Smash Notes
How to build a 7-figure blogging business around your passion with Will Hatton
This is the story of Will Hatton, founder of TheBrokeBackpacker.com and a jack-of-all-trades turned blogger/entrepreneur who converted his passion into a 9-business empire making 7 figures in revenue. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us an honest rating on iTunes . Will’s multiple ventures have not only allowed him to give back to causes important…
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Notes
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Will Hatton started a site called the Broke Backpacker , essentially a free resource for aspiring adventurers to travel on a budget.
For the longest time he'd been making about $1k a month with it, and had no motivation to grow it. Once meeting his now wife, however, he started growing his other businesses, anywhere he saw opportunity. They needed more money to travel together :)
Now his businesses are making a mere $200,000 every months.
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It's taken Will Hatton about three years to get the businesses to a good pace. He says that while starting out, he had to do everything by himself, which is why it took so long to hit escape velocity. Once he started generating enough money where he could pay others to help, business growth picked up a lot faster.
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Will Hatton ran out of money while traveling in Pakistan, so he reached out to his Instagram following to see if anyone would pay to join him for a tour. People did, and the business got started.
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On Freelance to Founder, Will Hatton says The Broke Backpacker's tour business started because he was out of money, not because a plan came first. He was in Pakistan, increasingly desperate to make money he could reinvest, and he posted on Instagram asking if anyone wanted a trip there for 1,500 dollars, with him as the guide. That became his epic backpacker tour company. He describes the pattern as opportunities showing up while he was under pressure to make something work. For two years before that growth, he says, he had done the writing, outreach, and links himself, wearing every hat on the site.
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Will says he has been on the road for 10+ years, sleeping in tents and couch-surfing. He'd worked on farms, he'd sold t-shirts, weed ... he's done all sorts of things to get by.
Living this way has taught Will viable business skills. For example, he learned how to haggle, where both people maintain their honor, and both get the value.
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Will was due to join the Army, but before doing it he decided to do a 10-week physical challenging program in Costa Rica. While out there on a three week hike, he ended up in a hospital. Months of recovery and physical therapy later, he was no longer eligible to join the Army. Unsure what to do, Will took all his savings and moved to India, where the real adventure began.
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Will says he's gotten pretty good at making small amounts of money, fast. For example, you can always go to a country like India, buy a bunch of cheap but cool clothing, sell it at a festival at US or Europe and make a 1000% return.
Unfortunately, although it sounds cool, that means only turning $200 into $2000, which is enough money for a single backpacker, but not enough for anything else. Eventually you have to find opportunities that make more.