Zero To Travel Podcast

Neil Parekh 0:00
A lot of people think like, hey, because the business is a lifestyle business. I'm not going to grow that fast. I might not make a lot of money, but it's going to be more lifestyle focused. They're not mutually exclusive. You can have a very large business and be location independent and have a lifestyle focus.

Jason Moore 0:14
That was a clip from our wonderful guest today, Neil Parekh, who helps people run their local businesses completely, remotely and travel the world. And in fact, he did that for himself. He quit his corporate job traveled to 35 countries over five years and built a local location dependent. Yes, you heard that right. Dependent business that generated over $10 million in sales, all while living the nomad lifestyle. And although it may sound counterintuitive to some, Neil makes a strong case for starting a local business and making it location independent. How do you do that? Well, that is a big topic. In today's interview, Neil built up his company made this which is a work from anywhere cleaning franchise focused on vacation rentals. And he did it all while he was backpacking and traveling and hostels and doing that whole thing. In fact, he doubled his business in that first year and he talks about that he gets into a ton of lessons around building a location dependent location independent business, including why it's easier to compete on the local level and why you should consider starting or growing a local business. His two big criteria for choosing a successful local business that can be run remotely, why having the mentality of making your business remote is so critical how we overcame some of the challenges around the things that are required of him to be in person we get Neil's take on following your passion versus starting a business based on an opportunity or potential income, and play lessons here to get you off and running or give you some ideas and perspectives on creating a profitable remote business and other way to do it. And on the travel side. We cover plenty of other stuff too. Of course his life as a recovering Nomad, what it's like to up and your Nomad identity, universal lessons he learned from surviving on a desert island for three days alone why Neil got kidnapped on purpose, the biggest benefit of learning survival skills, how our ability to normalize anything as humans can empower you to build an unconventional lifestyle, and so much more. Plus, I'm gonna share a little bit of my experience running a tiny local business on my own back in the day not too long ago. And my number one takeaway that I got from that something to leave you with at the end of this interview. Plus, I want to give a shout out to somebody in this listening community whose gap year seems to be leading into something more and she has a little bit of advice to share with you as well. So all of that happening right now. Thanks for being here. Buckle up strap in. And welcome to the zero to travel podcast, my friend.

ad 3:01
You're listening to the zero to travel Podcast where we explore exciting travel based work, lifestyle and business opportunities helping you to achieve your wildest travel dreams. Now your host World wonder and travel junkie, Jason Moore. Hey, what's up, it's

Jason Moore 3:19
Jason here with zero to travel.com We'll goom to the show, my friend. Thanks for hanging out letting me bring a little travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms to fill your life with as much travel as you desire no matter what your situation or experience. I am fresh back from a border run. It's been a long time since I've done a border run. It's not what you're thinking it wasn't for a visa or anything like that. I'm actually visiting my in laws here in rural Norway in London. And I just took a trip with my family over to Sweden. This is a popular thing to do here. And kind of a funny thing because well, I guess I just didn't know it was a thing until I moved to Norway. But apparently, certain things are a bit more affordable. In Sweden and my in laws live not too far from the border. It's about a 30 minute drive, and then another 20 minutes after that to get to this small town called Aedra. And they have a grocery store place where you can buy beer, it's all much cheaper. And a lot of Norwegians crossed the border to buy a bunch of stuff in Sweden, mostly alcohol, and certain foods that you can't get here and things like that. And come back. So yeah, we had a wrap with a reindeer meat and some coffee and we did some shopping and it was all good. And just a fun little travel experience for me and I know it's normal for them growing up to just bounce over to Sweden and buy some stuff. But for me it's kind of like little travel experience. You know, it's cool to take a drive and then you see it. You're in a new country and you got to You flag and just kind of cool anyway. So that's what I did today. What are you up to hope you're doing? Well, I'm kicking off with that because I always want to invite you to get in touch and let me know what you're up to drop me a line, Jason at zero to travel.com is my email. And also, you can leave me a voicemail really simply by clicking the link here in every show notes. And drop me a message. In fact, I got an email from a listener recently that I wanted to share with you, who took a gap year and turned it into a life of travel or seems to be turning it into a life of travel. And I'm gonna share what that's about. In a moment. First, a little bit more about this Interview with Neil, he reached out and I thought this was a really interesting and different take. Because when we look at the digital nomad, landscape and remote work, particularly I guess, in the Nomad scene, it seems like if you've done any research, or you've been in that bubble at all, a lot of the same types of businesses show up people talk about online businesses, and drop shipping or blogging or starting an Amazon FBA business and all of these things. And Neil doesn't teach any of that, in fact, he's just sharing his experience, building his own local business, and running it remotely. And he actually helps people do that over his podcast. He's the host of the remote local podcast, and you can check that out at be remote local.com wanted to give him a shout out there, because he gives a ton of information here. And I really think podcasts like this can be helpful for everybody, whether you're an entrepreneur or not, or you think you may never start a business or you run your own business now, you never know what life's gonna throw out you I like to have

as many sort of perspectives and ideas as I can, around generating income from anywhere, I just think it's a good thing to know and to be aware of. And sometimes conversations like this, spark new ideas. And even if you don't think you're going to do anything with it right now, you never know, if you might in the future. Of course, that's only about half of this interview, we focus on the business stuff we also get in travel experiences and his Nomad life and things like that. So there's really a lot packed in here and stick around. After the interview. Like I mentioned at the top, I'm going to share my number one takeaway from running a small little side hustle, local business. And what I learned from that just a little personal takeaway. I will of course, leave you with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers today, one that always gives me a lot of perspective on my life. And a little surprise for you a little preview, a sneak preview, if you will, of next week's podcast. So stick around for all of that after the interview. Two quick things before we continue on, if you haven't signed up over at zero to travel.com, you can join the free newsletter over there, find out what's going on off the podcast and keep in touch. Also, if you go to zero to travel.com/premium, you can get access to a private podcast feed this is the way you can support the show and get something amazing in return. I've got some exclusive audio on there like my how to quit your job and travel the world series, my How to Find the Best International House sitting gigs around the world series, and all kinds of bonus episodes that I've done, since I've launched this thing that you can't get on the public feed. And again, it's a way to support me as a creator and keep the show going. I really appreciate everybody that subscribed. And I would love to welcome you into the premium passport family too. So check it out, see if it's something that can help you further travel the world good is your travel.com/premium you can support the show get those good vibes and get some amazing exclusive never before heard content, as well as a personal letter from me with each episode. And you know, this week's personal letter was there were some Tom Hanks references in there you'll you'll have to see what that's all about if you subscribe so anyway, it really helps to keep the lights on over here is your travel.com/premium please check it out if you have a moment and thanks for your support. Now this shout out is to somebody I've met in person we've been in contact throughout her journey to traveling the world and I'm really excited for her and she had some advice to share with you. So I thought that I would give her this shout outs in this show it's from Crystal Hey Crystal she said Hi Jason. Just want to drop in say hello it's about four months into my gap year and I'm home for a few weeks visiting family and friends. I was just listening to your new podcast episode Time goes fast. goes on to say that listening brought her back to two years ago when quote I committed to work for an hour and back while religiously listening to your show now I'm actually living it, which feels so surreal. I wanted to encourage your listeners who are hesitant to jump in and follow their dreams to just do it. It's so worth it and changes your entire life perspective. I saw the Northern Lights in Canada spent five weeks island hopping in Hawaii spent two months backpacking in Mexico and Belize. And I'm off. In a few weeks to Ecuador, the Galapagos and camping in the Amazon. I was planning on traveling for a year and going back to the quote real world, get a house settle down, still travel but be more adulting. Now I realized there's no way at least not now. I'm already planning on traveling with my dog working remotely and exploring the states after my gap year and possibly moving to Hawaii for a few years. You were so right when you said that travel changes your perspective and life course. And for the better. Just listen to your podcast brought me back to 2020 when I was driving to work, saving and working and saving some more, just wanted to thank you feel surreal to fast forward two years later, and actually live out the thing I've been working so hard for keep on rocking crystal. And I want to say congrats to Crystal. Thank you. And yeah, I just wanted to share this because these stories inspire me hope they inspire you coming right from listening community. And Crystal obviously worked hard for this and saved and took the gap year and now it's turning into much more and you never know whether it's a gap year or a gap month, what a commitment to travel can do for you, and what it can do for your life. So just another reminder for all of us the power of travel to take us on new paths to change our lives in unexpected ways. Speaking of that, let's get into the interview. today. You know, Neil, taking this remote work approach to his local business really changed his life, put him out on the road for years and doing something that you don't hear a lot about, which is why I wanted to bring him on the show. So he's gonna bring his wisdom and advice to you today. Now in this interview, stick around on the other side for a little wrap up in the things I mentioned before. And I'll see you over there. Enjoy this chat

