New here? Welcome! Let me introduce myself:

Today, my wife, two boys and I arrived in Alicante, Spain. Spain will be our base for the next 10 months on a digital nomad visa. This makes 11 countries we've been to since we left the U.S. last July: France, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia, Hungary, Austria, Montenegro, Serbia, Portugal, and now Spain. Here are some of the things that "slomading" as a family of four has taught us: The less stuff we have the less stuff we want. Everything we need and want fits in a bag. Living this way costs less than our stationary U.S. life, and we're getting endless experiences from it. It's a shame to have one life on this earth, and not explore it as much as we're able. Nothing inspires curiosity in children like seeing new places, and meeting all kinds of people from all over the world. My 5th grader had kids from both Russia and Ukraine in his class during this time of war - that alone teaches us a lot of lessons. Being abroad inspires friends to come visit, and see places they wouldn't otherwise see. Kids make friends insanely fast. Nothing builds resiliency in kids (and adults), like the unexpected events that occur while traveling. Every time we have a less than ideal surprise, we say "We're adventuring". Nothing bonds a family like traveling this way. Going to places that put you out of your comfort zone shows you that most people are generous, helpful, and kind. It also builds your tolerance of fear and teaches us that the world is by and large a safe and welcoming place. Kids can easily stay in touch with their friends and family from all over the world, and feel connected to them, with their iPads, and they do. I'm going to resist a lot of comparisons to the US here, aside from the fact that we feel significantly safer in most places we've been, than in the US. The Mediterranean Sea is pure divinity. There's a lot more, but it's time to enjoy the sunset. PS: Entrepreneurship rules. PPS: Live now.

Ruby on Rails paid for my family of 4 to do this:

I started a SaaS company on my own and sold it for millions of dollars. I hired 0 employees, and spent $0 on ads. Now I'm traveling the world with my family. Here's how I did it: 1. Start with a bunch of passion projects. Like, a lot of them. 2. Realize I wasn't getting momentum so it was time to take a different approach 3. Decide to get out of my comfort zone and talk to tons of other people about their processes 4. Set up as many meetings as I can (also out of my comfort zone) with business owners and sales people 5. Ask about their processes, where their time is spent, what they hate having to do, etc. 6. Listen deeply, ask more questions 7. Ask them if they have anyone else they can introduce me to 8. Set up more meetings 9. Look for common threads 10. Start with a seedling idea and start running that by people in future meetings 11. Repeat steps 4-10 a bunch of times 12. Once I thought I was on to something I spent 4 weeks building it 13. Reached out to everyone I had talked to, and swiped a credit card on day 1. And day 2. And day 3... 14. DM'ed a lot of people on LinkedIn every day asking if I could give them a demo for feedback (this was my version of a sales call) 15. Do LOTS of demo calls, every day for months, grind, grind, grind Just focus on getting to $1, then $100, then $1k/mo. Then $5k. $10k. Get momentum. Keep the momentum. Then out of nowhere, you just keep doing what you're doing. And it's 50k+/mo. Sounds like a lot? Well, it is. But it all boils down to this: Avoid procrastination and do the work. It's going to put you out of your comfort zone, and if you're not cool with that, this isn't for you. In fact, when I'm in my comfort zone too long, I know I'm not doing everything I should be doing to make the progress I want to be making. Get out of your comfort zone and embrace the vulnerability. You got this.

After 10 years of building apps that went nowhere, I thought: What do all these successful people have that I don't have? 2.5 years later my app had taken off, and I was one of them. Sure, I had acquired some skills over the years, but nothing crazy. Nothing you don't have or can't learn as you go. - My code was mediocre. - The UI was meh. - Most people would have said I knew nothing about sales. - Most people would have said I knew nothing about marketing. What I did have was: - A lot of attempts under my belt, increasing my chances for luck to go my way - Determination - Willingness to figure sh*t out as I went along - Willingness to get out of my comfort zone - A sense of scarcity in income, as my freelance work was drying up due to me putting any spare time I had into my SaaS projects over trying to get more freelance clients. I also had two small kids at home. Some people thought I was crazy, and wasting my time. I loved that - it fueled me to prove them wrong. That certainly wasn’t my “why”, but I’ll channel whatever energy I can into driving me forward. This isn’t a path for everyone, but if you want it, you can get it, so don’t let a perceived lack of skills or time get in the way. You’ll make the time if you want to, and you’ll acquire any necessary skills along the way. It’s up to you, but anything you’re telling yourself about why you can’t do it is BS.

