Read Time: 7 min

How I learned to run my business from anywhere in the world.

Anyone can work remotely with these 6 learnings.

Learn from my mistakes.

Studying in Japan was an eye-opener for me.

I knew I wouldn’t return to my sedentary life in Germany.

I feel much more alive in all the incredible places other than in Germany.

I asked myself back then: How do I run my business from anywhere in the world?

I was lucky that my co-founder thought the same way.

This was the start of the most incredible journey of my life.

Looking back, building that remote-first game studio was the best decision of my life.

I have learned and grown so much during these years.

One of my biggest learnings is how to lead healthy, motivated teams.

I found 6 key things you need to run your business successfully from anywhere in the world.

It doesn't matter if the distance to the team is 1km or 10,000 km.

These 6 things apply to everyone.

I made many mistakes while figuring out how to do it right.

I'm sharing these mistakes with you so you can learn from them.

Get the life you want to live faster.

Every business that can be digitalized 100% can become 100% location-independent.

If you have a physical product or an on-site service, remote work is only possible for part of the team.

But you can work remotely if your work is in front of a computer screen.

Ignore everyone who tries to make you believe otherwise.

6 learnings from running a business successfully from anywhere in the world

1. Invest in your tools.

I was a Linux boy during university.

I always got the cheapest laptop I could find with the lowest specs.

After all, I don't need that powerful, expensive stuff; my Debian runs fine on a Raspberry Pi.

I spent days reinstalling, updating, and fixing my beloved Debian.

And weeks to decide on a new cheapest laptop because the old one got too slow for me.

Time that I don't want to waste when running a business and living next to a tropical beach.

This was when I started to invest in myself by investing in high-quality hardware.

Yes, I'm using the strongest MacBook Pro you can find today.

In between, I used Microsoft Surface devices.

Why did I switch from 400 EUR laptops to 5k EUR machines?

Have you ever tracked your time waiting for a page or app to load?

Have you tracked the time you spend maintaining your device?

Maybe it's even worse, and you're waiting for your text editor to catch up with your typing speed.

These are many tiny interruptions throughout the day, and they accumulate quickly.

Your tools should enable, support and speed up your work.

You have the wrong tool if it slows you down.

The cheap laptops from my student time were slowing me down.

I use a simple rule to make sure I can be as productive as possible:

If you use it every day, invest in it.

This applies to my laptop, to my phone, and even to my toilet paper.

Another reason to invest in the flagships is that you can replace them fast anywhere in the world.

I could break my MacBook right now.

Walk to the next Apple Store.

And continue working as if nothing happened 2 hours later.

I don't get that replacement and setup service with cheap products.

The time you spend offline costs you more than it costs you to buy an overpriced product that works out of the box.

2. 100% digital business

I can't stress enough how important being 100% digital in your business is.

Not 80%, not 99%, a 100%.

Most blockers in your business come from you not working 100% digital.

Every time:

You needed information but didn't know where to find this information.
A colleague is sick but has something you need to continue.
You can't access the newest version of your code because it is on the computer of that colleague who is on vacation.

All these are normal in most companies.

All these can be entirely avoided by digitalizing your business.

If you want your team to work independently, they need access to all the information.

And this only works if everything is in the cloud.

This means no Post-its, paper notebooks, or knowledge stored in human memory.

I had an eye-opening experience with this when one of my team got stuck in a war zone.

No internet, no electricity, no sign of life for days.

Their work for the past two weeks was lost because they didn't commit once during that sprint.

Another example was during a sprint review meeting where I tested the next increment.

I couldn't test half of the features, and this was the excuse of the team:

"Oh, we finished that already; we just need to upload it.”

This is when I introduced another simple rule:

Work only exists when it is in the cloud.

I don't care if you worked hard on something; if you didn't make it accessible to everyone, you didn't do it.

It solved so many issues I never thought about before.

3. Focus on what is essential

I am travelling the world as a digital nomad with only a carry-on suitcase and a small backpack.

