Can I Build a $10k-a-Month Ecommerce Business While Travelling the World?

What happens when a serially distracted entrepreneur finally gives one business her best working hours? 😂

I was feeling in a particularly buoyant mood writing this article and had a bit of fun with it. For the full (and best) experience listen to me reading the article, particularly my very bad impression of ‘voiceover man’ at the end. I hope you enjoy reading/listening to it as much as I enjoyed creating it! 😂

A nomadic beach shot showcasing the cards in Colombia 🇨🇴

At 3pm yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at the kitchen table of the house we’re sitting here in New York completely overwhelmed.

I was trying to work out whether I should put the price of my Travel Challenge Cards up on Amazon, while simultaneously messaging a solicitor about serving a Section 8 notice on a tenant in England (a legal doc to kick a wayward tenant out), trying to cancel a Claude Teams account I’d accidentally made far too complicated, and messaging Michelle, my VA, about Facebook ad creatives she couldn’t actually start making yet because I hadn’t given her everything she needed.

Welcome to building businesses & running a life while travelling the world.

It’s all beaches & cocktails (not). 🙄

(Although sometimes it is 🤫 😂)

By 4pm I’d given up on most of my original to-do list as I’d got totally caught up watching YouTube videos about Facebook ad creatives.

I’d started out thinking I needed oodles of video editing knowledge, but 2 hours later I realised I just needed to add a prompt or two into Claude, and Apple eat your heart out.

(Yes it’s of course it’s that simple, this is YouTube! 🙄)

I wanted to make some immediately.

I suddenly envisaged myself the Steven Spielberg of CapCut.

But in all honesty, somewhere in the middle of all this, my brain slowed a little & I found myself wondering what might happen if I actually gave my ecom business a proper shot.

The Business I’ve Been Neglecting

I started This Big World because I’ve wanted my own Kikki K style travel ecom brand for years.

I’m obsessed with stationary, journals, travel accessories, bags, kitschy products & anything that makes us smile.

Image for illustration purposes only 😁

What I apparently don’t love quite as much is sitting down and doing the daily hard graft required for people to actually visit my product pages and buy my stuff!

This Big World currently has one main product, my Scratch-Off Travel Challenge Cards, which are selling on Amazon.

I’m selling around 100 packs a month (this month looks like we’ll hit a new record at 150! 🥳)

The last 30 days sales

I have real buyers, reviews, PPC campaigns running, approx 3000 packs in stock, and a Shopify store that has been “almost ready” for a ridiculously long time, plus I have an outreach guy & a VA.

In other words, I have a bonafide ecommerce business, which is making sales, but costing me money.

Why? Because I’ve been treating it like a hobby I intend to get serious about next Thursday.

There’s always something else!

Ooh look at that mountain (sorry got distracted for a moment - see?) 😉

• I write this Substack.

• I have books I want to write.

• I have books I’ve almost finished.

• I travel full-time.

• I have rental properties in the UK,

• I have a daughter who suddenly called yesterday for the first time in 2 weeks so I stopped everything to talk to her for 90 minutes.

• I have admin and family and all the normal stuff of life.

And unfortunately I have the entrepreneurial attention span of a Labrador in a field full of squirrels.

There’s always another idea, opportunity, business model, or YouTube video I absolutely must watch because apparently my future depends on understanding TikTok for KDP by lunchtime! 🤯

And then I wonder why This Big World isn’t growing faster.

So What If I Stopped Giving it the Leftovers?

Over the last 6 months I’ve 100% sold myself the story that I can do everything.

I can build a fully fledged e-commerce business, while writing excellently thought out Substack articles, while posting daily notes, while writing books, while posting on FB, while travelling the world, hopping from place to place and dealing with problem tenants in the UK.

Of course I can do it all. I am superwoman after all (aren’t we all!)

But we all know deep down that there are simply not enough hours in the day. (If you’re kidding yourself alongside me, you’ll be internally nodding right now.) And as much as we want to do it all something has got to give.

So look I’m not about to pivot, change my whole game plan, stop posting on Substack or completely overhaul my brand (as I have been wont to do! 🙄).

But I am curious about what would happen if I gave This Big World the best of my working time for the next six months?

Not every waking hour. I didn’t become a full-time nomad so I could travel to New York and spend the entire time hunched over Facebook Ads Manager.

