How Nomad Capitalist Built A Content Marketing Engine That Generates 8 Figures In Revenue 💰

Basically, you can live in these places and not have to pay tax. You're also going to be out of your home country long enough to do that, and you get a taste of everything that's out there. You don't have to be stuck to one place.

Tell us a little bit about how you started this business in the first place, because we're going to jump around. We're going to talk about the business, but then I want to talk about some practical advice for people as well.

Well, the business started, you know, I was sitting around in my living room back in 2012. I've told this story probably in fragments to different people. I'll try and give you the whole story. In 2012, I'm sitting in my living room. I'm in the process of selling my last business in the United States. I started a couple different businesses. Most of them went pretty well, I suppose. And I'm sitting there hashing out an offer for the last one. And I said, you know, now I'm gonna do full-time travel all around the world. I've been traveling the majority of the time. But what do I wanna be called? I kinda wanted to become like a media creature where I became the guy that the Today Show would wanna interview when it came to Cambodia. And I realize now how little the Today Show cares about any of the places that I go, Cambodia or otherwise.

Yeah.

But I figured, all right, let me just develop this persona. I can interview some idols of mine and I can kind of create this new media persona. And I was thinking Nomad Capitalist and it just kind of came together, Nomad Capitalist. And initially it was a blog. It was just me writing and sharing the ideas of traveling overseas, following what are our 5 magic words, go where you're treated best. My father told me that when I was 12 years old. Don't feel you gotta stay in one place if they're not treating you well. Go where you're treated best. And so I was traveling around the world. I left the US for good and I was writing about it. And I think as with many great businesses, this was probably the most organically successful because there wasn't so much effort into what are we gonna sell. It was just sharing information. Here's what I'm seeing. Here's an interesting thing to do in the Philippines. Here's a residence program. Here's a banking thing I saw. And over time developed into a structured business that people, you know, ask us for help with that stuff.

And so how does the, the business work today? How do you guys make money?

For the most part, outside of a live event that we're hosting with Robert Kiyosaki and some other folks, uh, it's been pushed to 2021, uh, we are a, uh, a boutique advisory firm that basically serves as what I call a general contractor, where you live in the United States, for example, You want to incorporate your company somewhere to save on tax, but you don't want to live in that place, right? Maybe you don't want to live in Hong Kong and the UAE or the Cayman Islands. So you kind of want to coordinate US tax, which is going to follow you no matter where you go. If you're a US citizen, that's not going to just leave when you leave the country. You know, where's the company based? Where are you living? Maybe you're living in multiple places. Do you, you know, where do you buy a home there? You know, we're basically the one-stop shop that coordinates with all the vendors I've met along the 13 years. that we've put to the sniff test too. And basically, we understand all of it. So unlike a guy in the US who might be good at US tax, he probably doesn't understand the Hong Kong tax. And what they probably also don't understand is the human element of, no, you don't want to move to Belarus to save an extra 1% in tax. And what does the tax guy do? How do we reduce it as much as possible? It's like, well, maybe you want to pay an extra 2% and enjoy your life. They don't get that. We try to understand that because I'm living this. I have the multiple passports. I've reduced the tax myself. So, I get it and that's what we do. We charge a fee for that and we help create the plan and then we execute the plan.

Growing up in this, I've lived in LA my entire life, grew up in LA and so, it's like, you know, you live in this bubble. It's like nothing's better than LA. We have the weather, you know, you can go skiing and we have the beaches, all the things, right? And then you realize, well, no, you know, especially the things going on right now, it's probably not the best place anymore. And so, one thing that, one video that you put together talks about the trifecta. So, I'm just curious, you know, what is the trifecta A? And then, you know, what's in your playbook there, right? You know, where do you kind of move around? Because for me, you know, you mentioned Singapore a little earlier, like, okay, if I'm making $20 million a year, maybe I don't just want to stick in Singapore the whole time. Maybe I want the tax benefits, but maybe Singapore is not the most fun place.

So— Well, yeah. And you don't have to make $20 million, but yeah, that was my example. So, the trifecta idea is that you split your time up. Now, you can modify this to where it's not exactly a trifecta, but basically, it's 4 months per year. in 3 different places. And so that came from my idea where I like to have attributes of different places. It's been a little tougher this year, but I love Kuala Lumpur. I love Asia. I love the food, love the multiculturalism. I love the consumer conveniences. I think Asia is the future. It's great. You know, I like a little bit of taste of Europe. For me, it's probably not 4 months a year, but I have, you know, homes in Belgrade and also in Montenegro. So I like to go there. I like to get that European flavor, and I have teams in that part of the world and do that. But then, you know, coming from the United States, I was in Mexico for a couple months last year. I love Mexico City. It has that taste of home. I love Colombia. And so just that kind of American, not US American, just the Americas, that for me feels comfortable and it's vibrant and it's sexy and it's fun. And so it's hard for me to pick, you know, which one do I want? And so I have the trifecta and I can split my time accordingly. And so it's also not a bad tax strategy because you're not Generally speaking, unless one of your trifecta is France, they might come after you after 4 months. But, you know, you can buy homes in these places. They're decent investments. 4 months will generally not get you on the tax radar in these places. And so you may need to have a tax residence somewhere where you are paying your taxes or just, you know, paying nothing, but that's your tax home. But basically, you can live in these places and not have to pay tax. You're also going to be out of your home country long enough to do that. And you get a taste of everything that's out there. You don't have to be stuck to one place.

