I Built a $30K/Month Business From a Remote Island (How I Work)

频道: Starter Story
视频: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICTRNFIdZvc
原文语言: en
统计: 共 9 轮 · Milly 7

[0:04] Milly

My number one KPI for my business is all in pursuit of being calm, being content with what I have. I love what I do. I adore what I get to do because I want this to exist in 10 years. I want it to be thriving for decades. The whole world thought that being a generalist it came with so much stigma. It was like not the sexy thing. I totally disagreed with that notion. I knew that generalists had huge value. So I set out [music] to change the world's narrative on how generalists see themselves and how the world sees generalists. For all intents of purposes and to save on word count, you can just say that I'm a hardcore generalist. Hey, I'm Millie Tamdi. I'm the founder of Generalist World and [music] I make $30,000 every month as a solo founder who has a very small team. The entire business has been built from an island [music] that has 191 people. And people often ask me, "What is it [music] like building from a remote island in Scotland?" So today, I'm so excited to tell you how I work. So from the outside, my day probably looks pretty boring. Most days are literally the same. So the first thing I do when I wake up is I head straight outside. So my [music] morning I will start with a morning walk. And my only goal for that walk is to notice something that I didn't notice the day before. And when you start to [music] walk like this, you realize that there is so much out there in the world to notice. I will then come back and I've got a little cozy corner in my living room and that's where I will meditate.

我这门生意的头号 KPI，归根结底追求的就是平静，是对自己已经拥有的东西感到满足。我爱我做的事，打心底珍惜自己能做这件事。因为我希望它 10 年后还在，希望它几十年后依然兴旺。以前全世界都觉得，当个通才（generalist）是件背着很重偏见的事，一点都不酷。我完全不认同这种看法。我知道通才有巨大的价值。所以我下决心去改变世界的这套叙事——通才怎么看自己，世界又怎么看通才。说白了，也为了省点字数，你直接说我是个硬核通才就行。嗨，我是 Milly Tamati，Generalist World 的创始人。我一个人创业，带着一个很小的团队，每个月赚 3 万美元。整个生意都是在一座只有 191 个人的岛上做起来的。常有人问我：「在苏格兰一座偏远的小岛上创业，是什么感觉？」所以今天我特别高兴能跟你讲讲我是怎么工作的。从外面看，我的一天大概挺无聊的，大多数日子真的一模一样。醒来第一件事，就是直接出门。我的早晨从一趟散步开始，这趟散步只有一个目标：留意到一样前一天没留意到的东西。当你开始这样走路，你会发现这世界上值得留意的东西实在太多了。然后我回到家，客厅里有个舒服的小角落，我就在那儿冥想。

[1:53]

After meditating, instead of just like jumping into Slack or emails, I like to tap into creativity. So, I will spend my morning creating content. I think having these slow mornings massively impacts my workday. It means that when I do actually go online and when I have team calls or partnership calls, I'm not coming at it from a place of anxious and frazzled and like desperate or anything. And I find that the more grounded and centered and calm I am, the better I can make decisions. I'm the founder of Generalist World. And over the last 4 years of building generalist world, we have made nearly 600,000. So when people ask me, what is generalist world? I always wish that I had like a clean answer like it's a SAS or [music] it's an agency. But the honest answer is it is actually a world. It's a newsletter. It's a members community. We have a job board. We host a summer school. We literally invented our own holiday international generalist day. And what we really exist for is for people who have done lots and lots of different things who do not fit into a box at work. And we exist to help them change the way that they see themselves. Hey, it's Gus, producer [music] on starter story. Real quick, I hope you're enjoying Milliey's story and how she built this crazy business from this island. I think it's just awesome.

Milly： 冥想完，我不会一头扎进 Slack 或者邮件，而是先把创造力调动起来，所以上午我都用来做内容。我觉得这种慢悠悠的早晨对我一整天的工作影响特别大：等我真正上线、开团队会或者合作方的电话会时，我不是带着焦虑、手忙脚乱、急吼吼的状态去的。我发现，自己越踏实、越稳得住、越平静，做出的决定就越好。我是 Generalist World 的创始人。做 Generalist World 的这 4 年里，我们赚了将近 60 万。每次有人问我 Generalist World 到底是什么，我都特别希望能给出一个干脆的答案，比如「它是个 SaaS」或者「它是家代理公司」。但老实说，它真的就是一个「世界」：它是一份 newsletter，是一个会员社群，我们有招聘板，办暑期学校，甚至还自己发明了一个节日——International Generalist Day（国际通才日）。我们真正服务的，是那些做过很多很多不同的事、在职场上没法被塞进某个格子里的人。我们存在的意义，就是帮他们改变看待自己的方式。

Gus： 嘿，我是 Gus，Starter Story 的制作人。插一句，希望你喜欢 Milly 的故事，喜欢看她怎么在这座岛上做出这么一门疯狂的生意。我觉得实在太棒了。