Well, I'm really excited to welcome Neil Parekh to the show. Who is sipping on something over there because it's early morning in California. What do you drink in

Neil Parekh 12:36
highly caffeinated tea to make sure I could wake up?

Jason Moore 12:40
Nice. I'm about 20 cups of coffee in which most people can guess they listen to this show. So anyway, welcome, man. How are ya?

Neil Parekh 12:47
I'm excited to be here, man. It's been it's always nice coming on shows like travel related especially post COVID where I get like my juices pumped up to go travel again. So I'm stoked, man.

Jason Moore 12:59
Yeah, are you are you gearing up to travel again? Or what? What's your plan?

Neil Parekh 13:03
After June I'll probably take off for a while I kind of and I'm sure we're gonna do I kind of stopped nomadic obviously, when COVID happened. And it's been coming nice being settled in one place for a while like I got the lease and everything and it feels felt a little strange at the beginning but I'm enjoying it but also itching to like, kind of go explore a little bit more so gearing up to head out for a few months at least.

Jason Moore 13:23
Yes, we're definitely going to get into that because I think I read somewhere you were a recovering nomad. So I know it's a, it's tough to kind of adjust to the non nomadic life. It's a whole it's completely changing your lifestyle. Right. So

Neil Parekh 13:39
yeah, it's a weird shift of lifestyle plus, like, in some ways identity change, which is harder, right? If that's what you've been doing for a long time, and all of a sudden you shift out of nowhere. So yeah, definitely tough transition. Transition for a lot of people.

Jason Moore 13:51
I think the identity shift part is a big part of the learning process coming off the road. At least for me, it was we have a lot to talk about because you you have built a successful location dependent location independent business. That's a mouthful. And this was a different take, because, well, I want to get to the pros and cons of that. And of course, the nomad lifestyle and why you're sort of recovering. And, you know, a bunch of tips around all of that. But I want to start with your ability to survive on a desert island. You saw that? Yeah, man, this looks so cool. So I want to get Tom on on the podcast. So just just to give people like, give people a background of what I'm talking about. And then I really want to dig into this because you had a whole long Twitter thread about it that I mean, you could say it maybe it went a little viral. I thought it was interesting. Pretty good. It lessons out there.

Neil Parekh 14:49
Yeah, yeah. I'll give everyone a quick background. So I actually signed up a couple years ago, but I met a guy named Tom while traveling, who both of us know and he runs A company called Desert Island survival where they take you on survival expeditions and stranded on a desert island like castaway. Adjacent I grew up that's why for that's your vacation. That's my vacation. Like, the two questions I get is like, like, are they paying you for this? Or like what are you doing? At the other ones like Are you crazy? So but I grew up pretty much watching movies all the time i My parents had video rental stores growing up. So like I've seen Castaway and all these movies. Of course, in my mind, I just want to I want to recreate that right? So I heard about this, I signed up and what it is is for 10 days you're on the island, the first few days are with the guide and to get trained up how to survive. And this is everything from like, how to make fire, how to build shelter, how to find fish, everything around that. And the last days you're in isolation or survival where you're just by yourself and you just have to survive basically. And you know, I was eating everything from like snails, Tiguan has to like stingrays just like trying to survive. And this is so outside of what I normally do. But I love the challenge of it. And it was just a fascinating experience I got back two weeks ago, and I'm still aging from the bug bites. But it was it was incredible as Panama.

Jason Moore 16:11
Yeah, I should link to this Twitter thread, because I'll just highlight one thing you said here, you said within a couple days being on the island, I was running around at night with a wooden spear hunting fish and iguana, climbing up coconut trees with a machete bathing and washing everything in the ocean. The crazy part, this felt completely normal within only two days. And you were bringing up the point of humans being able to normalize anything in a very quick manner and being adaptable. And there were a lot of other lessons in there that I feel like you pulled out upon reflection on the experience. So I wanted to hear what some of those lessons were for you and dig a little bit into that whole experience.

Neil Parekh 16:47
Absolutely, man. So the first one is kind of like what you talked about if we can normalize anything. And I think this relates to travel thing to sweets, literally anything in life. But let's I'll give you the example in the desert island. Like you said, like, within a couple of days, I was doing stuff which I would never have dreamed of the week before. Right? Like just like I was running around with wooden spirits and nighttime, like catching stuff. And just like eating anything that moved. And it was ridiculous. And I kind of realized like, oh, wow, we are incredibly adaptable. So that was less than one where you think you're in again, just situation, you're not sure how you're going to react. Just do it. And you'll be surprised that your mind kind of just takes over. So even people listening who are expiring, no matter if you want to go travel, you're worried about you know, this is not what I do. I don't stay at hostels, I don't backpack, I promise you, you will become used to it way quicker than you think. It's just humans adaptability. And that's something which was very apparent on the island. Just an intense situation of how different one was from norm, where I realized, like, wow, we are incredibly adaptable. The other big one, Jason, for me was like just understanding that everything's a want, not a need. And that was very humbling for me to kind of figure out and a lot of it is because when you're in survival mode you are living off of for things like oh, you need this for things, fire, shelter, water, and food. That's all you need, right? And then you could survive. So we're kind of grinded down to the bare bones version, one of those needs. And when you live in in version, one of those needs for a while you realize like all you want is version one you don't like version two and up is like, hey, instead of sleeping on this hand, maybe you upgrade to like, some sort of caught right. And like I didn't even care about that, as I know that that sounds like a luxury I really don't need I just need the basic version one of it. So you kind of realized a lot of the things we want in life and the being later versions of the bear for necessities fire, shelter, water and food. And you don't necessarily need it to survive, you survive on the first first level this for things that's okay. So it actually makes things a lot easier. And I guess you appreciate the other things more than you kind of realize like, Oh, that's a want, you don't really need it to survive, and that's okay.

