Hello readers, Jonathan Gibaud here, or Jonny (unless I'm in trouble).

I've been given the opportunity to write for Entrepreneur Country and bring you articles on, not surprisingly, entrepreneurship; though possibly not the traditional angle you may be used to.

I should introduce myself properly and so give you some background on me, what I loosely plan to write about and most importantly, why you should spend your valuable time reading the Beach Based Business articles. After all, that’s what's really important, isn't it?

So:

My name is Jonny, I'm 24 and I have just handed in my notice and given up a lucrative career at a Swiss engineering company in order to pursue an experiment into living 12 months as a 'Jet Set Entrepreneur'. Jet set entrepreneurship is a self-coined phrase, inspired by the likes of Robert and Kimberly of Jetsetlife.tv and Tim Ferris of The 4-Hour Workweek fame. Jet set entrepreneurship focuses on leveraging the power of currency, the internet and outsourcing principles in order to create streamlined cash-generating businesses that can be run from a laptop anywhere in the world. I am heading out in September 09, beginning in Thailand and travelling through Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, running my businesses and other ventures on the move.

One of my good friends had another summary for what I plan to do: " sitting on a beach in Thailand and tinkering with an online business". Hence the name for this series of articles...

I chose the name Beach Based Business, changed from my original thought, which was JetSetEntrepreneur, as the connotations of "jet set" don't sit well with me. Beach Based Business also describes more aptly my take on a new approach to entrepreneurship; you running your businesses, not your businesses running you. What is the point of getting out of the rat race only to sink 16 hours a day into your own venture?

My credibility? (or why read anything I write?)

I have had businesses before and to a greater or lesser degree, they have all failed. Good lessons learnt from them, yes; various successes, yes; but ultimately failures from the point of view of putting money into my wallet.

I took 18 months off from start-ups to work for a company, learn about large businesses and mainly to put some money into my account.

That done, I am now pursuing entrepreneurship from a slightly different angle.

Currently, I have a new business, Emergency Food Storage, as well as several product designs at various stages of funding, a book in the pipeline and many more ideas and ventures to pursue.

In my quest to design the life I want to live and to develop my ideas and businesses to a place where they generate passive income, I'll be recording my experiences. Hopefully, my articles will help other entrepreneurs and provide valuable advice for readers who might want to pursue the same approach to entrepreneurship - or simply, to apply some of the lessons I have found to work to their own life and businesses.

This column will be focused on entrepreneurship, and will keep you up to date with how the experiment is going, lessons I'm learning and my thoughts on business from abroad. I hope you find it entertaining and useful enough to become a regular reader.

Jonny is the creator of TheLifeThing.com, where you can find more articles on a variety of subjects such as life design, productivity, living abroad, travel, health and fitness and more.