How to Bootstrap 7-Figure Remote Businesses, With Ray Blakney

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How do you choose a winning remote business idea….repeatedly? Does it have anything to do with being a Filipino-American who grew up in Turkey and lives in Mexico? Hard to say. But in this fun interview with Ray Blakney, he shares brilliant entrepreneurial advice about his third culture upbringing, remote businesses, and more. 

Get your entrepreneurial kicks on with these other interviews:
How to Run a Remote Company Better Than a Physical One, with Chris Dyer 
What it Means to be a Location Independent Entrepreneur, with Jason Moore 
How Julia Taylor is Helping Women Start Their Own Coding Businesses  

Jump right into my Awesome Interview Series videos on YouTube here – and please give it a thumbs up, leave comments and subscribe!

How do you pick a winning business idea? Let's ask Ray Blakney, who has bootstrapped multiple 7-figure businesses! #entrepreneurship #7-figurebusiness #startups #RayBlakney

Meet Ray Blakney, 3rd Culture Kid and Remote Business Entrepreneur 

Ray Blakney is probably like every other award-winning Filipino-American entrepreneur who grew up in Turkey and lives in Mexico that you know. 

Which is to say, he’s truly one of a kind. 

He started his first business, with his wife as a business partner, in 2008. Since then he has bootstrapped multiple 6 and 7-figure remote businesses. Most of this was done from home in his superman pyjamas.

He and his businesses have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Boston Globe and other top publications. Ray has also been a speaker at multiple conferences around the world.

Some of his businesses include Live Lingua (one of the top online language schools), Twiducate (a social network for schools with over 200k registered users, and Podcast Hawk (an SAAS product that helps you get booked on podcasts on auto-pilot).

He is also host of one of the top language learning podcasts on iTunes called Learn Spanish with Live Lingua, releasing a new episode daily. 

When he is not perusing another wild business idea, he likes to spend time with his wife, son and dog at their house in Querétaro, Mexico and helping other entrepreneurs create location independent online businesses.

See also: How to Become Fluent in Spanish and Other Languages

Ray Blakney, online entrepreneur, taking a Cooking class in Thailand

Ray shared his remote business advice with me in person! 

Ray and his family drove from Querétaro to where I was staying in San Miguel Mexico, and while I’ve known him online for a decade, this was our first in-person meeting, and it sure didn’t disappoint. He is funny, personable, utterly brilliant, and incredibly inspiring. One afternoon with him helped me level up my online entrepreneurial game significantly. 

So, I turned on the camera so we could share all this goodness with you as well. In this interview, we discuss: 

  • How a Filipino-American guy ended up growing up in Turkey
  • What kinds of games the kids in Turkey played
  • The challenges of moving to the United States and integrating as an adolescent
  • The irony of looking and sounding American but not fitting in culturally 
  • The moment Ray realized he wasn’t cut out to be an employee
  • Why the Peace Corps changed his life and career trajectory
  • How Ray and his wife started Live Lingua
  • The businesses that followed live Lingua, and the entrepreneurial education therein
  • Why they converted Live Linga from brick & mortar to remote (hint: it was because of a pandemic, but not COVID)
  • How SEO and google algorithm updates can make and break online businesses 
  • The irony about Google
  • Ray’s formula for picking a winning business idea
  • Multi-tasking multiple businesses 
  • The importance of outsourcing and creating SOPs 
  • The secret to working, living, and parenting together with a spouse

You really won’t want to miss this one. Click here to watch our interview on YouTube, and if you find it as entertaining and informative as I think you will, please like and share it! 

Are you as curious about the numbers as I am? Don’t worry – I got you covered, in this Financial Case Study with Ray that profiles his lifestyle and income trajectories over the last six years or so.

Ray Blakney and his wife Laura, running remote businesses together from the road

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