Mike Swigunski Explains How to Make Money From Anywhere in the World (Digital Nomad Reality)

Meet Mike Swigunski, entrepreneur, investor, and author, as he breaks down what it actually takes to earn from anywhere and build a location-independent life.

In this episode, we talk about the transition from 9–5 to remote work, freelancing, and entrepreneurship, what it’s like building businesses while traveling to 100+ countries, and how people can start creating scalable income online.

We also dive into online business, acquisitions, and why most creators struggle to monetize, plus how content and YouTube can be used to build real opportunities beyond just views.

Mike shares practical insights on building systems, making faster decisions, and creating a life with more freedom, while also explaining the reality behind the digital nomad lifestyle.

Whether you’re a creator, entrepreneur, or looking to work remotely, this episode is for you.

Learn more about Mike:
Book: https://globalcareerbook.com
Dividends: https://wefunder.com/dividends
Website: https://dividendscapital.com
TEDx: https://youtu.be/MQpotNI5NvQ
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikeswigunski
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeswigunski
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/MikeSwigunski
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swigunski

CONNECT WITH US
Website: https://vidpros.com
Instagram: / vidprosedits
Facebook: / vidprosedits
LinkedIn: / vidprosedits

MORE ON VIDPROS

Need pro video editing? Vidpros helps creators and brands produce retention-focused content that performs.

📩 sales@vidpros.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Mike built a global lifestyle by helping people earn from anywhere and turn remote work into real businesses. In this episode, he breaks down his journey across a hundred plus countries, what actually creates a scalable income and the lessons he's learned building and buying businesses around the world. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike, for joining me today. So for people discovering you for the first time, how would you describe what you do today and who are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Yeah, my name is Mike Spiganski. I'm an author and online entrepreneur. And essentially I help people earn from anywhere. And I call it like EFA. It's like the Earn from Anywhere framework. And essentially, it's people who want to have a lifestyle where you can work from anywhere in the world, you can control your time, and you can basically do anything you want and kind of live the lifestyle of your dreams. And so that's basically what I've been doing myself helping hundreds of thousands of others of people to do the same thing through either freelancing, entrepreneurship, buying businesses, starting businesses. And so yeah, happy to kind of dive into like that whole process and how I can best serve you and your audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

One thing that I'm very curious about is understanding a little bit more of your background. Like what was your career in life like before entrepreneurship and remote work?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, so again, the the consolidated version I've kind of put into a book, my TED talk, but I'll give you like the the cliff notes because working and traveling in a hundred countries, there's so many like different ways that have like it's evolved. And it didn't happen overnight. It took like 10 years to kind of build and develop this. Um but I got started initially with studying abroad. Um so I took my first trip with like a family vacation. It was actually the first time I've ever like been on a plane, was around 18. So I didn't grow up with this like uh traveling lifestyle. Um I was kind of a late bloomer. And so I I went abroad, then the next year I studied abroad, and when I was studying abroad, I really enjoyed it. Like I was planning trips and you know, I was like hanging out and doing meetups with the locals, and like the kind of bridging uh our program was Americans and Italians, so was putting together all these events, and the managers and organizers of the group kind of like noticed that and said, Hey, you should apply for um this sort of student manager position. So uh for the University of Missouri, I applied, got selected to lead the Prague Study Abroad program, and so it came with one condition was that Italy was the most popular one, but Prague was struggling, and they basically were like, You've got a job for two years, it's a two-year program, but if you don't get enough students, we're gonna have to shut it down. And so the prior year was seven students, and they're like, we need 15 to like keep your program open. And so it took that as a challenge, and like the cool thing was is like the university basically just gave me free will to go out, market it, do the sales, get students enrolled, and then in the summer I would take students over with professors to the location, and in the first year we maxed it out at 35 students, the next year we grew it to the maximum of 45, and so it just really was this like kind of entrepreneurial experience where you had this full program, it was you know had the the credibility of the university, but um, we were able to really grow and sustain it. And then basically, once I uh kind of had that light bulb moment go off, I was like, man, maybe I can just move abroad and find a job. So I I ended up contacting the university here in in Prague, and they hired me as a 22-year-old to teach financial economics uh to a bunch of students, and you know, I'd been teaching for two years through the University of Missouri. Uh, and so it was just like this really good parallel shift to life abroad, but it really taught me like, hey, you can live abroad, you can get a job that's going to expand and grow your uh you know, experience, and you're gonna get paid for it. And so I was getting paid to do something that I was like learning about, it was pushing me to my limits a bit. I was able to travel uh to a new country every month that I lived over here in Europe. And so that was just like that light bulb moment where like, hey, I can build a life abroad. And at this time, there was no remote working unless you were like really tech savvy developer. So that's basically how I got started, and then there's a whole, you know, kind of transition of how how we've gone from like remote working to entrepreneurship as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

