The Rv Entrepreneur With Heath Padgett

The 2022 RV Entrepreneur Summit is now the RV Entrepreneur Roundtable! The RV Life team and I want it to be an AWESOME experience - however with the state of the world, the compressed timeframe due to the major changes within the RVE brand this past year, and several other factors - our ticket sales were below what we needed them to be for the event to launch as planned. HOWEVER, as entrepreneurs we’re no strangers to adapting and overcoming so here is what our new roundtable will look like…

If the RVE Summit was a formal wedding, then the roundtable will be a dedicated business trip to the campground with other industry leaders - much more laid back and intimate. We’ll still have our speakers presenting on their areas of expertise, however it will be more of a conference room presentation feel than a main stage auditorium - no stage, no lights, etc.  In addition we’ve also added six different roundtable discussions where we’ll collectively discuss topics such as:  *Video creation and YouTube *Pa

Today we’re talking with Gabe and Rocio Rivero from Our Mixed Journey.

Gabe and Rocio are avid travelers who used to live in Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, life was truly put in perspective for them both. They realized how quickly things can turn, and the decided that enjoying life needed to be a now thing and bit a soon thing. So, they sold everything they owned, bought a 5th wheel and a dually truck to pull it, and became full-time RVers in a little over one month's time. Since then, they've bought house as a home base, but only after full-timing for 4 years between two 5th wheels and a Class B van they still call their home on wheels.  **The content creation seminar they referenced - unfortunately, we couldn’t find the link again.**

 Connect with Gabe and Rocio:

 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourmixedjourney/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKE3wGkBfDH8Jd89EoErbww  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ourmixedjourney Facebook: https://www.facebook.co

Today’s Guest Aaron Ammar, Roamly’s Chief Insurance Officer Aaron is a former co-founder of Y-Risk, an underwriting company providing insurance solutions for companies in the on-demand and sharing economy, and started his role as Chief Insurance Officer of Roamly in August 2021.  As Chief Insurance Officer, Aaron harnesses his expertise in the insurance space to lead and build out the Roamly team as the company ventures into previously uncharted territory in the insurtech scene.   Roamly's parent company, Outdoorsy Holdings, received $125M in fresh funding in June 2021 to accelerate Roamly's product innovation and international expansion and In April 2022, Roamly launched its Global Travel Insurance product in response to the rebound of international travel and the need to protect consumers from financial losses should a trip be delayed, interrupted, or canceled.  

****As with anything insurance related I need to give a disclaimer here, Aaron's advice and responses are general and sometimes

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Chris Reed from the YouTube channel Why Not RV? 
Chris is a Marine Veteran who took a huge leap one year to change careers and can now live a life of freedom and adventure. His only professional schooling after high school was HVAC school - everything else has been self taught and Chris loves to share his knowledge through education in hopes of helping other RVers prevent some very costly mistakes or repair bills.  Chris is a full time RVer and an insurance adjuster by day - but it’s that job that spurred his entrepreneurial endeavors and allows him to create education content for YouTube.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Connect with Chris Reed: 
Website: https://www.whynotrvusa.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/whynotrv
 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whynotrv Email: whynotrv@yahoo.com  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Be sure to join the RVE community on Facebook: therventrepreneur.com/facebookgroup

 Connect with RVE on your favorite socials: therventre

The 2022 RVE Summit tickets are now on sale!
 To register for the summit or get even more details please visit https://therventrepreneur.com/rv-entrepreneur-summit/ If you have any questions please feel free to email me at rve@rvlife.com I’m totally stoked for this event and can’t wait to see ya’ll in Montrose!

~Joshua ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Be sure to join the RVE community on Facebook: therventrepreneur.com/facebookgroup 

Connect with RVE on your favorite socials: therventrepreneur.com/connect Have a question? We’d love to hear from you - send us a voicemail by clicking here: therventrepreneur.com/voicemail Want to be a guest on the show? Fill out this guest form: https://therventrepreneur.com/guestform ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The RV Entrepreneur: www.therventrepreneur.com The RV Entrepreneur is presented by RV LIFE - Tools that Make Camping Simple www.rvlife.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rve/message

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Kirk Duncan.

