Ep 15: Biking across Panama, 7 years of road wisdom and crafting sponsorships for GoPro, Lufthansa & Under Armor

Sean Tierney: 00:00 All right. Welcome to the nomad podcast. I’m sitting here with Andres Andres, welcome to the show.

Andrés Coen: 00:05 What’s up Sean? Thanks for the invitation. This means a lot and I want to let you know and everyone here in this that definitely English is not my first language and I will be speaking really fast and using complex words or I am asking for a lot of comprehension.

Sean Tierney: 00:20 Absolutely. [speaking spanish] okay. [speaking spanish] I’m just kidding. We’re going to do this in English. It’s not Andres’ native language, but he was very gracious. We are here on the nomad cruise right now on the very or the second to last day. Tomorrow’s the last day. I’m sitting here just as it going to be a rapid fire one because we got the closing ceremony uh, soon. So, uh, let’s dive right into it. Andres, what do you, do you have the most fascinating background and sources of income. Just please explain what you do.

Andrés Coen: 00:54 Yeah, he is pretty complex. What I do is not common. That’s the thing. And first of all, I want to say, um, that’s a lot of value. Like for the people that is listening to this podcast is like the fact that I’m from Latin America means that I have a lot of more extra challenges, extra challenges in these a nomad world wheat, which is cool because if I can do it then I know it’s going to be easier for a lot of people that don’t have these challenges. For example, like am I was born in Costa Rica racing panorama and like for bank accounts in Panama they don’t accept paypal Moni, so doing online business is a little bit complex. You have to do it through other countries, etc. Etc. Etc. What I do is first of all, if you want to, even from my point of view, obviously if you want to be successful in the nomad world and you have to have different lines of of income, so the first thing that I do, what I started doing is that I find sponsorships for social media doing specifically in direct contact creation campaigns and this happened without followers back in the day when Twitter and Instagram to start it.

Andrés Coen: 01:54 I think I’ve been, and no mother in this word for around seven years, I started creating like really, really, really creative ideas and pitching that idea to different companies around the world. So for example, one of the things I did back in the day, I’m married now, how I met my wife was, she’s from New York. So I really wanted to study in America and I had no idea how to do it on earnings, on money while doing it. So I created an idea in which I could, um, write content for universities in America in order for them to use in their blogs and their websites. And people in Latin America can apply to those universities. They will be inspired for my story of how a Latin American guy was in New York, Linda, so universities in America, we’re really, really excited of the idea. It was really, really creative. So there was like, yeah, I want this guy that I don’t really know who he is and I wanna I wanna listen to his idea. I want to see his content and they would hire me and they will, they will pay me in order to live in income, boost and create content for them. So that was a way in which they would target the Latin American audience.

Sean Tierney: 03:00 So let, let me just ask you, how did you even get that idea?

Andrés Coen: 03:02 Yeah, it was very creative, but I have a, I have like a, like a quote or a concept that is the aim. I seek rejection. So that’s how I had the opportunity for, for the pitch. I would create the whole idea and do a PowerPoint and started seeking rejection. I will send that to emails. I will go online for four hours only searching for universities that would be open, would be interested to have a Latin American students. And I will just send powerpoints or ideas like, Hey, I want to pitch to these. I want to beat this. How did I get the idea? And there’s a famous movie over there in the sun there. I don’t know. I don’t remember that is this guy did, was this girl that she was a journalist and she was living in a university. Being as a journalist saying like how the whole experience was.

Andrés Coen: 03:48 I saw it in a movie and I was like, Whoa, this is amazing. I’m gonna find a way. So a university will pay me in order for me to be the journalist or the blogger, whoever, in order to do that, this happened without followers. This is the important thing here. Because people see it today, my social media, and they’re like, oh, it’s easy for you to find sponsorships because you have followers. At the beginning it wasn’t like that. It was through creativity that brands would align to that concept or the crazy idea that I did and that they will pay, they will accept that they will relocate part of their marketing in order to like let’s experiment with this guy that has a cool idea. And because of that I started doing creative things and people started following me. So I think that the fan base aim appeared after sponsorships.

