Article Contributed by Stefan Russel
Making the world your office.
When the idea for Vilondo. com – a site for luxury villas in Bali – came up about a year ago the philosophy was, that it should be possible to work on Vilondo from everywhere in the world. Here I am one year later. The business is up and running and we have worked on Vilondo from as different places as San Francisco, New York, Copenhagen, among rice paddies in the Mekong delta in Vietnam, Hawaii and Bangkok. Guess where I am sitting now? In a beach café on the tiny island Gili in Indonesia looking at the brightest blue water you can imagine. Here are no cars, only bicycles and horses, but here’s Internet like almost everywhere in the world, apart from the most remote places.
I thought that other entrepreneurs might find inspiration in the way we are doing things, hence this article. At first I was considering writing a hard-core business style article, with some nice buzzwords. I had even made some up for the occasion, but Lifestyle management was already taken, location transition did not sound that cool and actually, what we are doing isn´t rocket science, so instead I will try to describe a regular day at our Bali “office” which is where we have our base right now – I am just in Gili for a few days.
A day at the Vilondo office
As the beams from the Balinese sun hits my face I open my eyes. I consider closing them again and get some more sleep, but decide on getting up and take a quick shower. I can’t remember the last time I used an alarm clock. From my bathroom window I see rice paddies as long as my eye can reach. The color of the rice paddies is intensively green in the early morning light. I love the sight of rice paddies in the morning.
Time to get dressed for work – I basically have to uniforms the light blue swim shorts or the bright blue swim shorts. I choose the light blue pair as the bright ones still feels a little wet from last night’s swim. I pick up my laptop and head for breakfast.
As soon as I open the door from my air-conditioned room I can feel it’s going to be a warm day. I cross the pool area and enter the kitchen. Tivi – our super hero helper – greets me with a smile and a good morning. She has already prepared breakfast. It is Indonesian style today – chicken, rice and an egg. I pour myself some coffee, pick up my plate, cross the little bridge over the goldfish waters that separate the kitchen area from our outside gazebo.
I eat my breakfast while I check the news on my laptop. No one else is up yet, so the only sounds are the running waters from the pond and from afar the calls to prayer from the local minaret. The Muslims are a minority in Bali, but they certainly know how to make themself heard.
Mads, my partner shows up and we spends some minutes discussing some new ideas before we dig in to our separate work. A few hours later the temperature is hitting the 30 degrees Celsius level and it is time for a cool down in the pool. A couple of the other guys living and working in our shared villa join us. The fact that everybody’s in their thirties or close to, doesn´t stop us from getting into water fight. Some of the other guys have developed splashing techniques close to perfection. I still have some way to go, so I get out of the pool with water in my eyes, ears and nose.
After lunch the heat forces me into my air-coned room where I spend the afternoon working, including a Skype meeting with a European business partner. As the sun is about to set temperature gets more tolerable and we decide to go for a run on the beach. As we run sweat dripping through the local villages we are met with smiles everywhere and looks that range from amusement to disbelief.
Back at the villa, a huge pile of chicken satay sticks and bowls of salad and rice are awaiting us. Soon after only the wooden sticks from the satay are left, leaving our plates assembling a messy game of pick-up sticks.
We spend a little time rounding of the days’ work as the moon and the stars enter the sky. The day ends with a movie in our outdoor cinema. There is nothing like Hollywood action in the tropic night with the local geckos contributing to the soundtrack. A little later I hit my perfectly made bed and goes to sleep.
Can anyone do it – it sounds expensive?
I guess if you are running an oyster bar or produce sparkling wines moving to an exotic location is probably not an option, but anyone who mainly do business on the Internet can do it. It does not have to be for life. It can be for a few inspirational weeks or months.
It is definitely not expensive. My living expenses are about half of what they would be if I had to live in a small apartment in any major Australian, European or American city and if you need to hire personnel, prices are unbelievable low. For the most basic jobs you can hire someone for around 100$/a month, which of course is nice when you are starting up a new business.
If you have question about the article or about Vilondo in general you are more than welcome to contact me. You can find our contact information on our website Vilondo.com
About the Author
Stefan Russel is co-founder of Vilondo villa rental – an Internet based company that rent out luxury villas in Bali.