I'm honing in on a new SaaS idea. Here are the criteria I'm ensuring I stick to:

If you think you need a fancy SaaS idea to crush it, think again:

The Segway

We left the U.S. a year ago today on digital nomad visas… My wife, two boys, and me. So far we’ve been to: - France - Croatia - Italy - Slovenia - Bosnia - Hungary - Austria And I went to Malta on my own for MicroConf. In the next 45 days we will be adding: - Montenegro - Serbia - Portugal - Spain We are so grateful to be on this journey. And while it’s not always easy, it’s the most amazing thing we feel we could be doing for ourselves and our kids. As citizens of planet Earth, it feels like a waste not to explore as much of it as we can - culturally, geographically, and socially - if we are fortunate to be able to do so. For those of us highly driven individuals, one of life’s biggest challenges is balancing an intense work ethic with the desire to enjoy and appreciate every moment. Who knows where we’ll be a year from now, but I feel that we will confidently be able to look back and know we’ve lived without regrets, and it’s a mission of mine to inspire others to do the same. [Photo from a earlier today, Korčula, Croatia]

I spent close to two years to launch my first SaaS that generated $200, and I had to refund $100 of that. I spent four weeks to launch on my SaaS that made seven figures. Let that sink in.

My wife, two boys, and I have been "slowmading" since July 2022. We've been to 14 countries. Here are the most common questions we get about how and why we're doing this: First: what is "slowmading"? Digital nomads work remotely while traveling the world. We're doing the same, but because we have kids, we have a base during the school year so we're moving slower, hence "slow"-mading. We make a base for 9 months, travel all summer, each school break, and many weekends. Where have you been based? In 2022-2023 we were based in Zagreb, Croatia. In 2023-2024 we're based in Valencia, Spain. Where else have you been? U.S., France, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Portugal, Spain, England, Switzerland. Isn't it expensive to do this? Our biggest splurge has been the schools. Aside from that, it costs us less to live here than our US life. Our living expenses AND travel expenses this way add up to about the same as our non-travel living costs at home. How much stuff did you take? We each brought one bag. We've acquired some things: clothes, Lego, yoga mat, but not much. Does it feel safe? Everywhere we've been has felt incredibly safe, save for a recent evening in London. What do you do for schooling? We have been putting the boys in international schools. This has been our splurge, but it's worth it, as the schools have been incredible. How do you decide where to go? In choosing where to base ourselves, it's been quick and casual, we don't overthink it. We look at places that offer a digital nomad visa, then narrow it down to parts of the world we want to explore more, and that aren't far from the coast, then look for a school we like. Before committing to going there, we had never been to Croatia, or Valencia, and that was intentional. We decided on these in a matter of hours. We're in it for the adventure. As far as choosing where else to go, we all just toss out ideas, or if someone has a strong opinion, we do it if it's within reason. How do you make friends? We've made friends through the schools, and language classes. I have found local founder friends through communities I'm in such as MicroConf and on X. How old are your kids? 9 and 11. How do the kids feel about it? They miss their friends at times, but they're having a blast, and have made a bunch of new friends from around the world. If they had their way, we'd keep doing this, but have a couple of their best friends and family come along :) What about language? The kids are in international schools, so those are in English. Aside from that do our best, and get by without much trouble. My wife is great at and loves languages and has been immersing herself. The kids are learning a ton of Spanish and German and some French and Croatian. Don't you think your kids should have more stability? We feel they have stability. Being based in places for the school year, they adapt and make friends quickly. It can be hard at the end of the school year and the start of the new one in a new place, but again, they adapt quickly, and we haven't been doing this their whole childhood - we're only in year 2. Facetime changes the game too - as they can keep in touch with friends and family around the world so easily. The biggest hurdle is timezones, which they figure out. How do you find places to stay? For the places we rent for 9 months, we find them with local agents. For weekends and our summer travel, it's usually Airbnb or Vrbo. Where do you work? I work at the dining room table, or the local Starbucks (I know, but it's reliable). My wife works at the dining room table, a coffee shop, or a co-working space. Do you get visas? Yes, we had a digital nomad visa in Croatia for the first year and then one in Spain. What's your favorite place you've been? So hard to say! Sarajevo surprised us in the best way. Mostar, Bosnia for its ancient charm. The Slovenia countryside for its sheer beauty. Korçula, Croatia for ocean swimming. Venice in the off-season will always be special. What do you miss most from home? Friends and family. Have people come to see you? Yes! All four of our kid's grandparents have come to visit, and a handful of the kids and our friends have met us somewhere along the way. It's a great excuse for others to go abroad! What's the best part of living this way? So many new adventures, not every day feels the same. We've all been exposed to so many new cultures. The kids in particular have made friends from so many parts of the world. There's even a large group of Russian and Ukrainian kids together in their school which is beautiful, considering the current events. The kids have found immense curiosity about the world (as have we), and desire to see so much more. Our 11-year-old now watches Flight Radar as much as he can get away with. --- Live without regrets. We are you gonna go?