Andrés Coen: 04:33 And to this day I’ve already created like I think around 45 different ideas and that one of studying abroad was one. But I’ve done like either from books to graffiti events to a foot into the food industry, everything. So one of the things I want to address is that I work with concepts. What I do with these campaigns is that I create a specific concept and I find brands that are aligned with that concept. So for example, one of the first things I did was in Spanish it was Holland. More opinion, it’s salary sofa, which translates into get off the couch. So I would encourage people to get off the couch, just get out of the comfort zone and do cool things. So brands that were thinking in that, how does Logan that is like get out of the car. Like it’s relatable. So for example, converse, converse wants to do really crazy things. I don’t know who don’t read or sneakers. There are a lot of brands that they want to be creative and they want to show their called that, that they are creative. So if you create a concept that aligns with specific brands, it’s going to be easier to receive. Yes. In ideas that you beach. So,

Sean Tierney: 05:35 so you had that concept, you something about just like get, get up off your butt and go do stuff and then you went and pitched specific brands that you thought might, that might resonate with who then would be on board with it. And what kind of following, like what kind of followers are we talking about here?

Andrés Coen: 05:50 At the beginning we’ll see row at the beginning I would have, I would, for real, I will create an idea with a specific concept for idea and per industry. So I’m going to give you another example to have some discrete street credit over here. Um, as I mentioned, I was racing in Panama, so I did all Panama riding bicycle. It took us 32 days and it was 10 miles per day and I’m not an athlete. So what I did is like, Hey, I really want to challenge my body. What brands over there want people to tell us their body. So what I did is like I’m going to do all Panama by bike. I would do a concept in that day it was like, dude, you can do it. That was like the concept or the Hashtag that I use, which in Spanish we’ll translate to [inaudible] like in Panama and I would like for the, for example for bicycles I would target 10 different companies that could sponsors bicycles and I will do a specific presentation like tailor made for all of the 10 companies. I will do the same with outfits. For example, like under armor was our sponsor for that thing. But I would also be to Nike, to Adidas, to under Armour to every also like red bull work with all those Gatorade work with laws with, I would pitch it to the t like around 10 brands per thing that could be sponsored, you know?

Sean Tierney: 07:04 And so what do you, what do you, did you make some kind of prototype or what are you pitching them with or what are you approaching them with

Andrés Coen: 07:10 in that case? In that specific case usually usually changes, but in that specific case, and I hired a videographer, a friend of mine now, I still work with him is his name is Ari team and he came to the trip and he would, he would be doing video, he will be doing a video on different companies that wanted to show that their product was being used, would then use these video content in order to add that to their social media. So it was like for the brands in that specific moment, it had a lot to do with content creation and that’s a way of indirect marketing. And today we know how every influence, like content creation is, it’s relevant. You know, it’s definitely a huge business there agencies that specifically focused on content creation. So a lot of the time is content creation. What I promote, you know,

Sean Tierney: 07:56 okay, so this effort was this enough to sustain you? Or like this is kind of what opened the door to the nomadic lifestyle. Are you, I know you have multiple streams of revenues, so maybe,

Andrés Coen: 08:06 yeah, that’s a good idea. So to add, okay, so the like these get off the couch movement was how I started. I started going to the universities in encouraging people to get off the couch, get off the couch, get off the couch. What happened later is that brands will tell me, hey, you’re receiving a lot of traction grid d doing really cool stuff. Could you use my brand in your next event or in your next activity? And when I saw that that was profitable, I was like, I’m going to start like thinking bigger and want to do activities overseas. I’m going to find the way. I’m going to find a way to, to be able to pitch ideas that are international. And that’s how I did it. I went through all China with three different sponsors that they wanted people to know that there are products could be bought in China on in different places, etc.

Andrés Coen: 08:52 There was another bag brand that they wanted to, that I could travel with to so many countries with that bag, et cetera. So what I would do is that, um, when I realized that they were brands over there, one thing to have creative ideas, they wanted people to pitch their ideas. I was like, Hey, I’m going to take advantage of that. I’m going to be the one pitching ideas everyday, everyday because there’s a lot of people out there but they have a lot of ideas but they don’t find sponsors. They don’t ask. They assume that brands would say no. They assumed that I haven’t really good case. So Lufthansa in highend airline, it’s pretty cool. And when they started offering Wifi in the overseas, like from Europe to Central America flights and I was like, Hey, so I’m from Latin America, I can create a, I can do a Facebook live and an Instagram life from that airplane in the top, you know, like while traveling and show that to the Latin American community, the, it’s definitely possible.

