Chris Guillebeau talks about visiting every country in the world, building his World Domination Summit from 500 to 3,000 attendees, and starting a business as an introvert. He shares how travel hacking and personal values shaped his work.
Hey guys, Ramese Sethi here from I Will Teach youh to Be Rich. I just finished recording an interview with my buddy Chris Guillebeau. This is part of my Brain Trust series where once a month I bring in my friends, my confidants, my mentors, the people I go to when I'm stuck, and I interview them. I ask them the toughest questions I can come up with and they pretty much have to answer. So I brought Chris in to talk about a few things that I've been wondering for a long time. And in this interview, he talks about how he started a business with massive reach as an introvert. He didn't have to be a huge extrovert to start this business and get millions of readers. He's also going to talk about travel hacking. Chris is the unparalleled master of travel hacking. He recently set a goal of traveling to every country in the world. And he did it. He's going to talk about how he did it and what are some of the travel hacks along the way. And then finally, this is one of my most interesting things that I discovered from him. He talked about starting a business based around his values. Not just making money, but actually other values as well. So here's an excerpt. The full interview is part of my Brain Trust program. And stay tuned. Here's Chris Guillebeau.
Hey, I'm Chris Guillebeau. I wrote the book $100 startup and I travel around the world.
Your business has exploded and I just want to tell you how much I admire the stuff you've done. So basically for everyone watching, Chris announced, you announced to the world that you were going to travel to every country in the world, which was crazy. No one that I know had ever done that. You announced it, you did it. People followed you online on your email list. They meet you in the most random cities of all. I met someone who lives in Canada and you don't even know who this person is. They were telling me Chris is amazing. He went to some weird, like, not well known city in Canada and he packed the room. Okay.
Which is a small room. It's like a closet. There's like one guy here and one person there.
No, I mean, they were like in awe. And I have been in awe. You also have a conference which is called wds World Domination Summit.
That's right.
Modest.
Modest name.
Modest name. You started it off. If I recall, it was like 500 people. And what was the latest number now?
Well, last year was 1000 and this year we have about 3000 and how.
Long did it take to sell out?
Last year it was like a 12 minute kind of sellout. This year, since we went to like a bigger audience, it did take a little bit longer. So I think it took about a day or so.
So, I mean, your audience is fervent, rabid. They love you. And I was fascinated to bring you in here, not just for my readers, but also just because I want to know some of the stuff I want to ask you today about your business and how you think about things.
Sounds good. No holds barred.
Why does your audience in particular love the idea of traveling? I want to kind of move away from the tactics. What does traveling represent to them?
I think traveling represents expanding one's horizons. Maybe seeing something new or experiencing something new. Maybe getting out of the comfort zone, maybe to go back to like non conformity. Maybe adventure. You know, when you. Adventure is not only travel, but travel is a big part of adventure for a lot of people. Yeah, I think a lot of the audience is aware, like, the world has changed so much and now so much more is accessible. There are far fewer excuses, you know, say if you want to travel, you should be able to travel. Like anyone watching this, you know, obviously there are people in the world who aren't able to do that. But most people watching this or most people who read blogs, you know, if you want to travel, you can stay for free couch surfing. You know, I'm not a big couchurfer myself, but if you have no money, you can go to couchsurfing.org, you can find hosts all over the world that will put you up for free.
You were giving a little talk every south by Southwest in Austin, and I dropped by and I came a little bit towards the end. And one thing you did that I've never seen anyone else do, you had people randomly from the audience come up and share their story. And some of them were like, oh, Chris, like, I bought your book for like 10 bucks. And that inspired my husband and I to go around the world and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wow. Because these are just like ordinary normal people.
Yeah, I'll give them the money for that later. Here's your 20 bucks. Thank you.
Good job. No, it was. The stories were cool and I was like, that actually inspired me on the community side to really think about how to, like, help my community spread the word themselves and share their stories. Because there's a lot of value in you. I know people love to hear you, but I think they also love to hear other people just saying of course.
Yeah. And then it becomes much bigger than about you or me. Right. And it's about a movement, you know, it's about, like, more than just a business.
