David Dang Vu talks about his working-class upbringing in a Vietnamese immigrant household in Southern California and credits his mother as his primary inspiration to become an entrepreneur. He explains his pure-bred entrepreneurial tendencies, selling and flipping products to his classmates going all the way back to middle school, and his decision to drop out of college after one semester to go build businesses. David shares his initial business failures before building his first multi-million dollar company selling t-shirts. He explains that innovation and creating a unique user experience is what helped his t-shirt company land celebrity clients like Taylor Swift and LMFAO. He explains his decision to sell his interest and how he moved on to build a $3 million gift card company. David then talks about how he discovered the ability to dropship on Ebay and built that into a business which now nets him over $300K/year. He then documented exactly how he did it in a course that he sold on the Udemy platform, which became the bestselling Business course on Udemy in both 2016 and 2017. He then shares his latest business venture doing AirBNB Arbitrage (renting an apartment on a long-term lease and then subletting it out for short-term rental rates on AirBNB) which now nets him over $300K/Year. He talks about how he selects the location, mitigates downside risks, creates systems and automates the business. He explains how he then made another successful Udemy course about the AirBNB arbitrage business. Having now sold over $1 million in courses on Udemy, David also shares his tips on creating and selling a successful online course. He concludes by telling the story of how he met his wife while traveling the world as a digital nomad.
Episode #16: Netting 300K/Year from AirBNB Rental Arbitrage and Selling over $1 Million in Courses on Udemy with David Dang Vu
Episode Summary
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About the Guest
David Dang Vu
David Dang Vu is a location-independent serial entrepreneur and educator who has sold over $1 million in courses on the Udemy platform to over 45,000 unique students, and is the creator of their #1 best-selling Business Course of 2016 and 2017. David first builds successful location-independent businesses himself, and then documents exactly how he did it in his Udemy courses. He now has students all over the world that have been able to replicate his success by following his methods. David uses AirBNB rental arbitrage to net over 300K/year in passive residual income, and also runs an Ebay Drop Shipping business that nets him another 300K/year. In under 3 years, his course sales on Udemy have netted him an additional 400K. He runs all his businesses remotely, and is an avid world traveler and scuba diver.
What You'll Learn
- How to Build an AirBNB Rental Arbitrage Business
- How to Think Like a Serial Entrepreneur
- The Keys to Creating a Successful Course on the Udemy Platform
Links From the Episode
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BUY DAVID’S UDEMY COURSES:
- How to Create an Empire on Airbnb without Owning a Home
- How to Train your Virtual Assistant for eBay Drop Shipping
- eBay Drop Shipping Guide with No Inventory – Work From Home
- Reselling Gift Cards – Work from Home – Lifestyle Business
BOOK DAVID RECOMMENDS:
APP DAVID RECOMMENDS:
BOTTLE OF WINE SHARED IN THIS EPISODE:
DAVID’S TOP 3 TRAVEL DESTINATIONS:
DAVID’S TOP 3 BUCKETLIST TRAVEL DESTINATIONS:
OTHER PLACES MENTIONED
Check Flight Prices to Any of These Destinations
PUBLIC FIGURE WITH WHOM DAVID WOULD MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER:
FOLLOW DAVID ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Time Stamped Show Notes
[02:53] DAVID’S BACKGROUND AND ENTREPRENEURIAL ROOTS
- Growing up in a Vietnamese immigrant family in Los Angeles
- Why David attributes his entrepreneurial roots to his mother
- Learning “supply and demand” in middle school
- Dropping out of college in the first semester
- Realizing he was a pure-bred entrepreneur
- Failing at his first 20 business attempts
[10:08] DAVID’S FIRST MAJOR BUSINESS SUCCESS
- Selling T-shirts online in 2002
- Learning how to drop ship
- Landing A-List clients like Taylor Swift and LMFAO
- Scaling into a multi-million dollar company
- The key differentiator that enabled him to land A-list clients
- The importance of “being first” to innovative a unique user experience
- David’s decision to sell his shares in that company to re-capture his time
- Reflecting back on that experience knowing what he knows now
[18:17] DAVID’S SERIAL ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY
- Disrupting the gift-card industry
- Building his second business to $3 million in revenue
- The importance of building a team and outsourcing
- Thinking like a serial entrepreneur
- Looking for the next big thing and maintaining excitement
- Learning how to dropship on EBay
[25:38] CREATING THE BEST-SELLING UDEMY BUSINESS COURSE OF 2016 & 2017
- Creating an online course about his methods for dropshipping on E-Bay
- Outselling Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin on the Udemy platform in 2016-2017
- The Key to Creating a successful online course
[28:19] DAVID’S AIRBNB RENTAL ARBITRAGE BUSINESS
- How David learned about AirBNB rental arbitrage
- David’s first AirBNB rental
- Scaling from 1 to 30 AirBNB rentals
- How to optimize an AirBNB listing and make it stand out
- How to project rents and occupancy rates
- The most powerful tool for AirBNB rental projections
[35:38] MITIGATING DOWNSIDE RISKS IN AIRBNB RENTAL ARBITRAGE
- The biggest risk with the AirBNB Rental Arbitrage model
- How to navigate the changing legalities of AirBNB rentals
- The realities of operating a hotel business in a residential zone
- What to do when your jurisdiction bans short term rentals
- Understanding the volatility of this business model
- How to negotiate a “subletting” addendum and be legally compliant
[45:36] CASH FLOW PROJECTIONS AND OPTIMIZING YOUR AIRBNB LISTING
- Start up costs for securing a long term lease and furnishing the property
- The crucial importance of photography
- The primary reason to focus on the luxury rental market
- Cash-flow expectations
[50:01] CREATING AUTOMATED SYSTEMS FOR AIRBNB RENTALS
- Why there is no need to live near your AirBNB properties
- How to build automated systems and never meet your tenants
- The mistakes David made when he started
- How to build your team of professionals
- How to minimize your up-front vacancy
- Maintaining an 82% average occupancy rate with AirBNB rentals
[58:23] DAVID’S ONLINE UDEMY COURSE ON AIRBNB RENTAL ARBITRAGE
- Why David shows his actual property and furniture in his course
- How he breaks down his systems in his course
- Why your cleaning staff is the most important part of your team
- Why David pays bonuses to his cleaning staff
[103:14] THE KEY ELEMENTS TO CREATING A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE COURSE
- How to create a compelling story for yourself
- Lead by example
- Have a captivating delivery style
- Be different and exciting
[106:11] FINDING YOUR SPOUSE WHILE BEING NOMADIC
- The story of how David met his wife on The Nomad Cruise
- Traveling together as friends
- Surprising her for on her birthday
- Getting married
[01:10:15] THE LIGHTNING ROUND
- #1 Book David recommends
- #1 App David recommends
- The advice David would give to his 18-year old self
- The person with whom David would most like to have dinner
- How David mitigates stress
- David’s top productivity tip
- David’s top 3 travel destinations
- David’s top 3 bucket list destinations
- How to get more out of your life
- How to transition into becoming an entrepreneur
[1:21:25] FOLLOW DAVID ON SOCIAL MEDIA
- YouTube
