The Ultimate Digital Nomad Shoppable Guide 2019-2020

10 Products Every Digital Nomad Needs

Life on the go doesn’t have to mean roughing it. Stay classic and stylish with these essentials and look like a professional whether you’re in a conference room in New York or a cafe in Bali.

Here’s what every digital nomad should never leave home without!

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Kuzy

Laptop Case

For most digital nomads, your laptop is your life blood. That little device allows you to make a living, stay connected with family and friends and stay entertained on long haul flights. Keep you electronic BFF safe with a classic case that goes with everything and won’t easily show scratches and scrapes.

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Herschel Supply Co.

Backpack

Not your high school backpack. This modern construction, sleek and minimalist backpack is perfect for as a carry-on and something you could bring to a business meeting. It’s big enough to fit a laptop, plus all the essentials.

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Beats

Headphones

Headphones are a must for any traveler these days. These ones are perfect for drowning out airplane noise, editing, listening to music and taking conference calls in crowded places. Not a fan of over-ear headphones? Try the earbud version instead.

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Rebecca Minkoff

Carry-On Roller Bag

Pack the absolute most into your roller bag with one like this. The hard shell makes it durable and the wheels can make it over most terrain. The inside pockets provide enough compartments to stash smaller items so they don’t get lost.

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Samsill Corporation

Notebook

Even if your business is entirely digital, it’s still nice to keep a notebook on-hand. This one has a water resistant cover and dot grid sheets making it so you can even use it as a bullet journal (and spill a cocktail on it - but try not to do that).

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UV400 Sunglasses

Lightweight, durable and guaranteed to spark the question “where did you get those?!”. These sunnies work for guys and gals. The best part: futuristic vibes with 100% UV protection - because eye damage in the name of fashion is so not cool.

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TIJN

Blue Light Computer Glasses

The eye damage doesn’t stop when you go indoors. Blue light blocking glasses are essential for anyone (read: everyone) who spends their day staring at a screen to decrease eye strain. Blue light blocking glasses are also crucial for anyone susceptible to macular degeneration. Hour 10 of video editing, here we come…

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CAMKIX

Universal Smartphone Camera Lens Kit

Odds are that if you’re living the digital nomad life, you’re probably documenting and sharing every step of the journey. If any extra bag of camera gear is not your thing a detachable lens for your phone might be. CamKix makes a universal lens kit so you don’t have to worry about upgrading when you upgrade your phone.

SightPro

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Laptop Privacy Screen

It’s not the sexiest gift on the list, but it’s probably the most underrated and over appreciated. A privacy screen decreases glare so you can actually see your screen while on a beach or outdoor cafe AND prevents looky-looers from seeing that confidential client email. SightPro makes magnetic screens for pretty much all laptops (not just for Mac users).

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Lacie

Portable 5TB Hard Drive

Even in a world of cloud storage, you’ll be hard pressed to find a digital nomad that will turn down an external drive. With a LaCie you really can’t go wrong, especially with 5TB for only $149. Five hours of drone footage? No problem.

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Have requests for next year’s list? Let me know on Twitter or Instagram.

Some links may be affiliates.

Startup Fundraising: Three Things to Think About Before You Open a Round

You have idea, you’ve found a co-founder and maybe even built a product and have some early customer traction. The next step? If you’re building a venture scale company, you probably want to open a Seed Round.

Raising you Seed Round of Funding

1. Incorporation: In the United States, investors won’t even look at you unless you are a Delaware C Corp. Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and other business entities are not as well set up to take on outside funding, so it’s often too much legal work for investors to carry.
   
   Many founders go with a LLC structure in the beginning because a C-Corp is “double taxed”, whereas an LLC only pays taxes once. HOWEVER, in reality because startups reinvest most if not all of their profits, they rarely actually get doubled taxed.

2. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) Fight Club Rule: The SEC passed a rule in 2015 called Rule 506(c) which prohibits companies from “General Solicitation”. This means that companies are not allowed to advertise or publicly disseminate information about the round (or anything that involves exchanging money for equity). This includes: how much money you are raising, your valuation, what you would do with the money, burn rate or runway.
   
   A lot of startups and publications are unaware of this rule and can get in trouble with the SEC, which as a cash strapped startup, in the last thing you need. So who can you talk to? According to the SEC, only accredited and sophisticated investors. Generally, anyone at a VC firm and accredited angel investors. A person will know if they are accredited or not and don’t be afraid to ask. In closing: the second rule of fundraising: you don’t talk about fundraising.

3. The Checklist: Despite not being able to publicly talk about your raise amount, valuation and burn rate, milestones, and runway, these are things that you will need to know when you do land a meeting or call with an investor. For Seed Rounds, investors typically like to see a raise amount that will give you 18 months or more of runway.
   
   When calculating your pre-money valuation, keep in mind that you don’t want to give away more than 25%-30% of your company in your first raise. For example, if you are asking for $1M and your pre-money valuation is $3M, once you raise $1M you would have given up 25% of your company ($1M / [$1M + $3M] = 25%). Your burn rate and runway is completely dependent on what city you are in (overhead) and how much you need to pay yourselves and your staff to remain competitive.

This is far from a complete list, it’s merely the top three things I wished I’d known when we started getting into venture capital. If you want to know more gritty details, check out Venture Deals by Brad Feld:

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

and these other books on building a startup.

Your Instagram Captions Are Annoying - Tips for Personal & Business Accounts

Every marketer under the sun is touting long captions as a method to increase engagement on Instagram. It can work BUT if the caption is 500 words for the sake of having 500 words, followers keep on scrolling.

The TL;DR: Words matter. You need to provide value so we put together the top three instagram caption tips:

1.     Economy
Make every word matter. Study websites that you admire. Don’t be afraid to go big. Look at Facebook ads, Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple, Amazon. They have almost unlimited ad budget and have likely perfected boiling down information into its purest form. Just. Do. It.

2.      The Hook

Movies, newspapers, magazines, and radio all use a hook at the beginning to pull the reader/viewer/listener in. Craft a one-liner to open your caption using who, what when, where, why. What is the problem, what is the solution and why should the reader care, right away.

3.     Evoke Emotion

Try to evoke an emotion with the first three words. This sounds impossible, but it can happen. Using the “when +  I + [blank verb] ” construction is the most effective. “When I saw…”, “When I was…”, When I fell…” make people want to know more, enticing them to click on the ellipsis to read more. For example, “When I jumped out of a plane…” or “When we launched our million dollar product…” makes people want to know more. A word (or three) or caution: constructions with was/were as the verb are the weakest you can use. Try to keep the verb active.

A scroll-stopping image is key as well, and nowadays, doesn’t even have to be particularly related to the caption content, so long as both provide value.