91) How Johannes Created Multiple Income Streams as a Digital Nomad – His Best Advice for Beginners

How do you start your first digital nomad business?

Today I am in a studio in Bali with the founder of the Nomad Cruise Johannes Voelkner to talk about his story of how he became a digital nomad and also how he created one of the most well known significant digital nomad communities, The Nomad Cruise. 

Today we talk about:

• How Johannes went from a virtual assistant to building a thriving business that funds his global lifestyle.
• Why understanding marketing is the key to success in any digital nomad business.
• Find out how you can join an international network of remote workers and entrepreneurs—and why Nomad Cruise could be your best career investment.

⚡️Want a discount on your next nomad cruise? Use the code christabellatra at checkout!

Connect with Johannes & Nomad Cruise:
🌐 Website: Nomad Cruise (Sign up for the newsletter for trip updates!)
📸 Instagram: @nomadcruise

DM Me this Codeword:
💼 Learn how to start your digital nomad business: DM “ROADMAP” to @christabellatravels on Instagram!

🎟️ Upcoming Nomad Cruises Mentioned:
➡️ France to Greece (June 2025): A perfect intro to the Nomad Cruise experience, with daily stops in stunning Mediterranean locations!
➡️ Seattle to Sydney (Late 2025): A once-in-a-lifetime trip across the Pacific, with stops in Hawaii, Fiji, and more.

✉️ Want to stay in the loop?
Join the Nomad Cruise newsletter for exclusive updates: nomadcruise.com

Chapter Marks:

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Digital Nomad Life Podcast
Host Christa introduces the episode and guest Johannes Voelkner, founder of Nomad Cruise, discussing the impact of the cruise on the digital nomad community.

[00:02:00] Becoming a Digital Nomad: Johannes’ Origin Story
Johannes shares his journey from Germany to Cape Town, his first steps as a digital nomad, and his struggles in tourism before transitioning to remote work.

[00:06:00] The 4-Hour Workweek & Online Income
Inspired by Tim Ferriss’ book, Johannes explores ways to make money online, starting as a virtual assistant before transitioning into digital marketing.

[00:12:00] From Virtual Assistant to Business Owner
Johannes explains how he scaled his skills from web design

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Johannes Volkner, Founder of Nomad Cruise
• 2:18 Johannes' Digital Nomad Origin Story
• 8:56 The Birth of the Nomad Cruise Concept
• 17:10 Creating a Global Nomad Community
• 25:47 The Value of Nomad Cruise for Beginners
• 35:07 The Entrepreneur Jungle Gym Approach
• 43:50 The Future of Nomad Cruise and Upcoming Trips
• 50:45 Final Thoughts and How to Connect

Transcript

Christa: 0:00

Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life Podcast. I'm your host, krista, also known as KristaBellaTravels on social media, and today I am in a studio with a long-term friend and someone that I've just, yeah, had the pleasure of traveling to so many countries with. At this point, he's got this really amazing story of how he personally became a digital nomad and also how he created one of the most well-known, significant digital nomad communities in the world. I mean, I literally have goosebumps just actually saying that I am such a big fan of the Nomad Cruise, which is the company that Johannes has founded. Johannes Volkner, by the way, didn't say his full name, but yeah, he's the founder of the Nomad Cruise.

Christa: 0:47

I'm sure you've heard me talk about it on other episodes. I talk about it all the time because, genuinely, I'm just such a huge fan. This company has introduced me to pretty much all of my closest friends, is responsible for so many of my best travel memories and, yeah, I'm just so literally so incredibly grateful that, johannes, you created this Nomad Cruise experience, culture, community, et cetera. So, first of all, thank you so much for being here. Can't wait to get into this episode.

Johannes: 1:18

Thank you so much for your words. Let's get started.

Christa: 1:21

Okay, great, let's get started. So I just gave a glowing recommendation about the Nomad Cruise. I don't want this episode to be only about the Nomad Cruise. I also want people to find out about your digital nomad story and make it really valuable for the listeners. Personally, I think that the main audience base of this podcast are probably people who want to become digital nomads. They're curious about the lifestyle they might not have yet figured out, like what their career is going to be, or maybe they're making some money as a digital nomad, but they haven't scaled it yet. So I would love for us to kind of focus on a part of your story where you are in that position, so we're gonna relate to the audience. Obviously, you're very far beyond that point now, but it would be great to go back in time to just like when you first got started as Digital Nomad, and I think then we can talk about how that transitioned into you creating the amazing Nomad Cruise, so tell me your story.

Johannes: 2:19

Yeah, so actually I didn't start really as a Digital Nomad. I was living in Cape Town. That's where my story started.

Christa: 2:27

And where are you from?

Johannes: 2:28

I'm from Germany, okay, from.

Christa: 2:30

Germany moved to Cape Town.

Johannes: 2:31

Yes, I'm from Germany. After I finished school I went one year to Australia. I was living in Sydney, doing working holidays there, and then, during a lift that I had, one guy told me about Cape Town, which really sparked my interest. Like he was from South Africa and we were talking about Sydney and Cape Town and what a beautiful place it is. So I ended up studying there. Two years later I met my ex. I ended up staying there for five years and I needed to make money. And in Cape Town it's a beautiful place. I mean it's one of the most rising digital nomad hot spots in the world.

Johannes: 3:12

I mean we've been hanging out in Cape Town together as well, right so it's a beautiful place, but it's very, very difficult to make money, and my girlfriend at that time was quite successful as a fashion designer, but I was making like nothing. So I was looking for business ideas and for different things that I can do, because I was working in a safari company and made like 500 euros a month.

