December 2 2015

Dave Schneider Interview: Firing His Boss, Risking Everything, and Other Questions…

With Great Power Comes a Great Lifestyle

Update: Dave no longer runs NinjaOutreach or SelfMadeBusinessman. However, you can catch him on LessChurn.io as well as Daveschneider.me. Be sure to follow him, as he’s got tons of things to teach about online business.

Dave Schneider is a prime example of someone whose hard work is handsomely paying off.

He is also someone who gave the middle finger to his former “9-to-5” job, despite earning an impressive yearly income of over $70k.

Despite living the good life (debt-free, nice apartment, money to burn) Dave simply wasn’t satisfied with his line of work.

So, what did Dave do?

He threw it all away for the sake of pursuing his dream as a self-employed business man.

Dave has since traveled to more countries than we care to count, all while building his business in the process. The end result has been a combination of entrepreneurship and self-improvement, proving that anything is possible when you take charge of your life.

I asked Dave a few inspirational questions in hopes of learning more about him and his ongoing success.

This is also for part-time freelancers that desperately wish to fire their boss.

Here’s everything he had to say.

First of all, what motivated you to pursue such an exciting, nomadic lifestyle?

To be honest it was my girlfriend. I certainly was a willing participant but it was really her impetus that got us to quit our jobs and travel for not one but two years. It was also her idea to start a blog, which led to us working online and now being digital nomads.

But what motivated her was more or less the following:

Discontent with our current employment
A desire to go out and see the world
An understanding that now was the best time (given our lack of fiscal and family responsibilities)

In a nutshell, what does your main business consist of?

My main business is NinjaOutreach, which is a SaaS for blogger outreach. It launched in January of this year. I am working on it with two other co-founders from the UK.

Note: Ninja Outreach connects you with thousands of influencers and helps you build powerful business relationships in no time. This impressive database helps you find freelance work, land guest posts, build authority and much more.

What is your mission statement or life-long goal when it comes to your business?

Our goal is to create a value adding software that helps SMBs connect with bloggers online.

Despite loving what you do, what are some undeniable challenges you have faced over time?

It’s true that although I love what I do, there are a lot of challenges. Firstly, as an entrepreneur you have to be entirely self-motivated. There is no one cracking the whip, no peer reviews, nothing. You have to get up in the morning and get your work done – period.

From the digital nomad perspective, traveling and working is incredibly difficult. It’s a hard balance and always brings high opportunities costs (do we go and see this cool place today, or work on our business). I have not found a great answer to this aside from slow travel, which means renting apartments in an area for a month or two and casually working and exploring in your free time.

Lastly, there is an incredible amount of uncertainty, and general ups and downs that come with running your own business. It can really push the emotional limits at times.

Touching back on living a rather dynamic lifestyle, do you ever stay in one place for long?

Occasionally, yes, and more so recently. Actually we are at home right now in the Boston area for around 5 months, though during this time we are doing a mini road trip to Chicago.

In the past we have rented apartments in Thailand and Malaysia for 1-2 months, and we plan to do that again in Costa Rica later this year. This is my new favorite type of travel given the work constraints.

Your efforts are certainly paying off, but I am sure it’s not all rainbows and roses. What are some common misconceptions about “living the dream” people often believe?

Firstly many people think everyone is out there making a ton of money – most aren’t. A few are, sure, but most people are more or less scraping by or making an OK salary but nothing by Western standards. They’re OK with that tradeoff in the short term, however.

Secondly, we work – a lot. Nights, weekends, etc. I’ve definitely had my share of 60-70 hour weeks (but then I’ve also taken weeks off when I felt like it – that’s the flexibility of the lifestyle).

Lastly, as a traveler it is difficult to develop a real social circle since you are constantly in new places meeting new people. It’s a social cost for sure and we haven’t developed strong roots anywhere.

How much money have you needed to spend while traveling abroad, on average? Would someone typically need to break the bank?

In the first world budget around $60/day/person, and everywhere else $35. Of course you can do it on less or more, but that’s a ballpark figure that’s surprisingly accurate across many different countries. It does not include business costs, which at times can be significant (but hopefully the business is at least paying for itself.

Services like Ninja Outreach have undoubtedly kept you busy. What lessons have you learned from starting and managing large scale businesses?

Well, to be fair NinjaOutreach is hardly large scale at the moment – it’s a startup with about 50 customers and a few founders/employees, but it’s a lot of work that’s for sure.

Note: This business has since grown much more.

Like all things it takes time and patience is a virtue. Every month the software gets stronger and stronger and the business grows, but never as quick as you’d like. You have to be very budget/time conscious and make sure you are not exhausting resources too fast before you get from A to B where the business can bring in significant earnings for everyone involved. There’s definitely some strategy to it.

I try to stay positive, as hard as it is. There are days when things are going great – Yay! There are other days things are not going well. Often they are one after another. It is literally highs and lows daily and that is an emotional drag that I don’t think everyone really wants to deal with.

Many people dream of firing their boss and travel the world, but this is usually easier said than done. What are the first (realistic) steps aspiring entrepreneurs should take to achieve this goal?

Try to start a side business that makes $1k a month. You can do this with a full time job. In fact if you can’t do it with a full time job you probably can’t do it without one either.

It’s usually not a matter of having enough time, but being diligent, resourceful, and creative. I’ve certainly seen people do it with just 1-2 hours a day and determination to sacrifice some personal pleasures in the short term for long term payoffs.

In one sentence, what is the secret to your success?

Showing up everyday and living/working within my means.

Last but not least, Batman or Superman?

Batman for sure. He doesn’t have superhero abilities but is incredibly resourceful.

David Schneider is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an all in one Prospecting and Outreach tool which was created to streamline the process of connecting with influencers, freelancers and more. He can also be found @ninjaoutreach and his business blog SelfMadeBusinessman.