I'm Brandon Hole, and it's time for another episode of Freelance to Founder Coming

from the background, I was in with no money. I'm not sure why would have done differently. Like,

I pretty much just put a ton of elbow grease into it. And that was what was required. There were. There were things that I could have done, which would have bean maybe faster. I should have quit social media even earlier. I did again. Maybe I would have made it in social kept going, and I didn't know that it was something I was interested. So I think Final, your interest didn't find what you want to be good at. Really pursue that, And at the beginning, the only thing I had

was swept,

but I had a lot of it. Freelance to Founder is the podcast where I talked to entrepreneurs of all kinds, service providers, marketing agency leaders, online course builders, bloggers, physical product, inventors, software developers, even other broadcasters. All the angles and what makes my guest unique is that they typically started these pursuits as freelance gigs which ultimately took on a whole new life and scaled far beyond their expectations. Even their dreams and therefore much bigger than themselves. This is such a fun podcast in general. You get to know the founders beyond the how twos, but it's really a special episode this week. Today you'll hear the story of will Happen. Founder of the broke backpacker dot com will turn the passion into something massive.

It's not only helped him give back to cause is very important to him on a deep, deep level. It's helped him produce an incredible amount of monthly revenue, and he's accomplished this over such a short amount of time. But I don't share this episode is some sort of get rich quick formula? No, no, no, no, no. I hope I never come across that way with this podcast, as evidenced by that opening snippet from Will. By the way, this is actually a grueling story of how one man and a friend he found along the way came to build a nine business empire that's delivering seven figures in revenue for him. The revenue sources pile up here. The Brokeback packer dot com epic Backpacker Tours the active Broots brand on Amazon Ditch your desk thes are just four of them.

I can't imagine backpacking with will cause I was out of breath just interviewing him. He's been everywhere, even in lands you would never go to, And he's making serious money passing along his travel wisdom. As a result. And I should mention, I have personally spoken to the CEO of one of the sources of his revenue. Will's numbers are real now. One more thing before we get started with this unbelievable podcast episode, we podcasters asked a lot for ratings and reviews. Today I have a different request. Will you take five minutes instead to either reach out to me on Twitter at Brandon Hole and tell me what you think of the show? Good, bad or ugly? And if you like the show, well,

you tell three friends about it. You can do it on social or just be a word of mouth. But I'd love for you to pass me along to others. All right, now let's get to the show. There are everyday actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases. Wash your hands, avoid close contact with people who are sick. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Stay home when you're sick, cover your cough or sneeze, clean and disinfect frequently touched objects with household cleaning spray. For more information, visit CDC dot gov slash cove it 19 furnished by the National Association of Broadcasters and this podcast Hey, everybody,

if you love freelance to founder, would you do us a few favors? I would love your rating and your review on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It's nice social proof and validation for somebody who's never heard the show before. But skins those ratings reviews before they listen. And if you've got specific feedback that you like to provide on the show, you can shoot us an email, a content at mill oh dot Co. Or find me on Twitter at Brandon Hole. Thanks, everybody Will Hatton. I am so excited to have you on. Thank you for joining me.

You're welcome. I'm happy to be here, man.

This may be one of the most epic conversations that we have, and I've talked to founders of companies that are doing 15 year, who three years ago didn't exist and people who have done a 1,000,000 in their first year just this within the last month. But this one this conversation I can't wait to share with

people. Yeah, dude, I'm start. There's a lot of fun things we can talk about for sure.

All right. You are known. Probably not by too many people in my audience. But you are known by many as the broke backpacker at the broke backpacker dot com. But when anybody does some even casual research of you, they're gonna find ditch your desk, they're gonna find epic backpacker tours. They're gonna find active routes, they're gonna find an S e o agency. There are so many things that you have your hands in that it's kind of mind boggling. I feel like we should start with Brokeback Packer. But what can you tell me about the will Hatton empire today as an overall business? Like what the revenue level is like? Or you know what? What? What can you tell me about the state of the business

today? Yeah, sure thing, men. So it is nine different things that I'm involved in, and there's a couple of incredible on the table in a moment which we're getting started with. We're making close to 200 k a month across everything at the moment, which is very, very exciting. Um, I did start off with the bright backpacker and that had Bean going in the background for a little while whilst I was backpacking. And then I was making a grand a month out, really having to do anything which was fine. I was able to travel by beer, stay in hostels, but I didn't really have ah huge amount of motivation to grow it quickly. I just wasn't at that point until I met my now wife in Iran on DA about very much.

Put a fire under my ass because we didn't have any money on you needed my to be together and to travel together and to be able to get around the fact that she was Iranian because visas for her are extremely expensive. I'm complicated. So that was really my motivation to start growing on ass. I grew that I spoiled all these other opportunities forever areas I wanted to be involved in. And that's how we have these other businesses I'm now involved in started.

This is absolutely incredible. And so let's go with that number. The 200 k ish number. That's as we're recording this and talking in 2019. When did this all gets started? How far back in time do we have to go to where you became a business?

So probably about three years. But three years ago is where we started taking this a lot, Maur. Seriously, But the growth over the last year has just bean exponential. I mean, we increased our traffic on the broad backpacker by about 1400% over the last 12 months. All of the other sites that I started I mean, as you probably know, right when you start a new site, you know, you've got that period where you were in the sandbox, where isn't moving where it takes time and what is still possible in in 2019 toe start side and to rank in six months. Doing out on a budget is very, very hard. If you've got money to dump into it, you can do it a lot faster on did.

You can't be a lot more successful. It's so over the last year, I've had money to invest into projects on Dhe. Since then. That growth has just been exponential there for two years Before that, I mean, I was doing absolutely everything myself. I was wearing every how I was writing with the content. I was doing all the outreach. I was building over links. It was it was absolutely crazy. We ran out of money. So I started this Ah, epic backpacker tour company, which was literally just like we were completely out of money. I was in Pakistan.

