The Remarkable Business Show - Episode 2.mp3

[00:00:03] Cyclist, skier, international fugitive and all around curious guy. Here's the latest edition of the Remarkable Business Show with your host Jon Moss 

Jon: [00:00:19] Welcome to the remarkable business show. I've got a jam packed second show for you with a remarkable guest. Dusty Davidson. Dusty is one of the co-founders of Flywheel. They do hosting for Wordpress and are also this show's sponsor. Thank you so much for the feedback on the first episode. It's now been downloaded nearly five hundred times in countries all over the world. I've also got eight recorded interviews and another four planned in the coming weeks. So it looks like I'll be releasing a show every three weeks or so rather than monthly as I've got so much great content to share. I'm also toying with a weekly short episode looking at things that I've come across during the week and a slightly more informal chat with a few people who I know you'll like. I'm really enjoying learning about recording and developing the show. There is a new world out there believe me. Having started have a few bits and bobs guided as ever by Howard at Engine7. There has been a flood of new equipment arriving at the studio. OK. My little office. From pop filters to mic boom arms and xlr cables. It's been a fascinating process reading about what I need and also watching the reviews on YouTube all geared towards giving you the best possible listening experience. So I really hope this sounds OK. 

Jon: [00:01:27] This episode should also have chapters so you can jump to the content you like the most and there is also a full transcript available. 

[00:01:34] The new home for the show is remarkable.fm so you can always find the new episodes there as well as subscribing in iTunes and it's also available on Tunein radio plus the excellent podcast apps Overcast, Pocket Cast and Stitcher. 

Jon: [00:01:49] Overcast is an app developed by a guy called Marco Arment who I would recommend following on Twitter Marco Arment. He's a web and iPhone software developer, writer and podcaster from Westchester County in New York. From it's nception in late 2006 through September 2010 he was the lead developer of Tumblr and he also went on to actually found and make Instapaper which is a very well-known project which he ran for five years until its sale in April 2013. Instapaper is a bookmarking service now owned by Pinterest. So he probably got paid a pretty penny for it. Well-deserved though. It allows web content to be saved so it can be read later on a different device such as an e-reader smartphone or tablet. I've been using Instapaper now for, gosh, six seven eight years. I used to pay for the premium service. Now it's actually free. Now it's been bought by Pinterest but it really is worth checking out. If you are looking at something online whether you're in the browser, you're at the office or you are on the train or on the bus and you're looking at it on your smartphone, and you think.. Hey I'd really like to read this article but I haven't really got time now or I can't concentrate on it now. 

Jon: [00:03:01] You just click share to Instapaper and then it's saved to your Instapaper account when you go to your Instapaper account. You can see all of the articles which you've been saving over the past days, weeks, months or even years. At this point in time you can click and read them and they're presented beautifully - just the actual text. So it's stripped out any adverts or any other stuff that you might see in the browser. It makes reading really, really enjoyable and you can change the font you can change the size. You can even change the background and then you can archive it, you can highlight text and save it but it's certainly a great way to consume content. So for example when I was away in Italy the other week I'd saved a load of articles to read and I could go into Instapaper and happily go through those. You can find Instapaper in any of the online app stores and also Instapaper.com. But give it a go. It really is one of those little bits of software that I use day in day out and have done for many years and I'd really miss it if it went away. 

Jon: [00:03:59] I've got some fantastic sponsors lined up for the episodes of the show and this episode is sponsored by the great folks at Flywheel. Now Flywheel does rock solid hosting for Wordpress. It's tuned specifically for Wordpress. It gives blazingly fast speeds, you get crazy fast load times with zero configuration. They do nightly backups for you, free SSL certificates and it's just a joy to use. The support has been fantastic as well and I'm a very happy customer so I'm not just saying this because they are a sponsor. 

Jon: [00:04:30] Now he's a top deal for you. OK listen up. This is good. If you sign up for any of their annual Hosting Plans I've got a way for you to get three months for free gratis. How good is that? OK. So you need to know this... All you need to is go to http://jonm.me/2Flywheel and use the code jm2017 when you sign up. BOOM! You will get three months free on an annual plan. So thank you so much for the Flywheel guys and girls for sorting this out. 