How are you doing that? I mean, obviously, you're not traveling a ton right now, I'm assuming. So, you know, I think this ties in with a question asked from a buddy that runs a fairly large company. He's like, you should ask Henderson, you know, what are his thoughts on COVID? How long will it stay around and how is he adjusting to it?

So, well, I'm not a great prognosticator. I mean, I think what we're seeing, I think a lot of people are seeing is, you know, the government's not your friend. I mean, look at whether they're now using this as the backdrop to unveil a wealth tax in California. And not only a wealth tax, but a retroactive wealth tax. So they're going to use this to take advantage of a lot of things. I mean, they're going to run up a big debt. Deficits are higher than ever. It's going to eventually, you know, come out in higher taxes. You see Joe Biden's running for president. I mean, his tax plan, he wants to raise your taxes. I'm not a political animal. I'm not pro-Trump or anti-Trump or pro-Biden. I mean, I don't really care. It's not my circus anymore. But what I do know is I think it's gonna be a great opportunity to grab power and to grab wealth, and you're going to see things you've never seen before. As a non-doom and gloom guy, it kind of pains me to say that, that you're going to see some wealth grabs like the wealth tax, possibly your retirement accounts will be subject to God knows what. But I think that, you know, I'm stuck in a very friendly country in terms of the people, lots of consumer conveniences. The government did a pretty good job. Things are pretty much back to normal. I'm traveling around, I'm taking vacations within the country. Financially, it's good. in that it's not a tax burden. Certainly some countries like the US are making exceptions for people who are already expats and have got stuck coming back, but that's somewhat limited. And so I think that what it says to me is you want to have your options. I'm increasingly seeing that even if you're an entrepreneur and you just want to move overseas and save tax, having a couple different places where you can go and be welcomed— if I wanted to come back to Malaysia after leaving, There's a procedure for me to do that, unlike tourists. I think it's important because you don't want to be stuck, as I have some people who are stuck in the US, their businesses is now at risk.

It sounds like you have a done-with-you component, or, you know, where you might make the plan for them, and then the done-for-you, you might, you know, do just do the work for them as well, you know, up to whatever you can. I'm certain— I'm sure they still need to do a certain part as well.

Yeah, the initial part that you pay for is the plan, and that's a series of phone calls with me. I've also developed some, some team leaders who have great complementary skills to me, and so we do some calls with them also, and they often bring out some stuff that I wouldn't. And so it's 5 or 6 calls, maybe it's an email back and forth, and we're basically— we've done this enough times, we understand the human side as well as the strategy side. And so we walk you through scenarios, we walk you through options, we test for a lot of stuff, we ask you a lot of questions about things that could go wrong, like You know, have you ever been bankrupt? What's your highest level of college education? Because some countries, they don't let you even form a company and be a director unless you have a college degree. So, you know, we kind of put all that stuff together cleanly. And then, okay, here's your plan. It's, you know, 16 steps. And you need to do it in this order, and this needs to be done, and don't do this. And then if you just want to take that and do it on your own, you can. If you want us to largely done for you, obviously I can't sign your name, I can't show up at the bank. We do have power of attorneys in some places to open things remotely. But yeah, it's largely, you know, done-for-you-ish. Um, that we do that. And what I really try to do is create that Disney experience. So, you know, it's not— it's very— we get referrals from existing clients. Just got a new one yesterday from a happy client. We don't really get referrals from other lawyers and stuff like that because they don't really understand the model.

Yeah.

It's very kind of personality, human-driven. They get— we get referrals, but they never really work out because people don't get it. And it's very much kind of the Disney of the industry.

Got it. I love that. So you're creating a great customer experience. And I think founders naturally will understand what they're getting into here just because they do a lot of studying around this stuff and they're thinking about this. So that's great. Well, for any, you know, people are like, oh, I don't have time to watch YouTube. Andrew's videos are clutch because when I eat lunch, I eat in like 5 to 10 minutes. And so his videos are 5 to 10 minutes. So I get a video done, I learned something. Oh, okay, great. And then I move on and go on with my day, right? So guys, go check out Nomad Capitalist. Andrew, thanks so much for doing this.

Hey, it's great to be with you. I really appreciate your having me.

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