This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Karen Watts Nauman, 67, and Jeff Nauman, 69, a married couple who moved to Lake Chapala, Mexico, from the US a few years ago. They recently launched The AI Boomers, a platform for AI courses designed for older Americans. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
KAREN: I grew up in Washington, DC, and then moved to Los Angeles, where I spent 35 years and worked in various advertising and sales roles. I had my own company that ran promotional marketing events, particularly in Latin America, as well as with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
I retired from working at companies around 2016, but I never stopped working. I was an independent contractor for many years, so I’m very scrappy. Jeff and I didn’t get married until I was 58. Then we moved to Oregon and opened a small CBD business for seniors. Because we were independent contractors, we didn’t have pensions. We both don’t have children.
JEFF: I grew up in Southern California. I got my MBA and worked in sales throughout my career. I also worked as a consultant for small businesses. In 2020, I started working for a customer of mine and worked for them full-time until last year.
Through my last job, I’ve gotten pretty knowledgeable about AI. My old boss encouraged me to use AI to help with my emails and newsletters. Karen and I moved to Mexico four years ago and knew we could live here on just our Social Security income, but I told her we should start a business teaching AI to older adults.
We long considered moving to Mexico
KAREN: I worked with production and advertising clients in Mexico for over 20 years and traveled extensively. I’m not fluent in Spanish but somewhat comfortable. I’ve said before to Jeff that we should move to Mexico, but we were never able to because we didn’t have the right jobs.
One day, Jeff sent me an article about a woman living in Mexico on her Social Security income. I came home, and he said that if his boss says OK, we would do it.
JEFF: Karen and I both owned houses throughout our lives, but over the last few years, we’ve been renting. Rents kept going up, and we couldn’t find any place we could comfortably afford that we wanted to live in.
KAREN: I owned a home, but I lost it during the 2008 financial crisis. I knew Mexico well, but wasn’t familiar with where we live now, in Lake Chapala. I read about its perfect weather, access to the major city of Guadalajara, and the biggest expat community in Mexico. Given all of this, we thought it would be easier to acclimate to.
We decided we didn’t need to visit first. We sold about three-quarters of our stuff and put a little into a storage unit. Three months later, we moved down here.
We moved for financial reasons, but we love the community
KAREN: The reasons were mainly financial. We were middle-class in the US and were tired of constantly struggling to survive. I had gut problems, but I wasn’t eligible for Medicare yet, so I didn’t go to the doctor, even though I was in terrible pain. We knew coming down here we would have a much better chance of affording good-quality healthcare, and I found a wonderful doctor in Guadalajara.
Our home has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and is 1,500 square feet on a 5,000 square-foot lot in a gated community. It’s got security and all the amenities in a great location. We pay about $1,250 a month. When you take that amount and see where we could have lived in the US, it would have been a studio somewhere.
It’s a much slower pace here. The people here are happy and family-oriented. It feels like a weight off our shoulders. We feel vibrant and younger than our age. We’re not quite ready to retire.
We slowly learned how to use AI
KAREN: Jeff started to learn about AI last year, but I was more reticent about it. I eventually decided to give it a try. We’ve been talking to a lot of our peers here, some of whom are a little younger, and they’re interested in AI, but there is so much fear. Jeff and I have always embraced technology in our careers, but we’re almost a little burned out from having to learn so much new technology.
JEFF: We were at first focused mainly on teaching how to use AI for marketing. We wanted to help people learn how to use AI for advertisements, emails, letters, and scheduling, but there are so many applications of AI that we found ourselves using.
KAREN: For example, I’ve found ChatGPT’s suggestions for pain management more helpful than a decade of advice from others. AI could help people navigate everyday tasks, at their home, in their gardens, or at the doctor’s office.
Read more about how older adults are using AI
JEFF: We expanded to a more consumer-based market. We started learning CapCut for video editing and began making videos for AI education. We then began building The AI Boomers.
The AI Boomers just launched
KAREN: We built an AI beginner basics course for $15 with four or five videos, instructions, PDFs, and forms. The course goes into the importance of prompts and safety.
We also have a course on AI image and video generation for $15, so people can have more fun. We have an AI marketing course for $29, and we’ve got a lot of ideas for expanding into different applications.
We know there are many older adults just trying to survive on their Social Security income, and things are scary, so that’s another reason we’re offering more courses applicable to small businesses or starting a side hustle.
JEFF: There are a lot of courses out there teaching AI, but what may be different about ours is that we give actual examples. Here’s the output; now go try it yourself. From speaking to the older crowd, I think we have a niche there.
KAREN: We just launched and are doing some organic marketing around our area. We know our market is massive, and we plan to approach senior groups. I’ve set up our social media. We’re going to start small, see how it takes off, and then expand our course library. We hope to venture a little more into B2B.
JEFF: We have a business partner on The AI Boomers who’s in her early 50s. We’d like to lay the groundwork for the company, have her take it over, and expand on it. At our age, we want to work for another two or three years and then retire.
KAREN: Still, Jeff and I are not the type to totally retire. We’d like to travel, but work keeps our minds going.
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