Want to know how to have an overnight success? You build a ton of apps, for years. So many that you can only recall a fraction of them. And you don't stop. Then at some unpredictable point, things change (as visualized in my X banner). Here are some of my app attempts, and how much they made. Also, what's not shown, is that there's a general trend here: the apps I spent the least amount of time coding initially, made the most amount of money over their lifespan.

I went from $0 to $58k MRR in 30 months. But the path leading there was long. Here's how I got there: [🧵 thread]

My success rate isn't much different than that of @levelsio The true art isn't in simply launching everything you can, but in (quickly) knowing when to double down, move on, pivot, or dump it altogether (and not fall prey to sunk-cost fallacy). Believing in your ideas, but not being married to them. Knowing that your opinion (with regards to the product) isn't ultimately what matters. The opinion of your customer base does. It's an art of listening and navigating. Believing yet staying open.

I feel fortunate to be an American. However, my wife and two boys and I have felt significantly safer living in, and traveling all over Europe for the last 15 months, than we do in the US. By faaaaar.

My interview with @IndieHackers is up, about my journey to $58k MRR. Link is below 👇

My wife, two boys, and I left the U.S. almost two years ago to the day. Today, we fly back to the U.S. for the first time since then, as we move back indefinitely. We've been to 13 countries, and our kids went to school in two of those. They've been exposed to an array of culture, languages, and people of all types. They now have friends from all over the world. They've come a long way in Spanish, Croatian, French, and German. They've been pushed out of their comfort zone and faced it fearlessly. They've acquired a vast amount of knowledge about the world, and curiosity to see, learn, and experience more of it. They're undoubtedly better for it, as are we. Plus, it was a good excuse for me to go to two @microconf's in Europe 🤩. And we've had 11 separate groups or friends and family meet up with us along the way. It's been a magical experience that I wouldn't trade for anything, and I wish more people would do this. Why are we going back? Well, we've included our kids in the conversation since day one. A few months ago, we gave them 100% of the choice of what we do next, and they chose to go home. The main reason being to be with their friends they've had since they were born. Actually, their preference was that we would keep doing what we've been doing but have those friends come along 😁. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make that happen 😫. It's bittersweet, but it'll be nice to go home for a bit and see all our old friends. We're not done, as we all have an ever-growing list of more parts of the world we want to see. So we're plotting a six-to-eight week mini version of this for next summer, and go from there. The boys are pushing for 🇯🇵, but we will see. If you've ever dreamed of doing something similar, please, just go. It's 100 percent regret-proof.

Yesterday we arrived in Valencia, our home for the next 10 months or so. The boys were included in the decision to come here but had lately been saying they wanted to go home after this year. Last night as we were walking around they got increasingly excited and started to say "Well, okay, now we might consider staying here." Whatever we all end up deciding after this year, this is what it's about: pushing ourselves into unknown territory and being open to what we may discover.

I screwed up. I've been saying I was at $58k MRR at the time of the sale. I just looked again and it was $61,037. 2.5 years prior I had never made more than $100 from any of the countless SaaS apps I had built. Keep going.