Kirk is the President and Founder of 3 Key Elements and member of The National Speakers Association. He has taken his company from a card table in the garage into a multi-million dollar, award-winning company. 3 Key Elements has been recognized 4 consecutive years by Inc. 5000 as one of The fastest-growing companies in America. They have also been recognized for four consecutive years by The Utah 100 and have been featured in Forbes business magazine twice. Kirk Duncan has given over 6,000 presentations, appeared on television 75 times. After nearly two decades and 50,000 hours of experience as a coach, he's spent the last couple years helping hundreds of up-and-coming coaches turn their passions into real businesses.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Connect with Kirk: Checklist on How to Interview a Coach https://www.3ke.to/rventrepreneur  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/3KeyElements  Website: https://www.3ke.to/fasttrack   Facebook:

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Michael Boyink.  Michael Boyink is an award-winning writer and photographer who works as Managing Editor for a global software consulting and implementation company. He’s been on the podcast several times before discussing various topics. 

 Michael, his wife Crissa and their two children spent eight years traveling the US in an RV while continuing to work and homeschool. While on the road, Michael and Crissa ran DitchingSuburbia.com, a popular website that provided resources, guides, and community for traveling families. Their story was covered by the Huffington Post, the Seattle Times, the Las Vegas Guardian, the Art of Noncomformity, Tiny House Magazine, and many other travel-related blogs and podcasts.  The Boyinks are now homeowners in rural Missouri where they continue to look for new ways to scratch the incurable condition known as hitch-itch.

Michael has just published his latest book - Driven To Wonder - about their travels as a Fulltime family a

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Penny Rose. Penny is a CPA and has been working as a Forensic CPA for the past 20 years. As she retires from that career on her path to financial independence she is looking forward to taking on more clients in her side business as a CPA and financial consultant for content creators.  So if you’re an RVer that is creating content - this episode and Penny’s services are directly applicable to you. I think you will definitely enjoy and learn from what Penny has to say. Enjoy the interview!