Jason Moore 18:55
Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how you almost have to strip it down to that level and experience it for a while until you kind of come to that realization. Like it's just easy to take the things around us for granted sometimes, right but next thing you know, when you it's very visceral, when you're, you know, sleeping in the sand and sands getting in your mouth and you're hungry and thirsty and you got nothing to eat and you're running around with this beer trying to get your food. You're like, oh, I want to need Got it. Got it, check. Nailed it. Well, I think the adaptability part is a really huge point on a lot of levels too. Because you know, if you're not getting the support around you to become an entrepreneur or to you know, go traveling or start a nomad life or whatever. It's a good thing to remember that people, the people around you will adapt as well to this new reality if you decide to do it and you're like your parents don't approve or whatever. Well guess what? Everybody will adapt to the new situation, and probably quicker than you think they might not like it You know, for a little while, but

Neil Parekh 20:02
yeah, life just moves on. And everyone's kind of in their own world to begin with, right? So it's like, you know, you might think on the outside, like, oh, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of pressure not to do something. Like you said, people adapt, people move on, they're doing their own things into their own heads, it doesn't really matter to a lot of people in the long run. So

Jason Moore 20:20
did you have this kind of support growing up? But as far as the lifestyle that you've led? What was your sort of values growing up? What's back to view? I guess, if anything?

Neil Parekh 20:31
Yes, I'm Indian, by ethnicity. So first generation, meaning my parents immigrated from India over here. And ideally, I'm not sure if you know, a lot, I think, did you grow up in Denver? outside of Philadelphia, I grew up I said to Philly, okay. Okay, as I saw that you were in Colorado for a while. Yeah, so not sure if you know much about the immigration population and mentality in the United States, but a lot of people emigrated in the 70s 80s. And still continuously, and a lot of their mindset is just to survive, right? Like, you come to the country, you have no money, you're like, Okay, it's hard to get a job because of my education, or my accent or whatever. Like, let me just start my own business and just hustle. And that was very much my parents. They came here, not much money and just hustled, and all they cared about was surviving. And then when they had kids, I think a lot of that survival mentality carried on of like, I didn't realize people ordered appetizers at restaurants and that was a normal thing. Like, oh, if I would try to order soda, my parents were like, Are you kidding me? We're not going to order soda like what do you what do you crazy, we don't have that luxury. Right? It's it's very much the mindset of, you know, kind of grinding survive. So a lot of immigrants came here with a mentality and what they pass on to their kids is, hey, go graduate college, go get a stable job, you know, go become a doctor, engineer, lawyer or something and just survive in this country, make good money, even don't take crazy risks. It's great land of opportunity. And you could kind of just grow from here. So that was a lot of what was instilled in me to begin with. So getting to your question back, when I decided to go out and travel and kind of do crazy experiences. I wasn't doing that before I was working in finance. I worked in private equity for a few years. And it was a lucrative job, I was on a good career path. And I said, Hey, I'm listening to these crazy podcasts. And I really, really feel inspired to like, go travel. Let me quit everything and get a bag back and go to Colombia. And of course, my parents are like, are you crazy? You're on such a great career path. Why would you throw that away to do this? And I got lucky, where they were never pushy. They never told me you can't or can't, you have to do something. So they kind of just, I think were scared internally and voiced some of their fears. But then I still went for it. And now I think, you know, they're incredibly proud. I was traveling out of country for about five years bouncing around, built my business, scaled it turned it into a franchise and kind of kept growing year from there. And only recently, I'd say is when I started to do a couple of these little bit crazier experiences. Like last year I did. I got kidnapped on purpose. That's all.

Jason Moore 23:01
Okay, desert island thing was your was your?

Neil Parekh 23:05
Yeah, I feel like they just keep coming up. When you do one does another one pops up. And you're like, Okay, I guess I do that one, too.

Jason Moore 23:10
It's like that movie the game accepts. Exactly, exactly. So does it feel? I mean, it tells me that story.

Neil Parekh 23:18
So diving into it. A buddy of mine from the DC texted me he's like, Yo, do you want to get kidnapped next month? And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. But yes,

I get that text like every week. Hey, man, I want to get kidnapped next month. Maybe next week, but the following month, my schedule,

gets rescheduled, it's rain check on that one. So what it was, it was a military course. And the guy who runs it, which teach special forces, hey, when you get into a situation out of country, and you might get kidnapped, this is how to handle it. This is what to do. Like if the government collapses, this is what to do. So it was him me and like a few of the entrepreneurs who went to this course and he convinced the guy that train it to civilians. And like think about like, you have these military guy training you. You have a bunch of like nerdy entrepreneurs in the room. I try to soak up knowledge and the guys like who are these your SEO juice that you're running? What's your SOP when you do these these get in the car. You need to optimize your kidnapping, like maybe outsource to a VA I don't really know. Anyways, we were there in the first few days was like training on what to do. And it was like you'd have to learn how to pick pick locks how to get out of situations. And a lot of the training was like, the situations I'm never going to be in right. The instructor would ask and say, Hey, are you going to country? The government falls there's an entire military coup here behind barbed wire fence dogs are coming at you what do you do? And how am I what am I ever gonna be in this situation? Like why do I need to know this? But you go through this ridiculous training and the Last Day simulation. Whether you actually get kidnapped or in a room you have like a hood on it. And they'll do stuff like, they'll kind of hit you a little bit, you get stung with a gun, we got waterboarded a bit. And then you have to leave the room and you have to get out and you so you get out of the handcuffs, you're out into the city. And there's a variety of like tasks you do. This is kind of like scavenger hunt style where you're out in the city. They're trying to recapture you. And you have to first thing like, go to a grocery store and get further instructions and go from there, you have no phone, nothing. So the funny story, Jason has went to the churches to go to like this grocery store to figure out where it is, and talk to the guy and a hat and say, Oh, it's really cold outside. And then he'll give you the next clue of what to do. It was really hot outside that day. But you have to say it's really cold outside. The thing is there's like five dudes in the grocery store with black hats on. So I think everyone happened to go to like the wrong guy. It's like a It's really cold outside. And this poor guy was like, why is everyone coming up to me and saying it's really cold outside.

So after that, we just have to do a variety of tasks, which is stuff like using social engineering, like hey, get $2 off of someone take a bus and go here or go here and pick this lock. And the whole time they're trying to recapture you. So it really turned into like, kind of game of a tag mixed with scavenger hunt with a little bit of like threat at the beginning. But just a cool experience in a cool learning experience overall. Wow.

Jason Moore 26:24
So yeah, you picked the locks, and then you got on upwork.com and hired somebody. All right. So that's crazy. All right. Was it fun? Or was it sort of were there parts that were actually traumatic because I imagined getting waterboarded isn't too much fun, right? Um, you know, you know, it's sort of a game, but you're still in it, and it's still happening to you. So I was wondering what that line is going to be like, if you do something like this.

Neil Parekh 26:49
Yeah, I do feel like because we're a bunch of nerdy entrepreneurs, we got like, the vanilla version of the training, right? Where they're like, hey, just tap out whenever you want to for any of this stuff, and you're fine. I thought that would last longer than waterboarding. I thought I'd be able to just hold my breath and be like, alright, well, I could hold my breath. Like, you know, for two minutes, I'll be fine. I tapped out in 12 seconds. I didn't even know I tapped out. Yeah, by hand, just did it. Your body just reacts in panic mode, and you don't really know what you're doing. So yeah, at least I know. Now, if I ever actually get real kidnapped, and someone's about to waterboard me, I'd be like, just take you don't want to worry me. I already know. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do well here. Just take whatever information you need.

Jason Moore 27:28
Good to know. Yeah. All right. Well, I hate to backtrack a little bit. But I want to, I want to stay on these things. Because it's such an interesting travel experience, I guess you could say, in many ways, or just experience life experience a bit of a different kind of adventure. And what the survival stuff at the end, you said, you're three days on your own. Is that right? Correct. Yeah. Is there a backup kind of plan? Or are you truly out on your own having to figure it out? For those three? Do you feel totally prepared after the five day training that precedes that to actually survive for three days?