Andrés Coen: 09:51 And you can use that as content for your own social media because you can, like, you have users testing your brothers, you know, like what they wanted to do is they wanted more people to understand the, the one that most people don’t understand that Wifi was cool, was legit, it was enough to do a call. So by offering them, like, like by offering them the idea by volunteering, by pitching, like, by showing what is it for them like, like a lot of parents would say, yes, I’m definitely, I uh, as I mentioned I will send a lot of emails but with one years was usually enough to have the whole event. And by creating like big events or big things that was pictures for portfolios that will give me better street creds for the next time I was going to pitch to different brands at the same time.

Andrés Coen: 10:34 Like if a good brand said yes and in one event and that event was successful, the same brand could sponsor Jen, other events, other events, other events. So to the the Eh, today what I do the most is that I earn income through um, through sponsorships, based on creative ideas of concepts like creative concepts. And that’s how I started traveling and doing these really cool things with, gave me a bigger fan base. Then I realized because now that I’ve been like five years on the road, I realized that there are so many ways of doing money online that I want to teach specifically Spanish speaking people but everyone, because Americans have a way easier and when I’m talking specifically like not about in life, I don’t want to know and we’ll find that I’m talking specifically about like the privilege of like banking for example.

Andrés Coen: 11:20 Like in America you can contact, you can connect like your paypal to your bank account easily, easily, easily. For us it’s not that easy. Also like then more and all of the technology that you guys have, it’s like if you want to do Amazon, Ebay like for America is really, really cool. You just have to do it. So what I’m doing is I created an online academy that is from passion to project in which I teach people that they can create a digital project out of their passions, whatever their passion is. You know, it doesn’t matter if it’s football, if it’s food, if it’s Vig, whatever you are passionate about, you can create an project. So I also have it on in a car I me, I have a blog, I do affiliate marketing in which I would recommend things and receive a percentage am I have youtube, I would monetize youtube of course, and doing videos, answering questions that most people have and also like a travel blog.

Andrés Coen: 12:08 I would encourage people to travel. I will tell them how to travels. And is this just you or do you have a company and people on your team or how are you managing this much stuff? I do a lot of VA’s. I hire a lot of people and that this is the beauty of the Internet. Like you don’t want to swell lies right now going through a tough time. So how are, how are people can help them? It’s really cool because they can help you. There’s an amazing talented people in Venezuela. So I would hire a lot of people online through platforms like Fiverr, work on upwork. I would also hire people from Argentina. I know that that’s because they speak Spanish obviously, and they’re really talented. I know that in English, and usually people hire three will hire people from me, like Va’s from India or Philippines.

Andrés Coen: 12:49 So it depends. But there’s always, always, always am someone that will happily, happily, happily work for you for a lower budget or for, for a budget that could meet your needs in that moment. You know, because I don’t know, like the dollar, which is the currency that we use is way stronger than other currencies. So I do understand how some people say, like for example, if you’re from New York, you would not work for four hours, four, $4 an hour. It makes no sense at all. But if you’re in Venezuela right now where you don’t have like the government like socks and you’re not able to eat good $4 an hour, it’s amazing. You will happily do it. You know? So I think that that working online hiring people, that’s how I do it. I do have a side project in all of these, so this is really complex and I want you to pay attention.

Andrés Coen: 13:36 This is since I wanted to start this, my online academy of from passion to project, I was like, I really, really, really want to show to people that I can create a project out of my passion. So one of my passions is the oldest card game that exists. It’s called magic. The gathering is a combination of poker and chess or poker and dungeons and dragons. It’s cards for nerds that love math and things along those lines. Real Quick Trivia, do you know the magic, the gathering and the Mt. Gox the whole competency thing was actually a site based on that card game, I think. Ah, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. I had no idea. So, so I was like, I’m going to show in order to have an academy that is called from passion to project, I have to show people that I am able to create a project out of my passion.

