Find Your People: Targeting Niche Lifestyles to Grow Membership

Don’t overlook members living unique lifestyles.

For most of you, when you think about where you live, only one city comes to mind. It’s where you work, rent or own a home, see your family and friends, and engage with your community. For a long time, I assumed my life would fit into this traditional, “settled” mold as well, but I was wrong.

Due to a set of professional and personal circumstances, I decided to embrace what I’m calling a “multi-city” lifestyle, where I rent an apartment in a “home base” city, and take frequent trips to other U.S. cities, where I can visit long-distance friends and family, get a major change of scenery and continue to work remotely. It’s still a new concept that not everyone understands, but it’s starting to catch on. Go on social media and search hashtags such as #digitalnomad and #locationindependent, and you’ll see accounts of remote workers who spend their free time traveling (side note: most of their photos were taken in Bali or some other exotic location, and sadly my travel plans have not become quite that sophisticated). Many industries, such as IT and software development, are hiring full-time remote workers, and the state of Vermont just announced it will pay remote workers $10,000 to move there and make it their home base.