Christa: 3:36

Well, that's not enough.

Johannes: 3:38

Exactly, but I always wanted to be in tourism, so I didn't really care, and I think that's also one thing for everyone who's starting in the beginning. It's not about your hourly salary or whatever, it's about where you put yourself. So I put myself into the tourism industry and that's where I wanted to work. But I realized after a while, hey, I need to do something different and I cannot work. I cannot live here and just have 14 days of vacation. I always love to travel, but I didn't want to like dedicate my only travels of the year to go back to Germany.

Christa: 4:10

Can I pause? You right there.

Christa: 4:11

I'm going to pause and interrupt you a lot, because I just love to comment on all the different parts of the story, but I think that you make some really important points here, and I'm just thinking about the listener, who probably loves traveling Like anybody who wants to become a digital nomad obviously loves traveling. And I think there's this tendency for people to be like oh, I love traveling, I want to make money, I should work in the travel industry, but that's not actually always the best way to be making money.

Johannes: 4:43

No, the travel industry is horrible. To make money, because I think, like, if we want to make make money, we like actually need to think, like, really, where have the do we have the most leverage on our work? Right, because you can work, for it's like finding something between passion and like what actually makes sense. So, um, we always need to think a little bit like where, where do we put our work and in what area do we want to work just because we like something? At the end of the day, we want to find people that we can hire and that can do the work for us, right, so we can just be the business owner and not, like, running the business. So, yeah, it's important to think where we put our effort.

Johannes: 5:23

But in my case, I was working in the travel industry to find out, to have an understanding how does it work with margins and with different things, and how does Cape Town tourism work? But then I realized, no, this is not what I want to do. I want to start my own business, because I will not get anywhere. Even if I work here for 10 years, I'm not going to have a good salary. So I started to research and I came across the four-hour work week, which is quite a famous book yes, also was incredibly inspired.

Christa: 5:57

By the book. I'm going to say it again four-hour work week by Tim Ferriss. It's like the digital nomad bible exactly it was especially at that time.

Johannes: 6:05

Yeah, I read the book when it just came out, like it was one year after it was published and it just basically the main lesson I had from that two main lessons I had from the book. But like the first main lesson was okay, I don't need to look for work in South Africa, I'm going to look for work in Europe where people pay me more. We have the internet, I can work online. So I started to become a virtual assistant with the goal to become to create a virtual assistant agency in South Africa and hire Germans and give them their.

Johannes: 6:41

I think there's still no real agency like this. It could be like actually something interesting even today. But the idea was that, yeah, that I would work as a virtual assistant, and I actually posted my email address in a forum for the four-hour work week and I got so many leads. I just said like I'm a virtual assistant, german and I live in Africa and if you want like some help. So I got people were all writing to me like, hey, I want to work with you and whatever, but they really didn't. The people didn't really know how to delegate and whatever, but it brought me into the first, you know getting some work done as a virtual assistant.

Christa: 7:26

Yeah, wow, okay. So your story basically begins with this desire to live the lifestyle that you want, not being confined to the nine-to-five little box system.

Johannes: 7:39

Actually, I just wanted to live in Cape Town. Oh, you just wanted to live in Cape Town with your girlfriend.

Christa: 7:43

Okay, oh, whatever, Whatever, the inspiration is right. Actually and thanks for distinguishing that, because I think some people hear me say become a digital nomad and they think that means that you have to live out of your suitcase it just means that you have the freedom to live your life the way that you want to live your life and prioritize the things or the people and or the places that you want to prioritize exactly.

Johannes: 8:06

And I mean, at the end of the day, as, even as a digital nomad, we don't want to travel all the time, of course not, and we want to live in, like just nice places. And there are people who are like putting in so much effort just to be able to work from australia or whatever, whereas once we are online, we can work wherever we want in the world. Right, and we can we also not like dependent on like, oh, now it's winter in australia, it's actually not that nice to be here, so then we still have to be there. We cannot hang out with our family if they are from europe or whatever. So really the best thing and it doesn't matter if it's digital to nomad or not, right is to have the possibility to work in the world from wherever we want.

Johannes: 8:52

And yeah, that was my goal In the beginning. There was not travel attached to it, but I just wanted to be able to live, to work from South Africa and also be able to spend time in germany or go on vacation and not just have 14 days of holidays because I mean, yeah, when we are working, I mean now we are here, but afterwards we can go and watch the sunset, right, or we can do like so many other things here in bali um, we can have amazing weekend trips and a lot of stuff, but we're not traveling so much while we're here, right.

Christa: 9:25

Yeah, yeah, just to for the people in the back, if you're listening to this, it doesn't mean that once you become a digital nomad, you have to live out of your suitcase. You can base yourself somewhere for the majority of the year, but I think the thing is, if you can work from literally wherever, you're probably going to travel more than you would if you had a nine to five job for sure, and I, that's what I did, exactly what I did after I have been, uh, working online and I was able to like make enough income.

Johannes: 9:58

I was traveling all over the world and I took that quite serious, uh, to just travel and see the world. And like these days, I've been to like over 100 countries, wow, or like almost there somewhere around right, so, and I don't need to see anything else. Like I don't need to see more, like I've kind of like seen most of the places that I always wanted to be, and everything else is just bonus. There are like a few things I still want to do, but yeah, but I enjoy the freedom that I have to be living here or to be living in Cape Town or wherever I want.

Christa: 10:33

It's just freedom.