Andrés Coen: 14:21 So I grabbed that and I pitched an idea to the best professional players that I see in the industry and I was like, Hey, I’m going to do an online academy. I want you to do online courses. I’m going to record you. And then we’re going to sell that course is to people that want to play magic, the gathering professionally. And the first professor who is Paolo Vitor down the roles I, I’d have sold of famer. He’s huge in that world. He said yes and I had a copay, a partner, like a really, really good friend of mine. And that company took off like the first month that we launched. It was really, really, really good. So I was able to validate an idea through people buying it. Um, to that they will have around 2000 students from all around the world in less than a year on, we have eight different teachers, I think if you think teachers and coaching, the thing is that it’s a huge online academy for people that want to play magic, the gathering professionally. And that is another business on another project that I have. And in that company, I have a partner who’s name is George, he’s an amazing partner. And once again, we hire VA’s, we hire people overseas, we hire people through platforms like opera, we’re kind of etc. Etc. Etc.

Sean Tierney: 15:28 Got It. And so you built this portfolio of income streams in this sustains you and you’re able through this arbitrage of salaries to actually have a team of vas and it economically make sense.

Andrés Coen: 15:40 Exactly. On what I was doing that I like when I do really good sponsors because I think with sponsors is that you can receive a lot of money in one moment and then you cannot receive money or other months. Right. So once I did really, really good with sponsors and I bought property and by buying property, then you rent the property in Airbnb to get more income, you know, so. Right. So that’s what I do. Yeah. Like, like in this nomad cruise, we’ve met a lot of people that they have income from five different [inaudible].

Sean Tierney: 16:06 Yeah. There was one that was like 18 sources I Johnny FTE or yeah, it was his, uh, which is incredible.

Andrés Coen: 16:12 Yeah. So I have like that only academy, my personal [inaudible], my blog affiliates, m Airbnb, the property that I have on and I do consultant. I’m also a consultant for the social media.

Sean Tierney: 16:25 Yeah. And this is what struck me is the hustle. Like you have just this insane entrepreneurial hustle. I think we sat next to each other at dinner that night and started talking and I’m just like, wow, this is a fire. Like so were you in Panama? Like what? What, where does that fire come from? Like

Andrés Coen: 16:41 I’ve been traveling since I was 17 I’m 28 now, so I would like that. I started traveling, like my big, big trial was at the age of 17 I think that I hustled a lot and I work a lot because my goal is to stop working and I know that the harder I work, like how much I can automate it, how much, how many things I can do right now with create. Like my goal is I don’t know what the age of 35 stop working, you know? So I, I work a lot obviously because I enjoy what I do. But also because I know as a fact that there is a possibility to stop working. You don’t like if things sustain themselves, you create process. If you have enough VA’s like, like in my sound for people that are not in the industry of of having digital project projects, they might, they might not know how easy it is to outsource things.

Andrés Coen: 17:30 So I like my goal, my goal end goal is definitely to stop working. That’s why I told a phones. It’s really, it’s really fun. That’s why I do consultancy to be honest. I think that being a consultant online, um, is not profitable at all because your time, eh, like, I don’t know, you cannot charge a lot but do it in order to be in contact with the industry. So for me it’s like, like being a consultant for specific people. I accept like five projects a month and that for me is like going to the gym. But for my brains because it keeps me, it keeps my bearing war again. It keeps me with people of the industry understanding like from like if they want to do, I don’t know. I usually do it with social media platforms. So if somebody said 40 or someone else is a fashion blogger or things or different things that has to, that forces me to be on top of the American like what is happening, how are people doing things?

Andrés Coen: 18:21 So I, I think you have to understand how you work the best and and for me her works the best because I know as a fact that I will be able to outsource all of it. You know that’s my blog right now. For example, I stopped writing. What I do is I will record voice notes and send them to another two NVA and the VA will create a whole article based on my voice notes. So those are the things that back in the day when I was, am Jr when I started with the blog, I would have to write like three or four hours to the co Co really good blog. Today I would send, I don’t know, 20 minutes voice. No. And that will be two articles. You also, yeah,

Sean Tierney: 18:58 so the, the, the first thing you did, it was watching the Adam Sandler movie. You got the idea from that, the other, what’s the origination of those other business ideas? What was the inspiration?

Andrés Coen: 19:08 Yeah, so the thing is when I, as I mentioned I s I started chuckling at the age of 17 when he finished school back in Panama I am, I went backpacking with a really low budget in South America. I did all those other America and with 27 budget daily, I don’t know, like I was sometimes it was challenging. The thing is that I love that trip. It really changed my mind because back when I came back to Panama, people would ask me a lot of questions. Even in parties, they were like, so how’s Pedro House? Much Beach House? But I see like, are you really traveling and you’re 17 you’re, you’re under a towel. Do you do it have to last for permits to your parents? How do you cross borders is dangerous. People ask so many questions that I was like, wait, people really want to know, so I’m going to start giving talks.

