For episode 7 of Free People Move, Elen sat down with Alexey Komissarouk, co-founder of Hacker Paradise - a traveling community for developers, designers and any other creative type that is up for a bit of a working adventure.
We discuss Alexey's background and how he almost unintentionally became nomadic by being born in Ukraine, moving to Israel with his parents where he grew up and then going on to study computer science in the U.S. During his three years in the military, he started his first company and got more and more excited about getting into the world of startups.
Going into college, he realized there's not as much going on entrepreneurship wise as he had hoped, so he took matters into his own hands and ended up spending most of his time starting student organizations. During that process he ended up building some great relationships, making connections and got familiar with Silicon Valley.
Straight out of college, Alexey started a company with four other founders, which ended up being a painful but enlightening experience – we talk about how the whole ordeal brought him to want to take some time off and do consulting for companies on his own terms to escape the stress.
During that period, Alexey ran out of his student visa and couldn't reapply for it, which was a great reason to go traveling instead – he had clients who were happy with him working remotely, so why not! We talk about his initial plans (including Tallinn!) before he was offered to go to Costa Rica for three months to run a group of traveling hackers and entrepreneurs – and from that magical experience, Hacker Paradise was born!
We talk about the application process in case you are interested in joining, about what kind of people Hacker Paradise is looking for and what they're selective about when accepting people. Just a hint – if you're curious, productive and constantly striving towards improvement, you're a perfect match!
Alexey talks a bit about who they have in the group they're traveling with now, what their joint activities are like (some serious boardgaming is included), what a typical day in the group would look like and how being involved is good for productivity and support when it comes to getting used to working from different corners of the world.
We also discuss the different locations Hacker Paradise been to so far and what the future plans are. And, make sure you stick around until the end where, as a tradition, we ask about some issues he's come across while traveling around and doing what he does that he wishes that someone would get on ASAP. Happy listening!
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