All my failed SaaS attempts taught me critical things like: - Don't spend too long building before talking to customers - Don't go into a market that's hard to reach - Don't go into a market with low profit margins - Don't try to find an idea with no competition As I look at the pattern of these lessons, it’s less about what I learned to do and more about what I learned not to do. I don’t think any of us find a silver bullet path, even after a success or two. We still have to figure things out as we go on subsequent rounds. But after enough attempts, it starts to feel like we’re bowling with bumpers along the gutters - we may not get a strike every time, but we’re throwing a lot fewer gutter balls. These things we wrongly call failures are how we learn, so get out there and fail, and eventually, you'll throw one right down the middle.

I think I figured it out.

I quit my 6-figure job at Adobe to start my first startup. I spent two years on it and made $200. Then I took a job as the first hire at a startup paying far under what I was worth. But those were two of the best decisions I ever made. Knowledge and experience are far more valuable, forever, than a higher salary is now. Play the long game.

I dunno man. I just wanna keep exploring the world with my family.

All these success stories can piss you off. You feel like you're working your ass off, getting nowhere. Meanwhile, others are crushing it and making it look easy. It's time to pull back the curtain and reveal what's really behind these success stories. A thread 🧵

It's amazing how often Google Sheets is the best solution.

I think we are very near a time when we rarely watch a movie in common. Instead we will create a prompt for the type of movie we want to see, it'll be generated, and potentially never watched again by anyone.

I love hearing @levelsio talk the same way about development as I do. Most developers I know overvalue code quality and over-architect their project. Nobody cares what stack or framework you use or how your code looks - it just needs to work well enough. The reality is, in early stages, our apps can change and evolve so fast, and many apps don't survive anyway, and the code just gets thrown out. And even if it survives, the Pareto principle is your friend. Just make it work.

Setup in our current apartment in Valencia, Spain:

Uncovering new SaaS ideas doesn't have to be hard. I have a friend that runs a small salsa business. Here's how quickly one question to him opened up a whole new niche to explore:

I'm honored:

Look ma, I'm in @starter_story - thanks @thepatwalls! starterstory.com/stories/cas…

Some copycats aren't so sly. And he's signed up for 9 trials.

My wife and I have hardly worked since our kids got out of school on June 21st. Instead, we've been to Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Portugal, and Spain, having invaluable family time. It's not perfect - we have our moments. We bicker at times, we even get a little sick of each other. After all, we're together a lot. But we're also closer and more relaxed than ever, and having so much fun seeing the world. Tomorrow the boys start their new school - they're both nervous and excited. As for me, I'll be exploring this beautiful city of Valencia, and cranking on the projects I've been thinking about all summer, which includes doubling down on content. I'm feeling charged up, and more motivated and inspired than ever. Entrepreneurship rules. Live now.

Switzerland is beautiful and peaceful, but damn, we gotta get outta here before we go broke. 🏔️ 💰

Well, that escalated quickly… I had my first viral post (nearing 1M views and tripling my followers in 48 hours), about living, traveling, and working abroad as digital nomads (or ”slomads”) with my wife and two boys. It reinforced several good lessons: 1) You never know what people will respond to. And it’s debatable if laboring over something increases its chances of success. I wrote that post in 10 minutes. I’ve spent much more time on posts that nobody cared about. I also spent years on a SaaS that went nowhere and later achieved major success with one I spent 4 weeks on before launching it. 2) Sometimes we overlook what makes us unique. I’m part of a huge crowd of people who are bootstrapping businesses. I’m part of a smaller crowd that’s had a life-changing success bootstrapping a SaaS. And I’m part of an even smaller crowd that has done that and is nomading with a family. Nomading hasn’t been something I talk about much online, but it clearly strikes a chord and is my unique differentiator. This is what we strive for in products and brands. Sometimes it’s right in front of our face and we just look past it. 3) And building on the above, it makes total sense that nomading resonates with the bootstrapper community. After all, many people are striving to make a living with their own products so that they have the freedom to live how and where they want. For many of us, nomading represents the ideal version of that lifestyle. In marketing messaging, we’re often told to sell the outcome, not the product, and that’s exactly what my viral post did. 4) Sometimes our biggest breaks come from unplanned events. The key is to remain aware of what our environment is telling us. In this case, I’m being told that my audience is interested in living with a sense of freedom, and on their own terms. And being a creator is the path they’re choosing to get there. Similarly, in my last business, I had people starting to ask me if they could resell my product. Initially, I turned it down, then eventually I realized that was potentially a perfect path to reach scale without hiring. Keeping that open awareness changed the course of my business in a big way. Sometimes we overcomplicate things or try so hard that we miss what’s obvious. Experiment. Remain open to surprises. Look at what’s right in front of you. Here's the post I'm referring to: nitter.app/saasmakermac/sta…

The northern part of the Croatian coast (Istria) and the islands (Korcula):

Apparently people like posts about traveling the world with kids. No surprise, it's amazing, and more doable than we think.