Andrés Coen: 19:55 So what I did is that when people ask a lot of things, I was like, Hey, contact me with your university or your school. I will go there and give a talk on that specific topic by giving the talks, my fan base are growing. And then companies were like, Hey, can you give a talk at my company of why? Thinking outside of the comfort zone, we’ll help you why traveling makes sense and all of that. And then I started doing the um, the like the different events. One of the things that I was inspiring, but I see it was the graffiti. So the graffiti in Brazil, it’s mind blowing is pretty cool because we’re in Rio, it’s completely legal. So that’s kind of cool. So when I went back to Panama, I ordered, I paired up with the graffiti artists and I order a container of growth of the best spray paint from Germany to Panama.

Andrés Coen: 20:37 And I opened it graffiti store with my partner. That graffiti store sucked it fail directly. It was really, really bad. So one day I was stuck with half of a container of graffiti spray paint in my room, doing a lot of talks with a lot of kids or a lot of people, you know, and I was like, I need to move this. What can I do in order to move that pain? I don’t want to lose that money. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to do the biggest graffiti event in Panama and I’m going to find sponsors for that. So it was the need of having to move the spray paint that forced me to create an event to find sponsors for that pain to be profitable. Because if I didn’t find the best way to sell all of the paints, you know, I failed that business.

Andrés Coen: 21:20 So I was not going to sell one kind of one kind and no one can of spray paint because it was emotionally I wanted to get rid of everything because it was like a break breakup. You know your stuff. So I was, I’m going to create a huge event that they will require all of these banks. I’m going to find brands and sponsors. So what I did that day is that I sold and I was in contact with bread boot back Tynan with some TV channels. So I sold the idea of doing the biggest graffiti mural go contest in universities of Panama. So when you visit they said yes, which was the best, like one of the best universities in Panama, which I love that. So they did a five floor am high graffiti contest. You’ve seen all of the pain pain that I had.

Andrés Coen: 22:06 So the need like being in the bed saying to myself like, what the hell am I going to do? Was what forced me to create the event. And that clicked. I was like, wait, wait, wait. I can make money out of these, you know, because that even was really profitable at the end. My failure of the graffiti company became a success because by setting an event I was able to charge higher than by selling a specific spray gun. Yeah. And I understood that if I was creative enough, brands would say yes to crazy ideas. And because of that, I did a huge list of all of the crazy ideas that I had, which that one off creating content in New York wasn’t one of those ideas. And I was like, I’m going to start finding sponsors, support all of these things. Um, I don’t know what the first 10 we’re completely different, but later they started changing over. I would work with the same brands for a year with four different events. So,

Sean Tierney: 22:59 well, what I think is fascinating about this is like most people struggle to find the business idea and they never even get started. Like they, they dick around with it too much in you. It’s like you just went forward. You had something that failed, but then you still had the inventory and you needed to get rid of it. So it’s like, look, I’m backed into a corner. I’ve got to figure out what to do with this. I will make something work. And you come up with a massively creative idea that actually, so that was profitable.

Andrés Coen: 23:23 Yeah, it was. It was highly profitable. That’s fine. It’s cool because I hired three artist, which they’re really good friends of mine and I have been always completely transparent because I hire a lot of you. I have to be transparent. I don’t want them to think, I don’t know. And that was really profitable that encourage me to continue doing these type of events and yet, so in Spanish we have these sane that would translate to like Spanish Cause Baby, Huh? [inaudible] Tortilla, awesome food deserts. Yeah. It will be like flip the pancake. I think it would make more sense like if the punk it gives burning, like if shit’s hitting the fan or things like that. Flipping and flipping the bank, Agar, flipping the Tortilla. It’s amazing. So I think that the best, best, best things that I’ve done, it’s usually a made out of chaos. Like it happens, made out of a need, made out of Straw.

Andrés Coen: 24:15 So I think that when people are thinking like, oh, what type of business can I do? You know they say no pressure, no diamonds. So are you really, really think about that? Like I agree with that. I was like, if you’re not sure, if you haven’t made a decision, it’s because you don’t have enough pressures or maybe that I’m will not be like, my point is like uncertain, being comfortable. Yeah. It gives you time to be uncertain, not to be sure to, not to make a decision, but when you have to make a decision, you will do it. So I would put myself often in those situations in order to boom. Yeah, Ivs and things like that.