I don't own anything else.

The carry-on suitcase is filled with “luxury” items that are not essential to my life.

The obvious benefit of having so little luggage is that I have less stress travelling.

No luggage that can get lost.
No heavy things that I must drag over cobblestones up a hill to get to my dream cabin in the woods.

Owning so little possessions frees space for other things.

I can focus on the things that are most essential to me.

Going back to investing in your tools, I know exactly which tools to invest in and which not.

It is not essential if it doesn't fit into my tiny luggage, and I don't need to spend money on it.

I apply the same rule of essentialism to my business life.

It is not essential if it doesn't fit into my 4-hour workday.

This forces me to prioritize rigorously.

I only work on the most important things (like this newsletter).

I'm over the 9-5.

The 20-hour work week should be the default.

Most businesses don't need more than 20-hour work weeks to achieve the same or higher results.

The reason for 8-hour work days is that everyone is busy, but no one is working on anything valuable.

I know people who do 3-4 hours of productive work for their company weekly.

It is enough that they get outstanding performance reviews.

They still get more work done than most people in their companies.

Don't work more or harder; work on what is essential.

Do you want to spend all day in front of your computer or go for a hike in nature?

It is your choice, and with this article, you have all you need to make it happen.

4. A motivated and independent team

Focusing on the essentials will give you a huge performance boost, but it only gets you so far.

To unlock your true potential, you need motivation.

And a team that is motivated and works independently.

I believe that the pandemic was great for our work environments.

It showed problems in our traditional office culture and forced us to find solutions.

The biggest problem brought to light is demotivated teams that can't work on their own.

The role of a leader in this traditional office culture is to whip their team to spit out results.

If you work remotely, leaders lose control over their teams and must find other ways to get their results.

The leader's role shifts to be a servant of the team.

I don't want a team that I constantly need to push to achieve the smallest possible results.

I want a team that takes the project out of my hands and returns early with better results than I could have dreamed of.

The key is to motivate them autonomously.

I do precisely that as a game designer when designing a fun game.

And I apply the same methods when I lead a team.

The results are incredible!

If you want to learn more about how to gamify your work, sign up for my newsletter.

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5. Great communication skills

We have all heard this a million times before: Communication is key.

I'm surprised that most people are still so bad at communicating.

You need to fix your communication when working remotely.

Your communication failed if:

Someone needs to ask you questions to continue working,
They don't produce the results you were expecting,
Or they miss deadlines.

You don't need a million meetings to get your team on board.

You only need one meeting and a digital knowledge base where they can read up on the details.

In this meeting, you clarify what is asked of the team.

Communicate precisely, direct, clearly, and as soon as possible.

Ask questions until you have everything you need to work independently.

There are no stupid questions, only people who are scared to show they don't have the answer.

When your team doesn't ask questions, ask your team to reflect back to you what they understood.

This will show you the areas that are unclear and need more attention.

6. A budget for remote workspaces

When I'm developing games, I create virtual environments.

Environments that make achieving the goal of the game fun for the player.

If done wrong, the environment will annoy the player.

The same applies to your working environment.

I will not go into details here, but offices are the best example of failed environment design.

And our homes are often even worse for focused work.

Weak internet connection.
No silent room to work productively.
A construction site across the street.

So, I give my team and myself a budget of 300 EUR per month to create the best working environment they can get.

It's that simple and doesn't cost you much compared to its benefits.

Just think what it costs the business if one person can't work productively for a day.

Internet in my apartment falls out?

No problem I get an unlimited mobile data package for the day and continue working.

Noisy environment?

No problem, I get a co-working space for the month.

The chair I'm sitting on gives me back pain?

No problem, I buy a better chair.

Your environment is critical to your productivity and happiness at work.

And it is easy to shape your environment to support you instead of hinder you.

It is a solved problem thanks to game design.

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6 Key things you need to run youR business from anywhere in the world.