Neil Parekh 28:07
To be honest, no, but I don't think I guess you're never going to be ready for like a situation like that, or anything you're gonna get into, like, even if you're like, Am I really ready to go travel? Probably not. You just got to go do it. And you'll have a bunch of stimulus and experiences and then you kind of adapt from there. But in my mind, I'm not very much of a camper guy. Anyways, I just kind of thought, like, worst case, I'll, I'll fast for three days. And people do that all the time. It's fine, right? It's in the back of my head. I knew. Like, I'll just starve for three days and it's okay. So it was okay. You need water? Yeah, so we that island had no fresh water on it. So they actually gave us water because they were like this is too dangerous for you guys to try to get your own water. We're gonna get you water actually. So at least that part was taken care of the funny stories Bear Bear. Gorillas recorded something on that same island and they put in like a fake water stream to simulate him actually getting water but there was there's actually no water on the island. So obviously reality show they're gonna fake it by they just thought that was pretty funny. You kind of just survive so for me it was a lot of just like hey, worst case I'll have coconuts and water and snails and like I'll be able to survive right because coconuts give you 200 calories each other sit there and kind of wait and then when you're actually hungry and hungry and in that manner you're that's all you could really think about so you can't just sit there you're just like alright, let me go hunt let me go try to get food because you're just literally all you could think about.

Jason Moore 29:30
How good was that beer afterwards?

Neil Parekh 29:32
Man that never anything like I had like, go back to the restaurants that aren't give me for pancakes, entire blade to bacon, give me a beard. Give me everything you have right now. And of course my stomach's like this tiny site, three bites and I was full but it was the thought that matters.

Jason Moore 29:49
Are there any other crazy experiences like that that you've done recently? Or do you have one queued up?

Neil Parekh 29:54
Not yet. I think the next one I would love to do is like cross country motorcycle trips a little bit more time than that. But that's definitely what I'd like to do. I've met a lot of people who've done similar things, just while traveling, and it kind of inspires you. And I guess, Jason, that's one thing, which I don't think I would have done this if I did not go Nomad and travel, right, you just, again, the humans can normalize anything, you meet other people who do similar types of things. And then you realize, like, Oh, this isn't that weird, like there's other people doing it, then maybe to you, your family and friends back home, it sounds very strange. But when you're on the road, and you meet people who are doing strange things, as well, that becomes the norm and your mind adjusts and normalizes that, so all of a sudden, I do these things. And to me, it's not weird, because I know people do in it. But then, on my posts on Twitter post somewhere else, I'm like, Oh, I guess it is a little bit strange. So I think it's because I've traveled and met enough people that these experiences seem like kind of par for the course for the most part.

Jason Moore 30:50
Yeah. And that's why it's so critical to get around other people doing X, Y, or Z, right? Whether it's other entrepreneurs or travelers, but you can't help but get around them if you're traveling because you stay in hostels, the people and you're like, I remember when I first went backpacking, I showed up that was in those two months solo trip, and I'm thinking on this great adventure, and then I started meeting these Australians. And they're like, Oh, how long? You know, how long are you traveling for the typical thing? And they're like, three years? Yeah, I don't know when I'm going to stop me. I'm just like, what? You can travel like, indefinitely. That's Yeah, crazy. This was before, you know, there were all the blogs and the podcasts and whatnot. Some day. Yeah.

Neil Parekh 31:31
I was always I just thought the same thing. I was so envious of them. Because I had like this big three month trip planned is my first trip to South America. And these guys are like, Yeah, I didn't know I just I got stuck here for like three months. And I'm just still here. And we'll see if I ever go back home. And sometimes, like, I truly envy that just like, we'll just see what happens. And it's a funny one.

Jason Moore 31:51
But now you're equipped to, you know, pick locks and urban urban survival and desert nature. I mean, that's empowering, though, to learn those skills. I've been thinking about this recently. I've been thinking about doing some of these types of things, just like looking into it, because I think it's it. It's kind of like doing self defense or something, you just, yeah, there's a certain level level of comfort in the fact of just having some of that knowledge, you know,

Neil Parekh 32:17
it's 100%. I think that's probably the biggest benefit of doing any of these things is just a little bit more self confidence. What am I actually going to use this in a real life situation? Hopefully not right. And I but it's not even just, it's not even that I'm preparing for if that happens, it's just more about kind of building the engine, like just knowing different things and kind of knowing that you've been through something like this, and you're fine. Definitely builds self confidence. I feel like that's the number one benefit of doing anything like this.

Jason Moore 32:45
Yeah, maybe that can be a side benefit, too. Sometimes, if you take off traveling, I never thought when I was doing it, like, Oh, I'm doing this to build my self confidence, you know? Yeah, it just was a byproduct of having the solo travel experience for me.

Neil Parekh 33:00
How long did you so look before? Well, I

Jason Moore 33:03
mean, I've done it off and on for many years in different locations. But the very first proper trip I took after college was like a two month backpacking through Europe solo trip, but at that time, I didn't know anybody who solo traveled or even that that was a thing that a lot of people did. I was Yeah. totally clueless. Yeah,

Neil Parekh 33:23
those first few months in the hostels are just like, so eye opening, right. I remember thinking like, this is the best thing ever, like you make all these cool people from all these different places. And you're like, I'm gonna do this forever. Yes. Such a funny show, actually, that?

Jason Moore 33:36
Well, I wanted to ask you about the hustle mentality that you mentioned being part of like an immigrant family, you mentioned there's this hustle mentality. How do you feel about that when it comes to business, because I want to get into some of the lessons you've learned building this location dependent location independent business. What I mean by that is you've built a local business where you have sort of like the traditional boots on the ground, local business, which is a cleaning service made this and, you know, a lot of people generally speaking don't necessarily equate that type of business to the digital nomad lifestyle, although there are, of course, plenty people out there doing it, it's just not the one that's talked about a lot. And it's not the one that you sort of see online a lot where people are, you know, they got their laptop and on the beach and the ocean water, which by the way, doesn't really work because you know, you get sand in your laptop, and then what are you going to do with your laptop and you go swimming, and you know,

exactly. It's a great picture, though.

It's a great picture, though. But yeah, because the hustle mentality meets sort of the lifestyle business, which is kind of what I'm assuming that that's sort of your approach to business, right? Like you're having a business so you can have freedom, but there's also the sort of the hustle culture around certain aspects of, of like bootstrapping a business and building something. I just wanted to hear about your philosophy and how you approach this This

Neil Parekh 35:00
is talking about lifestyle businesses in general, right, I feel like, I'm gonna make the two extremes, you have a lifestyle business and you have like a Silicon Valley startup high growth, raise a bunch of money and work 80 hours a week and like, Go massive, right? Like you have the kind of the two tracks is almost in a way I kind of think about it. Let's say a lot of people listening myself as well pick, hey, I want a lifestyle business track. What I've realized recently is that does not mean it's not high growth, that just means you're prioritizing your life over it. A lot of people pick things like, hey, because the business is a lifestyle business, I'm not going to grow that fast, I might not make a lot of money, but it's going to be more lifestyle focused. They're not mutually exclusive, you can have a very large business, and be location independent and have a lifestyle focus. One example would be I have a good friend who I met while traveling, runs a business with 400 employees. He's been nomadic for 10 years. Massive, massive business, but he's optimized for his lifestyle. So a lot of the way I think about it is I think people might get into lifestyle business thinking, hey, I don't, I don't want to like, grow massive. And that's okay if you do but realize that it still is possible. And I think no matter what business, you start at the beginning you there's a certain element of hustle time and energy you need to put in and then you can optimize leverage, leverage people leverage money in order to grow faster without your time involvement as much as possible. But the paths are kind of similar at the beginning is you still you still have to hustle, it'd be very tough to join and start a company and then say, Hey, I'm only going to work five hours a week because I'm optimizing for lifestyle, it just doesn't work. So I you know, at the beginning, you do need to put more time and effort in scaling, and then figure out what you want to do from there.