[3:16]

[music] But you might be sitting there and wondering, can I do that, too? Well, obviously I don't know about the whole island part, but that question is exactly why Starter Story exists. And inside starter story, we recently rolled out a bunch of new features designed to help you figure out what business you can start. You can really think of it like a research platform. Now, inside are thousands of real businesses, all with the actual data behind them. You can find stuff like revenue, how they're growing, cost to [music] start, tools, tech, everything you need to validate your business idea. And every month, we're dropping new free resources to help you figure out what business you're going to start. And the latest one is a database of over a 100 business ideas that you can start for less than 500 bucks. And that's just one of dozens of free resources inside Starry. So if you're ready to get started, head to the link in the description and grab all of that 100% for free. All right, let's get back to Millie. So my mornings are full creations thing that requires my creative juices to be flowing. I reserve that for the mornings. And then I will always take a big chunk off over lunch. I have a walk that I have done every day, often twice a day. Takes about 40 minutes. It's the loop I call it, and it's my favorite walk in the entire world. I've done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and I don't get sick of it. And in the afternoon, I reserve more for like meetings, podcasts, partnerships, [music] and things that require less of the creative energy and more of just me being present.

Gus： 不过你可能正坐在那儿琢磨：我也能做到吗？嗯，搬到岛上那部分我可说不准，但 Starter Story 正是为了回答这个问题而存在的。我们最近在 Starter Story 里上线了一批新功能，专门帮你想清楚自己能做什么生意。你完全可以把它当成一个调研平台。里面有几千个真实的生意，背后的真实数据都在——营收、增长情况、启动成本、用的工具和技术，验证一个生意点子需要的东西全都有。而且我们每个月都会放出新的免费资源，帮你想清楚要做哪门生意。最新的一份，是一个收录了 100 多个生意点子的数据库，每一个都能用不到 500 美元启动。而这只是 Starter Story 里几十份免费资源中的一份。所以如果你准备好动手了，就去简介里的链接，把这些全部领走，100% 免费。好了，我们回到 Milly 这边。

Milly： 所以我的上午是留给创作的。凡是需要灵感涌动的事，我都放在上午。然后午饭前后，我一定会空出一大段时间。有一条路我每天都走，常常一天走两趟，大概 40 分钟。我管它叫「环线」（the loop），那是我在全世界最喜欢的一条散步路线。我走过几百遍、也许上千遍了，一点都不腻。下午我更多留给开会、播客、合作这类事——不太耗创造力，更需要的是我人在、心也在。

[4:49] Milly

Generalist World was built from my little Highland cottage. It is 200 years old. Imagine like the picturesque Highland cottage. Stone walls, no central heating. I got really good at creating [music] fires cuz our entire house is heated by wood stoves. When you step out the door, you won't see people, but you might see sea eagles or utters, lots and lots of birds. And it's almost like living a double life where I get to like come online and have this like full reach to, you know, hundreds of thousands of people see, read, and watch my stuff every month. And I then get to close my laptop and go play in the sea. It's been an incredible 5 years. I've lived in the wild. That's the best way to describe it. And living in the wild comes with a sense of calm that I never knew existed. So I think people decide right okay I want to go start a business and then they say right what business should I do and they often follow the thing that they think they should do they're not really stopping to pause to ask the big questions like why am I doing this why does this need to exist I think a better way to go about it is to not fall in love with an idea but to fall in love with a really big juicy problem. So for example, generalists are understood and they're undervalued, which means my work is never done. I will never solve this problem. I will never be able to fix tens of millions of generalists feeling undervalued. And that is why I keep going.

Generalist World 是在我那间苏格兰高地（Highland）的小农舍里做起来的。房子有 200 年历史了。你就想象那种风景画一样的高地农舍：石头墙，没有集中供暖。我生火的本事练得特别好，因为我们整栋房子都靠烧柴的炉子取暖。一出门，你见不到人，但可能会看到海雕或者水獭，还有好多好多的鸟。这几乎像在过双重生活：我一上线，就能触达那么多人——每个月有几十万人看到、读到、观看我的东西；然后我合上笔记本电脑，就去海里玩了。这 5 年太不可思议了。我是住在野外的，这是最贴切的说法。而住在野外带来的那种平静，是我以前根本不知道存在的。我觉得很多人是这样的：先决定「好，我要去创业」，然后问「那我该做什么生意」，结果往往去做了那件自己觉得「应该」做的事。他们没有真正停下来问那些大问题：我为什么要做这个？这东西为什么需要存在？我觉得更好的路子是，别爱上一个点子，而是爱上一个又大又有嚼头的问题。比如说，通才被误解、被低估，这就意味着我的活永远干不完。我永远解决不了这个问题，永远没法让几千万通才都不再觉得自己被低估。而这正是我一直做下去的原因。