Most people don't realize that the US is way down the Global Peace Index, below countries they would say sound terrifying. Currently number 131 of 163.

. @arvidkahl 's podcast with @levelsio is so good! And it got me thinking about how early I was in trying to catch the SaaS / indie hacking wave. Starting around 2007 or so I remember watching @patio11 with his various projects, and @peldi with @balsamiq - making it look easy. Both inspired me immensely. Then in 2010, the same year @robwalling's Smart Small, Stay Small came out, I built my first SaaS. Despite not having much success for a long time, I was hooked, and luckily it eventually paid off. Even without the success, it's been such a fun journey, and so cool to look back on how things have changed. Ah, the good 'ol days.

I've never had more fun working on my own projects than now Traveling all over w/ my wife & kids & getting to work on meaningful projects while (hopefully) helping others I attribute a lot of this joy to my new friendships and collabs since becoming active on X Thank you 🙏

A few years ago, I made a huge mistake. I made an assumption that I'll never make again.

We should stop trying to brainstorm app ideas. But instead, train our minds to notice gaps. At least once a year, I read @paulg's essay on 'How to get startup ideas'. Here are some of the standout quotes from it: “The verb you want to be using with respect to startup ideas is not "think up" but "notice." “A crowded market is actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough.” “One way to ensure you do a good job solving other people's problems is to make them your own.” “When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they're making — not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. Usually this initial group of users is small, for the simple reason that if there were something that large numbers of people urgently needed and that could be built with the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would probably already exist. Which means you have to compromise on one dimension: you can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type.” Source “Live in the future, then build what's missing.” “Because a good idea should seem obvious, when you have one you'll tend to feel that you're late. Don't let that deter you. Worrying that you're late is one of the signs of a good idea. Ten minutes of searching the web will usually settle the question. Even if you find someone else working on the same thing, you're probably not too late. It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors — so rare that you can almost discount the possibility. So unless you discover a competitor with the sort of lock-in that would prevent users from choosing you, don't discard the idea.”

Roast my setup:

Want to build a product and not sure where to start? Building for a marketplace is a great place to start and includes built-in marketing.

Let's do this:

I'm so glad they finally found me:

The last few days I've been questioning what the hell I'm doing - and feeling beat the hell down. Am I working on the right things? Am I making the progress I need to see? Yet: - I had a decent exit not long ago. - My audience is growing. - I have another profitable SaaS. - I have another almost SaaS ready to launch. - And other irons in the fire. That's all great, but it doesn't make me immune to feeling this way at times. I've felt beaten down before, and I will again. Fortunately, I know how to get back up and keep going - that's what it takes to play this game. So tomorrow I'll be back. In the meantime, I'm gonna take it easy. I've been at this long enough to know this is par for the course. So next time you're feeling beaten down, or questioning what you're doing, know that's normal. We all do it. This is when most people quit (and if you ever choose to quit, that's okay too). I'm just here to say that we haven't chosen the easy path, and it's hard for all of us. When you need a break, take a break, and remember that you aren't alone in needing that sometimes.

Feeling stuck trying to get your first customers or conversations? Shift the focus; make it your job to get 50 rejections in the next 30 days. You may be surprised at what happens as soon as you drop the partiality of trying to convince them.

If you like this post, you will love my newsletter where I share what I learned bootstrapping to $58k MRR and what I'm learning now. Join free: thesaasbootstrapper.co/subsc…

I wasn't very clear in my post that we were based in Croatia for last school year, and will be based in Spain for this next school year. The other travel happens during summers and school breaks, and weekends.

