have any money to speak of like
05:44
i did you know work trades and
05:46
hostels and couchsurfing and all these
05:48
kinds of things just to scrap by
05:50
while i figured work out um
05:53
so like if somebody has you know like
05:56
you know like monthly payments to make
05:57
or someone has a family like it depends
05:58
how many financial responsibilities
06:00
but sure if if you happen to be in the
06:02
position
06:04
that i was in i would say just go like
06:06
just go and meet people who are doing
06:07
this
06:07
and talk to folks and network and figure
06:09
it out um
06:11
i’ve always like i i have
06:14
time after time like put myself in a
06:16
position where i had to figure things
06:18
out
06:19
absolutely and that while admittedly
06:21
being like pretty stressful at times is
06:22
also
06:23
it’s been a strategy that’s working yeah
06:26
um and having other people around
06:27
who you know experienced and maybe
06:30
you’re thinking about things that
06:31
you haven’t come across it can be really
06:33
but regardless like
06:34
that doesn’t like your worst case
06:37
scenario if you’re
06:38
a native english speaker with a with a
06:41
college degree
06:42
which i realize not everybody is in fact
06:44
most people in the world
06:45
are not that but if you happen to be in
06:48
that
06:50
uh demographic so this demographic would
06:52
generally fit that for sure
06:53
then like you can like there are and
06:55
this is one of the reasons i found a
06:56
nomad playground was to collect reviews
06:57
of these kinds of places but
06:59
you can get paid you know eight ten
07:02
dollars an hour on the low end just for
07:04
having conversations with people in
07:05
english
07:06
like this with people who are learning
07:08
and then if you
07:09
and then if you get into you know some
07:11
of the actual
07:12
better paying gigs you can pay 20 an
07:14
hour um
07:16
if there’s another skill set that you
07:18
can utilize and be online and just be
07:19
remote then obviously that’s the fastest
07:21
way to do it but
07:22
if you don’t have a job yet but you have
07:24
the correct flexibility and the freedom
07:26
you can travel for enormously cheap you
07:27
can go to people doing this
07:29
and you can get you can get a taste and
07:31
then if you
07:33
have a job you can take remote or
07:36
you know if you have a skill set you’re
07:37
looking to utilize you just need to know
07:39
how to find work doing that remotely
07:41
um then your pass gonna be a bit
07:43
different but it’s all
07:45
it’s all possible i just uh it’s it’s
07:48
not gonna come easy necessarily but it’s
07:50
all possible
07:51
for sure so kind of distill that down if
07:54
we were to break that down into
07:56
the two points i what i really took from
07:58
this is one is just taking the lead
08:00
right if you’re in the situation where
08:02
we’re going to assume that a lot of
08:03
people listen to this are you don’t have
08:05
uh kids you don’t have any major bills
08:06
to speak of right or maybe you have a
08:08
handful of them that you can
08:09
still balance while working the road
08:11
kind of taking the leap
08:13
um sometimes there’s that analysis
08:14
paralysis and i know that’s happened to
08:16
me for sure
08:18
secondly is once again assuming that a
08:20
lot of people
08:21
are native english speakers with a
08:24
college degree
08:25
and even those two elements are actually
08:28
pretty flexible in southeast asia so i
08:31
know around a lot of the world they want
08:32
you to be
08:33
native english speaking and have a
08:34
college degree but there’s parts of
08:36
southeast asia where i’ve met
08:37
filipino people who were teaching
08:40
english and they were making a couple
08:41
bucks less just because they didn’t look
08:42
the part
08:44
and i also had a buddy who’s teaching
08:45
english in vietnam who didn’t
08:47
who didn’t have a college degree and so
08:50
you can those two things can even be
08:51
pretty flexible
08:52
so uh last question is what are your two
08:56
biggest fears when you are working
08:58
remote and how do you handle it oh man
09:00
so that that is very different today
09:01
than it was
09:02
than it was several years ago i was
09:04
tired um
09:06
my i mean the biggest fears that i had
09:07
when i was first starting out was like
09:10
am i going to make it is it going to
09:11
work because i was
09:13
it was very really no
09:16
not much money to speak of it was uh i
09:18
was going to be able to figure it out
09:21
and then now at this point it’s more of
09:22
like a okay so
09:25
you know like i’m not
09:28
i’m not staying in hostels as much
09:29
anymore i’m making sure that i have
09:31