Johannes: 10:34

Yeah, exactly.

Christa: 10:35

So you became a virtual assistant Sounds like you had a lot of luck getting a bunch of clients right away, even if I'm sure they were annoying if they didn't know how to delegate.

Christa: 10:44

But you know what I always say to my clients at the beginning, because I also I didn't introduce myself in this episode. So if you're new here, I'm a digital nomad coach and I help people create online businesses and it's pretty much always their first online business. So a situation like Johannes you, when you first started, I would have like assisted you in the process of getting your first clients and coming up with a virtual assistant idea, and I feel like a lot of people they don't want to do this kind of lower level work to begin with, but it's a launching pad and obviously you didn't stay as a virtual assistant and obviously you didn't stay as a virtual assistant. You created this whole amazing company that's had an amazing impact, like such a powerful impact on so many people's lives. There's marriages, children, just people having amazing experiences. So can you bridge the gap for us? How did you go from being a virtual assistant to creating the Nomad Cruise?

Johannes: 11:46

Yeah. So what happened was I was a virtual assistant and I really didn't like that work and I also decided very quickly that I don't want to start an agency for virtual assistants. But one thing I learned in the beginning was, first, one client asked me can you make a WordPress website for me? And I was like, well, I don't know how this works, but I'll figure it out. So I installed the wordpress website and I was like, oh wow, now I can build websites. Like I don't just need to be a virtual assistant, maybe I can be a web designer as well.

Johannes: 12:19

And another client asked me to set up a google adwords campaign for his product. So I I learned, actually I switched from being virtual assistant to being an online marketer very fast and I could make websites and I helped other people with online marketing, which pays way more than being virtual assistant. And then, coming back to the four-hour workweek, what Tim Ferriss was teaching was that you need to have your own product that you can, you know, sell anywhere in the world with the online shop, and like you can optimize this. He's teaching a lot more in the book, but like, basically, if you have like a little product that you can sell, then that's like the way how you can build also more passive income, more freedom, and I didn't have that product, but my mom had a therapy card business and I helped her and that worked extremely well and it allowed me to actually get rid of a lot of the clients that I didn't like and it also allowed me to be able to live and run a business from anywhere in the world.

Christa: 13:25

So you basically became a full-time digital marketer for your mom's product.

Johannes: 13:29

Yes, exactly, and it wasn't even full-time because it didn't require me to work eight hours a day.

Christa: 13:34

Like how many hours are we talking here?

Johannes: 13:36

Well, in the beginning I put in quite a lot of work but, like the business is still running today and now it is not that much anymore still running today and now it is not that much anymore. And in the beginning I did optimize, like I built, like massive Google AdWords campaigns and to help this business grow. But the crazy thing is that this is running since 15 years.

Johannes: 13:58

Okay, so you basically set this thing on autopilot, almost because I feel like, exactly, yeah's not like, um no, it's not much work but you still make money from it. I still make money from it nice.

Christa: 14:10

I could still finish today amazing, so that's a really nice security net that you created for yourself and then yeah.

Johannes: 14:19

So then what happened basically is, um, I built that business, but the relationship that I had in cape town fell apart and, um, I was not so sure whether I want to stay in cape town anymore, like I was there already for five years and so, but I also knew that I didn't want to go back to germany. I was like, hey, I built all this freedom for myself. Why must I now go back to germany? Like what, what am I gonna do? Yeah, so what I did is I had just learned a little bit of kite surfing in cape town and I really liked that sport and I was like, researching, where can I go? So I went to the philippines. I went to boracay, a beautiful place. I ended up staying there for two months and I was like continuing to run the business there and then I was like, oh wow, this works. Like I flew back to the birthday of my mom and then I went straight to South America and I wanted to just stay for four months, but I ended up staying for 10 months and love it.

Christa: 15:16

I love like how nomads do that. It's like, oh, I'm just gonna. I did that. I was like I'll go to Colombia for like two weeks and all of a sudden it was two months later.

Johannes: 15:23

Yes, yeah, so I did that and I was like I'll go to Colombia for like two weeks and all of a sudden, it was two months later, yes, yeah. So I did that and I was like able to run this, uh, this online business for my mom and I had like a few clients as well and I thought like, oh, this is amazing. So I went to Buenos Aires, I learned some Spanish, uh, I started to travel South America, but very quickly I realized that, hey, I'm like the only person who's doing this. There's nobody else doing what I'm doing.

Christa: 15:49

What year is this?

Johannes: 15:50

This is 2011. 2011.

Christa: 15:53

So 14 years ago. We're really OG yeah.

Johannes: 15:57

So I was in the hostel and they were like oh, you're working.

Johannes: 16:02

So I had the problem that there was nobody else who was working yeah and I wanted to connect with other people who were working, because the no, the, the backpackers they went out at two o'clock at night in buenos aires to go to the parties, right. So, um, it was very, very difficult for me to be working and hang out in this like social community. There were not so many people who were just like living for, like nomads or anything. So I was craving people who were also working that I could hang out with and who would travel the same way like I do, and not backpackers, which is what I had done previously, before I even went to South Africa quite a lot, I did a lot of backpacking around Southeast Asia here, and so Then I realized that I love this lifestyle. It's amazing to be living in Buenos Aires. I lived in Rio de Janeiro.