It's been a good day: - First full day in Spain - Crossed 1k X followers - And now 1k newsletter subs Thank you all 💝

My newsletter is now profitable - thanks to @SparkLoopHQ

For real. We often expect results faster than is realistic when starting out. But we underestimate how fast things can change is we keep trying.

Looking for a SaaS idea? Look at your spreadsheets; where there’s a spreadsheet there’s a potential SaaS. After all, spreadsheets are a sort of catch-all, providing functionality to organize and sort just about any type of data, any way you want. But not everyone is satisfied with spreadsheets as a solution because creating a viable solution there can take a lot of time and effort, requiring a deep understanding of data organization, workflows, and advanced spreadsheet knowledge. SaaS apps generally provide a solution to a specific problem or workflow in a (hopefully) simplified way. Let’s look at three examples from the sheets I see when I open my Google Sheets folder: 1) A spreadsheet that lists all my tweets. This gets populated from IFTT. I use this to review my tweets for content repurposing purposes: 2) A spreadsheet that syncs customer payments from Stripe. I do this to easily view the data in different ways that I can’t do in Stripe: 3) A spreadsheet that shows all the survey results from my newsletter subscribers. This data tells me what stage they are in their SaaS journey, and what type of content they’re interested in: Each of these has the potential so be turned into a SaaS app. Maybe these are good ideas, maybe not - you'd want to dive deeper into how I actually use these. The more sheets you look at, and the more people you talk to (!) the better chance of finding a killer idea, and solving a big, common pain point. Go through your sheets. Ask your friends if they can show you their sheets. Talk to your friends in various businesses and ask if they’ll briefly show your their sheets. Have a sheet party! 😆 Once you’ve found a few that you think hit the mark, try to find more people with similar sheets (which means they’re solving the same issue). This would likely be those that have similar titles/roles, in similar departments, or industries, or perform similar functions. Once you’ve found the pain, and know how to find the people that share that pain, it’s time to build.

I love it when a founder acknowledges that a good portion of their success came from luck.

Looking for a product idea and hate marketing? This is what I call the @dannypostma method of idea generation as described in his recent interview with @arvidkahl. Instead of starting with an idea, or an audience in mind, he starts with keyword research. He says all his products started this way and that he wouldn’t build a product without confidence he can rank well for the relevant term(s). Here’s how he does it: Using a keyword research tool, Danny spends lots of time searching until he finds a good keyword with a keyword difficulty (KD) score of less than 10 or even 20. With a KD like that, he's confident he can get to the first page of Google without a lot of effort and just a couple of backlinks. Then, as little as 500 monthly searches on that keyword can be enough. Approached this way, you can calculate the monthly revenue at various price points if you were listed #1 on Google. “If you’re an indie hacker, the easiest thing you can do is pick a product that has a lot of searches with no competition - you never have to do marketing.” Sounds simple enough! If you've tried this approach, let us know how it worked out!

Post #microconf Lisbon office for the morning.

I was genuinely worried about the same thing. Had two big monitors at home. It was a non issue getting used to the change. Here's my office:

The worst thing about nomading with an empty calendar is I never have a clue what the date or day of the week is. Then I remember it doesn't matter.

Geez. I love his work but this kinda stuff is too much.

Tomorrow we head to Valencia where my wife, 2 boys, and I will be based for 10 months on a digital nomad visa. We've never been there. The boys will start a new school soon. We may write a guide on how we do this. What would you like to know?

There was no school for the kids this week Wed-Fri. We decided to skip Tuesday too and explore a part of Spain we had yet to go to. I get a little work done in the morning before anyone wakes up, and then we spend the days exploring. We've been in Granada since Tuesday, and heading to Cordoba in a couple hours. I feel fortunate that we have designed a life where we can set off like this without getting approval from anyone. The path to getting here hasn't always been easy, and it certainly didn't happen overnight. Things still aren't perfect. And fears of losing this freedom never go away. But in the meantime, we'll be doing our best to enjoy it. Entrepreneurship rules. Live now.

We took the kids out of school this week and went to Mallorca. No permission required. #saaslife

I started my day with the shit I didn't want to do. Feels good to get it out of the way, now onto the fun stuff. Feels like a habit I may wanna try to keep. Anyone else do this?

San Sebastián for the win.

Whenever I find myself feeling the need to make an app look beautiful, I realize I'm trying to make up for a lack of value. Craigslist is the perfect reminder that given value you don't need a beautiful design.