Jon: [00:05:08] Although I'm no developer. I've been using Wordpress for over 10 years now and Wordpress is a really important part of what I do. WordPress for those of you who haven't heard of it before is one of the world's most popular content management systems or CMSs and supposedly powers about 25 percent of the Internet. Pretty impressive. 

Jon: [00:05:26] Now Dusty Davidson is a technology entrepreneur residing in the lovely Omaha, Nebraska. Dusty is best known for his work with Silicon Prairie news and big Omaha. Big Omaha is an annual conference in Nebraska that brings together the nation's most passionate members of the entrepreneurial community including founders investors and emerging leaders. So they build community start conversation and of course have an incredibly inspiring time. 

Jon: [00:05:50] Dusty is now the co-founder and CEO of Wordpress hosting company called Flywheel and they are fantastic. Dusty and I actually recorded this interview back in February and yeah I know it's June so just ignore that bit. We had a great chat about what they do their culture and what he likes to do outside of work as well. He's got loads of great points and he's a fascinating guy to listen to. So I really hope you enjoy the interview. 

Jon: [00:06:16] Dusty Hello. You are a long way away from Hull aren't you today? 

Dusty: [00:06:22] I am. I'm here in sunny Omaha, Nebraska smack dab in the middle of the United States. 

Jon: [00:06:28] Oh my gosh that's a good few thousand miles. So everyone the big welcome to Dusty Davidson and from Flywheel who is one of the guys who set up Flywheel. He's going to tell us a little bit about what they do but Flywheels a company I've sort of got to know over the last few months. And I use myself I'm a very happy customer and they are WordPress specific hosting company. They're killing at the moment doing some great stuff and Dusty is here just having a chat with me today. And so officially Dusty, welcome to the podcast. And yeah tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do and how did Flywheel happen? 

Dusty: [00:07:10] Perfect. Thanks for having me Jon. Yes so I'm the co-founder and CEO of Flywheel we are managing WordPress hosting company. We say a platform for designers and agencies who create web sites on the Wordpress platform. We take care of all the hosting related things, all the technical mumbo jumbo that goes into security or speed or updates that go into that so that those designers can focus on what they do best, right, focus on design and their clients and not have to worry about managing servers or these sorts of things. We also believe a lot of workflow tools for them that we like really how do we improve their lives through software. And so we often fancy ourselves a software company that happens to host web sites rather than just being a hosting company. How we came to be... you know we my partners and I there's two partners, we worked together for many years building web sites and software for people and in a lot of ways, you know Flywheel is the product that we wish existed back when we were doing that. In 2008, 2009, 2010 and we kind of went our separate ways and then I say get the band back together to start Flywheel and build this right. And it was partially based on how do we solve the problem that we faced and it was also built on this idea that most hosting companies are very technical and they don't have great brands you know, not human in any way. And we we look at the world and say we're you know we're design minded folks. 

Dusty: [00:08:48] We we care about green interactions and experiences and we want to work with companies that have a personality, that are sort of humanised in a way and nobody is really doing that in hosting and we looked at and said if we can build this product and pair it with this exceptional brand, then I think that the types of people like us would want to buy that product and fast forward now about four years four and a half years and here we are. And it's you know so far so good. 

Jon: [00:09:16] I would absolutely echo what you've said there in terms of the brand and the kind of the personality that you have. And that was immediately apparent from the web site, the interaction that I had initially with Nathan who was fantastic and also just how everything comes across and ease of use. So I would say that's a massive thumbs up and you know I've used other hosting companies before over the last 10 years or so and I think you're right, some of them can be quite generic almost anonymous in personality. So yeah. Not much so not not much kind of va va voom kind of thing. So I think you've got that that comes across so well. 

Dusty: [00:09:59] Appreciate it really is like we always said we wanted to build the hosting company you could fall in love with and you know nobody loves their hosting company historically. And I think that you could, you know it doesn't take a lot it takes you know a little bit of whimsy a little bit, you know not taking ourselves too seriously. And then at the core of it is certainly an exceptional product. But you know I think most hosting companies look at the world and say look if your sites are online then they're there fast. And that's the product, that's what we offer and we always say like that's the minimum for us. Like everything else that we aim to provide should sit on those kind of bedrock of stability and speed and support. And that with the experience of using sites like that should just be assumed for many hosts frankly. But you know where we were we aimed to excel is how do we provide value on top of that. And then also wow customers on top of that, whether it's a little softer interactions or whether it's the way that our support team interacts with them or whether it's the stupid videos that we put out on the marketing side. You know how do we just resonate with people and you know at the end of the day we want to work with people like us in that sense, that people who appreciate those types of interactions. And so, yeah that's what we set out to build and where we're, we're chugging along. 