Jason Moore 36:39
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great mindset tip to what you said it not being mutually exclusive, right? If you think about, okay, well, may I start this lifestyle business and have freedom, but that means, you know, only be able to make it so big? And what you're saying is, well, no, that's basically a limiting belief. And you shouldn't adhere to that. To that belief, you're basically doing some miss mythbusting here, right? It's like, No, you can you can scale something and have the lifestyle to not that it's an easy trick to pull off. But it's not a foregone conclusion that you need to have that because I that's what I does not attract me to the startup world at all, is that sort of ongoing hustle mentality where it never stops, and then you have investors, and then I don't again, I don't have the personal experience. So a lot of this might be my own limiting beliefs around that. But it seems like you have more of a chance of creating a sort of standard desk job for yourself in that scenario, as opposed to taking this lifestyle business approach. Oh, I

Neil Parekh 37:39
100% agree. And I worked in Vc as well as we'll see the other side of it where you're hustling, like you're working, you're working. And when you go that route, your boss is the investor for the most part. And if you're like, Hey, I'm gonna go travel and be at a hostel they'll be they'll be like, I don't, what are you doing with my money? You know, you can't be doing that. Right. So it's definitely a different mentality. That's specifically why I didn't want to go the VC route at all. Like, that's just not the type of lifestyle I wanted to start with made this instead. And, you know, I kind of had that this limiting belief we talked about until just recently, still grew the business pretty well, like I think, maybe grew to a couple of dollars a year, pre COVID. And then now we've started franchising the model to other people, as well, who want to be remote and location dependent. So that kind of grew a little bit more. But if for a while it took me took me a long time to say, am I optimizing for growth? I'm optimizing for lifestyle, which would, which would I do, and I feel like it kind of shot me in the foot just to have that mentality of I can only pick one, which one do I want? And I've realized like, oh, that's actually not true at all. Like you can't have both. Absolutely. I love

Jason Moore 38:44
that. Well, you've generated over $10 million in sales from the road while being a nomad. So we got to pull off some lessons here. Yeah, yeah. First, I want to, I want to ask you about starting a local business that you make location independent, what why should somebody consider that? Like, what are some of the pros and cons, in your opinion of that model? Sure, you can describe if you want to just kind of describe what that means. I mean, I did try to frame it up in the beginning, but maybe what that means to you having a local business.

Neil Parekh 39:15
Yeah, absolutely. So let me talk a little bit about made this in my journey. And by the way, Jason, I wish I could tell you like I thought of this idea. And it was great. I kind of just stumbled into it. And it kind of morphed it in a way which is location independent. I didn't come up at the beginning and think like, oh, this is a genius idea. Let me do it. But I feel like that's how a lot of opportunities come up. You just kind of get in there and then be like, Oh, this isn't working. Let me try something else. So kind of starting from the beginning. When I worked in VC, I just wanted some sort of side house I tried like ecommerce dropshipping

Jason Moore 39:42
like you know, all the traditional online like, digital nomad type of businesses. Yeah, exactly. I

Neil Parekh 39:47
can. I wanted to like I saw that picture of the dude on the beach with his laptop. I'm like, I want to be that guy. Like how do I do that? Okay, I'm gonna buy this eCourse on how to make e courses and let me go and do that. Nothing was working. Nothing at all. was working. And finally I was at my job. And I was on Reddit. And it's not post of a guy who started the cleaning company. And I thought, let me just do this on the side while I tried to find something which is a little bit more remote. The one thing out of all the things I was trying, which did work was the cleaning company started to grow and grow and grow. And finally, I remember I was at some conference for like, for a company called Flippa. And I was trying to figure out how to buy an E commerce company and like start a pet hair vacuum blog. And some guy was like, Hey, if you already have a business, like, why are you why are you here? What do you like? Why are you doing any of this stuff? I was like, Are you right? Like I, I've always thought about my made business may this is kind of just a side business, because I would needed to find my real location independent business. When I started looking at it in a way of like, Oh, I'm actually not like, I don't need to be here that much. Everything's on remote because I have a full time job anyways, that I think I need to do is maybe meet cleaners for interviews every now and then. Then I started looking think, can I make this business fully remote where I could travel and do this. And once I had that mentality of I'm going to make this business completely remote, I was able to put the systems in a way where it was fully remote, meaning my current team, for example, is across eight different countries, calls get routed to my team in South Africa. The Cleaners call my team in Honduras. And so everything is completely remote. Don't think at the time which was not remote was interviewing cleaners in person, which I was actually able to kind of manage just by hiring someone local part time. But in short, what we do, may this is a residential cleaning company and also in a vacation rental cleaning company. So Airbnb turnovers. And now the franchise side we're actually the first and only franchise doing Airbnb turnovers. There's no other franchise doing it right now. So anyways, the systems are were built in a way which can't be done remote. And I realized that the reason this business grew so much faster than any of the other stuff I was trying is because it's a it's such a low sophistication, business in terms of competition, right? Like, come on, Jason, if you try to call a cleaners in the area, eight out of 10 will not pick up their phone. And if they do, they're not gonna give you like, they'll give you a price quote over the phone and just kind of hang up. Right. So what I was doing is bringing like, normal level of customer service and like sophistication from E commerce and all these other things down to the local level and realized, Oh, my God, this competition has no idea what they're doing at all. We could just dominate it just by hat being on par. And that's what was working a lot. And the fact that a lot of people thought you could not do it remote, but I figured out a way to do it remotely, also made it that a lot of these like Nomad people and people who wanted to travel world wouldn't even think about this industry at all. So I almost felt like a hidden gem is very insulated from a lot of people and hidden and the only people doing it, were people who are local and didn't know anything about online marketing or how to run a large business.

Jason Moore 42:47
Yeah. And I think there's also something to the fact of this is no offense to any cleaning companies out there, including yours. But that is not a quote, sexy business, right? It's not a thing that people are thinking, Oh, but those are the businesses make tons of

Neil Parekh 43:01
money. It's always the boring businesses that make the most money. My dad

Jason Moore 43:05
lives in South Florida, and he he has a small RV that he just sold and the guys that came over to buy it or you know, they run like an air conditioning repair business in in Florida. And my dad did some research on the show up. He's like you guys are I know you guys are loaded.

Neil Parekh 43:24
Stopped negotiating with me. Yeah.

Jason Moore 43:26
Yeah. Like they had like five franchises, you know, and it's just, yeah, I mean, that it's stuff that people need, right? I mean,

Neil Parekh 43:35
it is basic stuff. And I think a lot of times we're in this world, we're listening, like you listen to this podcast, you kind of go down the rabbit hole, you're getting targeted with people who are like, Hey, you started an Amazon FBA business, right? It's just like, we happen to be in this world, which is 1% of the real population. But we think it's our whole world because we're in this bubble Berko this bubble, we're in the bubble. But the reality is, if you if you're not in the bubble, and you look outside, and most people are making their money in business, through boring business, it's not VC stuff. It's not like Amazon FBA. It's not like all this sexy stuff. It's really boring businesses. That's how people make money. And the reality is they're making money. And they still have bad customer service. They have terrible marketing, like they just don't know what they do in business, but they're making a lot of money. Because it's localized. Yeah, so it's kind of just one thing I discovered through the pack is just, you're only competing against your local market. Most these guys don't know what they're doing. I'm able to come in here be normal, right? Bring basic marketing in and do it in a completely remote way. Like Ding, ding, ding that just kind of set up some alarm bells. And I thought, Oh, wow, this is actually kind of a great hidden gem. So it took a couple years, I worked two years part time. And then after two years, I quit my job and booked a woman flight to South America started traveling from there.