I was like, Yo instagram in Pakistan. Does anybody want to come to Pakistan? It'll be 1500 bucks and I'll show you around and that that's how that business started. So it was like, Yeah, it was very much like, you know, as opportunities made themselves available and as I became, to be honest, increasingly desperate to make money and to make it happen and to be able to re invest that money into things, we started a whole bunch of different things.

All right, so lest anyone think who's listening to this, that this was just some, you know, magic elixir. You just stumbled across something and an S e o the crap out of it s so I don't want anybody to think that that's the case. I want to go back in time further, pre the Brokeback packer dot com to the younger will show because it's particularly relevant here. What I know about you is that even in your teens, you became a little bit of an adventurer, a little bit of a vagabond, a guy who wanted to get out and see the world. You're pretty safe to say. Is

that an understatement? That is an understatement. I spent about 10 years like, you know, sleeping rough, sleeping, intense, sometimes cap setting. Um, yeah, I was on I was on the road for a long, long time, and I got a huge amount out of that, and it really it taught me a lot and actually taught me a lot of viable business schools as well. I mean, when you're traveling and you haven't got any money, you learn howto haggle and you learn howto haggle in a way that allows both sides to maintain integrity and honor.

And you're not trying to get, you know, somebody to sell you some thing for less than it's worth trying to get a fair price that works. Both people be I spent. I spent about 10 years traveling around. I started out with two years in India purely because I knew that I could spend two years in there. Andi, survive for, like, you know, 50 bucks a week. Which is why did I was working on farms. I was buying T shirts and bring him back to Europe once a year. Like these hippie T shirt since and Solomon festivals, which is cool because you could make, like,

about 1000% on them. I was selling weed on beach in Goa for, like, six months. I was interesting. Yeah, it was good. So I was all over the place on

Dhe. This is This is seriously incredible. I What was the first trick? Was India the first trip? Not a young guy that you took that sort of wet your appetite for all of this?

No, sir. Kay said to go back a little bit further. So my first ever trip was I went to climb Kilimanjaro when I was 18 because I was interested in doing something that left what would physically challenged me. So I did that I was I was due to join the army on. I decided before I joined the army, I would go out and do this 10 week program in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, which was basically ah, three week like challenge hiking period of three weeks community program and threw it to something else, which I never got to so last out there. During this three week hike, I had quite a serious ah issue with my leg, which led me to be in hospital two weeks. I was told that my leg was gonna be amputated, which it was not. Luckily, I was then flown back to the UK,

and I spent about six months. I'm going through physical therapy. After the end of that, I was no longer eligible to go into the army and like, to be honest, I had a complete mental breakdown. But that's why I wanted to do since I was about like five. So I was really sure what to do after that point. So I had, like, three grand in my bank account. So I emptied it and I went to India, and that was hard at all kind of get began.

Where did you grow

up? I grew up in a very, very small, very, very boring town in the south of England. which is luckily just outside of Brighton and Brighton, is not small or boring.

Well, it's luckily just outside of Britain.

Yeah, like serious seriously man. Like the place run from that. There is nothing there. It's e. I mean, there's a train line. That's why the town exists. But there is nothing that

What did you picture yourself doing in the future? Obviously, you had in your heart this sort of Ah, you know, this nomadic sort of spirit about you clearly like you're not doing this because you ran out to start a new business that was traveling the world. It seems like that happened. I don't say accidentally, but that happened as a result of you seeing an opportunity to make a living doing it. But it seems like it was it was in you to travel like this to begin with. So did what did you picture yourself doing when you were a teenager about to embark upon these types of trips?

Honestly, lies are after I was no longer able to get into the army. I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do because I always wantedto have ah, job that allowed me to stay really physically fit. I was interested in being a fireman as well, but I wasn't able to do that again because off the leg injury, so that really allowed me, Ah, to kind of sit back and rethink what I wanted to do on. Guy was so unsure. But I was sure that if I was traveling in far flung lands and if I was traveling on a budget, that I would meet a lot interesting people, I would have a lot of interesting experiences on and I would be forced out of my comfort zone. And I'm a big believer that when you're out of your comfort zone and you learn a lot of things right As a kid, I I was really and socially awkward, but I was I was. I found it very,

very difficult to talk to women pretty difficult to talk to men. I was. I was awkward has helped. So like being being on the road and having those experiences and are being forced into situations where I have to talk to people was really, really good for me and honestly, for a long time I was just pursuing that I was just pursuing the, um the personal growth that I was able to find on the road, and it really was quite amazing. Like, you know, when you are by yourself when you are, um, sleeping rough for camping in the Himalayas or in a hammock in the jungle, you have a lot of time to think about what you want. You have a lot of time crucially, to think about the kind of person you want to be on. That was really what I was interested in was finding a way to be the person I wanted to be and finding a way to fund that journey of self discovery for as long as possible.

So for 10 years, you're basically soaking up the world and not doing it purely off of the generosity of the residents of the countries that you're visiting. But you're working in each of these parts the world, like you're digging your hands in to become a part of the world apart of these countries and to Thio, like I said, to soak it up to taste the world. And were you three years into this 10 year journey, four years into this journey, did you feel like I'll just do this forever. You are the wheels starting to turn that there needs to be a next step at some

point. Yeah, I mean so, like, I had this dream which was typing the hostile I'd always wanted to live in the hostel. It seemed like a really cool way to stop traveling and tow. Have a base while still very much being a part of, like the traveller community having people come through. I wanted Thio Ah, have a dorm which would be free, which would be for artists and musicians. You know, you come, you stay, You contribute. You can stay for free, free meals a day be involved in the local community,

provide job opportunities like provide some kind of community project funded through the hostel. So that that was that was what I was working towards. That was very much the the vision of what I wanted, which is exciting because I'm I'm now very much involved in that space. We are building our first hostile in Bali. It a moment. I've also just very recently bought land in Colombia. So we're going to be building a second hospital over there, which is exciting, but yes, as well as I was traveling, I had that idea. I had no idea how I was gonna make that money. I really didn't know what I was going to do. I was very, very good at making small amounts of money very quickly.