Johannes: 16:51

I was in different places, but I was like shit, I want to connect to more people who do this as well. So I had the idea to create the e-book, which is like an online travel guide for people who work online. In that process, I found out about the word digital nomad. When I was like making this ebook, I sold that ebook and I was like slowly gathering more and more people who were doing this because I just wanted to genuinely meet more people. And then in that process of this ebook, I started to speak at different nomad events. Like I was like really the first one in Germany, with a few other people who were like starting this community there and going forward to Nomad Cruise, I started the first Facebook group for digital nomads. There was nobody else.

Christa: 17:42

You did the first Facebook group. Yes, which one?

Johannes: 17:46

It's called now. It's called Nomad Base.

Christa: 17:49

Oh, okay, Okay cool.

Johannes: 17:51

But there was no other Facebook group at that time when I started it and it was called Web Work Travel Digital Nomad Group or something. So everyone who was looking for the word digital nomad ended up in my group. Three years later, I had organized, like I had already gathered a little bit of community, but I was like thinking I want to do a project for this people and get us together, because at that time there was only Chiang Mai which had a bit of a community going. So now we're talking about 2014, okay, and there was a little bit happening in Lisbon and in Medellin, but like, not much. Like there were not many spots where digital nomads would meet.

Johannes: 18:29

So I was thinking about business things and then I saw that there was like a really cheap cruise that was going from Spain to Brazil and I thought, okay, so I wanted to go kite surfing in Brazil. And when I saw this cruise, I thought why don't I just invite all these people to come on this ship and instead of me having to build a network in Rio de Janeiro and in Buenos Aires, if we have a lot of people and I would spend the winter in South America then we can all hang out together in these different places and I don't need to start my network from scratch. So I just said, basically let's go together to South America in this group and within three weeks over 100 people booked this trip.

Christa: 19:18

Within three weeks. Yes, wow.

Johannes: 19:21

So they were ready and there was not many places you know where nomads could meet. So everyone was like, okay, I'm going to be on that ship and that was the start. But like, really, the idea behind it was not the event itself, it was what is happening afterwards. Right, it was, let's meet on this ship, let's all get to know each other a little bit and then we travel afterwards, which is what a lot of people don't really know about nomad cruise, that we are doing so much things after the cruise and not just on the ship like the.

Johannes: 19:52

The main value is actually after the cruise and not just the trip.

Christa: 19:56

Yeah, very often for people for anybody who's been following along, I recently took a trip to Japan. Well, I was on the Nomad Cruise that went from Vancouver to Japan and then I spent two weeks in Japan and Johannes was there and also like a hundred of our other friends were also in Japan, and we had these really cool meetups and all these different places, like we were in Tokyo and Kyoto and Osaka, and then so many people came to Bali after, so that was in October that we were there November, december, january, february, like it's literally four and a half months later, there's still some people here from that trip.

Christa: 20:33

Yeah, and we still have. We just had a Nomad Cruise meetup recently. So, yeah, what happens after the cruise is really so magical, but the cruise itself Okay. So I didn't join Nomad Cruise until Nomad Cruise 6. So here you are talking about Nomad Cruise 1, like the very first one that inspired the whole thing, and I bet if there are any Nomad Cruise alumni listening to this conversation, maybe you'll be really interested in the founding story of it all. So, okay, so you threw it out to the community, your Nomad community.

Christa: 21:06

Obviously, people were like dying for community at this point, which, if anybody is listening to this episode and you've heard my other episodes you probably know that I had a really similar experience to what you had too, johannes. Like I was traveling around South America staying in hostels and I was meeting lots of cool people in the hostels, but they were backpackers and they were moving too fast and they were drinking too much and it just like it just it wasn't sustainable and I was like I really want to meet other nomads. So, yeah, ended up traveling to nomad destinations. I found the Wi-Fi tribe and then, a few years later, I discovered the nomad cruise, which was already like a fully fledged community at that point. So, anyway, I think a lot of people, especially in those like 2010s chapter, were just starved for nomad community. So you had this idea, you just put it out there. A hundred people were like, yes, let's go. What happened next?

Johannes: 22:08

Yeah. So they went on the trip and the trip worked out really well. I was like super scared. Actually I've never been more scared before trip why were you scared?

Johannes: 22:18

yeah, because I had no clue like what's gonna happen, like it was just like an idea, right. And so like three or four days before, I took a spreadsheet and I was like who wants to organize like a workshop or something on the ship? And then we had like an unconference program that we were and I said like OK, let's meet in two days. I will then share the venues and where we can meet. So that's all I knew Like let's. So the first two days on the ship I kind of figured out like how are we going to run all this event? Because I had never been on a cruise ship before You'd this event, because I had never been on a cruise ship before, you'd never been on a cruise before. No, I had no clue. Like we were not even, because the the trip was so cheap. So we didn't even know like what the food or whatever would be like and like it all turned out to be really amazing why was it so cheap?

Johannes: 23:04

because it was the first time that this company was like selling repositioning trips and what is repositioning? Repositioning is when a ship is in the mediterranean sea or in the caribbean or wherever, and then the season changes and then the cruise ships go from the mediterranean to the caribbean or they go to south america to operate there for the season. So, in a way, cruise ships move the same way like digital nomads do. When it gets gets cold, they move somewhere else.

Christa: 23:32

So for the people that were participating on this very first Nomad Cruise. So you went from the Mediterranean to South America, but there couldn't have been many stops along the way. Like, was that boring?

Johannes: 23:44

No, it wasn't boring. Okay, why wasn't it boring? I know that it's not boring.

Christa: 23:49

I know that the days at sea are the best days.