Sean Tierney: 24:52 Love it. Yeah. One of my favorite phrases is constraints breed creativity. I think it’s the guys from 37 signals base camp and it’s absolutely true, right? Once you’re, when the world is your oyster and everything’s wide open, nothing, it’s like your paralysis, but as soon as it’s like crop, I’ve got a boatload of spray paint. What do I do with this? All of a sudden like laser focus, you get, yeah. You know, you’ve got to get creative and like there’s a lot of limitations on what you can do. So you, you start to work.

Andrés Coen: 25:20 I would even encourage people that are, that want to jump into that nomadic scene to challenge themselves. For example, like you can grab a piece of paper and say like, okay, I want to make income doing this, this, and this. Now imagine what would you do if you don’t have internet or what would you do if it was in another language or what would you do? Like by challenging yourself? New Business model appears. Yeah. Artificial constraints. That’s the perfect thing. I division on anything that’s way, way cool because sometimes real life will give you the constraints and you’re already 20. You already did your homework because you add some artificial ones, you know? Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, I definitely think that school,

Sean Tierney: 25:59 that’s amazing. Okay, let’s, let’s shift gears to see how much time we got because we got opening ceremony in 15 minutes or a closing ceremony. Um, let’s shift gears to talk about the cruise. How did, like, so this is your, not your first or second cruise, your second cruise. How did you come to it? Why did you come to it?

Andrés Coen: 26:15 So, so one of the crazy things of traveling and working while travelling is that sometimes you don’t meet that many people that are doing art in exactly the same thing as you want. Because at the beginning when you go from hostel to hostel, you find party people and that’s cool. But when you already do it for a living, like you will go from an Airbnb to an airbnb. So it’s tough if you don’t go to specific nomad digital nomad hopes to meet more people. I think that the nomad cruise is specifically specifically the best place to be with likeminded people for a long period of time and everyone like in the same boat. So it’s a major concentration of inspiration. So I heard about this in a long time ago, a friend of mine dated and he told me like, yeah, so he was really into, he was setting up product on Amazon, which is a common business in this industry.

Andrés Coen: 27:07 But he told me about a guy that, what that guy used to do is that he would rent properties around the world and sell them and rent them on Airbnb. And I was like, what do you mean what’s his job? He would just find good properties, rent them, and then rewrite them in airbnb and he will have like that. So those houses will not need a coat, would not need a key, they will have a code, he would change. So it’s a code. So he’s only task was to hire one VA to coordinate like who goes to what house and do and give lucky. And I was like, that’s such an creative business model. I had no idea that existed. I want to beat in more places that tell me different business models, you know? Right. So I was like, yeah, I’m going to give it a try to the nomad cruise.

Andrés Coen: 27:50 It was also the cheapest way to travel from you, from Panama, from Central America to Europe. And it’s still like I do the thing that doing a nomad cruise is cheaper than waste way many other Eh, leisure traveling and there’s so many business models that I was like, I need that type of inspiration because as you heard my story, I do crazy things for business models. You know, I haven’t really met someone that does specifically the same thing that I do. So I was like, yeah, I love these type of people from all over the world doing every type of things, you know?

Sean Tierney: 28:21 Yeah. This, so for the people listening that don’t know what nomad cruise is, we’re on a boat right now, uh, are on our last leg of the journey where we were just in Cadiz and we’re on our way to Lisbon, which is the last stop. And we’ve got 222 other digital nomads on the boat. And so I can think of no other way to get like a target rich environment of just all the people living in this kind of lifestyle and coming up with these creative hustles. And it’s just this, I don’t know, like you’d like to say it, it’s just a, an exposure to an insane number of smart people and unique ideas and yeah. I don’t know how else you get.

