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http://www.treptalks.com Interview with Andrew Henderson Transcript Sushant: Hey Treps ! this is Sushant, the founder and host of TrepTalks and joining me today is a very special guest, whose name is Andrew Henderson, and he’s joining me from Jacarta? Andrew: In Bangkok, Thailand. Sushant: Bangkok. You’ve traveled so many places, it’s becoming confusing for me. So he is a perpetual traveler, he is an international entrepreneur, he is a citizen of the world, and he values personal freedom and his mission is to find the best places to live, start a business, and invest. Today I wanted to ask him a few questions about his entrepreneurial journey, where he started, and what his goal is by traveling and creating a lifestyle through traveling different places. So, I really appreciate your time today, Andrew. Welcome to the show. Andrew: It’s great to be with you. Sushant: Alright, so let’s start off with you know, you mentioned a little bit about that you were in the US and you were in the radio industry, and what happened? Give us a little bit about the back story, how you got out of the radio industry and decided to travel. Andrew: Well, I’ve been traveling my entire life, when I grew up my parents took me places all around the world. As a very young child my mom was a flight attendant, so she traveled to a lot of places and she wanted to instill that in me. When I was nine, or almost nine, we went on a couple weeks’ trip to Europe, and that was kind of what really turned me into a traveler. I came back and I had these two big maps hanging on my wall, one of the world and one of the US, and the US never so much interested me but I was always planning where I wanted to go, where I wanted to live, in the world. And so, I think that I kept that spirit throughout my childhood and throughout adult life. And so even as I was running businesses in my twenties, I made time to travel and I was fortunate enough to be able to run the business from different places around the world. So basically I had this radio business I built up from age nineteen, I was in it for about seven or eight years, and the radio business is not a growing business, it’s one that I love, but I felt like I had done as much as I could do. I felt like I had changed some of the things on the lower end of the spectrum for smaller clients, and I felt like I had worked with larger clients that were great. Fortune 100 customers, direct marketers who spent millions and millions of dollars, but I felt like there was not much more for me to do, and I saw a transition, not only out of radio and into other mediums, but out of the western world, out of the United States and into other places. And so I, having
http://www.treptalks.com already traveled a lot, I wanted to explore a lot of these more far-‐flung places that I felt like opportunities were going to. Sushant: Okay, that’s great. So you got out of radio, you started to travel. I mean, at first was it really just to travel, you know, a few different places? Because right now you’re traveling and you’re doing more of an entrepreneurship. Like, what are your goals, you main goal, with travelling? Andrew: I think that travel is something that I recommend to so many people. In fact if I, as an entrepreneur, I kind of put the value of university and education below actual business skills. And so if I had kids who were going off to college I would say listen, maybe take a year and go to India, or go to Cambodia, or go to some kind of relatively inexpensive, emerging place, and learn life skills. Learn business skills, make observations. That’s what I try and do. Certainly travel is fun, and the first time you go somewhere it’s really intriguing, and you love seeing the sights. But you know, at this point, I really just love going and just being somewhere and not, you know, look, I was in Cambodia for a month, up until a couple days ago, and I made sure to spend four days out of the month going to the temples and engorvat, and all of that, and there’s still lessons you can learn there about business and life and all that, and history. But in a really, I’m trying to figure out, how does a culture work, you know, what are the social norms, what are people, you know, what are people putting their money into, how are consumers spending money? I would just like to kind of be a fly on the wall and kind of watch what’s happening and make observations. Sushant: So that is an interesting thing. I would assume that that’s more of a probably personal interest, because during my, you know, it’s a great thing to travel, because during my university I had the opportunity to do, take a couple of internships, go to, I actually lived in Israel for a little bit, I lived in Ireland for a little bit, and I really enjoyed those experiences. But at this point, you know, three years, four years, down the road, I don’t think building my career, I don’t think I would actually want to go to a different country and try to start that. But it seems that you’re interested more, you’re more interested really to understand how the financial systems work in different places and how the business systems work and you’re trying to figure out which places are easier to start businesses at. And so what are your, some lessons that you learned through your travel experiences, in terms of which places are good to start business in? Andrew: Yeah, I think that everywhere can teach you something. Certainly. I am going to more emerging places now because I want to find out , you know, where is money going? I’ve been to the more touristy spots yeah. I’ve been to Paris. I don’t know that that many people are really ever thinking of starting a business in Paris. People may say, “Hey, it’s romantic. I want to live in Paris.” Or, “I want to go and live