Jason Moore 44:46
Nice. Well, you strike me as somebody who lives with passion and is a passionate person. And I'm wondering for people listening that are more on the spectrum of wanting to follow their passion or do something it's Interesting salmon, and then you're sort of talking about the boring business was the quote you use. So how do you? What is your advice there? How did you manage that? And, you know, was it important for you to follow your passion or whatever, you know, buzzword you want to insert there?

Neil Parekh 45:19
Jason, can I ask you actually, because you have this podcast around a life passion, which is travel, right, your business is around this. So actually, I wonder it on your end? I'm curious on your answer to this question. Because your business is around something I feel like you feel passionate about. What are you I'm curious on your thoughts about this?

Jason Moore 45:38
Are you turning the tables on?

Neil Parekh 45:39
I am now the interviewer, I am the captain.

Jason Moore 45:43
Well, the reason why the podcast has been going for eight years is because I'm passionate about it could I've been could I have done this every week for the last eight years? Probably not. Now, the difference between if I wasn't like super passionate about it, and the people I serve and everything like that. So for me, it's an essential ingredient if we're speaking to this podcast, specifically in some of the work I've done around it. But it's also a different kind of thing. Like I would do this pot, even if I didn't have like sponsors or things going on, I would still keep doing this podcast, because I just love it. I love the people that are listening that I get to interact with Hello, you and talking to you listening. But, you know, the thing that you're building is, is different in the sense that I think, well, I mean, I shouldn't say I'm using business terms now. But it may be it's more of a sellable asset, you might have like an exit strategy or something like that. As opposed to you know, you're not like saying, I'm going to run a cleaning company for the next 30 years, I imagine.

Neil Parekh 46:40
Yeah, yeah. Right. It's a good, good distinction. Yeah. eventually there'll be a sale process. It wasn't in my head when starting it or anything like that. But yeah, let me tell you a little bit of like, my thoughts about people were like, I want to follow my passion. I kind of found my passion through business. And a lot of my passion is around the lifestyle, right? Hey, I get to travel, I get to do these cool experiences, I could have freedom. I'm also I realized I love business, whether it's cleaning or something else, just the act of like building a team scammin business and culture, you know, doing marketing, figuring out problems, like I just liked that process. So for me, it's a little bit less relevant, kind of exactly what the end service is. And I think people put too much emphasis on what is the end service you're providing, where the reality is, what they're passionate about, isn't that they think it is they think, like, Oh, I'm really passionate about fitness, I should open a gym. That's not your sole passion in life. And you will find things to the process that you actually really, really enjoy about it. But 99% of what you're doing in business is not the end of service. It's not like that, just if you pick the industry and topic like most, most of your stuff is just regular business stuff that leads that whatever the end services, right, it's pretty uniform across whatever business you're in, you got to do marketing, you got to build funnels, you got to build a team. So so when people say, hey, I want to follow my passion, I my answer would be once you start something which gets money, and they let you live the lifestyle you want, then from there, I promise you will find your passion. Over time, once you have a little bit more freedom and time and flexibility. As you understand business. Eventually, if you want to jump into a passion, which is like I want to start a nonprofit and take over take over the world and like help everyone, you can do that you just gonna have a little bit more business savvy behind you. So I don't I actually don't recommend. I don't know if I don't recommend this. But I feel like people who are waiting to find their passion before starting a business artists use that as a procrastination tool. It's it's unnecessary, at least to get going. And you will find your passion and other ways.

Jason Moore 48:36
Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on that I well, I can't say I disagree. 100%. But there are parts of that I don't agree with only because there's a lot of nuance, like anything, there's a gray area, right. And I think if if, for example, you really want to be around a certain scene, like let's say you want to be around music, live music, you want to be part of the music industry, there is something too. I always recommend people like find an industry you're passionate about and then just like insert yourself in there somewhere because then you get to be around those types of people. Now, when you're talking about like location independent, entrepreneurship travel, you're like, Well, I'm just gonna, like pull myself out of that culture anyway, so I don't need to go to like cleaning conferences, because I'm just gonna go to like location dependent entrepreneur conferences, and I'm gonna go get kidnapped, and I'm going to do all these fun things, because that's a different kind of lifestyle. But there's also something to being an industry that you love to be around like, I love podcasting. So for me, it's cool to meet other podcasters and to be around that. Yeah, I don't know there's there's a bit of that as well.

Neil Parekh 49:40
I think she would 100% agree with you. And I think I guess I'm speaking also from the perspective of I left the industry I chose to go be in my location independent travel industry to begin with. So it's almost for me a little bit less relevant, where I'm playing because I'm just going to be nomadic and I'm going to be in that industry. So I think I think you nailed it. I haven't thought about that exactly, but That's the reason why I'm a little bit more indifferent.

Jason Moore 50:01
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, again, like I don't, I didn't really I shouldn't have used the word disagree, because I don't disagree. It's just, it's just really different ways of looking at it. Right? And who you are what you're saying. I mean, that's what this show is about is giving you some different perspectives. So I do agree with you, in fact that there are people out there like for them maybe being passionate about it isn't a necessary ingredient. For others, it may be that the only thing that keeps them going, you know, and then there's everybody in between, you know, who knows? Yeah, different strokes for different folks,

Neil Parekh 50:32
you seriously, seriously, I think a lot of these things can be solved just by doing something. Yeah. Even if you don't think a passion about it, that's fine. You could always it's not a forever decision, you can do it. And you realize that I don't want to do this anymore, and stop and do something else. But I always heard, I heard a good phrase, you can't steer a parked car, right? If you're parked, you can't move the car. But once the car starts moving, could actually steer it and direct in different places and see what opportunities there are. So I think that's a good mentality, when you're thinking about what to start is, it's okay, if not passionate about it, just start something. Worst case, you stop it, or worst case, you gain a ton of skills and make a little bit of money in the queue do something else. So just getting going I think is more important than actually picking the correct industry, because you could always pivot.

Jason Moore 51:16
I love that. And that was a perfect way to tie that up. Because you did say earlier, you know, you have to try something else that was kind of what happened for you, you're like, well, this, then we're gonna try something else. And that's just kind of how it needs to be. I don't think I've met anybody running any kind of business that didn't have to try something else within their business at some point.

Neil Parekh 51:36
Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, one's like, yeah, no one says, like, I picked my career from when I'm 22 years old, I'm gonna do this rest of my life. And I nailed it on that. It's like it just it's not that way.

Jason Moore 51:47
No, I mean, even businesses that take off, they still have to come up with different approaches, and new products and services and things like that. I love that the random person gave you advice at the at the flip of conference, it's just, I was a pretty shout out to the random person, you know, you never know when the random person is going to come up to you and give you a piece of advice that you'd like truly take to heart, you know,

Neil Parekh 52:06
yeah, it's funny. He's like, I'm sure you've got this whole traveling, you always meet people who said something so brilliant, and you remember them forever. And for them as a passing thought, like they don't remember you at all. It was just like, added I just said something random guy over beers. And like, they forgot about this the next day. And I was wondering, like, I hope I've said something to someone where they're like, Oh, my God, this changed my life. But what if the reality is like, I've never influenced anyone at all, and I've talked a lot isn't amounted to anything. That's not reality. Yeah. It's a funny, it's a funny dichotomy.