Andrés Coen: 28:55 And also it also creates something weird that it’s beautiful that people in these places are incredibly open to share. Yeah. So that’s amazing. Like you don’t only get to listen to a lot of different ideas, but people will open their business for you for in a meal because you would talk with them. So it’s amazing. I think that the feedback like the inspiration, I think anyone that wants to jump into these worlds should find specifically like either talks. Yeah. Because we do talks in the nomad cruise there talks every day like four or five dogs every day with different topics. So doing like seeking these places for education into the nomad a world and would give, you would said you definitely ahead of the game because a lot of people that start being a nomad, they do it. Like without education they do it like, like me. Like I wasn’t like I’m going to find sponsors to travel to see if it’s possible. Yes it is. But I like no one told me how to. And today in this group I gave a talk the other day which was packed and now I don’t know, like 45 people know how to do it.

Sean Tierney: 29:55 So let’s, let’s, let’s dig into that actually. So that the name of the talk was how to get your ideas sponsored. Yeah. Yeah. And so maybe obviously in three minutes it’s hard to summarize it and talk, which is probably a summary of a whole lifetime of experience. But how do you, what’s the gist of that?

Andrés Coen: 30:07 I think that the, the the golden nugget or my way of doing it in on social media, you can do two things. One is like high quality content, which requires like expensive cameras are really, really good editing skills. And the other one is highly creative, high emotional connection. So I worked with a second one. Like I am not the one to tell you like following fall or boost or do paid media or things like that. I am the one to tell you like create a concept that people will relate, people will find you for that specific thing. So for example, what you’re doing right now, good. What you’re doing right now with these podcasts and people that want to know how to become nomads, they know that in your social media that’s what they’re going to see him. So that’s the thing. Create a concept that you believe in and communicate that and create a deep, deep, deep connection with an audience.

Andrés Coen: 30:57 I do the same with brands. So for example in my talk was do it big research on brands and find a way for your objectives to align with the objectives of brands. Always ask yourself, if you were in the shoes of the brand, would you like, why would you sponsor these random fares? Are these random movement? Yeah, so you have a social movement. Look for social brands or phrase your idea in order for them to be incredibly aligned with brands. For example, whoever is out there that has a brand that could use something related to just do it should be sending emails to Nike everyday and tweets and everything. You know? Because if you have a concept, if you communicate something that your values share the same core values of the brand, they will usually say yes. Because what they want to do is I, they want to express those values. They want to, they want to multiplicate the people multiply the people that are living through those values. So what I would do is like, hey, find whatever you’re doing in your niche is if it’s food or whatever your niche is, and create a concept that will be aligned with the, yeah,

Sean Tierney: 32:00 have a lot of brands when you’re doing that outreach, so you’ve created the concept, you have the thing to pitch Nike for instance, for the just do it. Can you give me like real tactical? How are you executing the outreach reach?

Andrés Coen: 32:12 Once again, I’ve already done it and sold more than 45 completely different things. The community, different projects in different industries and for real, for real, for real. I would go to the webpage series for an email, search for a Twitter account and start, hey, my name is Andres. I have a really good idea that goes with this campaign to home. May I send that idea? Boom, send the tweet, send an email, do it the next day it the next day, go to five companies with two 10 companies and usually what happens is like if I receive a no, I would go higher. I will aim higher. If the marketing department says, no, I will tweet to the vice president or the president and the higher the rank, usually they say like their answer faster. I don’t know why. Like maybe a lot of people don’t dare to go send them.

Andrés Coen: 32:59 I don’t know. The thing is that if you send a really efficient or things that create curiosity, people will say like, oh that sounds good. Can we like, can you send me the idea via email or can you, that is everything you need in order to be prepared to have like the pitch. If you have three seconds of a, um, of course like if someone is willing to listen to you for one minute in a phone call, then if you’re prepared enough and you tell them and you show them that your concept, your idea communicates exactly the same values than the company, then they will be really, really, really am happy to do it. Because at the beginning your ideas will not be as expensive as their marketing campaigns. At the beginning. They will relocate a small percentage of their marketing campaigns in experimenting. And then if you overdo, if you overdo over, if you do amazing work, they will definitely continue hiring you and that’s how you grow.

Andrés Coen: 33:51 You know, at the beginning I would do specific in events. I remember there was a beer company that I would send them like, Hey, I want to show people that your beer is not only a soccer beer, that people also use it in like surfing and surfing. Surfing’s I will send them a lot of surfing because they were communicating a campaign that was like, we’re not only soccer, we’re also serving, you know? So it was like, Hey, I have this surfing event, this surfing event. So if whatever beaching is completely aligned with their marketing campaign or strategy in that moment, they would probably say yes. And that’s how you get that first door open. And once you’re inside the brand, like you can continue pitching way more ideas. You have to also be responsible. This is the job. You have to send reports later. Be really clear with that. What are the objectives are? And it’s like creative marketing agency, you know, it’s niche, but it’s amazing. It’s huge. Like

Sean Tierney: 34:43 awesome stuff. All right man. We gotta wrap it up. I’m going to give you a, this is like the little rapid fire last couple of questions here. Uh, one book that’s profoundly affected you or changed the way you think about things.