The makeover of my X profile is considered complete (for now). Which one looks better? Here's what this process looked like: [a thread 🧵]

I often wonder if all the information out there about building businesses hurts us more than helps us. Endlessly consuming such information gives us the false feeling we're making progress. If we implemented what we've learned before consuming more, we'd be way further along.

We recently got a much clearer path to our goals with Aware by flipping this question on its head: "How do we get to $XX,000 MRR?" Instead, we asked: "What's keeping us from getting to $XX,000 MRR?" These may seem like the same question, but they yield entirely different results. The first question assumes we need to do more - that we aren't where we want to be because we aren't doing enough. There's value here, as this can be true. But the latter question encourages us to figure out who or what is getting in our way, or slowing us down. Or maybe we're trying to force something that isn't working. Sometimes just identifying and removing a bottleneck can let everything flow beautifully.

I believe the success of the solopreneur is dependent on: - 10% skill - 70% determination/unwillingness to quit - 20% luck/timing Skills are acquired along the way. Determination is what gets you there. We can influence our luck by trying more things.

There are many benefits for the nomad that goes to the coffee shop to do some work before the family wakes: Córdoba, Spain

The scariest moment in our 18 months of travel was last night in London. We've been to Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and more, without a single threat. Last night a friend and I came out of the tube with our three boys under the age of 11. All within two minutes three 20-somethings gave me a quick threat because I was standing on the escalator, apparently in their way, as I was looking at directions on my phone. Then we walked out onto the street and two guys were screaming at each other and moving towards us, causing the kids to get scared, so we crossed the street. Then within seconds, a guy came right up to my friend and aggressively asked him if he wanted to fight. Of course, he said no and we went the other way. The next thing I knew, as I was walking next to my 11-year-old, I looked over at my son and out of the corner of my eye saw the aggressor trailing literally inches behind me - I'm surprised I didn't feel his breath. I grabbed my kid by the jacket, swung him in front of me, and ran into the nearest store. As soon as we got in, we stopped and turned around. The guy was in the doorway staring at us and saying who knows what, toggling between coming at us and not. Finally, he turned around and left. Of course, my kid was terrified and couldn't settle even after a while, so we called an Uber and left the area. It's unfortunate that this kind of thing happens at all, but especially that a kid has to experience this. It pains me to see that kind of fear in his eyes, and it reinforces any fears he already had about the safety of the world. Fortunately, he's been enough places now to know deep down that most places are safe and this type of thing is rare, and that we came out safely on the other side. I truly hope he can remember that in the future when we are in similar environments that may remind him of that.

You know you're crushing it when you consider turning off the Stripe payment notification emails. amiright?

The bootstrapper's journey rears its head again - in this visualization of my newsletter growth: 1) Grind it out long past when you hoped to see results. 2) Endure through all the temptations to quit. 3) Then:

Where are you? This is from a couple hours ago on the island of Korćula. Best water ever.

When my wife, two boys, and I left the U.S. 17 months ago to live abroad, I was excited to live in a way where not every day would feel the same as those that came before. Also, as someone who already strived to not have many material things, I was excited to have only things I truly needed. So we rented our house out minimally furnished and shoved our remaining stuff in 3 small closets. We left the country with one bag each. Since we left, I’ve realized the fewer things I have, the fewer things I want. Little of it matters - only a handful of things make my life any better, the rest just get in the way. We have had a base each school year so our kids can go to the same school for a full year at a time for familiarity and stability, and so we can work. Yet I’ve realized the education my kids are getting from seeing the world (we’ve been to 11 countries so far) is more valuable than what is taught at any school. (My 11-year-old was leading a conversation with his grandparents last night about global politics and the inner conflicts within the Balkan Wars) I’ve realized the amount of confidence this has given them (and my wife and I!), and the amount of curiosity it’s sparked in them, is immense. While having sold a business a couple of years ago unquestionably put me in a fortunate position to make this all easier, I’ve also realized that for many able to work remotely - for themselves or someone else - it’s the fear that keeps them from doing it more than the reality of their situation. In many ways, living in this way is so much simpler, so much easier, and more enjoyable. Sure, there are trade-offs - we miss friends and family, but many love an excuse to travel to come to see us. In our case, our living and travel expenses match what we were spending before we left. And we’ve traveled all this summer and last, every school break, and many weekends. I realize everyone has their unique situation and background, but if you’ve been dreaming of adventure, and seeing the world, married or not, kids or not, it might be more doable than you think. There a many ways to approach it, and many places you can go with varying costs of living and schooling options. You won’t regret it, and you may even wish you had done it sooner. What's the worst thing that could happen? Live now.