I realized very early on that to make money or you really had to do was transport something from A to B. So, you know, maybe you would bring hippie stuff from India to a festival. How do you make you make 1000%? Unfortunately, 1000% of like 200 bucks is is only two grand, which for me was plenty of money at the time, but was never gonna be enough to light build a hostile. You know, I just had very, very, very little money to begin with and asked, Anybody will tell you it is quite difficult to make money without any money. Especially if you're involved in, like, buying physical products. Yeah, I really didn't know how I was gonna get to the point where I would be able to open a hostile, but luckily that has all car lined up over the last couple of years.

So the you know, the common term that's used nowadays is that you hustle. You know that people people will say you hustle and it sounds like there was It was 10 years of ah, small ticket hustling, right like you're you're scrambling. You're finding all kinds of ways to make small amounts of money to get by and into and to live. Um, And then at some point in time, obviously, you had something you're working towards. You want, you want to start your own hostile at some point in time, and, um and maybe it's a good a time as any to mention that that that was an an important part of your journey is staying in hostels over the course of time. We don't have to go down the weeds on that, but that was an important part of that process. And maybe that fueled some of your desire to open one at one point.

But throughout this process, um, there was a point at which you decided I could turn this into a legit business all by itself before the hostile even needs to happen, or before even want the hostel that happen. I can turn it into its own digital business that I run from anywhere. Do you remember where you were or what the situation was when that when that idea popped

into your head? Yeah, for sure. It's okay. I always enjoyed writing on Andi. I had Bean, you know, writing e mails to my mom from India for years, um, started to compile, owes program on a site citing gang traffic. I didn't know anything about this, you know, I couldn't have told you what it stood for or anything like that. Um, until about four years ago when, whilst in Colombia,

I started taking it a bit more seriously. I met with another dude who was making a bit of money on line running the block. And I was like, Shit, I could do this. Like, I don't see any massive difference in the skill set or intelligent level between me and our people who are doing this all so I can figure this out. So I started then and quite quickly, got it to a point where it was it was making the grand a month about me really happened to do anything. And I was like this is This is awesome. This is This is great. Um, and I was okay, So there's a lot of people out there who are going down the social media influencer route, which wasn't really something I wanted to do, but I figured that that was something I needed to do.

So I effectively decided that I was going to pull quite a large publicity stunt, which was I was going to travel from the UK to packing again. You about flying. Main reason for doing this was it would mean that I could get a bunch of very powerful back links from, you know, from the BBC from the daily mail from all of these large media publications. Right nose back Lane does Anybody will tell you like I mean, they're almost impossible to get for early inch like that. They make a huge, huge difference to the overall back, Linc profile of a site. And at that site, power to rank. I decided I was gonna do that. That was about three years ago on dhe. I got all the way to India without flying.

And then things changed because whilst I was in Iran, I met my now wife on. But that just changed everything on that Really put me in a position where I realized that I had to hustle. And that was when that was when the hustle really began. There was about a two year periods where, whilst I still got plenty of travels in, we would be based somewhere her frail for months at a time. And whilst you repair, that would be me. Just taking modafinil every day and doing, like, 80 to 100 hours work a week. Ah, now. And that was my life for a couple of years whilst I was getting rid of this off the ground.

Did you love it? Did you love that life?

No. I did it. It was It was.

Tell me why you hated

it. It was I mean, I didn't I didn't know if it was gonna work. I didn't know if I was wasting my time. Um, like, way we're living in this tiny apartment often couldn't even really afford to eat. I racked up as much credit card as my credit cards would allow me to do. Not so much for our living costs. More for, like trying to grow everything that we were involved in on the learning curves, which is so, so steep on. I didn't have a mental, which I think would have been very, very helpful. But I also didn't have ah community of people who were in the same position.

Asked me. I just I didn't I didn't know anybody. So I It was a whole new kind of mental stress, and I very much like challenging myself. But like traditionally but kind of challenges that I have always, um, looked for and thrived on our physical challenges. So to suddenly have this mental challenge which consumes your every Ahh, waking moment in which you know, I'm dreaming about it as well. I'm thinking about it constantly. It was it was just a real shift on dhe. There was a lot of mental pressure that came along with that we had We had a lot of challenges to get through, which which were unique to our situation side

to get through. So you were doing this, though, with a desire to turn this into a business. So I Listen, I've scanned through I don't know, hundreds of your photos from those years, um, like through instagram and elsewhere. And so I I can see the places you went and the people you experience the cultures you took part in. And besides, the fact that I can't imagine why, if I was a big part of your life back then, I'm also imagining how it is that you're documenting this life so that you can start to monetize it. I remember seeing one picture that you had, um from I don't know, probably three and 1/2 4 years ago or so that shows you in this most incredible location with a laptop.

Ah, right. Have sitting in front of you. And, um and I remember there's, like, in front of a mountain or something like that. I don't remember the country was in, but I remember thinking, How were you able to document your life and build this business because you had so much activity going on of actually, um, experiencing these countries that you were visiting And you maybe we're in Pakistan at that point in time? I don't recall, but but how did you balance the doing of the work? Not that I don't want to call it work necessarily, but because it was a strain on you. You must have seen it.

Like work. Yeah. Show.

How did you balance that with the documenting of it? So it was becoming the foundations of a business.

Yeah. I mean, so once, once we realized that, um, if I wanted to build the business on 95% of that was best done from a desk rather than actually Wells traveling, we started to split up. We started to spell out the year, so it was like, Okay, we're going. We're gonna child for six weeks or two months or three months and whilst whilst travelling. Ah, I'm gonna work for four hours a day when I can, and then we're going Thio, stop the three months and I'm gonna work 100 hours a week on dhe. That's that.