like a set up like where i land i’m
09:33
looking at airbnbs that have like
09:35
reviews that say it has great wi-fi
09:37
i just got back from a trip to mexico
09:38
doing exactly this yep
09:40
um and so the biggest worries are uh
09:43
i don’t know if i’m too worried about
09:45
things anymore i just make sure that i’m
09:46
gonna be connected
09:48
yeah um connection is a huge one for a
09:51
lot of folks right
09:52
i make sure that i’m gonna be connected
09:53
as long as that works out like i don’t
09:55
know like i’m probably looking for like
09:57
facebook or whatsapp groups ahead of
09:59
time just to connect with people while
10:00
i’m there
10:01
that’s a good question especially if
10:02
it’s a short trip it depends on what i
10:03
want to get into
10:04
yeah but i mean after all these
10:07
like years of going places the i tend to
10:10
like show up and then talk to people and
10:12
figure out what i’m doing from there
10:13
anyway so i’m not
10:14
i’m not much of a like fixed itinerary
10:17
kind of do to
10:18
more show up and see what’s going on so
10:20
as long as i’m as long as i’ve arrived
10:22
and everything’s fine
10:23
um there’s no not too many fires or work
10:25
to put out
10:27
um or if i’m taking if i am taking a bit
10:29
of time off making sure that like my
10:31
teams also have to take care of things
10:32
like that’s
10:33
those are the big critical things but
10:34
that’s
10:36
that’s going to be different reality
10:37
depending on what your schedule is and
10:39
whether you own your own business or
10:41
whether you’re doing a job you’re
10:43
um you’re gonna just making sure that
10:46
you have
10:47
flexibility built in to whatever you’re
10:50
doing so that
10:51
things aren’t gonna fall apart just in
10:52
case you’re an extra you know several
10:55
hours getting from point a to point
10:56
yeah for sure happens so kind of
10:59
distill that down
11:00
is one is going to be kind of
11:01
connectivity there’s a number of
11:02
different ways to do that i will be
11:04
writing an article depending on when
11:05
you’re
11:06
uh watching this i will be writing an
11:07
article about wi-fi connectivity how i
11:09
handle it
11:10
i have a couple different you know
11:12
backup i have a backup plan and backup
11:14
plan
11:14
about three or four different backup
11:15
plans um one that’s really great is
11:17
airbnb
11:18
yeah looking on airbnb or booking or
11:20
whatever you do
11:22
if they don’t have a search function for
11:23
the reviews just control f
11:25
wi-fi try to look at all the reviews and
11:27
look through and see okay what are
11:28
people saying about wi-fi that’s a
11:29
really good one for sure
11:31
the second one is that community aspect
11:33
i really like that
11:34
i so for facebook groups i think most
11:36
people watch this probably would know
11:37
how to get
11:38
um find facebook groups or just kind of
11:40
search them on facebook
11:42
how about what’s accurate i’m not
11:43
familiar with how to find what’s
11:45
what you need to know somebody that’s
11:49
typically like that’s that’s typically
11:51
something that’s come
11:53
uh just from like once you start doing
11:55
this then you start meeting other people
11:56
pretty fast like
11:57
by definition people are spreading out
11:58
to lots of different places you’d be
12:00
surprised to do you know where
12:01
and then like those things start to
12:03
click but if i if i’m just starting and
12:05
i don’t know
12:05
anybody in a place i’m looking up i’m
12:07
looking at facebook groups
12:08
[Music]
12:12
you can actually often tell how active a
12:15
nomad crowd
12:17
without actually having somebody who’s
12:19
experienced to talk to you about it
12:21
the most reliable way that i’ve known to
12:22
be able to figure out you know how
12:24
active
12:25
um a city really is as far as the
12:27
digital medicine goes
12:29
is checking out you know the facebook
12:31
group seeing how many people are in it
12:32
and how active it is
12:34
and facebook does give you those metrics
12:35
i believe right yeah
12:39
[Music]
12:41
and that’s just for like a general um
12:43
like a general feel like
12:44
if you’re in a city that doesn’t have
12:46
any facebook groups surrounding this
12:47
topic then they’re probably
12:49
despite what nomad list or anything else
12:51
says it’s probably not going to be a
12:52
whole lot going on while you’re there
12:53
yep that’s a good proof surrounding this
12:55
topic but then like
12:56
people don’t just travel as the other
12:57
digital companies like depends on what
12:59
you want to do
12:59
yeah absolutely all right well thanks
13:01
luke we appreciate having you
13:03
all right man until next time