Digital nomads have a pretty sweet working deal. Travel to whatever destination takes your fancy, set up your laptop with an amazing view in the background, and get to work on your own terms. It’s one of the best ways to work, offers amazing flexibility, and ensures your career features in your life, rather than becoming the feature of it.
However, running an online business of any kind already carries a lot of issues with it. Website competition, server upkeep, bad customer experience, to name a few. When you combine this with living a digital nomad lifestyle, things can get quite complicated. After all, if your workspace is as nomadic as you are, it may take a lot of time to adjust to having a 24/7 online presence!
That’s why you should be aware of the issues below before you set off. While working as a digital nomad is quite the privilege, it’s not always going to be smooth sailing. You’re still going to run into problems, just like any other workplace, and you need to be prepared to deal with those.
Spotty Wifi Can Be a Security Risk
If you don’t have a secured, private wifi to connect to 24/7, you open yourself up to a lot more online security risks than someone who works from home or an office. Your connection is going to be tenuous, it’s going to be inconsistent, and you might not know when you’ll next be able to get online.
When you do manage to connect back up, you do so on an unsecured wifi run by a hotel, hostel, cafe, or bar, and who knows if that’s been tampered with or not! Take this seriously. Unsecured wifi is no place for someone running an online business. Take along a portable wifi source of your own that you can protect with a password of your own.
Time Zones Can Affect Response Time
If you’re in a different time zone to the main bulk of your customers, your working hours are going to be very different to their shopping, booking, or commission hours. When they send through a request for a service, or clear checkout with a full basket, it may take hours for you to get back to them – by which time they might have already gone to bed themselves!
This can really slow down the pace of a project or order, and make it harder for you to deliver on time with the customer’s expectations. That’s why a lot of online businesses that are run remotely and/or nomadic make use of an on-call schedule as they get bigger.
If there’s always someone available on the employee roster to take a call or answer an email, customers are going to get the same service, no matter how much the clocks differ! Apply this principle to your own working pace while you’re out on your travels by making it clear when and where customers will hear back from you.
It’ll Be Hard to Make Physical Copies
A physical backup is always a good idea, usually in the form of an external harddrive, as it ensures you’ve got a databank to plug in in case anything happens to your cloud server. This can then be protected behind lock and key, and with the right software you can even put a password on the drive itself.
However, if you’re going to be traveling as you work, you’re going to want to pack light and keep your luggage to a minimum. This can make carrying around an external drive quite difficult, and it can also pose extra security risks in case the drive gets lost or stolen. This means you’ll have to routinely check the state of your server storage, and even keep multiple digital backups of the data there.
It Might Take Time to Find Employees with a Complementary Schedule
Expanding your online business usually occurs in the form of bringing in new staff. A social media manager, for example, or a PA who can keep an eye on things for you. However, if you’re going to be in different time zones all the time, bringing in an employee or two with a complementary schedule can be tricky.
You need to find someone who’s OK with working flexible hours, and if possible, is available within the hour when you get in touch with them. Always make this clear to anyone who answers your job posting; your nomadic work style is part of the job and needs to be taken into account.
Getting Stuck in an Airport Could Mean Less Working Hours
It’s one of the worst things that can happen when you’re traveling. You get to the airport late, maybe only ten minutes or so before your flight departure time, and have no time to get to the gate before it takes off. Or maybe your flight has been canceled while you’re sitting in the lounge? Now you’ve got a lot of time to kill before the next flight touches down, and that could mean a lot of work gets held up.
Sure, you’re stuck in one position for a little while in an area that’s well connected, but you could be tired, already dealing with jet lag, or desperate to get back home or somewhere else in time for an important event. Don’t let yourself panic – unfortunately, this is part of the job! If this happens, immediately let the people involved know, make your apologies, and try to keep them updated on the situation as it develops.
If you’re a digital nomad with an online business, don’t let the work of being available 24/7 become too much for you. Enjoy your travels and the remote nature of your career, but always set aside time to take care of traditional business needs. If you don’t, there’s going to be some bad decisions involved! These will make it much harder to be seen as a legitimate, responsible, and respected business.
