Johannes Voelkner takes us on his digital nomad journey, which started in 2010. He shares many of his initial failures and setbacks, all of which led him to start what would become one of the largest Facebook groups for digital nomads. He explains how that ultimately lead to the founding of The Nomad Cruise, which now attracts nearly 500 participants per voyage and is one of the largest ‘workation’ events in the world. Johannes then takes us behind the scenes and talks about how he runs and grows The Nomad Cruise as a business. He explains his process for identifying and hiring his team, his process for managing distributed staff and volunteers across time zones, the project management software he uses, and the operational systems he has developed for organizing the Nomad Cruise conference. He also explains why he incorporates a “night of failures” on every cruise and shares his personal belief in the importance of repeated failure in order to create the eventual outcome of success, and wanting to foster a supportive environment on the cruise for people to talk about their failures. He also reflects on how he has been able to cultivate fierce brand loyalty from customers, staff and volunteers who continually return for cruise after cruise, and why building ‘community’ is his core passion and driving inspiration. He also discusses his personal day structure, work routines, and his passion for kitesurfing as a destination sport that inspires many of his personal choices in travel locations.
Episode #22: Nomad Cruise Founder Johannes Voelkner on Kitesurfing, Brand Loyalty and Building Nomadic Communities
Episode Summary
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What You'll Learn
- The behind-the-scenes story of how Johannes built the Nomad Cruise from a single Facebook post to an international business conference with nearly 500 attendees
- How to build a company that cultivates fierce brand loyalty and raving fans.
- How to envision, hire, manage, organize, and execute events that build real community, offer impactful business networking, and result in meaningful friendships
Links From the Episode
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JOHANNES’S COMPANIES
BOOK JOHANNES RECOMMENDS
OTHER MAVERICK SHOW INTERVIEW MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
APP JOHANNES RECOMMEND
LOCATION WHERE THE EPISODE WAS RECORDED
JOHANNES’S TOP 3 TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
JOHANNES’S TOP 2 BUCKET LIST TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
OTHER DESTINATIONS MENTIONED
Check Flight Prices to Any of These Destinations
FOLLOW JOHANNES
Time Stamped Show Notes
[02:03] MATT AND JOHANNES TALK ABOUT KITESURFING AND JERICOACOARA, BRAZIL
- A town on the Sand
- Caipirinha Street
- Café Jeri Rooftop Sunset Party
- Johannes describes what he loves about Kitesurfing
[06:34] JOHANNES’S DIGITAL NOMAD JOURNEY
- Working remotely in South Africa
- Developing a location independent income
- Launching his first e-book and getting only 5 sales
- Turning a failure into a community building tool
- Building a Facebook group for digital nomads
[14:06] THE ACCIDENTAL FOUNDING OF THE FIRST NOMAD CRUISE
- Creating a Nomad Meetup on a cruise
- Branding the “Nomad Cruise” one week before the first cruise
- Wanting to arrive in a new country with 100+ friends
- Deciding to do some workshops one week before the cruise
[18:25] SCALING AND PROFESSIONALIZING THE NOMAD CRUISE
- Scaling Nomad Cruise to a 50-person team of staff and volunteers
- Matt’s impression of the Nomad Cruises he has attended
- The Maverick Show podcast guests that Matt has met on the Nomad Cruise
- Matt’s presentations on the Nomad Cruises
- Business networking and friendship formations on the Nomad Cruise
[26:00] HOW JOHANNES BUILT THE NOMAD CRUISE TEAM OF STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS
- Choosing to hire only from the pool of Nomad Cruise participants
- Observing people on the Nomad Cruise to select the best leaders
[28:41] MANAGING A DISTRIBUTED TEAM AND EXECUTING THE OPERATIONAL SIDE
- Optimizing processes and using a lean team
- Using Project Management software and Video calls to coordinate across time zones
- Building systems, documenting processes, and continually optimizing
- Empowering staff to run the systems
[35:06] LEADERSHIP STRATEGY AND CULTIVATING BRAND LOYALTY
- Think about the community first and making money second
- Try to give 10x more value than what the customer expects
- Why a cruise ship is the best place to build community
[39:53] CREATING “HOMEBASE GLOBAL”
- Enabling people to have a global home base in between the Nomad Cruises
[43:47] OPTIMIZING PRODUCTIVITY AND ORGANIZAITONAL EFFICIENCY
- Creating motivation to get work done early
- Morning exercise
- Delegation of low level work to create time to strategize
- Using project management software
- Creating and utilizing mind maps
[48:29] SETBACKS AND FAILURES
- Johannes’s biggest personal setback in building the Nomad Cruise
- Why Nomad Cruise hosts a “Failure Night”
- The importance of failing in order to succeed
[54:57] PASSION FOR TRAVEL AND THE FUTURE OF THE DIGITAL NOMAD MOVEMENT
- Johannes’s initial curiosity about new places
- Traveling to kite-surf and wanting to stay in particular places
- Johannes’s vision for the future of the digital nomad movement
[59:01] THE LIGHTNING ROUND
- The #1 Book Johannes recommends
- The #1 Productivity tool that Johannes recommends
- The Top 3 travel destinations that Johannes recommends
- One piece of advice Johannes would give to his 18-year old self
- Johannes’s top moment from the Nomad Cruise
[1:05:52] HOW TO CONTACT JOHANNES
- Follow Johannes on Instagram
- Learn more about Nomad Cruise
- Learn more about Home Base Global
About the Guest
Johannes Voelkner
Johannes Voelkner is the Founder of the Nomad Cruise where location independent entrepreneurs and digital nomads come together for a business conference on a cruise boat twice a year. After becoming a Digital Nomad in 2010, it was two years into that journey when Johannes realized that he definitely missed having like-minded people around him. So he took action and started to build the community that ultimately led to one of the largest digital nomad Facebook groups and the accidental creation of Nomad Cruise which is now attracts nearly 500 participants on each voyage and is one of the largest ‘workation’ events in the world. He is also the founder of Homebase Global, a travel community for remote workers.
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