So one thing that you just mentioned right now that I think it's very interesting is that when you started, it wasn't really a thing, this remote work um culture that we have now. So, what was it like for you? Was it a dream of yours before you got into it? Was it something you always had in mind? Did it just happen and it just went with the flow? And um, were you scared of it? Because I'm assuming it wasn't as secure or or uh you know popular as it is now for people. So, what was your experience like diving into this?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, so for context, this was 2011. It was really like, like I mentioned, there was a small percentage of remote jobs for technical workers, developers, and even that was rare in that industry. Um, so yeah, it was a it was a way different time. There wasn't as easy of visa options as well. That was the other big hurdle, was like now there's digital nomad visas, remote work visas, all these other like uh expansive visa options. Um, so it was kind of scary because like again, back at that time, like, you know, there's the people who like, do you work to live or do you live to work? And I was like, I'm gonna work to travel. And like that was like kind of my mentality at my 22-year-old age. And I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna work to travel, but I'm gonna learn and get some good experience along the way, not just take a gap for like three years. I wanted to like be abroad, but I wanted to actually learn, expand, and grow um my expertise, my experience, and like again, I think that's the mindset that every 20-year-old should have is like, hey, you're getting paid to learn and grow your experience, and like you can really transform and package that into something later on. Um, and so yeah, it was it was kind of like a terrifying time at 22 because I was moving abroad to a place where I didn't know the language, didn't know a lot of people. Um, but luckily it all worked out, and um, everything kind of like slowly built on top of each other, and eventually I was able to go from where I would just move abroad to a country, find a local job where again I moved abroad to Australia, found a job at a tech startup, and it was a hybrid. So I could work remotely in Sydney, Australia. Uh, and then you know, eventually it expanded to where I I could fully uh remote work and then got into entrepreneurship from there.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Do you think you were always an entrepreneur? Do you think it always headed in you, or is it something that people develop with time?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I I definitely don't think like again, I don't think this lifestyle is for everyone. Even people when we went to study abroad, it wasn't like for a year, it was like for three months or something, and like people were still homesick. So, like, I I don't think this lifestyle in general is abroad, or this lifestyle is for everyone. And I definitely don't think entrepreneurship is for everyone, but I do think people can like mold get molded into it, get experience and exposure to it, um, because entrepreneurship is just a lot more risky than like the other path for you know, like with your job, you can't go into negative with entrepreneurship. Most entrepreneurs have at some point gone very negative and had to either dig themselves out of a hole um or kind of like figure out some way to pivot. And so again, that that's kind of like the the way that I explain it is like I I suggest trying to do get a job, get experience in some industry or niche, and then build something on the side or on top of that, because it's a lot less risky, in my opinion, um, to do that. And that's the path that exactly what I did.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

And you've also said that you traveled to like over a hundred countries while building businesses. Do you have experiences or stories of um places that actually inspired you or taught you something, something that happened in your life that you translated it into business and it worked? People that you met around the world.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

I mean, again, like travel has opened up so many doors for me. Like the first example of studying abroad, like I was, you know, essentially getting to show this university, like it was a plus side for the University of Missouri, but it was also a plus side for this Czech University, and they got to work with me for two years and say it was like a two-year interview, like, hey, this guy helped save this program. Uh, he's has teaching experience at this university we're partners with. It's an easy sort of like transition to hire him. And so they wanted to like, you know, after two years of kind of helping this program, they also wanted to help me out. Um, so like that was like my first sort of like step abroad where I had, you know, a team of people where they saw what I could do firsthand, and it was a little bit easier for me to transition to that. Um, and so like the networking abroad has opened up a few other doors. Like, I went to uh Ultra Music Festival in South Korea, and I went with a friend who I met while traveling in Japan, and he introduced me to a guy who was working at a startup called Empire Flippers. And essentially, after you know, meeting, I became friends with this guy. He kind of told me a little bit about the company he was working for. Uh, and literally a year later, I was working for another tech startup that ran out of money. I traveled for two months and was like started to look for work, and he and this guy posted a job opening. Um, so I applied for it and ended up getting this job opportunity. So it was another sort of like networking, traveling abroad that opened a door, and it it never works how you think it is. Networking is like really you you just are making friends, and then in the moment, like at some point in time, if you're able to also provide value to that person, uh the world just seems to give it back in in tenfold from my experience. So like I never expect anything, but I always go in with like that approach to how can I actually add value to this friendship, to this person, uh, to this community, and with no sort of expectation of it ever coming back, but it always seems to in some way. And so that was like that that other like big sort of transformation in my life where I went from kind of working in a country to working for a uh startup that was fully remote. So I joined Empire Flippers in 2016. There was four, I was employee number four, and we grew it to one of the fastest growing companies uh in the world, fully remote, 100 remote employees, uh, and essentially was one of the craziest things I've ever seen, just how fast a business can really grow and scale. And you know, really just having this like small team expand into something all around the world was really eye-opening. And like I think in that four years of being there, um, I learned you know what most people can take 40 years, right? And so that sort of uh experience and exposure abroad taught me a lot about acquisitions. It got to see behind the scenes of online businesses. So Empire Flippers is the biggest curated marketplace to buy and sell online businesses. So I have an insight that very few people in the world will ever have because I've seen how the internet is monetized and I've seen how quickly you can just buy a business and scale it up because somebody doesn't have these skill sets or the experience or the real like vision on how to go from they they had the product market fit from zero to one, but they have no idea how to grow it from one to ten. And that's been kind of the area where I've really doubled down in and had a lot of success in buying businesses, scaling them up, because I see these opportunities for exponential growth that the original founder really doesn't see.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