Look ma, I'm in the @IndieHackers newsletter!

Traveling and working from anywhere is amazing. It's also nice to be back in my home office zone for a minute.

Who's it gonna be?

A new brand is born. Yesterday, I was making a video with my 9 year old testing out a new mic. I was also wearing my new shirt. When he read it, he misspoke and said "the SaaS brutestrapper". @marcelfahle heard this and knew what had to be done. And just like that, a new brand is born. Announcement coming soon.

My notes from @AlexHormozi's book launch for $100M Leads: Methods - The Core Four - Warm leads - people you know - Posting free content - Paid ads - Cold outreach - the beauty of this is you can choose who you reach out to - DMs - Reach out to get on podcasts - Knock on doors - Calls Four lead getters - Customers - Employees - Agencies (i.e. ad agency) - Affiliates “The most efficient way to advertise is to let other people do it on your behalf” You don’t do the four lead-getters. You do the core four to get them on your behalf. Get one person to get an army of core lead-getters to do the work for you. You work way less but get four times the leads. “There are two types of people that can get you leads: you, and other people” Approach - Start by reaching out to people who know you - Post on social offering help - Gather testimonials from the above - Post content -> message everyone who engages and then offer help When promoting something to your audience, keep going with the same amount of content you normally do, and do the promotions in addition to that. Uses the same content framework for each piece of content - Hook - Retain - Reward

It's 1000% easier to succeed when you love what you do.

Daily reminder to slow the eff down.

Ideas on their own, have no value. It's about execution @paulg lays it out:

About an hour ago I sent this to a friend and said "winning". Then I put my phone next to me and a shirt over my eyes. 20 minutes later, my phone was gone. That's what I get for all my talk about how we feel so safe in Europe and never see crime.

You don't need to find an idea, you need to find a common pain.

TL;DR 1) Surround yourself w/ people doing what you want to do. Learn all you can from them. Help those coming up behind you. 2) Take the stair step approach instead of going all in. 3) Don't stop. The common thread among all successful entrepreneurs is never giving up.

You've been a delight, Barcelona.

. @robwalling at #microconf Europe 2023 on content marketing. 5 stages of awareness: - unaware - problem aware - solution aware - product aware - most aware Determine stage prospect is in: 1) A question you might ask: "When do you plan to make a purchase decision?" 2) Look at search intent. See what keywords people are searching to find your website. 3) semrush has an "intent" column, showing the prospect intent based on the keywords searched Use content marketing, starting at the bottom of the awareness funnel (most aware), and work your way up.

You only need to worry about validation if you're creating your own market. If you have competitors with customers, your idea is already validated.

It's easy to get caught up in thinking you need a million-dollar idea. You don't. If ideas were that valuable, there would be a marketplace for them. Instead, what you need is a million-dollar business. The idea itself is merely a jumping-off point. The value is in the business you build. So stop over-valuing ideas and build a business.

Believe in your idea, but don't be married to it. Don't be swayed by someone who tells you it won't work. Be open to adapting based on real-world conversations and observations.

My morning in a nutshell:

I'm looking for someone that knows Rails and React that is looking for a little side work. It's a Rails app with React inside. Bonus points if you can make things look pretty. Anyone?

Our first app attempts feel so precious, then we recognize the reality of the survival of the fittest and things start to happen.

Other people's credit cards.

A young entrepreneur is allowed a laptop and two books. She then has to build a successful business. What two books do you give her? I'll go first: - The Mom Test, by @robfitz - $100M Offers, by @AlexHormozi

Nobody cares what your tech stack is but you. Use what your fastest with.

I have a hunch my 9-year-old will be successful in life. He just showed me this email he sent to get into the Capcut Creator program to sell templates, after Googling to find their email, never asking for help.

If you love what you do, you don't need productivity hacks.