That's gonna be how we're gonna do it. And that worked pretty well. I mean, there are There's many, many different ways to skin a cat, right? And especially in the travel, Mitch, it's an absolutely massive niche. There are a lot of people I'm in this space. I would say that most of them are doing it wrong because they're focusing on social media which is very difficult to generate a passive income from passive income is where things start to get exciting. Um so I mean, once I realized that social Media wasn't gonna be a part of what we were doing, I was Yeah, I felt a huge sigh of relief. Which is it just It just isn't a good business model unless you Unless you've got,

like, three or four million followers you're not going to be at generate the kind of income from social media that you can from S E. O. So once I realized that studio was the way forward for us, I really focused on that. And I split the year up, so I I would have these periods where I would just work like crazy. And then whilst I was traveling, I would be trying to experience that would be trying to soak it up. It would be trying to have these connections to people. However much I was changed from when I was growing in this business, my my child was really did change like things changed. I no longer had quite the same level of freedom or spare time on that. I had had before, But I mean the point I've been traveling for, like, a long time. So it was find A change was welcome. If it meant that I was going to be able to build the lifestyle, which I'm currently living.

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It became like the primary central point that documented your traveler's your travels and then in like Instagram, which you have, you have a pretty good falling. There's like 60 thousands of followers there. Instagram just became another channel for you. But the hub was the website safe to say right?

Yeah. I mean, I do very little with Instagram. It's the ground was useful to get the tour company off the ground on Dhe to sell tours. But I'm now. I mean, I haven't posted anything on instagram for months. I'm really not very accessible now. Um, I think that my preferred method of selling stuff is to sell something when somebody is looking for it. Say, if someone typed into Google best backpacking tents, I want I want I want to the question. I want to tell them what the best 10 is. I want to click through my link, and I wanted to buy it. But if they don't buy it,

I'm not gonna be but her. It's fine. What I don't want to do is I don't want to appear in someone's instagram or Facebook feed um when they're not looking to me and try and sell them something that is a sales method that I'm not personally comfortable with. So I've done. There's no interest in trying to do that.

So if you think of things in terms of, like funnels, then you have no interest in just providing general content for people that are. Let's call it top of funnel your your goal is to produce content that is specifically aimed at people who now want to take action. And that might mean booking a tour. Or it might mean using your affiliate links to buy your

right. We definitely have a lot of really high value content on the site that isn't even aimed at selling. So there's a lot with a lot of resources on flight budget Backpackers and teaching people had a haggle running down cap surfing, teaching people had a hitchhiker. I mean, that content pretty much can't be monetized. That's just really providing value to the user. What I what I don't want to do is when it when it comes to trying Thio Ah, to make money. I don't want to be like an ad that is popping up in somebody's social media feed without being asked for. You know, that just isn't a method that I'm I don't think it works. I think I think you definitely lose a certain, um, a certain part of authenticity once you start doing that.

Yeah. So we've spent so much time talking aboutthe weaving of the traveling and how you found time to do some of the content generation and building your presence and your Ah, your business. Let's just talk about the business side of ah, here at this point. So you have started the course site, the broke backpacker dot com, And you, um, while today you have all kinds of appendages from that that have that have resulted from the success with that in the earliest days, as you just started to to document your journeys and start to build guides that would help people in making decisions with their travel, or maybe even book a trip where you would guide them or take them or or give them advice on where to go and that sort of thing in the earliest days, what did you do specifically to monetize the site and as a step one And then how long did it take before you realized you needed to sort of expand?

What? That offering once. So Okay, so in the absolute earliest days, I was certain links. I was slinging links, and I realised quite quickly you could stale that cycle, 30 expired domains drops template sites on top of those 10,000 words on each site on dhe, I spent a ton of time. Crane database is reaching out to those databases finding clients who wanted to buy links in the travel space and Sunday, miss many links like physically could. So that that was the first thing I did that doesn't really work anymore on isn't something I'm doing. But that was that was good for a little

while. Just the fact that you're saying it doesn't work anymore today. That tells me lots changed in just the three years or so that you have been doing this Is that safe to say?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, any Suko will tell you changes every month, every month. You know, Andi, there are major changes every year in the waiter. Google values a link in the way that Google prioritizes what content? It wants to show it Like I mean, you've really got to be on top of it if you can. If you're gonna win with you.

Obviously, I like to be completely honest. I'm in a pretty unique position now because Google trusts my sight on my site. Has a has a large and buried back ling profile organically accrued links from the BBC business insider, daily mail, all of these very trustworthy authority sites. So once you get to that point, it's it becomes much easier. It really, really does. But getting to that point is challenge on Daskal continues to change. The whole industry is changing all of the time.

Well, I was gonna say Yes, it's it's a It's a major battle to get to the point where you've gotten. It's also difficult battle to stay where you've gotten, because obviously Google's rules change and I want to go that I want to go down that path here soon. But let's stick with where we are early. Hey, monetization trip. So? So I get your the buying of links. And you were you were monetizing the the crap out of those links. What did you evolve to next?

How did what was the next generation? The next I went to affiliate marketing, you know, selling beds in hostels, selling tents, selling backpacks, things that weren't mine, something products on Amazon and our eye on Hostile World on booking dot com on. And then once I had all of the data off the products which sold the most, I started manufacturing my own proxies and, um, putting the end product at a SMI product so that rather than making 5% off sale or 10% off for sale, I could make 100% off cell because I control the traffic on, and that's that's something I'm doing in quite big way at the moment. Once I had data on which key words were making the most money, I started several other sites, which I can't really name here on Dhe.

My whole goal is that, like a sanctuary, I don't want to be in the first position for a valuable keyword. I want to be in the 1st 2nd 3rd 4th and fifth position, which means I need to have five websites, right? So I build multiple sites to capture pretty much the entire first page for high value keywords. I mean, there's some key words out there, but if you could do that, just that one key word is worth like five figures a month. See if you can capture the right key words. You can be very, very lucrative. So I've got all these other sites out there doing that every backpack it all started a couple of years ago on It isn't like the most financially exciting thing that I'm involved in, but it's made a massive difference.

Thio personal friends I have on the ground in Pakistan and were involved in a community project there. So we're keeping that going. We're in the process of helping a friend of mine build a guest house out there. We've created a load of job opportunities. Four people are now out there, so it's been really, really exciting to be involved in that on kind of get do a bit more back. So that's kind of really being the the evolution start out Sound Links moved to affiliate marketing. Use that data to work out which parks to create, um, then try to monetize the hell out of really high value keywords by crying other sites around those keywords. And then, most recently, I started it your desk. However, I put a caveat on that because Detroit desk is no A for profit project.