Jason Moore 52:39
In terms of a local business, as you described it, do you have a certain framework that you recommend to people for choosing a successful local business that can work remotely or maybe has a better chance of working remotely? Because I imagine that the automating process, the maybe Human Resources is, is maybe the most important element, but perhaps I'm wrong. Yeah, I just Yeah, your thoughts? Yeah, I

Neil Parekh 53:02
think there's many local businesses, which are more conducive to being location independent than others, and there's some I would not recommend getting into. So let me I'll talk a little bit about which ones I think are good and kind of relate back to my businesses, once you could see, you can see the parallels. So number one is, I really enjoy home services. And the reason is because the cleaner or the technician can go straight from their home to the job site, eliminating the need for an office. So Home Services, obviously, you're taking care of the customers home, you're going to the job site. So because of that, no office space, no heavy overhead, the cleaners could keep their supplies and just go straight to the job site, you don't need an office as much. Which leads me to the second criteria, which is eliminate heavy overhead. You don't want to hold on to tons of supplies you don't need. You don't want like a storefront where people have to go into so having like no storefront, no leases, things like that. Again, that's why I think homeless services lends itself well. But the reality is any service where your people are going somewhere else, not to your office front, there's no storefront, nothing like that. Those would be the criteria for the most part. And then you kind of that kind of starting from there and going down from from there. For example, if you want to be location independent, but open up your own gym, it's gonna be really tough. Have you ever had a storefront people go into someone has to be there at all times. Maybe if you get big enough and have enough money, you could hire a manager, and that manager could be there. But that'll take some time to make enough money to be able to do that. But the reality is, I think, Jason, any business, in theory, can be location independent, like, I guarantee the person who buys McDonald's as the owner, he's not managing it. Right? He has enough money and McDonald's is big enough investment where you have a manager from day one, it's just an investment for him. But if you don't have McDonald's money, you need to pick a business model which is more conducive to that which in my opinion, I think Home Services lends itself really well to that.

Jason Moore 54:56
Perfect, just what I was looking for, I want to ask you for for your specific business is, how do you eliminate the the overhead? Do you have your cleaners buying their own supplies and reimbursing them, you don't have like a central place where they come and get all the cleaning supplies? Or how does that work for you? I just I just like to hear it, because it's a real world example of what you're describing.

Neil Parekh 55:18
Yeah, absolutely. So for apprentices, they get to pick two models, either based on their state labor laws, they work with independent contractors or employees. In either case, it's st the same with independent contractors, they actually bring their own supplies and vehicles and stuff, you don't need to provide anything, you're probably paying them a higher portion for that, though, this employees, you just reimburse them for the supplies and reimburse them for gas for their own car. And they could go straight to the job. Now the good part with cleaning is it's not like you have a ton of specialty material or massive equipment that they need to use. I'd say if you're getting into like floor polishing, or something really heavy duty, where you have like a massive machine, it's too much to expect any cleaner to buy that. But cleaning is like hey, go to Walmart, get a few rags, here's a checklist of what you need. It's not that expensive, you get reimbursed as well. So a lot of those things, the cleaner could just pick up and keep with them.

Jason Moore 56:09
Okay. Do you have white label software? Or did you create custom software? I imagine because the the key to making a business location independent is automation, right? And part of that automation is going to be software solutions. So what is your recommendation for that?

Neil Parekh 56:25
Yeah, we use third party software, there was a chance for me to like buy one of the software companies that we were using, and I realized, like, I don't want to be a software, I don't want to run a software company at all. So we use all third party software, white, label it and just string all the different pieces of software together in a way, which makes it very seamless for the end customer. Remember that a lot of small businesses that we compete with, like they barely have a website, right? They don't, they don't really know what they're doing. So as long as you could provide some level of good customer care, meaning like online booking forms, making them seamless for the customer, which all involve software, you'd be able to get ahead pretty well. So our focus, we use a lot of different pieces of software, but they all just talk to each other. So that's probably like the proprietary part is how are we setting this up? So all these different software's to talk with each other? Automating emails is doing everything. But yeah, it's all off the shelf third party software.

Jason Moore 57:15
Yeah, you're killing two birds with one stone, you're improving the customer experience. And you're also automating which is necessary to go and survive on a desert island or whatever. I want to ask you about the franchise model. How's that working out? I think there's a perception sometimes that it's the franchisor that makes all the money and not the franchisee and I want to you know, I think again, I think that's just like a stereotype. I don't think it's true, but I want you to just speak to that.

Neil Parekh 57:46
Yeah, I mean, franchising, I, it took me a while to figure out that that's the route I wanted to go. Because it does have this like, old school mentality of like, oh, franchise owners, like who does those anymore those storefronts, you buy a Baskin Robbins or like a McDonald's and do that. So I feel like there's a weird connotation with it as well. Which is, like kind of very similar vein to like going into a local businesses. It's just as the old school industry, which means revolutionising, right. So in some ways, I feel like we're kind of the New Kids on the Block there. But the way it works is somewhat by me this franchise and open up in their own city. And our model was meant to be completely location independent, you can run it from anywhere, you're pretty much copying what I did. And then you pay a certain royalty percent of revenue as the kicker at the end, so a lot of franchisors make their money by selling stuff to the franchisees, meaning let's see, if a restaurant franchise do you have to buy the material from them and then make a margin on that you have to buy X y&z from them and they make a margin on that. So a lot of times when people say, the franchisor is making a lot of money off the franchisee, that can be true for a lot of brands, which sell stuff that the franchisees we don't ours is pure, like, Hey, this is you know, you have the franchise buying, you have the royalty, that's kind of it. And there's a huge support system on the back end for you. But the way it works is someone would buy a franchise open up in their city, we help them at the beginning with training getting set up ongoing. We do like pretty much all the tech stuff for them. And also help them find their first completely remote worker, to for the team member for them to join their team. So for example, my team, like I said, they're in South Africa and Latin America will will help them find people with similarly and help set it up from the very beginning of being location independent. At that point. It's up to them if they choose to be local or travel, right. It's not about pushing a lifestyle on anyone. It's just, it's already set up in a way where if you want to work from home if you want to work from Columbia, it's built to doable.

Jason Moore 59:43
Yeah. Was it tough traveling to 35 countries over five years and building a business at the same time. It was a way to travel in many ways.

Neil Parekh 59:53
I realized very quickly like I shouldn't be doing this at hostels anymore, which is tough because at the beginning hostels are so fun I literally meet everyone that you want to hang out with. So I was in the common room and like, trying to work and music happening, and people are like, Hey, we're gonna go on this pub crawl you want to come? And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, do let me just shut this down and go. So I'm sure I could have maybe work faster and and grown the company a little bit faster if I didn't do that. But then what, what's the point of a boy have this to begin with? So the balance, that's the tough balance? Yeah, right. That's what I've kind of found that. Like, there's still ways to travel where you don't have to do two extremes of like, stay in a hostel or go home and be in an office space. So I kind of morphed into going to a lot of CO living places. Have you? Have you seen any CO living places? Jason?

Jason Moore 1:00:40
No, not really.

Neil Parekh 1:00:41
So co living places are like co working spaces mixed with hostels is kind of the best way to describe it a little bit nicer. So mostly longer term travelers, nomads who are staying in a certain place for months at a time, you stay in like a communal house and work from there together. So you kind of get in the zone of like work but they still community around you. Versus let's say hosteling, you're just around people who only traveling it's a different mentality. So I think a lot of my travels morphed over time they started backpacking, moving fast, and slow down and slowed down. And now usually I'll get Airbnbs and just be in cities where I can meet other nomads. But it's not focused on staying at hostels anymore. So it took a while to figure that out.