Andrés Coen: 34:54 Um, yeah. Well, um, I know I’m putting you on the spot. No, I bet that everyone says like four hour work week by Tim various, I would say if you’re going to do that, do that last extended out update that version, which is way bigger on, it’s amazing. But no, I’m definitely also eh, Dale Carnegie, how to make friends and influence on other people. Cool. Which is mind blowing book, you know, it’s crazy.

Sean Tierney: 35:19 Awesome. And one tool that you are app or hack or any, any tool that you

Andrés Coen: 35:25 yeah, of course freedom. It’s freedom that come m it’s an APP, a m it’s extremely cheap and what he does is that it blocks everything in your computer. So what I recommend, I think multitasking is the biggest of everyone in the digital world. So what freedom does is that you say like, Hey, freedom only allow me to use word for the next hour and freedom. We block up so loudly, everything else in your computer and will only allow you to use whatever you selected in that time. Because if you, if in my case, if I don’t do that, I would wind up, I don’t know, jump into youtube to change the playlists or Spotify or receiving a notification of an emails or distractions are the biggest enemies. So freedom.com it’s extremely cheap and amazed what happens if you use freedom to block freedom, there’s a little reality.

Andrés Coen: 36:10 You’re going to be with the computer and everything will be fine. All right man. Last question. One bit of advice that you uh, if you had it to do over, you could go back and give like your 21 year old self and you can go say something like what, what, what advice would you tell yourself and people that are doing more than you am? I usually am. I never going to criticize you. People that are doing more than you are never going to criticize you. So I think that if you receive a critic, like if you just have negative, like if you usually receive the hater comment or something like that, it is because they are doing less than you. People that critique people that are the ones that are, because we don’t trip north. That happens a lot. You have amazing ideas and because of lack of support or bad vibes or Yvette comment will, you would stop doing it.

Andrés Coen: 36:56 So for me, what changed every bad comment I would analyze who would say that and why would say that? And I was like, yeah, they’re, they’re doing less than me. That’s why they’re saying that like people that are doing way better than you, they will not waste time, like giving you by giving you shit about your product. So I definitely think, hey, whoever is giving you bad vibes, I think Winston Churchill said like, I dunno, like don’t be distracted by the dogs that are barking because you will never get to your destination. So whoever is talking more, it’s because they’re doing less. I love that they say don’t feed the trolls. I think it’s, you’re right. It’s the people that aren’t there yet. They got time on their hands and they’ve got all kinds of negative energy and southern just turn you down. So that’s great advice.

Andrés Coen: 37:39 I’m going to break the rules and I’m going to add another thing that I think that really helps me is that our thoughts can play against us. So then let’s not be as analytical. I think that our actions are better advisors than our thoughts. So for example, if you have an ID and id and id and you think a lot about that, but you are not doing it because we were playing video games for example, you’re not executing your idea because we were playing video games. Then don’t use your thoughts of that mean maybe idea that you have checked your actions if you’re playing video games than you should be doing something of video games or on video games. So I think that given a lot of power to our mind is dangerous because our actions are what we’re really, really, really doing. So whenever you’re thinking like, if I want to be a digital nomad, oh, I should do this. This is a good market. Like instead of investing so much strength in your tall and your thoughts, a look, analyzing your actions on dancer would be in the auctions most of the time, because that is something that you’re willing to do more times than whatever you think, because fear, you know, fuck that shit. Love it. Then I’ll say, awesome. That’s

Sean Tierney: 38:49 the timing, man. You hit it right on the button. Uh, all right, so with that, we will conclude the episode. I love it. So with the key takeaways that I got here are a secret. Jackson, don’t let the haters bring you down. Um, and just actions are all that matter. Thoughts can distract you, the man. All right, well, thank you for being on the show, bud.

Andrés Coen: 39:08 Hey, thanks for giving me data on this was amazing.