[6:32] Milly

So when I first started building businesses, the only narrative I could find was million dollars. And I kind of feel a bit like everyone's drunk the Kool-Aid. It's like an arbitrary number, right? I have a different [music] take. If you're someone that wants to go out and grind and hustle, kudos to you. But I think there needs to be so much more narrative around people who want [music] to have a business, who want to make an impact, and who don't want to like lose themselves and their health and their families along the way. And so that's where I've fallen into. a business that makes a couple of hundred grand a year that doesn't have any investors, a very small team that are also my friends. I don't feel the pressure or need to reach tens of millions of people and make millions of dollars a year because that would change my lifestyle and I love my lifestyle. I probably wouldn't be able to go walking in the forest for a few hours a day if I [music] have thousands and thousands of customers who are on support to me. So, I think you just have to be really honest about what kind of life do you want to have.

我刚开始做生意那会儿，能找到的叙事只有一种：一百万美元。我多少觉得，大家都被那套说法洗脑了。那就是个随便定的数字，对吧？我的看法不一样。如果你就是想出去拼、去死磕，我佩服你。但我觉得，应该有多得多的叙事去讲另一类人：想有一门生意，想产生影响，又不想在这条路上把自己、把健康、把家人都搭进去。我自己最后就落在了这里：一门一年赚二三十万的生意，没有任何投资人，团队很小，而且都是我的朋友。我不觉得有压力、也不觉得有必要去触达几千万人、一年赚几百万美元，因为那会改变我的生活方式，而我爱我现在的生活方式。要是有成千上万的客户等着我做支持，我大概就没法每天去森林里走上几个小时了。所以我觉得，你得对自己非常诚实：你到底想过什么样的生活。

[7:35] Milly

[laughter]

（笑）

[7:38] Milly

So, typically I would end my days honestly around 3. I kind of have a rule that when I'm at work, I'm on, but when I'm off, I'm out. See you later. The world will keep spinning. Generalist world will keep operating and if it doesn't, I will fix it tomorrow. So, when I finish work, to be honest, I'll probably go for another walk. As you can tell, walking is my love language. After that, I will start cooking dinner. So where I live on the island, there is no restaurants. There is no Uber Eats. So every single thing I have cooked for the past 5 and 1/2 years, I have cooked from scratch. Almost all of our food comes from the island.

说实话，我一般 3 点左右就收工了。我差不多有条规矩：工作的时候我全力在线，可一旦下班，我就彻底不在了。回头见。地球照样转，Generalist World 照样运转；真要转不动了，我明天再修。收工以后，老实讲，我多半又去散步了。你也看出来了，走路就是我的「爱的语言」。散完步我开始做晚饭。我住的这座岛上没有餐厅，也没有 Uber Eats。所以过去五年半里我做的每一样吃的，都是自己从头做起的。我们吃的东西几乎全部来自岛上。

[8:16] Milly

It is warm.

暖乎乎的。

[8:17] Milly

After dinner, I will catch up with friends. I will play guitar. I will write poetry. And I'm typically always in bed with a cup of chamomile tea by about 9:00 p.m. And that's my reading time. So, every night I will read for at least an hour. So, I'm usually asleep by around 10:00 and then I just wake up in the morning, which is usually around 6:00. Do not wait for anybody's permission. It's not coming. The permission is not coming. You must sign your own permission [music] slip. When I look back at the most pivotal partnerships I've done, the most recent one being with Beehive, I did not wait for them to say, "Yes, let's partner." I said, "Hey, here's an entire body of work. Here's the results of what I have already done. We need to work together." And that has turned into our largest partnership. We've just signed on for an entire year. And final advice would be be more weird. Everything has become so vanilla and bland on the internet and on socials and our websites. Everything's looking the same. Guys, [music] just turn up the weird. Just be a bit more weird. The more honest I got with myself, the more weird I became, the more success that started coming in my way.

晚饭后，我会跟朋友聊聊近况，弹弹吉他，写写诗。一般晚上 9 点左右，我就已经端着一杯洋甘菊茶上床了，那是我的阅读时间。所以每天晚上我至少会读一个小时。这样我通常 10 点左右就睡着了，然后早上自然醒，一般是 6 点左右。别等任何人的许可。它不会来的，那份许可不会来。你得自己给自己签这张许可条。回头看我做过的那些最关键的合作，最近的一个是和 beehiiv，我并没有等他们开口说「好，我们合作吧」。我是直接说：「嘿，这是我一整套已经做出来的东西，这是我已经拿到的结果。我们得一起干。」结果这成了我们最大的一笔合作，我们刚签了整整一年。最后一条建议是：再怪一点。现在网上、社交媒体上、我们的网站上，一切都变得那么寡淡无味，全都长得一个样。各位，把「怪」的音量调大点，就再怪那么一点点。我对自己越诚实、变得越怪，成功就越是朝我这边来。