business abroad – A digital nomad entrepreneur says lower living costs abroad helped him fund growth in a high-ticket dropshipping business.
Running a business while traveling can look like a fantasy, but for Ryan Garrido it became a practical strategy for growth.
In his experience with high-ticket dropshipping, the biggest advantage of operating abroad was the room it created to take risks.. Garrido argues that in the US. many founders feel squeezed by day-to-day expenses. leaving little flexibility to fund advertising and scale.. By contrast. he says living costs in his current base are low enough that a larger share of income can be reinvested into the business.
This matters because cash flow is often the bottleneck for early scaling efforts, even when the business model itself is working.
Garrido, 37, built his company after moving to study abroad.. Before launching, he worked in sales, including B2B recruiting and door-to-door work in the US.. While traveling in later years. he encountered a high-ticket dropshipping approach through a friend. bought a course. and began running his own store.
Dropshipping, in broad terms, lets a retailer market products through a website while the supplier fulfills orders directly to customers.. In Garrido’s case. he focused on higher-priced items. describing high-ticket dropshipping as products that typically sell for more than $700. such as home-focused wellness and entertainment categories.
The broader implication is that higher price points can change how advertising and conversion decisions affect overall unit economics, especially when marketing spend is required up front.
Garrido says he uses travel on a light schedule, spending roughly a few months at a time in one country. He is currently based in Thailand and describes his routine as hopping between locations rather than maintaining a fixed, residential setup.
He credits Thailand with a combination of factors: currency dynamics that make dollar earnings feel more powerful locally. and a lower cost of living that supports a higher standard of day-to-day living relative to what his money would do in the US.. He also emphasizes convenience, arguing that day-to-day logistics are easier when services and delivery options are readily available.
For many founders, these lifestyle and operational frictions are not side issues; they directly affect how reliably someone can keep investing time and attention into their company.
Still, Garrido points out that starting and running a business from abroad has trade-offs.. He notes that funding tools can be different when you’re not physically in the US. and he also flags practical challenges tied to moving locations. including how business and personal address details are handled.
He also offers a caution for anyone pursuing a “digital nomad” plan for business arbitrage: doing business from anywhere requires research and planning. not just the expectation that lower expenses automatically translate into growth.. In his view. the decision can be worthwhile. but it depends on how a person structures their risks. finances. and operations before scaling.