How I Quit My Job and Moved to Thailand With My Family

Just a few weeks ago I celebrated the 1-year anniversary on my second drop shipping store. Over the past 12 months, that store has generated over $560,000 in revenue and almost $60,000 in profit. I cannot believe that just a few short years ago I was only dreaming of being where I am today!

My store’s sales from July 2016 to July 2017

What’s crazy is that I meet so many people who tell me that they’d love to do what I do… work from home, travel whenever we like and even choose to live overseas.

But most of those people think that they can’t. That somehow I’m different to them or that they don’t have what it takes.

I always tell them that I’m nothing special. All I did was follow my heart and never ever give up.

Usually, I end up sharing my whole back story with people who ask how I got started so I thought it’d be a great idea to post it here to share with even more people who may ask me how I got started.

I found an email that I sent to a friend who I met on my flight home from last years Drop Ship Lifestyle retreat in Hawaii explaining how I got to where I am today. I remember thinking at the time that it’d make a great blog post one day… Here it is!

Matt Scott’s Journey

Hey mate,

You haven’t read the 4 Hour Work Week? Man, that’s like the bible for online entrepreneurs. That book started it all for me. Tim Ferriss, the author, is soon to release a 10-year anniversary version of the book next year. Be warned though it may change your life once you read it!

You asked how I got started?

Well, I’m half way across the Pacific at the moment on an 11-hour flight back from Hawaii where I attended the 2016 Drop Ship Lifestyle Retreat so I’m going to give you the long version!

Myself and my buddy Jacob devouring an awesome Hawaii breakfast at the 2016 DSL retreat

Perhaps you should grab yourself a cuppa (or beer)!

Here’s how I quit my job and built a location independent business…

My online business journey began in late 2014 after I had a mid-20’s crisis some 12-months earlier when my daughter was born.

Myself and my daughter only a few days old.

At the time I was working in a job that I neither loved nor hated and was just ‘coasting’ through life. The thought that this was ‘it’ for me suddenly dawned on me and it honestly scared the shit outa’ me!

The fear of living an unfulfilling life motivated me to start looking for something else which led me to the vast and confusing world of online business. I dove right in and started reading blogs, listening to podcasts then eventually stumbles across Tim Ferriss’ book ‘The 4 Hours Work Week’.

My mind was blown.

Immediately I was obsessed. I had found the answer. I knew from that point on there was something else for me. I had the power to change the path my life was heading.

The question was how?

I began following the action tasks in The 4 Hour Work Week. First, I wrote down my dream-line and really thought for a long time about the things I wanted to have and the life I wanted to experience which was actually quite hard to do. I realised that I’d never given myself the opportunity to dream and had never imagined anything other than mediocre. There was a whole big world out there that was now within my reach to discover.

At this point I’d started to share my new ‘out there’ ideas around with my family, friends and work colleagues. No one could relate. Most reactions I got from people was something along the lines of ‘wow, that sounds great’, but with the look and body language of ‘are you kidding yourself?’.

Secondly, after I’d given my mind the freedom to dream, I had to find a way to make those dreams a reality; I needed what Tim Ferriss refers to as a ‘muse’.

One of my early ventures was to start an eBay business. I bought one of the ‘For Dummies’ books on eBay business and began implementing the steps. My business idea was called “Matt’s Shed”, and would consist of selling things I’d collected from around my house and things I’d found at garage sales to generate an income.

This didn’t get me very far.

Another Idea I had was to create my own product for the construction industry. Tim Ferriss described in The 4 Hour Work Week how to reverse engineer a product by speaking to industry magazine editors and asking for reader numbers and advertising budgets. From there I could find out what products are selling and what gap in the market I could fill.

But, after finally summoning the courage to call and speak with a few editors, I realised that I was way out of my league. There was just too much to learn before I could create my own product.

My third attempt was to create a blog website. The problem I faced was that I was boring as hell; my weekends consisted of going to the local hardware store, fixing things around the house and working in the veggie garden.

What could I possibly write about?

I found the answer a little while later down my street. A neighbour of mine had a strip along the side of his fence that was just grass and rather unsightly. At the time I had access to native plants through my job. I knew nature strip gardens we’re becoming a trend in some inner-city suburbs so I decided to take on the project of turning my neighbour’s grass nature strip into a native garden.

I documented the whole process from start to finish and, through research, found out how to create a blog website.

Looking back I think my nature strip garden blog was really more of a passion project as I had no idea how I’d ever make money from it.

In October 2014 my family and I embarked on our first overseas trip to Phuket, Thailand for a good friend’s wedding where I experienced another pivotal moment in my thoughts of what was achievable. I loved Thailand and wanted more!

Us at our good friend’s wedding in Phuket, Thailand October 2014

Soon after I got back I began researching living in Thailand and came across a book by Johnny FD called ‘Life Changes Quick’ which brought my two dreams of online business and travelling to Thailand together. In his book, Johnny talked about discovering Dropship Lifestyle and building an eCommerce business from scratch with no previous experience. As I read about Johnny’s success with drop shipping I knew this was something I had to try!

I remember being so excited to start DSL for myself that I didn’t even finish the book before purchasing the DSL course. In fact, I didn’t even tell my wife Amy that I wanted to buy it!

I bought the Dropship lifestyle course. This was it!

Whenever I had the chance I was watching the instructional video training and beginning to build what I felt was my first real online business.

It took me a few months to watch the video’s, choose a niche, build my store, get suppliers and upload all of the products to my website. All the while I was running into problem after problem as I was one of the only people within the DSL community building a drop shipping business within Australia. But, I powered through and eventually got everything working as it should.

A few weeks later…. Cha-ching! I made my first ever sale. I had a real business of my own! To this day I still remember the feeling of absolute joy (and shock) when that notification came through that someone had bought a product from a business I had created from nothing.

My first ever sale! Woo hoo!

Since that first sale much has changed. I ended up selling my first store and going on to build several other online businesses in a number of online business methods; many of which are still making me money today.

So there you have it. That’s how I got started with my business.

Cheers,

Matt.

Where I am Today

In September 2016 I handed in my resignation at my day job, we sold our family home and really moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand the following January where I achieved what I thought was impossible just a few short years beforehand.

Living Back in Australia

Today we’re back living in Australia, getting ready for Issy to start pre-school kinder next year and searching for our next family home.

Chiang Mai was amazing. We stayed there for 2-months but ultimately we realised that living in South East Asia as a family just wasn’t sustainable long term. We’ve since been on smaller trips to places like Bali.

Myself and Issy poolside at Bali

My Businesses

My eCommerce stores are doing really well. I’m on track to do $1,000,000 in revenue over the next 12-months which is crazy. I’m also planning on starting a third drop shipping store later on this year as well.

I still earn a little passive income from my affiliate sites that I built before I started my eCommerce stores as well.

Family and Travel

Spending every day working from home is amazing. I can’t tell you how cool it feels to be able to play with my daughter and make money! We’ve all grown so much closer as a family 🙂

We’re planning our next family trip to Hawaii or perhaps to the Gold Coast in Australia to take Issy to see the theme parks there.

Follow My Journey

Be sure to keep in touch with me on Facebook or come and join the Lifestyle Flipper Community. I’m always happy to answer questions and share my tips and tricks on how you can get started on your own lifestyle-flipping journey.