For THE DREAM IN ACTION Case Study #2 I wanted to learn more about how someone can use the mobility of web work to live/work abroad. I reached out to a good friend, Nate Ritter, about how he has done the travel while working thing multiple times. With travel stints of 3 months Nate, and his wife, have been able to see some incredible things while keeping clients happy.
Meet Nate:
Nate has been a web developer for over 15 years for the likes of Worktank Seattle,Microsoft, Land Rover. He is also a consultant and public speaker and has appeared in publications such as Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, The Epoch Times, Lifehacker, and Mashable…”yea, he’s sick.”
Who are you and what are you currently working on?
I’m just another engineer / entrepreneur in my mind. Nobody that special. But, one thing I’m still learning is how everyone is really the best in someone else’s world at something. Therefore, to some, I’m the best web developer, entrepreneur, knowledge broker, public speaker, community evangelist, or revenue-strategy consultant in the world. Which one of those (if any) I am to you depends on who you are and how well we know each other.
I’ve most recently been working on a non-profit called Giving Anonymously (
http://givinganon.org) which recently was written up in the NY Times, a project called Crisis Wire (
http://crisiswire.com), a couple of businesses including ConSource, Inc. (
http://consource.us) and a myriad of other smaller projects that either are too small to really mention or haven’t been coded yet.
Give a quick synopsis of the businesses you’ve launched?
When I was 12 I created a lemonade stand and franchised it to my friends, taking 50% of their profit after helping 3 or 4 get started around the neighborhood one summer…. if that counts.
In 1997 I launched my first computer retail store which also allowed orders online. It was extremely successful revenue-wise, but unfortunately I didn’t understand a thing about tax structures and deductions and still ended up running it out of my father’s extra room upstairs. At that time (I was 20 years old), my only goal was to start and run a profitable company longer than the average of 2 years. A year after passing that goal, I gave it up because of increased competition with Dell who had gained market and mind share and had lower costs.
Since then I’ve launched a myriad of other companies. Some were mildly successful, others were not. My version of success has changed after every startup. I refine more and more what it means to me to be successful.
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