Joshua


~~~~~~~~~~ Connect with Penny Rose:

Website: https://fefifofumservices.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fefifofumpersonalcfo/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennycrispellrose 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fedFIfrugaloptionforgetumoney/ 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Be sure to join the RVE community on Facebook: therventrepreneur.com/facebookgroup

Connect with RVE on your favorite socials: therventrepreneur.com/connect  Have a questi

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Marianne Eaves. Marianne is a bourbon master distiller that has taken her love of science and art and blended them, literally, in various ways throughout the spirits industry. She is currently full-time RVing with her family as they go from venue to venue with their other business, the Vernardo’s Circus. Marianne found a way to stay involved with the bourbon industry while traveling full time and her endeavors are pretty fantastic. 

 Enjoy the episode! Connect with Marianne: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariannebmd/ Website: https://www.marianneeaves.com/  Email: Info@marianneeaves.com  Eaves Blind: https://www.eavesblind.com  Eaves Blind Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eavesblind/  Email: marianne@eavesblind.com  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Be sure to join the RVE community on Facebook: therventrepreneur.com/facebookgroup 

Connect with RVE on your favorite socials: therventrepreneur.com/connect  Have a question? We

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Duran Anderson. Duran is an entrepreneur, craftsman and lifelong RVer who took a pain point with his RV - bugs sneaking in through the screen door slider - and devised a solution that he took to market in his late 70s.  I really enjoyed chatting with Duran and I think ya’ll will enjoy hearing his story and how long RVing has been apart of his life. Let’s dive into the interview. In this episode Duran and I talk about:
 What problem the RV Bug Stop was designed to solve How the manufacturing process worked What Duran’s opinions are regarding selling on Amazon vs direct to consumer via his personal website Enjoy the episode! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Connect with Duran & RV Bug Stop: 
Video: https://youtu.be/bTFNH-Od9Uk  Website: www.rvbugstop.com Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0784YBJND?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_N0W3MZ9K4DZKKN3X7PB4  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Be sure to join the RVE community on Facebook: therventrepreneur.com/facebookgroup

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Taylor Cluster. Taylor is the author of a social media meets van life murder mystery novel called #Vanlife Murders. She and her Fiancé Scott have spent that last three years living the nomad life while traveling all around North America. After hitting the road Taylor found that she had a bit more time to pursue her passion for writing and decided to sit down to write a novel in one of her favorite genres - murder mystery.  In this episode Taylor and I talk about:
 What it’s like writing a fiction book based on real life events that she and Scott experienced on the road
The challenges of writing, editing, and publishing your first book Some of the eerie experiences they had on the road that made it into the storyline What the feeling of being a published author is like and if it is everything thing Taylor envisioned And finally we wrap up with a brief discussion about Taylor and Scott’s new endeavor - building a campground in Montrose Colorado. This is the loca

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Alyssa Padgett. Alyssa is a co founder of the RV Entrepreneur community and  has just published her second book: RVing Across America: A Quest to Visit All 50 States. Back in 2014 when she and Heath got married Alyssa convinced Heath to take her to all 50 states for their honeymoon. Somehow he go her into doing it all in an RV.  While traveling, Alyssa directed and produced Hourly America, their documentary film about their 50-state honeymoon, and Heath’s working an hourly job in each state that was featured on CBS, CNN, Fox, People, Yahoo, Huffington Post, and more. After visiting all 50 states in  that year, Alyssa fell even more in love with travel and spent the following years RVing all over the world. Today Alyssa and her family still travel as much as they can and will actually be enjoying Italy when the book and this podcast release. In this episode Alyssa and I talk about: How this book is the memoir version of the documentary and why she felt the desire t

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Brooks Smothers.

Brooks is a marketing consultant by day and a podcast host for a show called RV Out West by night. Born & raised in the Pacific Northwest he grew up camping; from backpacking, car camping, van life (before it was a thing), to a tent trailer and now with a travel trailer. In this episode Brooks and I talk about:
 Some of the pros and cons to a geographically focused podcast - his is focused on the Pacific Northwest How as a content creator you need to create and play within your own sandbox, not worry about the castles everyone else is building in theirs How you can bridge the search engine gap between storytelling and information about a specific location How Brooks identified his target audience and then took one specific metric unique to them - average one way commute - and  has tailored his podcast to fit that time span I hope you enjoy the episode! Connect with Brooks:

 Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1716271 
 Website: https:

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Sharee Collier.
 Sharee is a 9 year RV life vet, who combines running a remote RV lifestyle business with seasonal jobs and project management. She the bestselling author of Live Camp Work: A Beginner’s Guide to Workamping- book 1 in a series that details how to grab seasonal jobs so you can travel now for super cheap! Sharee is known for her creativity and willingness to step out-side-the-box as you’ll see in this episode, and enjoys planning digital and in-person events. She hosts multiple Virtual Summits throughout the year, including Rethinking Remote, The RV Family Summit, Ready to Renovate | RV renovation Summit, #VanLife Virtual Summit just to name a few.  In this episode we talk about:  How the Colliers started off in the RV lifestyle and Sharee’s experience with the Amazon Camper Force How that experience led them to clearly define the types of work they wanted to do and ultimately carve out positions for themselves at RV resorts for 3 to 5 mont