One thing that I think is very interesting too is that I see that even a lot of creators that, you know, they they have their big moment on social media, but they don't really understand how to monetize things. And I know that a lot of people they don't even know about acquisitions enough. Do you have experiences with creators, people that you've met, that they clearly could have done something with what they've built, but they were not able to because they didn't understand anything? Were you able to help someone like that to change completely and actually monetize to the fullest?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, I'm actually like I think it's the biggest opportunity out there is for a creator that is like a 10 out of 10 for like, let's just say distribution and getting like attention. They're in the attention economy, they're 10 out of 10. But most of the creators and like big YouTubers, not all of them, but a lot of them are like a one out of 10, and they've got like the worst product, the worst sort of like actual business behind it. And again, they're still like really successful at that. But imagine if you're 10 out of 10 on sort of reach, but then you have at a six out of 10 or a 7 out of 10 business behind it, how much more money and how much more impact you can actually make. And I think a lot of creators are scared that they're gonna sell out or they're gonna like be a shill. And a lot of them do, they actually do like a crappy product, and it really is like a scam or just a bad version of what they're like, you know, they're not actually helping or solving a problem, and they're just getting that support out of pure like goodwill from their audience. And I'm like, hey, if you actually have a good product in a business that's solving a problem that your audience has, you're gonna be unstoppable. And I'm I'm dealing with like I'm doing acquisitions with a few creators now, and it's just like it's really like I guess the expression shooting fish in a barrel because they've mastered this skill so much that even just bringing and buying a business that fits their niche or sort of skill sets is going to be like exponential growth for them because they've they've done something that a lot of business and entrepreneurs struggle with is getting that attention, that reach, and that social media sort of like audience or community. So it's like there's a big opportunity to bridge those two people, the business-minded person and the creative-minded person, and build them together. And it's uh it's a very rare combination to get those two people to partner. But when it does, it works really well.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Do you think part of the problem is that people actually romanticize their job in a way? Like they romanticize the fact that they've built this massive audience and this massive platform and they think that it's just gonna be some sort of passive income and then don't put like a lot of work into it. And on top of that, another question do you think people also romanticize the digital nomad lifestyle?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah, no, I think uh uh for sure the lifestyle abroad is romanticized. I've made a lot of videos about like kind of the the areas that it is, but it's romanticized. But again, like if you have problems in the US or in your home country and you go abroad, you're you're likely gonna still have those problems there, like um, but it can solve some problems. Like, let's say, for example, you know, like you're literally just making an average salary in America, but you're working remotely, you can move to Thailand and you have way more savings, so you can like buy back your time, you can like save more for investing, you can retire earlier. So there's a lot of like plus sides to it, but again, it's it's really not for everyone because you are going away from your support network, you're you're going away from uh your friends, family, things that you've known and grew grown up with. Um, I got kind of lucky because I was able to do it from a younger age where I wasn't really so like stuck and frigid in like this sort of routine and way. Um, but again, I I don't think it's for everyone, but I think everyone should at least have some exposure to it and see if they like it. Like, and I always say it's not like you just need to go sell your life away. It starts with like a two-week trip or a one-month trip where you're just in a hub, you're trying to like kind of see what life is like on that longer term and see if it's a good fit for you. Um, and so that's what I always suggest is like kind of walk before you run, especially in this lifestyle, um, and just try it out and see how you like it.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

And how has this lifestyle actually changed your world view, your worldview in a way?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

I think it's it's changed in so many ways, but I would say like the number one way is it's just really opened up my eyes to like being able to build the life and have the impact in this world that I want to make. I think a lot of people just kind of sacrifice their dreams and their goals for that kind of like stability. And so, like the the famous quote, there's uh I think it's up in the air, the movie where he's like uh, you know, basically the the quote is that in general, people give up their their goals and dreams for the nine to five paycheck, and like they sell it away for $20 an hour is kind of what they allude to in this uh in the movie. And I think that's kind of what a lot of people do is they just give up their dreams and hopes and desires for that steady paycheck, and they don't really have an option. It becomes harder and harder the older you get, the more responsibilities you have. Um, and not to say that anything's wrong with that, like there's no problem with that sort of path, but I just want to say, hey, this isn't the only path that we have. There is other alternative paths that might make sense for you and might give you more fulfillment and happiness. And I'm not the person that's like, hey, you have to go this path, this is the only path for you. I'm like, hey, this is another option we should present to people, and that's basically why I wrote this book. I was like, hey, I want other people, other young, you know, individuals who are maybe at university or fresh out of college or even later in life. Like, I've had a lot of people who were 50 and 60 who just like, I'm not being fulfilled with my job. I hate it. And they read the book or we have a call, and like they literally, like, hey, I've never been this happy after, you know, changing my life because they have more control over what they want to do. And so life abroad definitely can open up a lot of those doors because honestly, just because of the lifestyle improvements and the cost of living improvements. So if your cost of living costs $5,000 a month in the US and you're making $7,000, it doesn't really leave a lot of wiggle room to like survive, grow, you know. But if you move over to Thailand or any other country, you know, the average income even in Europe is around $2,000. So you can have a really good lifestyle abroad on that income, and you can level up in a lot of ways, like financially and your life as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

So if people that are like interested about reading your book is listening to this right now, page one, what is the first advice if they want to get into this lifestyle? Is there a foundation that needs to be built beforehand?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah, so like usually the quickest way I always ask people like where are they at and where do they want to be? And a lot of times it's like, hey, I have to go into office, or I just have this manual job where I can't really pivot over. And so I just always say, like, what's the fastest path to get you to where you want to be and to get that first sort of milestone? And so a lot of times, like before, I would say pre-COVID, a lot of it was like, hey, let's just talk to your boss and manager and see if we can go hybrid or if we can uh get you remote working a little bit more. And so a lot of times it's just like, hey, let's just get the job you already currently like. If they like their boss, their team, what they're doing, the only thing they don't like is that annoying, you know, 45-minute commute. Let's just go to that path and see if they're open to it. And so I've helped people kind of like rework their sort of like current occupation to be remote. And then sometimes, you know, the the industry or the company just isn't gonna be open for that. And like, hey, you're an A player. If you just pivot over to this industry, you're gonna make more, you're gonna have more flexibility, and you're gonna be able to like build a better life. And so that's also another option out there is like just switching career paths, but you're still kind of doing the same thing just in a different industry. Um, and so that's another path that I help people with is just figuring out like page one is figure out like what direction you want to go in and then why, and like that why for me has been the biggest North Star because every decision I make here here and out for the next part of my life is coming back to that why. Why do I do what I want to do? Um, and so essentially it really helps you kind of like build the direction you want to go in. But most people, it just falls down into the EFA, which is like time freedom, location independence, and being able to like have you know that financial freedom as well, where you can live and build the life you want.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

And also, you helped broker over 120 million in online businesses acquisitions. What did that experience teach you about business?