http://www.treptalks.com there and write poetry,” or whatever else, but look, I’ve learned things from even when I was in London. I don’t know, not that many years ago, and saying, “Hey, how come I am making 0.7% in my, you know, in my savings account in the US, and they’re making 2% here, and you see, just, subtle things. And you want to, kind of, you want to understand why those things happen. So now I’m going to places where I look for growing consumer markets and big growth. You know, you’re right. There are different places that you’d maybe want to live and places that you’d want to invest. Cambodia, I mean, I’m very bullish on, in terms of a consumer market, but I think there will be a lot of growth in the next year. In fact, I was talking to a lawyer friend of mine today here in Bangkok, who thinks that that’s probably the next big play here in Southeast Asia, and that’s now, whether someone wants to live there or not, you can, you can live relatively well, relatively cheaply, you’re not going to get killed or anything like that, but I think it’s incredibly easy to start a business there. I think that a lot of these frontier markets, where people aren’t going, it’s incredibly easy. But, I think that, there’s just a different way of thinking in the eastern hemisphere versus the west. The eastern hemisphere, I think, really understands that it’s on the verge of growth and prosperity, and there’s an optimism, whether it’s China, or here in Thailand, or wherever else, or as I think in the US and other places, it’s just kind of like, how do we hang on to dollars? And so, yeah, you can start a business in the US, I just think that, for the average person, who maybe doesn’t have a super innovative idea, or doesn’t have a ton of money, they can come to places like here in Southeast Asia where there’s five, six, seven, eight, ten percent growth, and open a restaurant, which in my opinion, is business suicide in the United States. But you can do it in places like this. So, to me that’s a good barometer. How many people can be entrepreneurs in addition to how low is the regulatory barrier and how much less time do you spend on the nonsense? Sushant: Okay, now I understand that. Now, of course, a lot of people are familiar with, you know, Tim Farris’s work and the idea that he generated through his four-‐ hour a workweek book, and his idea was that you can go to a different country. It’s basically about lifestyle design. You know, you can work, travel, and you don’t have to be stuck to one place. But what you’re saying is, you know, find a place where it’s easy to start a business and go there, and you can start a business and make money for yourself and create a lifestyle. What lifestyle, I mean, what lifestyle lessons have you learned through your travels? Andrew: Well I think that the most important lesson for me, and I think a lot of people in the west share this, is that you do want to enjoy life, and so, you know, what I do, going to all these different places and pretty much going to every country in a certain region, is, well there’s some countries that I wouldn’t want to be in. I’m glad for the experience. I’m glad for the learning opportunity. But—
http://www.treptalks.com Sushant: Which countries would those be? A couple of, would you mind telling it or— Andrew: Well, I mean I , you know, again, for me, I think Cambodia’s a fantastic investment. Would I want to live there? You know, if you’re going to run a business there it’s so frontier that you need to be there and be involved. You know, do I want to spend 365 days a year in Cambodia? You know, I might not. It would all depend. Everyone has a different opinion. And look, maybe if, maybe if, you know, I were more involved there and I saw that I was actually achieving a ten or twenty-‐x returns that a lot of people are getting in places like that, you know, it might motivate me more. But, you know, I’m an Asia guy, there’s you know, I’m not as much into South America or Africa, although I will go to those places. But, you know, in terms of lifestyle lessons, I think it’s important to not only enjoy the journey, but to, you know, focus on enjoying life and going to places where you want to go. So, perhaps someone doesn’t want to do what I do, and try and be a reporter on these places. But maybe they just want to go and live in, in two or three different places. Maybe they want to live here in Bangkok part of the year, or on the beaches in Thailand, and then they want to go to Ireland, you know, in the summer, and they just want to kind of move around. I think that valuing