But proper, singular, focused time.

The hours that currently disappear into seventeen different projects, rabbit holes and things I convince myself are urgent.

As my Dad used to say God rest his soul - ‘focus on one thing until successful, Jo.’

Could I turn this little pack of Travel Challenge Cards into a $10,000-a-month ecommerce business? (And I mean profit!)

And by doing so, actually end up growing all my other projects faster (counter intuitive I know, but bear with me).

I honestly don’t know.

But I have decided I want to find out!

So no great declarations, but I did just want to forewarn that my content moving forward might be a little less - here’s how to do X & a little more - oh FFS this happened. 😂

But It Still Needs to Fit My Lifestyle

This is the part I’m most interested in.

The old adage is true, you get out what you put in, but I’m forever preaching lifestyle first and then build a business (or businesses) that fit around you, not the other way around.

Because what’s the point of building a freedom business if you’re never free?

I’m in New York right now. I want to wander around Manhattan, eat things I shouldn’t, meet random people in bars, take far too many photos and truly experience the place I’ve travelled all this way to see.

But I also have 3,000 packs of Travel Challenge Cards sitting in Amazon warehouses waiting to be sold, and a vision of what this little ecom brand could become.

And therein lies the tension.

Can I build something substantial without putting my life on hold to do it?

Can I travel, explore, have adventures, spend time with the people I love and still build a serious business?

Can I? CAN I??

Well without turning this into an online version of Clarkson’s Farm (although that’s not a bad idea - Barnes’s Big World anyone? 🤔)

Let me introduce the cast…

S1 E1 - The Protagonists

Me - overenthusiastic, cup-half-full, massive-action Barnes, somewhere in America wildly overestimating what I can accomplish before lunchtime.

Michelle - long-suffering VA who’s worked with us for years and is always patiently waiting for me to send her the things she needs to do her actual job.

Rhett - the ever-patient husband, watching yet another YouTube-induced business obsession unfold.

Outreach Guy - newly employed, so not a named character just yet. Currently sending packs of cards (at $9 a shipping shot) to YouTube influencers with 57 followers and zero engagement. Training is a priority! 😳

Claude/AI - the slightly unreliable new employee. Brilliant one minute, confidently talking absolute bollocks the next, but increasingly being given far more responsibility than is probably wise. 😎

Amazon - my nemesis. Necessary, powerful, brilliant for launching products, but a horrible platform to build an entire business strategy around.

Shopify - my great hope. Where I get to build This Big World exactly as I see it in my head, assuming I ever actually finish the store, and can get people to see it! You can see the fledgling This Big World store here - This Big World - although please don’t judge the curtains just yet, I’m still decorating. 🤭

3,000 packs of Travel Challenge Cards - waiting to excite and delight, while currently sitting in warehouses across America.

And This Big World - my little travel brand, potentially destined for a spot in airport shops across the land, that I’ve finally decided deserves a proper shot.

The Goal

The immediate goal is $10,000 a month profit.

Preferably without giving up the travelling, adventures and crazy moments I’m building it all for.

So for the next 6–12 months, This Big World is going to get the best of my business brain rather than whatever scraps happen to be left at the end of the day.

Will that be enough to turn it into a $10k-a-month ecommerce business while travelling the world?

I have absolutely no idea.

But I’m going to give it a bloody good go.

I’ll let you know how I’m getting on. 😁

Jo x 😊

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Coming Up on Barnes’s Big World… 😂

Jo Barnes has 3,000 packs of Travel Challenge Cards sitting in warehouses across America, a slightly ambitious plan to sell them out over the Christmas period, and an even more ambitious plan to turn This Big World into a $10,000-a-month profit ecommerce brand.

But first, she needs to finish the Shopify store she’s been “finishing” for months, keep a watchful eye on the PPC agency spending her money, teach Outreach Guy that influencers need an actual audience, and somehow master enough AI to start churning out videos and Facebook ads that people might actually click on.

All while sightseeing her way through New York and Washington DC, finishing a book she refuses to take to another continent (yeah forgot to mention that little gem), and attempting not to get distracted by another brilliant business idea before lunchtime.

Can she finally focus long enough to make This Big World work?

Or will it all go spectacularly tits up?

What could possibly go wrong? 😂

Tune in next time…