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, so I I think it's the the way to summarize that would be that you can buy cash flow and you can buy success faster than starting it. Even like somebody who started a lot of businesses, and I still think there's like a combination where you can do both, but in general, I've helped people who don't really have any background in you know entrepreneurship or really running businesses, and within three months I'm able to help them manage. And grow businesses that they acquire just because I have a system for that. But I would say like the zero to one is the most painful part. It takes the longest. And a lot of times, a lot of people are like, well, it's not the most expensive. But again, if you take the cash flow for three years of an already established business and you have a business that you have to invest in, isn't cash flow positive, isn't profitable, likely your your your opportunity cost is like almost on the on the same point, but a lot of times like the the buying the business is going to outperform the zero to one because most of those businesses are going to fail, unfortunately, and the probability of buying something that's already established is going to have a lot higher rate of success. And so when you take the you know the already established business, there's still a lot of filters, a lot of things you need to like look out for because again, there's they're not all not all businesses are created equal. Uh, and so that's basically what I've learned from doing this is like what businesses work the best for my sort of experience level and for people that I help. Um, so I primarily focus on recurring revenue income businesses and digital or software businesses. Uh, and that thesis has worked out really well for me. My first acquisition, I got my return in under eight months. And since then, this was like in 2018, 2019, I bought this business, and it's been cash flow profitable since that eight-month period. I paid back what I what I earned from it or what I paid for it from the business, uh, and then it's just all been pure passive uh profitability.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

And after seeing so many businesses bought and sold, like for you, what separates a great business from an average one? And do you think there are great businesses that are bound to fail in a way?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah, I do think there's some like there's sometimes trends that you just can't figure out, or there are certain events, like I would say COVID's one of those events that was like a little bit hard to predict, and it really did put some like decent businesses um like took them out because of factors that are beyond their control, but it also taught me a lot about like, hey, what are the businesses that are safer and a little bit like less risky? And so now like COVID was that big time where it just put a lot of physical product businesses out of, you know, because of like um, you know, the logistics of buying products from China, and now like with all these tariffs, there's just like a lot of issues with that. And it showed me that if you don't have control over your platform, you really don't have control over your business. And that's why I like software and digital products and especially recurring revenue, because you're not starting at zero every month. And so that's the big uh differentiator is like, hey, if you already have recurring revenue, like some of these businesses already have like you know hundreds or even thousands of recurring customers, you're you're not having to start at zero. If traffic or if people stop coming into the store, you're still making money, you can still keep the lights on. And that's honestly, a lot of businesses I'm looking for are like this, they're flat on their PL, but I see the opportunity to really grow it and scale it. Um, so yeah, typically my buy box is three-year-old businesses, one founder who's a technical founder, meaning they don't have a lot of marketing and sales experience, which is the upside, and that's where I come in. They got the product market fit just because they know the industry or niche, and then I come in and scale it with marketing and sales. Um, the other details are I'm usually like looking at at least $10,000 a month uh in recurring revenue, and then uh a few other things like I really do feel out the seller, and I am going through my due diligence process looking for let's just say like stipulations and certain things that look off, and I'm asking the seller about those things that I find during due diligence and trying to get an understanding of how their response is to that. So on these calls, you kind of have to ask some difficult questions and not necessarily interrogate interrogate them, but you kind of have to uh in some sense to figure out do they really understand their business? Is there is there something more messy under the hood that you should be aware of? And so you really got to figure out like what you're actually buying. And um a lot of people, when they buy a business, they just look at the financial side of it, but there's the background of the seller, the individual that you're actually you know buying the business from, because they're gonna help you with the transition, with the training and figuring out how to run the business. Then there's the actual product itself, the code if it's a digital uh business, or the product if it's a physical business. So there's a lot of different areas of like what's the backlink profile about this, the social media profiles. So it's really in-depth on what areas you need to look out for when buying these businesses, and that's basically I've learned what to look out for and what questions to ask along the whole process.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