Johannes: 23:51

Yes, I just want you to tell me so there's 100, when there are 100 people on the ship, you meet a lot of people that you want to have more conversation with or that you want to play some games with, or you want to party with. You want to do different things, so there's like a never-ending conversation and you kind of need to run to your room to escape this kind of bubble, right yeah, the social part of it is actually so much, but like in such a good way because you do have your cabins to escape.

Christa: 24:24

But um, yeah, anyway, sorry yeah.

Johannes: 24:27

So we were just. I mean, we were wow, like this is actually really cool, like we were not expecting this, like nice trip and this nice food and whatsoever. So everyone was like way more positively surprised than what we had expected. And, yeah, so we had an amazing event. We did the workshops. We had about 20, 30 workshops.

Johannes: 24:50

It all went well and before we went on the ship, I decided, okay, I want to make this a project because I see that there's good momentum. I didn't even need a beautiful website and I already get 100 people to sign up. So I made a logo and I made some T-shirts and I made the flag a Nomad Cruise flag, and that was just so that we can take. And I asked one of the people who was joining us, like can you take some photos and whatever, so that I could just collect material and that we can say like, ok, this is actually like something, like it's not just a meetup on a cruise ship, it's actually like it's a thing. Yeah. And so we did this.

Johannes: 25:38

And first the cruise line also was not really like collaborating with me, like they were just like, oh, what are these 100 people coming here on this ship? Um, but then we uh, yeah, we talked to them and we started to collaborate with them and they gave us the venues and yeah, actually I can drop this here because they were very, very skeptical and now this person that helped us at that time, I actually started to collaborate with her as well and now she works for a very prestigious cruise line and we have a trip that will come in the near future.

Christa: 26:08

Do I know about it? No, oh, so exciting, okay, yeah.

Johannes: 26:14

So after the first trip, six months later we organized another Nomad Cruise with 200 people from Colombia to Portugal.

Christa: 26:22

Colombia to Portugal. Yeah, okay, so another repositioning cruise.

Johannes: 26:25

Another repositioning. And then we did a lot more repositionings, about 10 before COVID started, wow. So it became from like, hey, this is just a random unconference on the ship. Then I noticed like, oh, these cruise lines, they have their own talent show. And I was like, oh, wow, this is cool, like we can also have our own talent show. We have a lot of talent on board. So in the beginning our participants joined like a talent show of the cruise, and then we were so many people and we were like when I, when we were like 250 people on the cruise, I was like, well, we are actually enough people, we can do our own talent show.

Johannes: 27:02

We don't need to do it on the ship, you know with a trip and so I picked up over like the first five years. I picked up ideas. I saw shark tank and like this is cool. Like people pitch their business Like how can we do this on the cruise. I go somewhere I see ecstatic dance, like oh, this is cool. Like how can we bring this on the cruise? So we bring a lot of inspiration from different events. Every cruise you would see like a lot of improvement with the program, how we run things, yeah, and with inspiration from all around the world from different events that we attended.

Christa: 27:36

Wow, okay, I just want to interject here and like, for anybody who has never been on a Nomad cruise, what Johannes is talking about is it's a festival. I mean, there's always multiple things happening at any single time of day, like literally from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed. There's just yeah, as you said, big events that the whole community like, and I think there's usually between 200 and 300 people that are on every single one, and a lot of them are alumni. Actually, do you have percentages, like what percentage of people are returning cruisers?

Johannes: 28:08

I think like on almost every cruise, there's about 40% returning people.

Christa: 28:12

Okay, so 40% returning people, which is just outrageous. I think that's like really such an impressive statistic. I'm one of these people. I think the next one that I go on will be my seventh cruise or something, and there's some people that have been on every single one, right.

Christa: 28:28

Almost yeah, but the cruise is just so. It's so fun Like there's some people that have been in every single one, right, almost yeah. But the cruise is just so. It's so fun Like there's so much to do. The talent show is always a highlight and it's like kind of like saving the best for the end.

Christa: 28:40

But the ecstatic dance, as you said, the pitches, and, yeah, I love to hear the story of how the program developed because, as a traveler myself, of course, like I've been to all these places and I've just seen, oh, that's a really cool thing that these people do, or that that culture does, or that this experience I had, or that digital nomad meetup, and it's like you've just, obviously, if you've traveled to a hundred countries and have been a nomad since 2011, it's like I think we can trust that you have experienced the best of the best and that you brought it all together on the cruise for new nomads, experienced nomads. I think anybody, whatever stage they're at in the process, will get so much out of it. That being said, I have a question. I get this question a lot from people that are like oh, krista, the Nomad Cruise sounds amazing, but I'm not a nomad yet. Can I still come? What do you think?

Johannes: 29:32

Yeah, I think so. First of all, the nomad thing. It doesn't matter if you are a nomad or not. I think that we've created so many nomads from people who are just going there, and it is like an eye-opening experience. But also we have people who were nomads and now are not anymore, and then they come back on the ship, right. So it really doesn't matter.

Johannes: 29:56

What is the most important is just to be curious, right? Like if you're curious to learn, curious to grow, to like dive into this community, it can just be like an eye-opening life changer, right? So, in that sense that you see so many people, you're like, hey, I'm actually like smarter than this person, but like she makes so much more money, she's so much more successful with the things, yeah, so why am I not doing this? So like it can like inspire you in a very positive way, like it should not, you should not go on the ship and say like, oh, wow, these people are also experienced like I'm not there yet, like I feel bad about it, but like go on the ship and with an open mind and with a willingness to learn from other people, and you will meet so many people, because I always like to say, like nobody's doing the same job on that cruise. Yes, so whatever you are doing like, you will find someone. And also the nice thing is it wouldn't even feel like competition, because people come from all over the world, so everyone is very, very willing to share actually what they are doing. It's not like I'm protecting my little niche or whatever, because people share what they do in the states and you learn from someone who's doing things in Germany or whatever, and so there's so much collaboration and ways of how people end up supporting each other.