Jon: [00:11:18] I think chugging along is probably under playing a bit, you know from what I what I hear, when I speak to people. You've got a great reputation and yeah, full disclosure I'm a very happy customer. 

Dusty: [00:11:30] I appreciate that. 

Jon: [00:11:31] You know great, great interactions with people including yourself and I think as well is that kind of classic marketing flow. I look at it as getting people to know you, like you, trust you, use you and then recommend you and you know that could be for any brand or service and I think you do that very, very well. 

Dusty: [00:11:49] Appreciate it. And that's all. If that's by design one of the things that we care about pretty deeply at Flywheel is doing things with great intention right and and being mindful about you know why we do certain types of marketing or why we do certain types of product development whatever it might be. And so you know we try pretty hard to educate people to sort of keep them familiar with what we do and hopefully you know and even go all the way down to the sales process. We don't really look at it. It's a consultative sale right. It's how can we help to you. We happen to think that we have a product that will help you and we hope that it does. And it's not a hard sell in that way, it's just that we recognise that people have problems and by the time that they get there they are very familiar with Flywheel in a lot of cases. And so we can just have a conversation with them about their business about the projects they work on and clients that they work with and how Flywheel can help them make more money or reduce stress or otherwise be able to focus on their customers. 

Jon: [00:12:48] I agree Dusty and I sometimes look at services and I think Flywheel fits perfectly with this. Getting rid of friction and frowns and introducing smiles and satisfaction. 

Dusty: [00:13:00] Absolutely. 

Jon: [00:13:01] There you go, you could use that in the next newsletter 

Dusty: [00:13:06] Chuckle, love it! 

Jon: [00:13:06] So you mentioned, whereabouts are you? So just tell people, you're in a pretty special location, slap bang in the middle of the states in Nebraska. 

Dusty: [00:13:16] Yeah in Nebraska. It's the great plains right, it's the flat part of the middle of the States and Omaha is a city of about a million people. And you know we're a technology company in a place that's otherwise known for farming. And so, but lots of places in the world there's a nascent tech and startup community here that we're a pretty pivotal part of in a cool way and the community that's grown here and so, yeah I was born and raised not that far from here and so you know we love being around here as family around here and you know we get asked a lot like why. Why Omaha and it's like well why. Cause that's why I love where I love being, it's where my friends are it's where families are, it's a great place to raise kids and the whole thing. 

Dusty: [00:14:01] And as it turns out is also a great place to build a technology company even though that's again maybe not what people on the outside maybe would think comes out of this part of the part of the country. 

Jon: [00:14:14] That's fantastic. Really really good. What's your office like. How many people have you got now at Flywheel? 

Dusty: [00:14:19] Flywheel has got 80 people as of this week we added seven as of last week, seven new people started last week so we're at 80. 

Dusty: [00:14:27] 10 of which are around the world, a handful in Europe. We have one girl in, in the U.K. there and the other 70 are here in the office in Omaha. You know our office is a cool tech startup office. This room is not so cool. This conference room you can see we are doing some paint experimentation on the wall. And so the rest of it you know it's brick and it's kind of cool. You've got dogs and the whole thing and so you know, which again in Omaha Nebraska is actually kind of a stand out. You wouldn't actually you know, we're unique in Omaha and you know, in San Francisco this is maybe not quite as you unique. But here it is. And I think that's one of the things that draws draws people to Flywheel is that we've got a pretty unique and beautiful and functional office space. We love showing it off and having people over. 

Jon: [00:15:15] It's great to hear that Dusty. I'm a massive believer in the fact that you know where people spend most of their life? It's either in bed or at work. Make the work place fantastic and welcoming and inspirational and buy a good mattresses. It's not rocket science isn't it? And you know people spend so much time at work and this is where I think historically Google you know probably the people who started all you know, the understanding of the work place and they started laying on food and massages and God knows what else. Because they realize that actually, getting people to spend more time that they can be more productive and happier. 