What mistakes make for business unsellable?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah, so uh I've seen a lot of stuff. Like I've talked to entrepreneurs who've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a software product and they don't have any customers. They spent three, four years building it and they just never tested the product market fit. They had this idea or thought they were solving a problem, and they just really weren't. Um, so those businesses are are a lot of times unsellable because they're not profitable. Um, that's the biggest thing. I've seen some people who are just like, I don't know, just they don't know, they don't have an understanding of it, and they just haven't really built something, but they've dedicated so much time to it. And people like in general, they don't care about how much time you put into it, they care about the results and they're buying that cash flow. Um, so that's the number one mistake I see. The another thing I see is like somebody grows their business, they scale it, they get kind of burnt out, and then they're like, I want to sell it. But during the, you know, it's depending on how big the business is, it can take three to six months to sell a business. And so during this period, they're so burnt out and they're just like checked out that they stop running it, they stop maintaining it, and the business goes down. And here they had this really great asset, and it was like on an upward trend, and it was a really sellable asset. And a lot of times people don't want to buy something that's on a downward trend. And especially like if it's going down fast, it's just a signal that hey, maybe there's something wrong here. Um, so it makes it a lot harder to sell. Uh, then the third thing is just if the key man risk is too high, um, let's say, for example, the business is making like 3k a month and it's an app, like iOS apps I I typically stay away from. Because if you if listeners go out, check your phone, check how many updates you have, you're gonna have like 50 or 60 app updates. They happen all the time. And usually these iOS apps are built by people who know how to build and run. And you know, if you took how much time they were spending with all these updates and running it, there's just not a lot of wiggle room to outsource that for a buyer to come in, pay a developer, or even a fractional person, that just eats into all that different margin of the business. So they can't really like buy it and maintain it. And so that's another thing we look at is just how much time is required from a developer, from somebody to maintain this business, to make the changes. And so we're typically looking at like we want invoices, how many hours were spent, um, what status is in it, because you know, it could be like a used car that just never got the oil change. So we're also looking like what are what are the future updates going to need to be? Um, and so again, that's another thing where there's just not enough margin or net to like really outsource it, where the the person running the business is too big of a risk. And a lot of times it's like a technical founder who, you know, if they were billing or freelancing somebody, they're paying $100, $125 an hour, but they're spending 20 hours a week on the business, and it's just not really, you know, that that time to value to income ratio just isn't there to make it super sellable unless you sell it to another person like them. But your your buyer pool really diminishes when the business is like that. So you need to basically have yourself built out of the business. Uh, you need to have make sure that the employees are gonna come over if there are some, or if there's gonna if they're not gonna come over, there'll be a good training period. Um but in general, a lot of the businesses, like it's crazy how many successful, profitable businesses only have one or two people behind it, and that's it. They might have a few contractors, um, but other than that, they don't have a huge team.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Like, if you could give like one piece of advice for people, uh, or just like in one sentence say, what do you think creates a scalable income? If you're a content creator and editing is slowing you down, listen up. VidPros is a professional video editing service built specifically for creators, not random freelancers and not AI tools. You get a dedicated human editor who learns your style, facing, and brand from day one. You film your content and upload the raw footage, and your editor handles everything cuts, captions, color gradings, sound design, and short form clips. We deliver everything through Google Drive and frame.io so you can leave timestamped feedback and requests and limited revisions. We start with a $100 trial week that includes 10 hours of editing. Go to vidpros.com and start your $100 trial today. Stop editing and start growing.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yeah. So I think again, like scalable income if you have a nine to five is always gonna hit a ceiling. But if you don't have a nine to five, if you have an online business, or if you have a business, the ceiling is, you know, the limit. There's it's limitless. Um and like I mentioned earlier, you can also go down, you can go below the floor, where with your nine to five, you really can't. Uh of course you can go into personal debt and stuff like that, but you're not gonna like go negative, even if the company goes down, you might lose your job, but you're not gonna go in the debt. So again, I think it's best to have a skill set where the easy thing is like if you're at your nine to five, the easiest way to make an extra 20-30%, just do exactly what you're doing and get some freelancing clients or consulting clients on the weekend after work, one to two clients, make a couple grand from each, and you can really elevate your like income level, even in an extra, if even if you're making 10 grand a month, an extra two grand, that's quite a substantial percentage increase, and that's two clients. And almost everybody who has a uh a career has the skill set and knowledge to do that. And so it starts there. Let's just get those clients, get that additional income. Um, the other path is just to switch jobs, which we kind of alluded to, but again, the the untapped earning potential is going to come from you starting something yourself. And so the consulting clients, you turn that into a business, you understand a little bit more about what people want, what problems you're solving, and then you can build a small business or agency around that. You can eventually build a product or software or whatever. Um you'll just be kind of like slowly getting into it instead of just like, hey, I'm gonna build this business in this area I know nothing about.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

So when you're actually growing a business like this, what systems matter most?

SPEAKER_01 34:04

It really varies for each sort of business because some businesses are so complicated. Uh, and that's why I typically stay away from like huge service-based businesses because there's just so many things and variables involved in it. Um, but a lot of people specialize in service-based businesses because they've really figured out how to hire good talent, how to retain good talent, how to incentivize talent to grow and scale. And I think that's great. And you know, at Empire Flippers, we we figured out that model, but there's different, there's like 12 or 13 different models out there. So for software and digital products, the thing I love about it is you can have a relatively small team and you already have that established margin of like profitability. A lot of the businesses we're buying are like 80 to 90 percent profitable or margin profits. Uh, and so we can take a percentage of that, reinvest into marketing. And so I think it's hard to answer because every business is so different, but in general, understanding like the core elements to run the business is like the first thing we're doing is like, what are the core SOPs? What are the core people that are running this business? And we just try to document everything. And the the process that I like to use is like, okay, just have a imagine a funnel, the top of funnel person comes to the website or the business, walk me through every single step they go from here down to being a customer, and then what happens after they're a customer? And that's the point that a lot of people just miss because the point after they become a customer, they just negate them, they they leave them alone. But that person there is going to be the most valuable person that you have. And so we're like, hey, let's have our sales team call these people and sell them an upsell, sell them a different product, see what's sort of like what they like about the product, what they dislike. And so it just really teaches you a lot. And I'd say like that's kind of the process where almost every business that I've seen isn't optimized for sales and marketing. They've got a decent product, they've got it in a niche where there is the demand, and again, figuring out a process to grow and scale it with sales and marketing is primarily what I suggest for most businesses.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

And one thing that I want to get into a little bit is your YouTube channel, because I actually found you organically, and you you create a lot of content around remote work and entrepreneurship. When did content first become part of your business strategy?

