Building a Location-Independent Business

The term ‘location independent’ is showing up all over these days, as are terms like ‘digital nomad.’ The general idea is that a small business owner can create a company that can support him, without requiring him to stay in one place. That means that travel is much more of an option for small business owners, along with a general flexibility that makes for more options for entrepreneurs.

But building a location-independent business is a little more complex than deciding that you want to head off to Bali for a few months. You have to have a foundation that allows for you to work from little more than a laptop and a cell phone. You also have to either be working in a field that requires minimal face-to-face interaction or that you can adapt so that Skype, email and phone calls are sufficient.

The Right Business

It’s easy to think that most businesses could never become location-independent. Every business has to be where clients can find it. But more and more, thanks to improving online tools, clients are going online. That, in turn, means that many businesses can, as well. It’s just a question of thinking about how you truly need to interact with customers or clients — and how they’re willing to communicate with you. An architect, for instance, may need to meet with clients in order to understand their needs for a projects, but that meeting doesn’t necessarily need to be in person. A video conference can serve the same purpose, without even requiring the client to come into the office. The actual act of creating architectural plans is all done on a computer as it is, making it a profession surprisingly easy to turn into a location-independent business.

It’s not always that simple. An IT professional, for instance, typically has to actually be around the computers he needs to fix. But that doesn’t mean that a location-independent business is off the table. Creating resources for the same clientele — such as automated tools for backing up a computer — can allow someone who is looking for an opportunity to get out of the office to do so. It’s a question of thinking broadly about your skill set and what options you have for providing services and products if you aren’t physically present.

The Right Systems

At first glance, it may seem that most location-independent businesses are limited to being one-person businesses. Managing employees across distances, however, has become a relatively easy matter. Provided that you’re willing to be flexible about time zones, it can even be surprisingly easy: scheduling meetings for individuals located all around the world is the hardest part. But with email and online project management tools, everyone can stay on the same page, even if one of you is asleep while everyone else is working.

Even better, a willingness to work with employees located elsewhere can resolve issues like having a physical presence for your company. If you need a warehouse to ship products from, you can hire employees anywhere there’s cheap warehouse space. You can have an employee check a P.O. box on a regular basis and generally handle the physical details of running a business if you aren’t comfortable with more automated services.

Image by Flickr user ableman

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