Dusty: [00:15:53] Yeah yeah and I think this is a big part of that starting Flywheel is because my partner and I wanted to build the kind of company that we want to actually work at. Right. And so you know these are things that we enjoy. And I think the theory has always followed that. I think the best people generally have their choices of where they where they work and who they work with and you know we use an exceptional office as in some parts as a recruiting tool, like hey you know if everything else being equal, do you are going to want to work a really beautiful space? But you absolutely certainly to your point right. It's where you spend the majority of time and you know Google has a phrase around the hire what they call smart creative people and they're smart creatives. And I think that you know Flywheel has a similar philosophy and these types of creative people in every sort of work and some of them are designers but some of them are engineers and some of them are you know, happiness engineers or support team. You know these are creative folks most of that actually a lot of the people in our support team are musicians or you know or otherwise artists or otherwise involved in the creative arts. And these are people that draw inspiration from being in an environment that is inspiring actually and in so that's a big part of it as well. Right. 

Dusty: [00:17:03] I think this is an entire category of folks these smart creatives who are who not only value that but it contributes to their ability to perform their job exceptionally. And I think you know that having this portion is just one component. I think it actually creates significant value for the company and in the sense that you know people are again driven to do great work. 

Jon: [00:17:28] Yeah. You can't just have engineers. You need that diverse skill set and personality within a company and when you get that you guys obviously have, you know that's what you get good results and successful companies. So what do you think is your greatest asset Dusty, as a company? 

[00:17:47] As a company? That's a great question. I think that two things. One is that as a company I say that we have deep customer empathy taht sort of is permeated through everybody and Flywheel and a lot of that is because a good portion of the people at Flywheel have done the work of our customers, they are web designers who have come from that background and one of the things that that does is certainly on the support side we want create empathy. But you know it's some is having a problem we want to be able to solve it except exceptionally And as with the great sense of understanding of the needs of the customer but in product development it's that's right. How do we build the right custom products for the customer and how does the copy you know play into that and how do we market and how do we sell right? I mentioned it like we very consultative sale in the sense that we just really like talking to people about the things that they're working on and I think this deep sense of empathy for the customer and in a lot of cases the customer's customer right if they are a designer, an agency they have their own customers right? And so I think that's probably the biggest asset that we have. 

Dusty: [00:18:56] And the second part of that is the corollary to that is that, that all starts with just having the right people in the first place on the team and I think of we are great at something and if I am personally great at something it's recognizing you know either great potential or great people and understanding that the way by which we build a big impactful and exceptional company is, it starts with an end and ends with getting the right people on the bus. And so that's the way we look at it. But I think if we were going to have one asset and it's that it's those people and that empathy they have for the customers in that way. 

Jon: [00:19:30] That's great to hear and I think that you know the people things are important and that comes across, I think very strongly with Flywheel and that culture. I think you have a sort of, play hard work hard isn't there and that just seems to come across really well. Everybody seems to be having fun but getting stuff done as well. 

Dusty: [00:19:48] Yes, fun with velocity right. So you can't just you know it's certainly fun and part of it's fun because the people that we work with are all just great people. Part of it's fun because we do stupid things like you know whatever, we have dogs and things right, we can't just that's not enough and you need this drive and this push and this velocity and and those things can go hand-in-hand pretty significantly I think. 

Jon: [00:20:14] So we are at the end of maybe at the end of February already 2017 which is kind of shocking. It seems to be flying past but how is it shaping up for Flywheel and you guys and any plans that you can share what's happening this year? 

Dusty: [00:20:29] It's weird because it's nearly the end of February. We talked about this week it's the middle point of the quarter for us so we're sort of talking about how's the quarter going. You know the first two months are on track to be our biggest months ever by a significant margin and that's really exciting. In fact this is always the goal right. Like you want every month should be the biggest month ever. There are realistically things are going really well and I think a lot of it is that you know 2016 was a building year for us and kind of a foundational year. We hired a ton of people and in the latter part of the year we bought a company and a software product and we rebranded it and it's called Local It's our local WordPress development application. 