Christa: 31:17

That is actually such a good point. I didn't even really think about it like that. So you might be wondering why is there 40% alumni if the program is pretty much the same every time now, which it is so, I think. When I first joined the Nomad Cruise, the program was brand new to me and it continued to feel new for the first few cruises, but then I started realizing that now it's no longer about the program although the program is amazing and I still participate a lot in the programming but why I love the cruise and one of the biggest values that I get out of it every time is the inspiration from the other people, and you're right, people don't gatekeep.

Christa: 31:57

Usually, when I'm on the cruise, I meet a couple of other people who are also digital nomad coaches, but for their respective countries. So that's actually so amazing for me to be able to collaborate and get ideas from another person that's in the same industry as me, the same niche as me, but we're not in the same market. So, and yeah, with, like hundreds of other people, chances are there's not going to be someone that does the exact same thing as you in the exact same market, but even if so, the markets are always so big anyway.

Christa: 32:31

But people just are not competitive. They're really, really collaborative. And the last thing that I want to say about this whole being inspired by the community I know you know this story and maybe some of my listeners know it too, because I've talked about it a lot on what inspired my business as a digital nomad coach. But when I first joined the Nomad Cruise, I had a job. I had a nine to five job and I have so many people from the cruise that are like Krista remember when you had your job and you were like complaining about it and you wanted to be an entrepreneur. And now look at you, the reason literally I can say the reason why I was able to create my business was because I went on the Nomad Cruise and I said, wow, everybody here does do something different and that inspired my career coaching where now I have this perspective that there's a remote career out there for everybody.

Christa: 33:24

And it doesn't have to be a job Like you can create your own business. Because, yeah, I did meet people that I was like, really Like, you're making money doing that Like and you're making that much money doing what. So, yeah, just literally I love being in that inspiring energy of the cruise community. I just always, always, always walk away with so many new ideas, connections and feeling really motivated and inspired to work on my business.

Johannes: 33:53

So thank you for providing that, yeah, you're welcome. Well, it was like and I can say that as well like it was not. Like what I built with Nomad Cruise was. I tried to think always like, okay, so if I'm starting my nomad life, this is what would be great for me, right? Like there was always the like I tried to make it easy for people to meet each other, easy for people to get inspired by others and just kind of build the product that makes it easy to access the nomad life and to meet a lot of people or whatsoever. Like there was not. Like another thought Like I mean, I put a lot of effort into like trying to design the product when I saw like ah, there's still like some people who are like a little bit lonely on the chairs or whatever. Then I was like, okay, maybe we need to do more things to integrate everyone and to make sure, you know, people feel like accepted here and whatever.

Christa: 34:51

So introverts can still have a great time, yeah for sure.

Johannes: 34:55

I think there's a lot of introverts on this ship.

Christa: 34:57

I think so too, yeah, so actually I just want to drop a little piece of value for anybody listening as well. If you are in this stage where you are like, oh, I want to create a business, but I don't know what it should be, johannes, what you did was you said, okay, well, what would make my life better? And you were looking for opportunities to make your own life better. And then you just took action on it and you created it. And then it was like you were your ideal client. And then, when you are your own ideal client, you can really tap into from a business perspective how can I provide so much value to that person? And then, literally, you put something out there. And if you had been missing this thing in your life? Of course, there are going to be other people like that too.

Christa: 35:45

Your marketing is what's going to draw them in, of course. Luckily, you knew about marketing.

Johannes: 35:49

Yeah, I learned that already and, like that's also one thing I want to say I think it's so important to learn many, many different things, because you never know when you need that again.

Johannes: 36:00

So I learned website design, I learned Google AdWords, I learned Facebook marketing, I learned landing pages, conversions, events, storytelling. Right now I'm learning all about AI and how I can bring ai more into our business and make processes better, funnels, everything. I taught myself really everything and doing teaching yourself, like a lot of these things, it just helps you to have such a huge overview, right, and that's why, like I oftentimes see people who are, let's say, they are not making progress, they are not teaching themselves, they are not stepping up the game, and I think, like that's so important to like also not be too scared. Like, especially if you're a nomad, you need to be quite adaptable to like new things that are coming and new business, uh, and whatsoever. So it's really really important to teach yourself and to like new things that are coming and new business and whatsoever. So it's really really important to teach yourself and to learn new things or to generate something that makes you so much money that you can pay really good people to do these things for you.

Christa: 37:05

Yeah.

Johannes: 37:05

Right. So that's the other option, obviously, that you can do, but otherwise, like don't be too scared to like dive into all these different topics and at the end of the day, the cruise would not be successful if I wouldn't have like started this business with my mom before, because that's where I learned a lot about marketing and different things.

Christa: 37:25

Yeah, yeah. It enabled you to have the freedom to build the business that really was your dream business.

Johannes: 37:32

Yeah, and also like, like, even web design, right like I built the first norman cruise website like I did all these. I did all these things because, like, like, sometimes I didn't have the budget you know to do certain things. So it's important, and I mean now with ai, you can learn everything so easily um, and make progress, but like really to continue learning, yeah, it's so important.