It's very much a past, a passion project, like everything on nervous free. We're not trying to sell anything. Um, I mean, it is monetized through, obviously hosting affiliates and keyword research tool affiliates, but only info on No, it's free on. I'm not really interested in trying to make money out of that at the moment, because I think that when you launch a new marketing blawg, if you could launch it, we have just free high quality information. Rather than trying to monetize your audience straightaway, I think you you come across is a lot more genuine.

There's a lot of people out there who start blocks, and they're like, Yo, I can teach you how to make 60 years, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Pay me money and it's just like, Wow, if you're making 60 years, we're going to pay you money. Where can you give me a taste of Ah off? Were you actually doing in shares and knowledge bombs? Then I'll consider paying money later on, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want I'm gonna pause your journey story for just a second here. And the reason I want to do it is if I'm a listener hearing this interview and maybe I've been a writer or I've done a lot of blogging or writing in an outsourced, freelanced way for other people. Or maybe I've even got my own site just a little bit. I feel like that person might be thinking this guy is a genius at SC Oh. Did he have that that expertise when he embarked on this trip? Or is that something that you just have learned? You know, through aggressive self study over these last three years, where everything that you're saying is speaking to search, you know, And, um and yet if I just read your content, I would feel like this guy as a travel guru,

he's a gear guru as well, and it's absolutely riel content that is expert level, written by you and others, I'm sure, but it's pretty extraordinary. So that's so that's that. That's the long set up to my question, Which is? When did the search expertise come into play where you were able to maximize to the hill the work that you were doing in the content you're producing.

Honestly, im first. I'll start by saying I'm completely self taught. I've never done. Of course, I've literally just mean Googling stupid questions on getting answers to those questions watching YouTube videos, some of which provide value. Some which don't on dhe. Using my Spidey senses to work out which of those provide value on which ship is Alanis is a lot of there's a lot of self learning. If you want to be in the top 1% of CEOs, I will also put I never carry out or not and say that like to be in the top 1% of CEOs in the travel niche is much easier than to be in the top 1% of CEOs in, for example, the finance niche because wants to travel Niece, what's the trouble is very, very saturated. Most people who are doing it, our hobby bloggers and most people who do it,

do it for one or two years and then stop doing it, and that is a huge shoe to turn over. So if you are in that midpoint where you've started something you're trying to work out what your next step is gonna be. I would say, Just educate yourself on the information is allowed there. Um, I consider myself to be quite good at ASIO. The thing that I'm really good at is scaling content. So it doesn't really matter how good you are. Excited like you could be amazing. But if you haven't got, uh, content to put out there and to rank and you can't produce that content fast enough and cheap enough, um, you're gonna find yourself in a very tight spot Indeed. And where our exponential growth really started was when I hired and trained my own content team because before that,

I was doing with the content myself, which is very, very time consuming. The method that we have now for creating content is very, very slick. It's effectively a production trained right on, and that has made a massive difference to our growth. So I think that really whatever wherever you are in this, in this process, really focus on doing things as efficiently as possible, both from a time on a cost point of view, whilst obviously keeping the quality of everything that you're doing high because that's the one thing with the travel news is there is a lot of high quality content out there, but there are not. Many people were putting out content in. Both are high quality and the high quantity. So if you could be one of those people, you're gonna have immediate advantage.

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building up your reputation. I've got you on the show. However, when someone does even a casual five minute click through review of the Brokeback Packer, they'll find that it's rich content. Um, yes, it might be search optimized as well, but that's just kind of comes with the territory. But you can find deep content on specific destinations. Ah, and things to do things, to be prepared for it like it's You can't scrimp on that. It feels like you have realized. And the way you have, um, produce content on your own and worked with your team to produce the content is obviously going extremely deep on some of these subjects. And something destinations.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you look like our backpacking guides, the backpack in India guy, just like 20,000 words long. So I mean, when you put something like that out there, you're pretty much like just slapping down a pair of pocket ages on the table and being like beat that somebody might be able to beat it, but it's gonna take him some serious, serious time to be able to put something out that can even compete with you, by which point you built links. And then you've raised the bar again. So I mean, I'm a big believer in putting out really high quality, really long content, because often that rank without even having to build links.

People who are putting out, like, you know, pieces of content now 800 to 1500 words long that usedto work that used to work really, really well when the Internet was younger, when there was less content out there, you could rank for a high value money keyword with 800 words. But you can't do that. So the times have changed. And if you want to rank your content, it needs to be long.

Yeah, fascinating also, and that that leads me right into the next. The next sort of Siri's of questions I have and that that is like lessons learned along the way. It seems like you're a pretty quick study of not just being in the moment and traveling around, and if somebody on Lee followed you on Instagram. By the way, they just would think that your, uh, your adrenaline junkie and you're you're a travel junkie and that sort of thing, But s o you know how to be in the moment. It's not like you're sitting there on your computer for half the day, like people might be thinking when they're hearing you talk. But But from a business standpoint, what are some? If you could go back in time and restart this knowing what you know Now, how would that 1st 3 months to six months have gone differently than how they went, despite the fact that it all paid off for you? What would you go back and change and do differently?

That's a really good question. Um, okay, so I think what I would do differently is there would be a couple of learning curves that I embarked upon which I would not done. I would have outsourced those learning curves, which is something that I have being very good at doing for the last.

What's an example of that?