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yeah, so I I got started pretty early on, like with creating content. I was really into photography. So if you check out my Instagram, uh Mike Swigunski, you'll see you can go back and see some of like my mostly just travel photos around the world. Um, but I was like really into like travel photography. I won a few like big photography contests for British Airways and the govern the government of South Korea. And so I started like kind of getting paid to do some photography work, uh, and that's kind of how I got started with content creation, and then I just started traveling and kind of documenting it for literally just pure hobby, documenting like going to cool places, traveling. I'd built a travel blog as well, and so I got really good at photos, uh, but then kind of shifting into like making videos where it's so much harder, it's a lot more uh in in-depth. But I started my YouTube channel just pure purely out of like what I saw when I would log on to social media was it used to be images and you know, text post, but I I logged into every social media, and this was probably back in like I guess 2018 or no 2020, uh right around COVID. And I was like, I see the writing on the wall that video is the future. Every other thing on every single platform was a video, and they were just pushing it out. And I just also saw the people that I was following, and it was like, man, I it really feels like I know this person after watching a few of his YouTube videos, and then I got on a call and I bought something like right away, and I was like, man, I didn't even know this guy, but it's like I had you know 10, 20 sales calls with him prior because I watched all of his videos, and I was like, man, that's like such a powerful reaction and such a powerful relationship. And so I think it's very hard to do that with other content to really get to know the person on the other side and to build that relationship with your audience that's like so authentic and so kind of like unique in a certain way, where podcasts, you know, you can kind of have that with the video aspect, but I think adding that video also there's something to that seeing the person on the other side, seeing how they interact. Uh, and then when you get on a call with them or you meet them in person, it's just like a lot more in-depth and deep experience. And so when COVID happened, I started my YouTube channel and was like, if I if I get nothing out of this, I'm gonna get better at talking on the camera, I'm gonna get better at public speaking, which was always a big goal of mine to like continue finding ways to improve it. And so I don't want to, you know, deliver a talk every day, um, even though I did when I was teaching. So I was like, what can I do to get better at you know talking on camera? And that's why I was like, I'll just do a YouTube video every week. Um, I'll at the very least get better at you know this skill set. Um and so built a small audience along the way and you know, have given some like really cool videos like for CNBC, for TEDx, uh, and for my channel as well. Uploaded hundreds of videos, so I'm really just enjoying the process and excited to see like where I can grow and scale the channel too.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

When you think about uh social media and posting as a strategy, where do what do you think people should do first? They should think about audience growth, authority, or lead generation?

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Yeah, so it depends on your business and your goals. For me, I I basically had built up an email list uh and I surveyed my email list. I was like, hey guys, what where are you consuming content? Where can I serve you the most? Like what how do you like to like listen or learn about stuff? And that's the thing I love about YouTube is it's a way to build an audience, but it's also a search platform, it's the second biggest search engine out there. And so people are actually usually going to YouTube for two different areas. They're going to solve a problem, meaning they have the intent to find something. It's like, you know, how to fix my drain or like how to stop my toilet from flooding, or it's just like how to make money online. There's searching for millions and millions of things, and then there's the other side where it's more like, hey, it's an entertainment engine where you're watching Mr. Beast, mostly for like entertainment, not really looking to like learn something, um, other maybe just be inspired. Uh so I saw that as like a big opportunity where I can also help people. It really aligns with my mission. If I want to help millions of people earn from anywhere, I need to have platforms where I can reach that many people. Um, and so that's what YouTube's been is just like my goal to help people uh also kind of document what's working well for me, what's not working well, and uh try to help people along the way.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

What do you think makes someone credible in the online business education space? And how much of a role do you think authenticity play? Because uh a lot of people say that there are a lot of fake experts out there. What would you say about this fake expertise online happening today?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Yeah, I think people need to really um expand their due diligence. And I have a a mentor that I've worked with, and I was like, how do you find people like you work for or like you work with? And like what's your decision-making process look like? And he basically just told me his process, and it's as simple as this like, has the expert or person you're learning from done it themselves? Like, have they actually like you know, I talk about acquisitions, buying businesses, building businesses. Have I actually done that? And do I have undeniable truth that I've done that? And so for me, I do have that. I have you know hundreds of press articles, pictures, photos, documentary, like stories. Um, people, you know, for this CNBC thing, they check my tax returns, and it's really hard to like get more proof than that, right? And then you look at these success stories where I've documented, I don't know, dozens and dozens of reviews and testimonials from videos, text posts on my book. So there's that also social proof of like press, reviews, video reviews. And again, like there's no shortage of people that have already gone through that process or worked with me. Um, so that's the other area is like one has this person like the area that they're doing it, like again, if he was a professional snowboarder, okay, that's great. If but if he's trying to teach you about like building businesses, I don't know. Maybe you know, maybe those two things don't add up. There's there's probably some overlap, but has he actually built a business or helped other people? So first step is has this person done the thing they're teaching you themselves, and do they have undeniable proof about that? That's external third party. The second way is have they helped other people achieve that same result? That's the second way. The third way is have they helped somebody who's in a worse position than me? Meaning I'm sitting on the other side, I'm trying to learn from this expert or you know, entrepreneur. Has that person helped somebody else who was in a worse position than I am? Like less experienced, older, you know, from a harder beginning. Um so like I have a few testimonials with people this guy, one of my first students, he was a farmer. Literally had our first calls on his tractor, and he was struggling. Like he was making about 35 grand. He was commuting three to four hours to his farm, and he wasn't getting to spend, he had two daughters, wasn't getting to spend any time with his family. In under two months, we were able to double his income with a remote job. He got rid of the commute, and he was able to spend more time with his family. And like I've seen that happen in real time, and that's basically like what I set out to do is like help other people make that same transformation. And it's crazy how if people have the right mindset and they actually take action, they really can get results. And I do think that's why a lot of times the YouTube video is a great entry point, but again, it's not going to force you to stay accountable because you don't have any skin in the game. And so I love the free products. I think you know, I do a lot of stuff that's free, but again, the people who get results, they actually pay for it because they have the accountability, they have the skin in the game, and they have that extra motivation, like, hey, I invested in this, I want to make it work. Not to say that it works for everyone, but again, I think that's like the progression that I've seen is you need to have some sort of accountability to get the results that you want.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

And what would you say is the core mindset shift that is required to succeed?