Christa: 37:54

Okay, I have. I have a few thoughts that I want to say to just like bring that, bring that home. But, um, so I have this concept called the entrepreneur jungle gym, as opposed to the corporate ladder. So the corporate ladder right, you step on the bottom rung of the ladder and then you climb up in this straight vertical line and if you want to jump over to another industry, another market or whatever you got to like swing yourself over to this ladder and hope that you land on the same rung, but you're probably going to fall down a little bit and it's just like scary to. It's scary to physically make that move.

Christa: 38:28

And so I think a lot of people that have been in the corporate environment, they're used to just like climbing straight up and they think that if they start at a new job or they started a new company or something, then that's the trajectory that they're on and they're going to stay on and they're going to be stuck on it. And so I think, for a lot of people that are listening to this, by the way, if you are someone that has a corporate job I'm speaking to you when you are an entrepreneur and you don't need to be a seven-figure entrepreneur. You could be a virtual assistant to start off with. You are still an entrepreneur as a virtual assistant, and just because you start off as a virtual assistant, that doesn't mean that you're going to be a virtual assistant until you're 65.

Johannes: 39:11

You're probably going to be a virtual assistant for a year maybe two years, maybe five years, and while you do that, you stumble onto other things that you like even more Right and you keep learning.

Christa: 39:22

And especially if you join something like the Nomad Cruise, which is maybe one of the best investments you can make as an entrepreneur, is just like opening your mind to all these other possibilities. Suddenly, if you zoom out from the rung that you're holding onto, you realize you're not on a straight ladder, you're on this jungle gym and you can actually move to the side, up and down and left and right and like in and out, and there's just so many directions that you can go in and you don't even know what the destination is going to be. But I think that that's my favorite thing about entrepreneurship is you don't need to have a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, a 20-year plan, whatever plans that people have. If we turn the clocks back to 2011, when you were like, hmm, oh, digital nomad, like what is this term? Oh, digital nomad, like what is this term? Could you ever imagine that you would be sitting at the top of a community of thousands of people who are literally diehard fans of something that you created? That's amazing.

Johannes: 40:24

No, I mean I had no clue and I mean I had. I have to say, like in the beginning I, when I was creating this, I was like, okay, like I want to bring people together, but like I don't even know anyone who's doing this. But I was always believing in the idea and I was like, hey, this just makes sense, right. Like it just makes sense to me that this lifestyle will be bigger and there will be something. And luckily I had also the income from the other business, so it's all like that's also a thing, right, you need to have one thing that makes you money for sure, and then you can dive into other ones, otherwise you have sometimes quite a lot of pressure.

Christa: 41:02

Yeah, I just want to emphasize this again too, because I also know a lot of my business coaching clients are listening and it's like, please take this seriously. Your first business doesn't need to be your be-all, end-all business. Just build your first business. Learn how to build a business, learn how to market that business, learn how to make money from that business, learn how to manage that business, and then you can graduate into creating your next business.

Johannes: 41:26

Yeah, and maybe then with the first one, it's about building something that gives you enough income so that you can live off this, and if then you're not fulfilled by that, then you can jump into something that's a bit more related to your passion, but it doesn't necessarily need to be because, like, even I mean the cruise to run that business, I like, like I'm proud of the project and that it works, but it's not the most fun job, right, so it's a fun job for some people to attend, but it's not like that.

Johannes: 41:58

But I was sticking to that and actually so I stick to this now for 10 years, and I saw a lot of companies who are coming and going into the digital nomad space, and they all could have been really, really successful if they would just stick to it.

Johannes: 42:14

So I think, well, when you're building your first business, of course, like, you can either let it go or you build it in a way that it doesn't require much of your time, which is what I did with the, with the online marketing, and then you can dive into like a new topic, right, what I see a lot is that people don't stick to the, the things that they are doing, and then they don't finish what they started. So then it's a waste of. It's not really a waste of time, because you always learn something, but jumping between too many ideas it's also not good. I mean, you're doing that as well, right, you stick to your coaching and you're like you're changing things, but you don't jump, like now I'm going to coach someone else or whatsoever, and a lot of people are jumping between so many different ideas and that just brings them nowhere.

Christa: 43:00

Why do you think that people pivot so drastically when they are new entrepreneurs?

Johannes: 43:06

I think they're scared of certain things. They're scared they're not ready to invest more effort into things. They're not doing what they know is right, but they do just what they like about the job. But they don't really like now try to do like cold calling or whatever. When I build a business, I also do things that I really don't like, but I know I have to do this and I postpone it and I procrastinate on it.

Johannes: 43:33

But there are certain things that we don't like and I feel like a lot of people just like to stay in their comfort zone when they build their business. They know there's a few things that they could do that could make them so much more successful, but they don't do it. They launch a product, they work like six months on launching a product and then they announce it and nobody gives them a like or whatever. Like they don't get much traction and then they're like oh wow, like I cannot do this, but like I mean, if we would just launch a trip and we send out one email like hey, this is the trip from France to Greece, nobody will buy this yeah, I think people underestimate how much effort it is to launch something like it, like it's so much more than just sending one email.

Christa: 44:16

It's so much more than just posting on Instagram. It's so much more than just building a website, it's a whole thing.

Johannes: 44:22

Yeah, so what a lot of people don't notice? When they're building products or when they're doing things, they don't know what is marketing.

Christa: 44:32

And.