that is very important, it’s a good lesson to learn. Sushant: So I would say that, what I think Tim Farris says, having an online business is probably a better bet than, you know, starting a restaurant or something like that and getting stuck. Those kind of things definitely require a lot of time commitment. Andrew: Um-‐hum. Sushant: What are some of the interesting experiences, did you have like any, through your travels, some really great experiences that you may not have had in the US, or you may have seen some really interesting things? Are there? Andrew: Well, yeah. I think every day it’s interesting, it’s easy to fly hundreds of thousands of miles around every year, and just all kinds of, it kind of all starts to blur. The reality is that, you know, I think that the world, the lesson I learned is that the world is basically the same, so you know, when you get into travel, you say, “Hey, I’m going to go to Paris, or I’m going to go to Dublin,” and then it’s like, “Okay, let me venture further afield.” And eventually you’re like me, you’re like when can I, when can I get to North Korea? But Sushant: Are you planning to go to North Korea? Andrew: It’s on the list, I mean, I plan to do every country in the world, but I think that there’s some great experiences to, or some great lessons that you could learn
http://www.treptalks.com from North Korea. It’s an interesting place. I think that eventually we’ll see some changes and eventually it will be a place that may, perhaps even in our lifetime, that you’d want to invest in. But, you know, I, you know, I think that every day is an experience between eating crocodile on a beach barbecue to taking crazy forms of transportation, taking ferries with, you know, tons of, tons of , buses, on top of them on these creaky little ferries in Cambodia. Or eating fried spiders, or taking, you know, any of this stuff, any transportation, any food, any, you know, the stuff that people do, I just love seeing it. So because as much as we are similar, there’s different ways we go about doing things. So I mean, I could, I could count through any number of things in each country, I— Sushant: How do you, how do you deal with the language barrier in different countries? Or is it not that big of an issue anymore in this day and age? Andrew: Yeah I think it’s getting better, I think it’s getting better year by year, to be honest, I mean I have an assistant in Vietnam where five years ago English proficiency in Vietnam was relatively weak, and ten years ago it was like, “Well who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you in Vietnam?” So I think when you look at the change just year over year it’s just huge. You know, look, you use the hand signs that you know, people have maybe some understanding. But, I would put myself in the position of someone who, you know, may not be from the US, or may not speak English, and then I run into a lot of people from Russia, or from China. I’ve got tons of friends from China who travel all over the world and, you know, they make it. No one speaks their language, for the most part, so speaking English, it’s relatively easy, and, you know, a little bit of preparation, today’s tools, which you know, phones with maps, and everything like that, is, you know, it makes it pretty easy. Sushant: So what, now I’m getting really curious in the ballistics part of the thing. How, what do you carry in your luggage, since you’re traveling around the world so frequently, like what is your most essential things to carry around? Andrew: Well there’s, you know, it’s funny, things that I carry every day I leave, I have a backpack, and I have a piece of luggage, and I’m not perhaps the Tim Farris traveler, or the average backpacker, but every day I leave, I do take the backpack or I take a little, you know, smaller bag, that I take my laptop in and I’m doing work, you know, all of the time, I drink café’s, and I always think, yeah, you know what? There’s not much here that they can steal. They can take the suits or, you know, or the shoes, or whatever else, but you know, I’ve got my cellphone, I’ve got my computer, that’s probably the most valuable and irreplaceable thing. I’m not someone who brings three T-‐shirts. You know, that’s just me, I’m just meeting with business owners, I've met with people pretty far up in governments, you know, lawyers, so, you know, I have three or four suits. I’ve got, I think I just weighed it,