Dusty: [00:21:07] So that's that's starting to pick up right as we roll into the beginning part of this year and you know that's for me the story of 2017 is kind of building on that foundation. And as as kind of a springboard in a way right we kind of just got our legs underneath us right up until the last part of the year. And then I think both on the product side and on the people side and operationally I think 2017 is a year where we can really use that to vault forward. And you know the first two months of the year you know, knock on wood I guess but are showing that in a very real way and that's super exciting obviously for me and my partners. But you know the team rallies behind that pretty significant as well. 

Jon: [00:21:47] That's great to hear and I'm certain and confident that that will continue throughout the year and into 2018. So you finish for the day Dusty... what do you outside of work? You know what do you love doing? Well as you know we can't work all the time and balance is important, what do you do? 

Dusty: [00:22:07] Well I have a three year old daughter and a wife and so there are a lot of fun we spend. My daughter is at a really fun age so we spend a lot of time at the park and playing. I enjoy food and wine. And so we enjoy everything from like really bad food like macaroni and cheese all the way through the finest dinners around the world. And so we enjoy food and wine and my wife and I travel, quite a lot actually for for that we tend to pick our destinations based on the places in the world that have the best food. 

Jon: [00:22:38] I saw the site and some of the some of the write ups in the restaurants. 

Dusty: [00:22:45] We spend about two months in Paris every summer and so I work remote from there and so we picked Paris specifically because the food scene there is pretty fantastic. And then of course the wine is great. So that's probably you know outside of work, it's family and food I guess. 

Jon: [00:23:01] That's a great combination, really nice combination. So we know Flywheel is a service, it's a software as such and we you know in the digital world we are using software and apps and gadgets and but it might not be you know we live in a digital world all the time, has there been anything that has caught your eye? Whether that's you know in the digital world or outside that you thinking wow they're doing a great job that could be an app, software, a brand, a bit of hardware, a gadget. 

Dusty: [00:23:33] In conjunction with this. There is a style of cooking called sous vide, which is sort of you cook things in a water bath so you put like a steak in a vacuum sealed bag and you cook it in in water and it's the way to perfectly cook a steak or anything, chicken, fish veggies whatever. And, I won't go into the detail on it, but there's a fantastic device that sort of facilitates this from a company called Anova and they make this device. It helps keep the water circulating and warm. And it's one of these it's sort of is at the intersection of things in the world right because it's you know Sous Vide it is kind of historically, a high end restaurant thing. In high end restaurants is how they cook meats and things but they've got all the professional gear and here's you can buy for I don't know $100 / $200. I don't know. Kind of this consumer version of it. And there's another one on the market called Duell which is super cool and it's actually got Bluetooth enabled so you kind of like set on your phone, you know how you want your steak. And it just sort of cooks it and it's it's kind of cool. There's lots of devices in this category right these kind of consumerisation of professional types of devices and gadgets that then maybe their Bluetooth enabled or something and you know kind of again this is high tech cookery I think is something that's kind of fun for me anyway 

Jon: [00:24:56] Do you know Juno, it's an oven or something that I've seen recently. 

Dusty: [00:24:59] I don't know the name but I know what you're talking about. 

Jon: [00:25:01] Yeah, it's got a camera inside and you can check how you foods doing on your phone or your tablet. I think Kevin Rose, one of his latest videos reviewed it and sort of showed the whole thing. But it was astonishing and it's learning from big data from other people cooking as well. So it's you just slap anything in it knows what it is via the camera and you know sort of recognition of it and off it goes. 

Dusty: [00:25:25] If you ever told me like you know 10 years ago that my oven was going to have a camera and just like know how to cook. You'd think it was crazy, but it's not that far fetched I suppose and you'd think by the way that your phone works and all of these things. And so I do think again like if I were thinking about gadgets in the world they probably is around cooking. But that's again in line with what I enjoy. 

Jon: [00:25:45] Ok sounds fantastic. So last question Dusty - AI in the home. Artificial Intelligence in the home. So Amazon Alexa and Google home. Thumbs up or thumbs down and have you got one? 