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah, I think there's a lot of limiting beliefs. Almost like every person I talk to seems to have that for whatever they want to achieve. And so it's just building up that confidence through actual repetition, and you're starting small. And so, like, I think everyone should have that bigger goal, and then you're just building it down to smaller chunks. And so, like, the expression, how do you eat an elephant, you know, one bite at a time, and that's how you achieve your wildest dreams. And so the advice I'd give for people is just figure out what direction you want to go in, why you want to do that, and then just break it down into smaller chunks and find somebody who's already achieved that or is two to three steps ahead of you and see if they're interested in helping you out, see if you can pay for their time. And that's been some of like the biggest like leaps I've made is like I'm just going to, you know, I want to give the uh I I spoke at a conference and I I was like, my goal is to give the best talk at this conference and the best talk that I've ever given and to really push myself. And so I I hired a coach that worked, you know, a speaker coach from Tony Robbins, and we met every week. He pushed me to get my stuff together, to have, you know, start practicing before our calls. And again, it turned out to be an amazing keynote talk, got so much like value out of that, and really pushed myself to like, you know, I'd given hundreds of talks, but how can I package my story up? How can I push it a little bit further? And so anytime I'm really looking to um push myself past my own limits, I try to find an external coach, mentor, or somebody who's an expert in that space who knows 10 times more than I do, and they can help me get those results in a lot faster period of time. So I think that's the like mental unlock that a lot of people have is like they don't want to invest in themselves because they're scared of like you know, not achieving that result or failing or whatever. And so a lot of people just have that FUD, that fear, uncertainty, doubt um about that investment. So again, I think that's what keeps a lot of people stuck, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

And once you actually achieved success, what what was it like for you? What was it different than you expected it to be?

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yeah, so I again I I think it's funny you mentioned that. Like at the end of my keynote talk, I I'm I have to the audience I'd say, hey guys, you'll never be successful until you do this one thing, and that's define success. And I asked everyone in the audience before you leave this conference, before you leave this event, write down on a piece of paper what success looks like for you. What does success look like for you? And from your own perspective, not what does success look like from your parents, not what does success look like from your brother, your sister, your partner. What does success mean to you? And so I I really like if you're listening to this and you've never asked that, like, what does that actually look like? And for me, it goes down to that EFA framework. I can work anywhere in the world. That's like what success means for me. I'm doing that. I control my own time, I can do it from anywhere, and I'm able to make enough money to live the life that I love and deserve. And so checking those boxes, it's very liberating. It feels great, especially when I can help others or either through inspiring them or directly. And so that's been like, I don't know, it feels awesome, and I feel like I still have so much more uh that I want to achieve and accomplish in the future.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Is there a habit or routine that you have that you think contributed to your success?

SPEAKER_01 49:08

I think acting and making decisions quickly. Um I've seen so many people that because their decision-making process is like weeks, months, years. I I'm very d a very decisive person. And I think that like has allowed me to again, if if you if it takes you a year to decide and I can decide in five minutes, and I have to you really have to go through a thousand decisions to be successful in entrepreneurship, who's gonna come out winning in that sort of thing? Again, like I have a process for making decisions, it's not just like buy the seat of my pants, but I think traveling and living in all these different situations, you're thrown into a lot of situations where you have to decide quickly and you really have to figure it out. So for me, it's deciding quickly, being able to be reliant and figure stuff out yourself, meaning I could get any task, big or small, and I know I can get it done. If I can't do it myself, I'll find the person who can help me do it. Um, and so I think just being self-sustainable, where you can like achieve anything on your own, but you can figure out how to leverage other people to help you along the way. Um, and then just kind of thinking bigger and like trying to figure out like what areas to really double down on. And I think having marketing and sales experience myself, you know, those are two huge elements of the sort of like entrepreneurial like pyramid or whatever. You know, you gotta have a good product, you gotta have good customer service, but again, without the sales and marketing, it's going to really struggle. And so I try to strive to be good at all those areas.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

What opportunities do you think people are sleeping on right now online? Like, are there business models that you think are really strong in 2026?