Uh so on most of my projects I have maj er level people working with me on them. Andi, I'll be like, Listen, I've worked out all of the key words that we need to put into these posts to get into rank. I've worked out what format is going to look like. What I haven't done is worked out what our internal linking is going to look like on what anchor text we're gonna use for that. I won't go too deep on that now because it is quite complicated, right? But sure, you need to get that right on. And if you do get it right, it could make a massive difference to the overall rank ability not just of your sight, but the post you're trying to rack. So I'll outsource that whole learning curve for somebody else. I blacked, right Here's it'll go figure out,

and that is going to be quite a lot of analysis for them to do that. At the beginning, I would try and take on all of the analysis myself. Ah, never example is we do a lot of conversion optimization, which is basically a posh way of saying maybe testing Well, we'll direct if we got 1000 visitors to a page 250 then we'll see version A 250 received version B and so on on diversions will be very, very similar. But they'll be mine and minor changes, usually in the layout of the buttons, off color or the tables. Things like that on over a period of six months will keep making tweaks until we have, um, so we have worked out what the best possible version off a table or a button or an introductory sentence is to generate click throughs because that's when we made my. But that's when we actually make money, right?

So that's our whole goal is to generate click fruits on. That is a learning curve that I did outsource on dhe. I literally see the results of those tests. Sometimes our desire tests, but I've got somebody else who runs a little bit for me on that. That is, if you're trying to learn everything by yourself, which is why I did it beginning. It can honestly be overwhelming. Now I know what my strengths are, and I just continue to embark on those learning curves on dhe. When something new comes along that needs to be learned. I have a couple of apprentices. So working with me at the moment, I might decide that I want to take that on myself. But before I do, I'll get one to have a look at it for me and and and toe put together a two page document effectively giving me an introduction to what it is we're about to start learning about.

I should point out that this was an easier question. It's always an easier question when you're looking in hindsight, but the reality is you were living off of pennies back then, so it's not like you had. The resource is then that you have now. You had to earn your way to those resource is right

100%. And honestly, it was kind of a difficult question to ask, because in some ways that I'm not coming from the background that I was in with no money. I'm not sure what I would have done differently, like, I pretty much just put a ton of elbow grease into it, that that was what was required. There were there were things that I could have done, which would have bean maybe faster. I should have quit social media even earlier than I did. But again, maybe I would have made it in social media if I kept going at it. But I didn't know that it was something that I wasn't interested. So I think by more you're interested in finally, you want to be good at. I'm really pursue that on DDE At the beginning, the only thing I had to sweat equity but I had a lot of it, so I put kind of that in on that made a massive difference.

Well, a willingness to do anything to go anywhere, to get literally as filthy as you could get so that I if nothing else, you were gonna be providing the absolute best possible content that somebody could find on the destinations you went thio. It feels that way. And you haven't mentioned that by the way. But it sure feels that way when you read the guides that you put together.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, do I was, like, absolutely passionate about showing people who came from a similar background to myself that you can travel on. It doesn't matter how little money you have. You can totally make it happen. You just have to be willing to be uncomfortable. I think that ever travel niche in general, Um, whether it's other bloggers or holiday companies or whatever travelers showing us this very kind of glamorous past time on, that's cool. If you if you can afford to do that, go how the blast. Enjoy yourself. But if you can't afford to do that,

that doesn't mean you can't go traveling. It doesn't mean you can't see these places. It doesn't mean that you can't have these experiences. And I would argue that if you are traveling broke, you are forced out of your comfort zone more. You have riel connections of people. You're not just talking to people who work in the hotel industry. You're talking to dude sitting next to you on the bus with ago on his lap, going to visit his sister in the mountains and you have these cool conversations, you at the school connections and I think that you could get a time out driving that way. That was something I really, really wanted to demonstrate, and I also really wanted to demonstrate that countries like Venezuela, Pakistan, Iran, which places I know very,

very well are no essay are shown in the media that that was like a personal mission of mind toe show people at these countries, people are you got normal people in every country. You have like good people in every country, and I really wanted to show that on. It was something that had a lot of experience were because of the weight I was traveling.

Yeah, that's a cool when they're too. I have a quote, by the way, from an interview that you did some time back that talked about this willingness to go anywhere and and be on a tight budget and experience some of these things versus as money started to emerge, just going the the higher route. Um, and here's what you said. You said it is uncomfortable and you made this comment just a second ago, too. It is uncomfortable, and it is difficult. What made it easier back in the day was I was so excited about being on the road that I didn't mind being uncomfortable. And then you said this, which I think is kind of cool. I still don't mind, but now I have a decent tent and camping gear, which makes a huge difference.

Yeah, 100% man. And that is it Seriously, like you can You can spend, like, 20 hours. Ah, horrible bus journey getting up into the mountains that at night once you put your 10 out and you're sitting by your fire and there's no one else around and you're surrounded by the silhouettes of the mountains and above you've just got this incredible night sky. You forget about the past year any pretty quickly, and it becomes worth it.

That's pretty fascinating. So, um, so we talked a little bit about what you did in the early days. We talked about what you did, what you would have done differently, which was a ah, make believe question. What were the what were these strokes of genius? What were the either accidental or, um, serendipitous moments that, uh, that sort of emerged that were important pivot moments or acceleration moments for you to monetize what you're doing

definitely building the content team in the way that I have, um, so setting up in a production line format where I'll give you a brief overview of that effectively like I will decide what topics we're gonna write about. I will find the primary and secondary keywords. Then it will go to my writing team who have been trained by me. But crucially, it'll be finished by a Filipino V 18 on They put in all the buttons they put in all the tables. They put in all of the interlinking, which they've been trained to do in all of the images. Doing it that way has made it both fast and very cost effective. So that building that was a big help, um, knowing the value off generating income so that I could reinvest it, That was a big help. And that that, like I said earlier, that was why on how the tour company was born on everything that I r man.

So when we when we ran the tour company, when we ran the first tool, right, I'd already spent over the money. By the time we got actually running a tour, I've been reinvesting into various things online. S O. That was That was interesting running that, but it was cool. Nobody noticed. So I would say we were successful.

Nobody noticed

every noticed, so they were successful. But yeah, knowing when and how to put that money in on not being afraid of putting money in. That was that was definitely a big advantage as well. I'm really don't mind risking. I'm fine with it. So I would take big risks frequently, um, to try and grow what we're doing and then the third thing on again, it kind of comes back to my team is I have bean very fortunate to a Travis, a really high caliber of person who wants to work with me on Dhe. The team that I have on the people who are partnered with on various joint benches are like some of the best in this space. ANA way embarked on these learning curves together on everybody is like, very, very passionate about what we're doing. We very recently had our first ever brought backpacker retreat where I flew my whole team out from all over the world.