Johannes: 44:33

I mean actually you explained this to me very well with, like the way of how you're coaching your people to get started rather, have something that's in the beginning, that's a little bit more high ticket, where you can have people who are in your network already, people that know you, where you can sell the service. But if the first product that you build is like an e-book that you want to sell to thousands of people because it's easy to create an ebook, while the real work is always the marketing, and marketing it's not becoming easier.

Christa: 45:04

No, it's so true, and marketing is such a big umbrella. So, for the listeners, you guys have heard us talk about Johannes' multiple businesses, your whole entrepreneurial journey. You know that my entrepreneurial journey as well started with the Nomad Cruise and just really from trying and learning things. But something that we both have in common that I think has attributed so like 100% basically to our success is the fact that we understand marketing, which is just if you have a business, amazing, you can be a coach, you can be a virtual assistant, you can have something amazing to offer. But if you don't know how to offer it to other people in a way that gets them to say, yes, I want to buy that, you don't have a business, you just have a hobby, basically. So you got to understand marketing.

Christa: 45:49

I can teach you about marketing in my business called the Digital Nomad Life Academy, where, basically, I'll help you figure out what is your best remote business for you.

Christa: 45:59

Taking in all the data points that I have received after attending so many nomad cruises and meeting thousands of other nomads on my journey, I help you figure out what's your best business and I have a whole process for that.

Christa: 46:11

Listen to episode 33, how my career assessment process works, if you are curious about that, anyway, I'll help you figure that out and then I will help you build and market that business, and you will do so alongside a community of more than 100 people that are inside of the Digital Nomad Life Academy, which, by the way, a bunch of people from my DNLA community are also now nomad cruisers, because the communities are just I don't know.

Christa: 46:36

Obviously, johannes, both you and I are like really big community advocates. So if anybody is listening to this podcast and they want to join the Nomad Cruise because they want to be inspired by other people, they want to get started on their nomad journey, they want to grow or enhance or learn how to market their business, and they also just want to have fun and, like, meet a million other digital nomads from all around the world, make lifelong connections, have memories that last forever. We didn't even talk about all the fun stuff that happens after the cruise. I really can't recommend the nomad cruise enough. It's like one of my favorite things of my whole Nomad life. So, whoever is listening, what's the best way for them to find out more about the Nomad Cruise or even sign up for the next?

Johannes: 47:26

voyage. So the best thing is to go to nomadcruisecom and sign up for the newsletter, because we always have like updates and things, so that you don't forget about it and that you know that you're aware of like what are the next trips. So this I highly recommend, and we have a trip from france to greece.

Christa: 47:45

Depending on when you're watching this, that is in june 2025 and, uh, you're joining this one as well, I'm gonna be on the, I'm gonna be a speaker, I'm talking about marketing, so come on down.

Johannes: 47:57

So I think that's only a six-day trip, so it's an amazing opportunity to like dive in. We are stopping almost every day in a beautiful place, um, you will meet hundreds of people. And we have another trip that is going from Seattle to Sydney, including nine stops on beautiful islands in the South Pacific and Hawaii, fiji, vanuatu, samoa so that's another one to look into, and then, obviously, we are launching more. One thing I can just say is like, if you're interested in the Nomad Cruise, like don't wait. That's not something to do like when you're retired or whatsoever the opposite don't wait until you're retired.

Christa: 48:37

The whole point is to join now so that you can quote retire, not retire, but like, I mean I'm not retired. But I think if somebody looked at my life without knowing what I do for work, they would assume that I was retired.

Johannes: 48:51

Yes.

Christa: 48:52

And for you too, yeah, so.

Johannes: 48:54

I mean, I think, just like the earlier, you join this like you don't need to be a nomad, not at all. Like you can find all the inspiration, everything that you want, on the ship. I always like to say we have people from backpacker to millionaire on the ship, yeah, and it's a great way to connect to a lot of people from different industries. Uh, just learn, get inspired, um, and you will have so many action points after the cruise. So, um, yeah, just join, like don't wait too long on this one. Um, we, we almost never do the same route again, like this trip trip, for example, from Seattle to Sydney. I don't think we'll do this again within the next five, six years, if we ever repeat this. So every trip is quite unique, and France to Greece is an amazing opportunity to jump on board and just get to know this.

Christa: 49:49

Don't just take it from me, like you can go on to. I think you tag people on Instagram who have been there. So I mean sorry to anybody who's been tagged on Nomad Cruise Instagram, but like, just go ask that. Like go ask anybody who's been there's a reason why there's a 40% alumni rate on every single cruise, so, and you've had some that are like a hundred percent alumni or like 90% alumni. So, anyway, nomad Cruise is amazing, life changing, okay. So thank you so much for listening, johannes, thank you for being here. So glad that we finally got to do this episode. I personally can't wait for the cruise in June.

Christa: 50:28

I'm so excited and, yeah, maybe some listeners. If you are listening to this and this is what kickstarts your Nomad Cruise journey, please come say hi to me when we are on the boat. I would love to meet you and say hi. Or again, if you want to join the Digital Nomad Life Academy, text me the word roadmap on Instagram and I will send you a whole training on how the nomad life is possible for anyone. You'll hear more about my. I think I talk I do talk about the nomad cruise on that training too. So, christabella travels, send the word roadmap. If you want to hear more about the DNLA digital nomad life Academy or nomad cruisecom, sign up for that newsletter. We'll put a link in the show notes as well, and anything else, check the instagram.

Johannes: 51:16

You can check that as well, but again, like, the newsletter is by far the best newsletter and see you on the boat, see you on the cruise. Thank you so much, thank you thanks.

Christa: 51:26

Bye, everyone bye.