Dusty: [00:25:59] Thumbs up for me. So we just my wife and I just bought a new home and moved in last week actually. Thaks, it's the American dream I'd day. You know we're going through all these like light switches and things and we are figuring out where all the new lights are and all this stuff. And I get really excited. We have an Alexa and you know I just use it for listening to music now but I really like the idea that now I can wire my you know my light switches to that thing and you know all these like this kind of connected home thing as if I was you know the value of like an Alexa for me is in this kind of like walking in you know telling it to turn on your lights and you know these sorts of things and I think that's only going to get better and it's just it's pretty dang cool. 

Jon: [00:26:42] I agree - we have an Amazon Dot and we've got it rigged up for the heating and the lights and calendar and all sorts of stuff and it works. I mean it's very good. I think it'll be interesting to see how Google respond in terms of what they do with Google Home because everybody seems to be focused on Amazon. There's a lot of people writing around how Alexa and what Amazon are doing. Kind of like the OS of the home. You know there's a lot of people making you know Alexa compatible devices. CES was just a wash of Alexa compatible devices so I'm interested to see where it's going to go. So a thumbs up for me. 

Dusty: [00:27:20] I think there has always been this desire, maybe a hundred years ago or whenever it was 100. But Bill Gates built this brand new beautiful home on a lake in Washington and it was a smart home and that was just happened to be you know 20 years ahead of its time and you know I think I remember reading that we were like "oh that's so cool". You know you just walk in the room and you know the heat or the lights turn on and it knows who you are and all these things and then again here you come to a time where you're average person and just by this exact device and you screw in a lightbulb. And now you've got a smart home and I think you know so it's been kind of the Holy Grail for technologists for a long time. And here we are in a world where it not only exists but it works really well. 

Jon: [00:28:08] I agree and I think in our lifetimes it's going to be autonomous vehicles and an autonomous flying vehicles you never know with all the stuff that's coming. So we've got an exciting, exciting few decades ahead of us, as has Flywheel and I really want to say thank you so much for your time today. And you know keep up the great work and look forward to chatting again soon. 

Dusty: [00:28:29] My pleasure. Great to chat with you Jon. Thanks for having me. 

Jon: [00:28:32] Thank you Dusty. 

VO: [00:28:33] This edition is brought to you by Flywheel - beautiful WordPress hosting and management, built for designers and agencies. 

Jon: [00:28:42] So I hope you enjoyed the interview with Dusty. What a great guy. And I'm really looking forward to catching up with him again. And so if you'd like to check out Flywheel, you should go and have a look and you can use the special url http://jonm.me/2flywheel And don't forget that sign up code for the annual hosting what you get three months free and you just need to use the code jm2017. 

Jon: [00:29:08] While in Lake Garda I took some time to reflect on a few things including the benefits of travel, something I haven't done enough of over the past few years and I recorded this at night sitting outside our room. 

Jon: [00:29:18] Well it's around 10:00 o'clock at night. I'm sitting outside where we staying, the Vivere Suites in Arco, about five kilometers from Lake Garda and it's not too chilly. Probably about 12 maybe 13 maybe a little bit more in terms of temperature but very still. And. It's a beautiful evening, quite misty. 

Jon: [00:29:46] We've just eaten at the Vivere suites sister restaurant in Arco and we've eaten there three nights on the trot and it's been stunning food, absolutely fantastic. Eddie and the staff have been wonderful. 

Jon: [00:30:05] Today we've gone to a number of places, Torbole did a little shopping and had some lunch. I just feel very very at home in Italy. For those of you who don't know I worked and lived in Italy a long time ago, over 20 years ago after university and spent two seasons in the amazing ski resort of Sauze d'Oulx, also known as Sauze d'Oulx, also known as Saucy Do, because it actually appeared in that well known reputable, international paper, The Sun when there were some boozy antics. And so it got a little bit of a bad reputation a long time ago but in fact it's a wonderful resort. Yeah it was pretty lively when I was working there and living there. Certainly nothing like what the papers actually saw portrayed it as. But you know I think my love of Italy comes from spending those months there. I spent probably 11 months there in total and my love of coffee. I enjoy speaking the language. It's a little bit rusty it must be said. But you know once I've spent a couple of days back in Italy I certainly pick things up again. And I think I probably do a course of Italian language this summer just to brush up a little bit. My Italian is more so conversational. And very much skewed towards topics in ski resorts. So I'm quite looking forward to that. 

Jon: [00:31:38] But yeah living abroad. Spending time abroad is something I think everybody should do because it broadens the mind. It really, really is important. 