And we we've got a big bill, only just partied like six days. That's good. So having the right people to surround me on to bounce ideas off of and work on projects move has made a massive difference as well on something that I would say right is about a year ago. Um, I was contacted by this one guy, Aaron Aaron is now the co founder of Detroit Desk, and we're working together on a few our projects as well. I couldn't afford to pay our so I designed a structure of how we were going to work together in an equity share on a couple of projects which went away after 12 months. Now, by the time Aaron left me, I was paying our and over 50 grand a month. I fucking hated that equity Shit. It's gone now, So it's a tape for that year. We were able to work together in a way where he was properly rewarded on.

I was able to pay him because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to bring him on. So I think designing things in a format that works everybody, that is fair, that incentivizes people properly like that. That is something I'm quite good at is designing these formats for J. V is where everybody's happy. So that's been very, very beneficial as well.

Yeah, we talked before this episode started recording we talked about on. We don't have to get into specifics. We'll leave that between us what we were talking about. But you talked about, um, how much you thrive on being a part of those types of negotiations to sort of get the very best. And I feel like there's a part of that that might just be in your DNA. It sure feels like that. But there's also a part of that that feels like it has come from you're experiencing being in countries where you are living on the thinnest of margins, and you've got to maximize what, what is yours or what you can possibly get. Yeah, to benefit you. And so that sounds like an important part of this, as well as your ability to negotiate your ability to to see an opportunity that should be or could be negotiated when other people might not. And that's more comment than a question,

because my real question here is it took us 40 minutes before you finally, and I didn't think you were going to use this word to any point in time. I took 40 minutes for us to talk before you finally used the word risk, and this lifestyle is one that I think most people would feel like. No way I could do something like this. All of the risk from a quality of life standpoint. Let him let alone a financial standpoint, there's no way I could do this. And yet it feels to me what you did finally used the word risk. Like I said, um, it feels to me like you didn't evaluate all of these decisions, whether they were what you wanted to do next and how you wanted to monetize and going all in on this effort or launching active routes are launching the backpacking tours element of your business. It doesn't feel like any of these felt like risks to you. They had just felt like opportunities that you felt like I'm gonna do this. Am I right Or did you actually sit there and think,

I don't know if I should do this? I don't I don't sense a whole lot of that. Ah, the internal debating that you that maybe most people would do, including more risk oriented on online entrepreneurs. It feels more like to you to me that you were just sort of I think this is a good opportunity to do. I'm gonna I'm gonna go do it am I wrong?

I did. I was definitely aware there was a ton of risk, but something now.

So, yeah, I was wrong.

You're wrong. And you were correct. So I was aware there was a lot of risk, but I didn't debate it lie about because that would set It isn't how I do things. I I will make a decision quickly in about 30 seconds about anything on. And I would rather make the wrong decision quickly. Didn't spend all day trying to work out if it's the right decision and not just wasting the time energy. So I will make decisions very, very quickly. And once I've made my decision, I'm committed and I'm gonna go through with it.

So that's just all right. So what? What are your criteria for making decisions then? So that we can help some of these other folks who might get stymied or my talk themselves out of things. Who might I feel like they're wired like you a little bit as faras wanting to do all the things that you've done and maybe in a different industry than just travel, You know, we're backpacking or something. Um but they are they feel slight, A slight, You know, um, reluctance to do that. What would you tell them about how to view risk?

I mean, if you never take any risk, you never really going to get anywhere particularly exciting for me. I I knew that with the the most scary part, right was racking up huge credit card bills because if everything found, how was I gonna pay them? But I knew that I would find a way to pay them Or that more likely, I just run away to another country. No, Palin. I knew there would be a way to get out of it on. I feel that with. But when you take a risk, you have the opportunity for, like, massive, massive rewards.

And I really feel that I've been able to reap some massive rewards that I've only been able to read by taking these risks. I think that a lot of the time on, if you take a risk, unless your idea is really, really bad, you can usually make good on that risk by putting in enough hard work. There's no point in taking. I'm taking a risk if you're not them willing to put in the hard work to make it happen. I think that's only that. That is the most risky thing, right? Is putting money down or putting time down for something without putting your A ll into that project? If you put your all into a project, unless your idea is shit, you will normally do. Okay,

that's been my experience, anyway. And that's not just my own personal experience. That's been my experience watching other people who I know in this space. I'll give you an example. I know one guy who shall remain nameless, who sells mattresses he's doing. I don't even know how much he's doing, but he's definitely doing more than me a month. He's making an absolutely killing, selling mattresses on. He had to take risks to get there. One of those risks was being involved in something that it wasn't that passionate about on. We had a conversation about this a couple of years ago. When he started, he was like,

I'm just not that excited by it, but I am excited by, um, I am excited by the car lifestyle, but it can allow me to leave. Um, he had to put down a ton of my to make it happen. So he's putting down money. He's putting down time, and he's putting down passion into something he isn't passionate about. But because he wholeheartedly embraced that on worked his ass off for a couple of years, he's now going to an incredibly impressive point. And there are a lot. There are a lot of people out there who were doing this is probably more the most people realized because most people who are making this kind of money online ah, smart enough to keep quiet about it. But there's a lot of people out there who are doing this.

There's a big difference between what you make online and what you choose to keep from the money you make online. It sounds like you have poured Ah, heck of a lot of money into your team so that you have an approach that is, um, scalable and even manageable from a go forward basis, not just to, you know, manage what you're doing right now, but like you literally can can continue to grow going forward. And so I have a feeling the numbers that you shared with me might not have factored in all of these additional costs that you have for this team. Because if there's one thing that seems different to me, too, about the reason I mention that, by the way, is different to me in you versus the guy you just mentioned is that you were absolutely going to stay involved in

work that you enjoy doing f more 1%.