http://www.treptalks.com when I flew over here from CM Regional Cambodia, I think it was like sixty-‐two pounds. So I need to ship a few things back. That included a few trinkets to send home. But you know, I like to be prepared for anything. But the reality is, I mean, sixty-‐two pounds plus a backpack with a computer and microphone and some papers, and you know, you’re on your way. Sushant: So those are all, you know, positive experiences and things like that. Have you had any negative experiences as far as your travel? You know, like where you were, you know, maybe someone stole your stuff or you were robbed or, any negative experiences? So far? Andrew: I’ve never really, yeah, I’ve never really had any negative experiences. As I was going through the list the other day, you know, I ate in Cambodia from street vendors, I ate at restaurants, and again, these are places that are very unregulated. And there’s no, there’s no letters to tell you, “Oh this is an A grade restaurant, this is a B grade restaurant.” There’s none of that. But yet I was thinking, there’s only one place where I ever got food poisoning, was at a sandwich restaurant in Tempe, Arizona. So, you know, the only place I’ve ever had something stolen from me was, was in Arizona as well, where someone broke into my car. So, I’ve not had experiences, and I think that what’s interesting is, I read so many accounts of people’s travels, before I go to a place, but I don’t put that much stock in it anymore. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I read about Pudom Pen [sp], that there are no street lights, and that after six pm, the whole city is dark and you’ll get mugged. And there are street lights, I walked home with a laptop, you know, under my arm, at ten o’clock at night, and people would drive by, nothing ever happened. I really do think that basic common sense, putting the wallet in the front pocket, not wearing your Rolex out, you know, not flashing stuff around, not heading into bad neighborhoods or stumbling around intoxicated, I really don’t think that there are that many places that you have to freak out, you know? I’ve heard so many stories about, “Don’t go into that beach after ten o’clock, even if you’re a guy. You will be murdered and dumped into the sea.” And it’s like, you know, I’ve done these things. And so I take basic precautions but— Sushant: Yeah I think common sense definitely rules, but— Andrew: Yeah. Sushant: But you know, when you are in a new country, most definitely, you have to be a little bit prepared and take care, I mean, be looking around for things like that I guess. Well, is there any other lesson you would like to share with our viewer, like any big a-‐ha’s you might have had through your travel experiences? Anything you think our viewers might can benefit from?
http://www.treptalks.com Andrew: I think that one of the a-‐ha’s that I look at when, when I look at both traveling and I look at some of the business successes I had at home, is keep things simple. I think that so many people want to complicate things, they want to complicate the process of starting a business , they want to make it harder, they want to find the reasons. Oh I hear so often, it’s great that you can do that, but here’s why I can’t. I have a family, or I have this, or I have student loans. And I am not saying that people should live my lifestyle, maybe they just want to go and live, like I said, on one, in one place in another country. But keep it simple. You know, I had some of my greatest successes doing things that were amazingly simple, that were “Low-‐rent”, that were un-‐sexy. I think that when you look at maybe how people make their money, not only in the US, but especially around the world, it’s the guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously, it’s the guy who started a company, you know, hauling garbage. And it wasn’t about, hey how do I start a business to meet women and, you know, and whatever, or how do I start a bar or something. I think that there are maybe some places that— Sushant: Start a business to meet women? Andrew: No, who would do that? But yeah— Sushant: How do you do that, is that like start a bar or something? Andrew: Yeah, it’s like, “I’m going to start a nightclub and we’re going to, it’s going to be really sexy.” You mean, you know, I saw this in the radio business. Guys would buy FM radio stations and they would, you know, play pop music and have these tricked-‐out studios and it would be the hot, hot, thing, and I was like, “Yeah. I’m doing more money selling, you know, airtime on bad AM radio stations.” Because it was un-‐sexy, it was contrary and I was one of the fewer than a dozen people who was really doing what I was doing. And you look at these guys, who have the big fortunes, the guys in China who are billionaires, they started out, you know, selling, their parents sold stuff at street stalls at the market. And so, keep it simple, you know, un-‐sexy ideas I think often work, don’t involve ego in business I think that when you look at some of the people who are most successful in business, especially outside of the western world, it’s all about lack of ego, I’m going to pour my soul into this because this is how I’m going to feed my family, and it’s, it got big. Sushant: Yeah, I think that when I talk to successful entrepreneurs that this is a general theme that comes up again and again, is that if you are going to start a business to get money, or get women I guess. That is the first time I heard that. I guess you know it’s most likely going to fail because you’re coming from, I mean if you, business is about really about helping people achieve what they want to do and then in turn what you’re looking to achieve. And I think that is a really great
http://www.treptalks.com message. So I really, Andrew, appreciate your time today, I guess tonight at your place, it looks really nice outside behind you. And thanks for joining us at TrepTalks. Andrew: I thank you.