SPEAKER_01 51:01

I still personally think like buying online businesses is still like the the secret market that's untapped. Um, and the main reason is because if you look at it compared to other investment uh sort of vehicles and products, it really like it cash flows positive from day one. It's cash flowing income when you acquire a business. There's no other investment class out there that really does that. Again, it is like a different vehicle, requires some sort of hands-on experience in you know to run and operate the business. But I don't know, I think that's like the slept-on opportunities like hey, you can buy a business from scratch, you can have it cash flowing. And that's basically like I've talked to thousands and thousands of investors out there, and they're all having the same problems. Their income or their like assets go up on paper, their house gets more expensive. Okay, how much money did that house make you? Zero. Your crypto or your Bitcoin has doubled or tripled. Okay, how much money did that actually make you? It's zero. Your stock portfolio has gone up 10, 20 percent over the past few years. Okay, how much money did you actually collect from that? It's zero. And so that's what I'm really excited about, and and we can kind of get into what I'm building at dividends. And so after talking to thousands of people, I've realized that people don't need appreciation on paper, they need actual cash flow, and that's where this sort of slept-on opportunity to buy businesses is really out there. But again, a lot of people don't have half a million dollars to buy a business. They've they want to get that cash flow for a smaller amount, but it's a little bit too risky if they've only got 10, 20 grand to buy something, and there's just not a lot of options out there that are legitimate businesses. And so that's basically what I'm what I'm building now. Uh, we're doing a capital raise where we're gonna be building uh a business called dividends. It's a software platform that is powered by acquisition. So imagine a real estate fund or trust, and basically these real estates or REITs are powered by uh you know gas stations, hospitals, um, grocery stores, and they're cash flowing rent. It's the same concept as that, but imagine a sort of software platform where you can go in and pick a portfolio, and those portfolios are fueled by already established profitable acquisitions, and so you can cash flow your investment, um, and we're targeting up to 15% cash yield on those investments because we buy the businesses, we scale them, package them into a portfolio that's investable. And so, again, this is what I'm building. I'm doing a capital raise. We're on track to raise two million uh in the next three to six months. And so if you want to find more details, uh you can go to wefunder.com forward slash dividends, and it's got a whole deck and video and stuff that breaks down what we're building, how we're building it, the problems we're solving, and again, like within a few weeks of talking about this, we already raised enough money that we have to get the SEC involved, so it's off to a crazy good start.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

What's one business lesson that if throughout this process you've learned the hard way?

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Yeah, um, so I would say the biggest business lessons I've learned that are it can be really tough if you partner with the wrong people who don't have as much skin in the game as you, or the roles and responsibilities are just not aligned. And so not to say that like any business partners I've had have like done anything wrong, it's just again, their their focus or their sort of like uh input, it's very hard to like keep that intact long term, right? So, what I've seen happen is uh a lot of times when you start off, you're both excited, you're motivated, and the roles are like clearly cut, you're just doing everything together, but that's not really a great, you know, sustainable long-term business model. And so most of the partnerships that I see that last, like they're completely opposite. Like this guy's doing the technical dev stuff, building code, you do like the sales and marketing. Those business models they're like completely different, they still have issues, but again, that model uh usually tends to work very well. I guess like my sort of like partnership experience hasn't been negative. I just would say I've learned a lot from that from having like partnerships that they didn't fail. We just had different visions for the long-term growth, or we had a different vision in the beginning, and it molded into something that you know the the business completely changed, the roles and requirements completely change, and we just really like, hey, we want to go in different directions because we have different sort of like goals in the near future. Um, so again, I I'd say like business partnerships, you hear about it a lot, like how that's like a big mistake. I would say, in general, like unless it's somebody who really is opposite, adds a ton of value already. Um, try to just start off like having them on, like see how far you can get on yourself, and then just see if that role a lot of times the problem is you're giving away 50% for something that could be a contractor or employee. That's the biggest mistake I've seen a lot of people make, where they didn't need to give away 50% of their company, they just needed a uh fractional contractor that was very good at something that they needed at the time.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

I actually have one final question to you that I really like asking this question, it's it which is um if you lost everything today, how would you rebuild?

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah, so again, I I feel like one of my earliest business models was like flipping uh furniture and like stuff on Craigslist. And we just moved from Thailand over to the Czech Republic, and we kind of like went through this whole process again of like selling stuff online, and so that's probably where I would start. I would start with doing that, like finding something that's like undervalued. Um, and that that's the great thing about that is you can if you have like a connection to an internet, you can go and like do this. There's no real startup capital needed. So you start small, you just find something online, and you can just pre-order stuff. Like somebody buys something, you you get it, you go out and buy it, and you you sell them on that. And for Facebook Marketplace and stuff, like I was basically selling stuff that we own because we're moving, and it's like crazy. You know, you find one or two of these items where you get a hundred messages and you're like blown away. It's like, okay, there's so much demand for this product. If I just bought this in bulk and sold this on Facebook, there'd be enough sort of like inventory to really build a business out of it. Um, I guess it also depends. If I start from zero knowing what I know, if I kind of have that knowledge, I'd probably just start with a sales job because it's like again, I already have that skill set. I've always been very like personable, um, you know, kind of like easy to interact with people, building rapport and relationships. So I would find an offer or an industry that I liked, I believed in, and I would just get a you know, kind of a high-ticket sales job that's like probably mostly commission. Um, and then I would use that to like get income and then build something on the side.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Awesome. Mike, thank you so much for joining us today and doing this. If there's anything you'd like to promote, feel free. This is your moment right now.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Yeah, so again, I love helping people. If you want to, you know, any advice, sort of hop on a call or to just get some insight. Um, just look me up. You can go to all the social media platforms. I'm Mike Swanski. Just mention that you heard me on a podcast. Um, and then if you want to visit and kind of follow along, like on this capital raise, or if you want to be involved as an investor, um, you can go to dividendscapital.com, wefunder.com slash dividends, global career book.com to grab a copy of my book, and you can reach out to me on social media. Uh, and the cool thing I I want to mention for the capital raise is the reason we're doing it on WeFunder is you can come in at any sort of level. The minimum investment's $100. And so we just submitted the paperwork to the SEC, and so by the time this comes out, um, it should be live and all set up.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this again, Mike. Thank you. Appreciate it. Building a life with freedom takes more than just ambition, it takes clarity, execution, and understanding how to turn opportunities into real income. Subscribe, leave a comment, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.