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Kristi and Spencer Stevens  
Kristi and Spencer quit their corporate jobs in 2020 and hit the road with their son Kade. After spending six weeks of a paid sabbatical traveling in New Zealand and Australia they knew they wanted to rearrange their lives to spend more time together as a family. They leveraged their past experiences in  product marketing, brand marketing, digital marketing strategies, and brand influencer management to start up a boutique marketing business. Along with their commercial clients they also work with brands on the adventure brand - Adventuretunity. In this episode we talk about how: - They focus on small businesses and how relationships often start with an audit - small brands pay them to find holes in their current marketing and to come up with ways to make a bridge to where they ultimately want to be. -  Working together as a team allows Spencer and Krisit to offer a full package to their clients and not have to contract o

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Kimberly Crossland who is the founder of Roadpreneur and Cruisin' + Campfires, two companies designed to keep families together and living in freedom through travel and entrepreneurship.  In this episode we dive into how Kimberly built a physical product based business, called Cruising + Campfires, stemming off an awesome experience on a family roadtrip. How that business has adapted and morphed into a subscription based model and  why that leads to to easier scheduling, less stress, and more satisfied customers than an on demand one. Kimberly also has created an online community call Roadpreneur where she is gathering and coaching other entrepreneurs  through digital content and virtual community building. We discuss the differences, pros and cons to both product based business and digital based business and how some-timing rv travel is a real sweet spot between weekenders and full timers. We also cover how failing forward can grow your credibility

This weeks episode we have a super awesome interview. This is the first time I've done a live interview and it's also the first time I've co-hosted an interview. We've got Heath Padgett back on the podcast and we're interviewing Andy Robinowitz from RV Life.  If you didn't see the blog post the RV Entrepreneur podcast has been sold to Andy and the RV Life team.  All three of us were in the Dallas, Fort Worth Texas area so we got to sit down together, have a conversation in the same room and it's really cool to hear both of these gentlemen speak. We get to talk a little bit about how the transfer of the podcast went from Heath to Andy, and then we spend the rest of the time talking with Andy about RV Life and what he's grown the business into.

Andy is a repeat customer on the podcast.  (Episode 120: https://anchor.fm/rve/episodes/RVE-120-How-Andy-Built--Monetized-the-Largest-Online-RV-Community-ea37a9/a-a4g5npd) He was one of the early guests several years ago, but since then has created and

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Kristen Sargent from Legit Trips, a travel company that runs international group trips.  Kristen says she is living her wildest dreams. She owns an international travel company with her best friend and also travels domestically every day with the love of her life in their RV. She's on a mission to help people feel curious, alive, and free to try or do new things. In addition Kristen shares her personal adventures on Instagram and Youtube as Perpetual Moves in an effort to inspire others to go after their own dreams no matter how wild or unconventional.  What started out as a hobby in planning international trips with friends has since turned into her full time gig and it turns out it is also a perfect fit for traveling full time in an RV. In this episode we talk about how Legit Trips came to be and why this side hustle succeeded in becoming her full time career.   Kristen has a unique story about going against traditional business advice and formin

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Edzui Szumowski who is currently traveling the country performing with the Vernardo Circus! Edzui (Edge-U) is a performer and ran away with the circus- TWICE. Once on a train in 1993 and this time in an RV in 2021. He’s lived on circus trains, mega cruise ships, flown over 1000 times in a decade chasing ships around the planet and is now living full-time in a Winnebago Micro-Minnie rocking his vaudeville dreams touring with a real live TENT SHOW CIRCUS!  This interview is slightly different that past guests - Edzui isn’t currently an entrepreneur - but he was during COVID and its a good case study of the opportunities that are out there and how different situations in life have different seasons. In this episode we talk about:  How the live performance industry was affected by the pandemic and Edzui’s pivot into entrepreneurship to flex with the market and stay relevant from a distance How circus life fits so intimately into RV life and some of the b

Today we have the pleasure of talking with Nate Ritter from RoomSteals.com Nate has travel hacked with his family of 5, around the US and Western Europe for 10 years without paying for a flight or hotel. Now he’s found another hack having to do with wholesale hotel prices, and he’s sharing it with the world while they travel North America full time in an RV.  In this episode we talk about how there are massive discounts to be had in the hotel industry, regularly 20-25% but sometime up to 95% discounted rates for those who know where to look. 
We talk back through Nate’s past and find out how he got into travel hacking, what exactly travel hacking is, and why he is so enthusiastic about it. Nate tells how the “entrepreneurial disease” caused him to see an opportunity in the market and the steps he took to create Room Steals into a sustainable travel business only months before the pandemic shut down most travel yet the business model they run has been able to sustain it through to the other side and the