Jason Moore 1:01:23
Yeah, well, the travel evolves to it's certainly not a static thing. And the things that you need to do to adjust your travel style are sometimes Yeah, just a byproduct of what's happening in the business. True or whatever, what's going on in your life. So I mean, business can suck the fun out of travel. I've I've experienced that before. But also, there are other benefits. So it's, yeah, just depends on where you are.

Neil Parekh 1:01:53
business can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. Right. Like if you want to try to pack everything in a short workday, you can you maybe you won't get as much done, and you might sacrifice growth, but it's your business, you get to decide what you want to do. So at the beginning, you know, when I quit and started traveling, even in that first year of me working at hostels and kind of bouncing around a lot, we still doubled the business. Could we have tripled it? If I was stationary? Maybe? I don't know. But I'm happy with the double growth anyways. And eventually, I kind of figured out okay, I do, I don't, I'm not enjoying the hostile party anymore. Let me actually kind of settle a little bit longer period in a single place and work a little bit more, which helped me out a lot more. But yeah, it's totally possible to still have a travel lifestyle and scale your business.

Jason Moore 1:02:37
You might have tripled it. But you know, think about all this pub crawls you would have missed out on,

right? You know

what? All right, can you share where everybody can find you and all the goodies here?

Neil Parekh 1:02:51
Absolutely. So if you wanna learn more about me, you could just go to make this franchise mid th is franchise.com. actively looking for people to join the franchise system. If you're interested in starting a local business, which you could rent from anywhere in the world. Personally, you could find me at Neil perec.com. Or on Twitter. I'm trying to get much more active on Twitter. You can read about the island Soria, which we talked about earlier on the podcast as well.

Jason Moore 1:03:14
Yeah, you got the podcasts? You want to mention the podcast as well.

Neil Parekh 1:03:18
Yeah, actually, I host a podcast called the remote local podcast. It's a podcast about how to have a local business and travel the world. So it's myself in a coach. My coach also has a remote local business and does the same. And we kind of just share tips and tricks about how to do the same and kind of our journey through the process. So that's called a remote local podcast.

Jason Moore 1:03:36
There you go. Thanks for that. And awesome information today, Neil, really appreciate it. Hope we can stay in touch. Last question. Your most memorable travel experience that pops to mind gut reaction,

Neil Parekh 1:03:50
oh, man, a gut reaction would be I was in Austria. And that same day, I met a group of people who were like, hey, we want to do a road trip somewhere. So I immediately put my backpack down and said, Okay, I'm in and just ended up doing a cross country road trip with these completely random people. I met one of those things with serendipity that just happens and like it's so memorable because it was so it was so random. And then it'd be absolutely incredible trip. So loved

Jason Moore 1:04:17
it. Yes. I had a similar experience in Spain. Nowhere to stay, I met some people, we slept in some park by the train station. And then for like, two hours after we stayed up, we decided to stay up all night because there was nowhere to stay. And it's like, well, it's Spain. So that works. Yeah. And then, you know, after two hours of sleeping, we're like, hey, somebody's like you want to rent a car and take a road trip together. And then we all just hopped in this car and

was like, Where do you where do you end up?

Well, we ended up in, in Madrid at the end, I think but we kind of road trip through North of Spain and then south it was just Jesus. It's awesome. Just love that.

Neil Parekh 1:04:55
It's one of the things that makes the whole thing worthy, right?

Jason Moore 1:04:57
Yeah, spontaneity out on the road. Well, cool. Man, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. And yeah, hope we can stay in touch and good good luck with everything.

Neil Parekh 1:05:05
Joel, thanks for having me, Jason.

Jason Moore 1:05:06
All right, take care. Through having special thanks to Neil for stopping by the show, sharing his wisdom, hard earned wisdom there from growing his business while living the nomadic lifestyle traveling the world. And you can hear how just that mindset shift of making something remote and prioritizing the lifestyle, change things for him, and can change things for all of us and really can change the way we approach what we do. The reality is if we want to travel indefinitely, like some of us do here, we will have to find ways to earn a living as we go. And here's another way, I wanted to share this with you. Because this is another way that we haven't really covered on the show that whole idea of starting a local business for a local community and making it location independent. I loved hearing his perspectives. And if you are somebody who has spent a significant amount of time on the road, or maybe even if you haven't, perhaps you've been away for a week. And something happened something at home that required your attention. I have found in my experience, that there is always a way to get it done remotely. And I experienced this a lot over just living nomadically for a decade plus it just things came up in life. And I couldn't always be there to handle them in person. And it's amazing when you get on the road, how resourceful you can become when things need to get done. And you can't make it back to the physical place. So you can just translate those experiences you've had, personally if you've had them to that business mentality, right? And just having the confidence that, hey, I've gotten other things done in my personal life, I can probably do it for my business as well. Maybe you're somebody that has a business that's a little more local right now, how can you approach it in a different way and my experience, I wanted to share this running a quote unquote, local business, I really think you can call it that because I was running an Airbnb at the place I used to own in Colorado. I was living in Europe, where I'm living now. But I had this property in Colorado that was being rented out. And the only way I was able to do that was by hiring a property manager, my friends, Jana who specializes in this type of property management. And she would just, you know, take a percentage on managing it. But I didn't have to deal with a lot of the stuff, right. And before when I had a tenant tenants and people that have lived there over the years, you have to deal with that stuff. But even then it's all doable. Right? So my number one takeaway, and just a reminder, from this interview, is that you can always get people to help you out. Right? It's not that it always has to be you I think sometimes we can get caught up in this solopreneur. Kind of like it's all on us mentality. But it takes a village and bring in people that can help out. And I think when we start thinking in terms of where we can get help, and how we can build mutually beneficial relationships, it just takes a lot of the stress off when you realize you can have partnerships, and we can all help each other out and help each other still live. That lifestyle that we want to live. And we can find like minded people. The great thing about ziana and working with her is that she lived this lifestyle. Also, by the way, I'll drop her website in the show notes if you want to check her out. She also travels and loves travel, she's been on the podcast before you can find her episode and the archives and the premium feed.

She's great and she totally gets it so we can align ourselves with other business owners who get what this lifestyle is about. Or it can be really anybody that is willing to be a good partner and help out I think just approaching a business in these terms, opens things up. We're not as limited in our thinking. And anytime I can be introduced to something that kind of frees up my thinking and takes off some of the limitations that I have my own limitations, perspectives that get me thinking bigger. It's super helpful. So I hope that today's show did that for you in some way, shape or form. We'd love to hear your feedback on this one. Any guest recommendations you have for anything else? Drop me a line anytime Jason at zero to travel.com or leave me a voicemail on that voicemail box now. Let me leave you with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers, Alan Watts and anytime I need to be zoomed out and reminded that the universe is this vast, tremendous space and, you know, do I really need to stress out about X, Y or Z small thing going on my life now? No, anytime I need that perspective, I can listen to some Alan Watts if you've never heard his stuff before, you can just Google you can find it all over YouTube in different places. But he has a couple quotes here I wanted to share one trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. Since we talked a little bit about identity today, I thought that would be something cool to share. And one more here. The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. There you have it. No other show in the books. Oh, yes. Forgot to mention a little teaser. I promised that next week, you'll hear my interview with Tom the founder of desert island survival. And I don't usually tease out interviews, but since this was mentioned, early on, this was the guy that Neil went with to be stranded on a desert island and learn all the survival skills. Well, I told you I wanted to get him on the show. I did do that decided since we just talked about it in this show. I would publish that show for you next week. And that's another great conversation. So I look forward to bringing that to you. Until then, smile, take a chance think big and have a wonderful rest of your day. Much love. Cheers.

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