Yeah. Do you think that then that notion of follow your passion followed your joy is an important one? Followed. The things that you know you're passionate about is crucial.

I think it certainly helps. I think that you might be passionate about something that is very, very difficult to make a living elves, um on And I think that you have You kind of have this tipping point right where you have to. You have to figure out what's more important to be directly involved with working on my passion or to be involved in something else, which allows me to fund my passion. And I think as long as you're doing one of those, I think it's okay. I really do. I think the unacceptable middle ground is when you are working a job you hate, which also pays you very little on, therefore doesn't allow youto have the freedom to follow your passion. I think that's that's the trap that people get stuck in. I've been there myself. I've watched other friends and family who have been stuck in that trap on. Um, I think that it takes real bravery to break out of that because if you're in this position where you're not only much money,

you're broke, they won't take a risk. It definitely seems intimidating to do that. But I think that is that is the time where people really have to make the effort to break out that if you're working a job you hate, you know, only much money. You're just not gonna have the best car lifestyle. You know,

it almost seems like what you're saying is, um, big adversity requires, like big changes, not just small, incremental changes to get out of whatever bad rut you're in

for sure. Yeah.

Ah, all right. So a lot has changed in the three years that you've been going at this hard and heavy as you look ahead. And this is where the finish line is right ahead of us will. As you look ahead. Now say to the next I won't. You know, ask youto to predict the next three years. But as you look ahead to say the next 12 months to 18 months and what you will need to do to keep this train moving and maybe even to speed it up, what should we expect to see from Will Hatton and your brands? How will the what will be the next evolution?

Great question. I'm glad you are sexually so. Something that I'm really passionate about is doing projects which will have a positive benefit on the people who are involved but also on the environment. On dhe, we are now looking at creating a whole ton of products out of recycled plastic, which is really, really hard. There is so much more to it than I thought it would be initially on. We are in the process off effectively creating a cottage industry in Bali where we are going to be shredding plastic balls which will be captured from the ocean and then creating products out of that. So we'll be doing a crowdfunding campaign for that hopefully this year. But maybe more recent more likely next year were brought in two hostiles, one in Bali, one in Colombia. We're expanding, the tour company said that we're going to be doing tours in Iran and Kyrgyzstan. I've got two of my guys are actually out in co star in the moment, plotting the hiking route and checking out the itinerary and putting all together.

That's pretty exciting. The Brokeback Packer will just continue to grow at a moment. It grows about 15% every month, which is awesome. We're putting out like, 100 posts every month. I've got my other projects that I'm working on in the background, like some secret projects which allow me to capture those second and third positions we were talking about and then on Ditch your death mine. Aron's goal is to help 100 people start working online over the next 12 months. So that's something that we're we're getting involved in, just answering questions by email. If I had a Facebook group, etcetera, etcetera and I have been quite cool actually like it's been a lot of fun to see the different ideas and different product projects and different passions the people are getting involved in on its it's helped me realize again just how massive the opportunity is to make money online on toe have that life of freedom.

So I I had a mute myself because I was laughing because will, I'm asking you what's next. And instead of you just saying I need to do this and this you, like, rattle off seven things that we're gonna be happening in the next 12 to 18 months. It's kind of

astounding. Yeah, sorry. It's a lot that probably wasn't its focus. That should have been.

No, I didn't need it to be focused because what it really does is it highlights to me that if you have built a team the right way and you have decided what constitutes demanding of your time versus something you can delegate to your team. There are no shortage of things that you can do like you can scale yourself in pretty dramatic, you know, exponential ways. If you have the right way of inserting yourself into the business and holding yourself out of the business, if you've made the right decisions

on that, yeah, 100%. I very much agree with you that the way that I'm working at a moment. And the way that my workload is structured a moment is already only have to work about an hour a day. Um, and if I work 3 to 4 hours a day, I could get a lot done because a huge amount of what I am doing is, ah, designing tasks, delegating, making sure things have done and making sure we're done at scale. That that is really at this point, a large chunk of what I'm doing is managing people, and I've trained those people to do the tasks that I can do. But it now means that I can just do it at scale on. But that's when it gets really,

really exciting because to be completely honest with you, I absolutely love strategy on I absolutely love building businesses. I'm not asked, thrilled with running the so my kind of model at the moment is to build businesses, to work on a strategy, and then to get somebody smart to run it for me. I'll tell them what to do. But they will be the person that's in the trenches, you know?

Yep, I know. Oh, I do know. I do know will. This has been tremendous talking to you. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Well, thanks for having me, man. That was fantastic.

You. That was the story of Will Hatton of the broke backpacker dot com coming up next week. Seriously, that episode was just incredible. And I hope you listen to every ounce of what he had to say. He's proven he's credible. He's traveled the world and you need Thio Park into his advice. Coming up next week. We're breaking from these stories of content creators, but not in a way where you think where we're taking a break from the show. We've got a guy who took the wisdom he gained from one failed venture that was before its time, actually, and spun it into modernizing the freight brokering industry seriously, the freight brokering industry. And in fact, he just cashed out of that business to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. This is the story of Crisp Cobb.

Christopher Cobb, founder of Armstrong Transport. A story unlike any other will probably ever tell on freelance a powder. All right, Thank you to my co producer, Preston Lee, founder of Mellow and admin of the mill Oh, mastermind community on Facebook, as well as our incredible partner, Bilal Abrar, for helping out with this episode. We are a proud member of the pod glamorous network as well, which features other shows like Rocket Ship and numerous other great ones. Thanks for listening, everybody Catch me at Brandon Hole on Twitter, if you like,

and feel free to drop your rating. A review on whichever podcast platform that you prefer. We'll catch the next week on freelance to founder Pond Llama, a sonic universe. Everybody, I want you to listen to the rocket ship podcast. What a great podcast. They've been running now for six years. Michael Sokka does amazing job with this. He covers topics ranging from mental models to product development, leadership and even growth strategy. He's interviewed hundreds of industry leaders like Seth Godin, Jason Free, Dennis Crowley and venture capitalist Hunter Walk Ketchum in rocket ship DOT FM,