Jon: [00:31:49] It was wonderful to be back in Italy again. I loved that place I could quite happily live there as long as I could find somewhere with a decent connection. To be fair, the Internet wasn't bad there but it was wonderful to actually spend some time speaking a little bit of Italian, admittedly pretty rusty but it was great to enjoy the coffee. The wonderful sort of experience of the people, the food. I just love their culture. It's a great place to be. 

Jon: [00:32:11] I also thought a lot about the ability to work while you're actually traveling. And so I recorded this with a few thoughts. 

Jon: [00:32:19] I've actually been doing a little bit of work here and Italy today on the trusty MacBook. It's the first gen of the very thin MacBooks released a few years ago and it's a cracking machine for travel and work. 

Jon: [00:32:33] So I've been living that kind of digital nomad lifestyle today and spent a couple of hours this morning storming through some e-mail and a little bit of reading and a little bit of client work and also caught up with Mike Clarke who is a great friend and also a very. established and experienced traveller. 

Jon: [00:32:57] For those of you who have met Mike, he's a fantastic guy and extremely knowledgeable around software and you know development and processes and he spent this winter actually in Antarctica and I'm definetely going to ask Mike to come on the podcast and talk about his experiences there. But I caught up with him this morning on Face Time and he's been working over in Split, Croatia for a few weeks and it looked absolutely wonderful. But I think that ability to work from anywhere, you know you've got a laptop and you need a wifi connection... I think that's an incredible aspect of the Internet. 

Jon: [00:33:38] When I was travelling back in the early 90s so when I was in the ski resort, when I was living in Asia and living in Sydney, I remember using phone cards to call my folks and call friends because the Internet wasn't around then and sending postcards and sending letters. 

Jon: [00:33:59] And there's even something called Poste Restante. Some of you may have heard of this before but it means people can send you parcels or letters to Post Restante, places which are essentially post offices around the world and then you can walk in and you know give some I.D. and pick it up. 

Jon: [00:34:19] So the concept of traveling, being able to work on the laptop using Skype, FaceTime. All of you know the project management tools like Basecamp, Todoist or what have you. This is just incredible really. You know considering when I was traveling you know I didn't have a mobile phone even. So now people are traveling around the world. They are, you know earning money enjoying that digital nomadic lifestyle. And visiting countries and meeting people and you know enjoying life and I think that ability to work anywhere is just fantastic. 

VO: [00:35:03] The Remarkable Business Show... 

Jon: [00:35:07] Every show is going to feature a quote. And if you've read the Bulletin and if not why not, I go through some of my favorite quotes there. The Bulletin is a regular newsletter I write which you can sign up for at http://theappleofmyi.com/newsletter. And that's the apple of my eye with the letter I not e y e. You'll also get sent my free ebook which I took quite a long time to write and I've had some great feedback on. It's called essential tools tips and advice to make you more efficient and productive. 

Jon: [00:35:35] So this episode quote is from a wonderful guy called Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn was an American entrepreneur, author and a motivational speaker. Widely recognised his personal development legend, Jim possessed the unique ability to bring extraordinary insights to ordinary things, ordinary principles and events. This is a fantastic quote from him. 

VO: [00:35:55] Work hard at your job and you can make a living. Work hard on yourself and you can make a fortune. 

Jon: [00:36:01] I believe in this 100 percent. You can never be effective and successful, without looking after your health both mentally and physically. 

Jon: [00:36:09] OK that brings us to the end of the second episode of the Remarkable Business Show - thank you so much for listening, I really appreciate your valuable time. 

Jon: [00:36:17] So can I ask a small favour please... If you've enjoyed this. Let a friend know about it. Message them. Tell them in person or tweet about it. I'd be really grateful. Just point them towards remarkable .fm and you can follow me on Twitter at @jonmoss. Or send me an e-mail at jon@jonmoss.co.uk if you've got any feedback, comments or perhaps a specific person you have in mind who would make a great guest. 

Jon: [00:36:44] So until the next show, enjoy life and make everyday count. Thank you so much for listening. 

VO: [00:36:49] Don't miss the bulletin newsletter. Head on over to www.theappleofmyi.com/newsletter and sign up. You get a terrific free ebook too.