0:08
Are you intimidated?
Search this video
0:08
Why are you He said he took a run before this cuz he was nervous.
0:12
Now he said he was nervous.
0:14
been on a lot of podcasts, but like they're usually kind of small, you know, it's like I see you guys as like Joe Rogan for business.
0:18
So it's like that's one step above.
0:20
It's like Joe Rogan and then there's you guys and then below is like Yeah, I don't want to diss all the podcasts I've been on. They're amazing.
0:26
But you know, like this is like a level, so but it's good, you know.
0:29
I'm a big fan of your levels.
0:31
So and you also don't know what Sam might ask you cuz Sam might just come out of left field and be like the thing.
0:38
I was thinking like Sam is like this not a regular interviewer, you know, he he asks some crazy [ __ ] So Wait, me?
0:43
First of all, I I don't know if that's true.
0:46
I don't know if we First of all, it's not just me, it's you too, Shaan, that ask weird stuff.
0:50
But also, I don't think we ask that weird of questions.
0:54
I think we ask the questions that everyone's thinking. No, that's true.
0:57
But I I mean you're not yes man.
0:59
Like you know there's yes man podcast where like they just it's kind of like a fan thing.
1:02
Obviously that's not you guys.
1:03
You have real [ __ ] real questions.
1:05
And that's I think it's more interesting as as well.
1:08
Can we Sam, can we share the thing you were just telling us in Slack?
1:10
Can I share that on here on the pod? Yeah. The Sam Which one?
1:15
The Sam Parr strategy for networking.
1:18
This is you know, you can go to Harvard, you can go to Stanford.
1:21
You're not going to learn this one.
1:25
Sam has this habit where if like you know, it's a very small little tweak, but it's just so Sam that it just is awesome.
1:32
So if you're if Sam wants to hang out with you, he'll text you just like a normal person would, but and he doesn't need to even know you.
1:38
He's just like interested in you.
1:39
Maybe maybe it's a cold DM, maybe it's a text message, maybe he got your number from somebody else. Like hey, it's Sam.
1:46
Uh you know, I'm in San Francisco, but instead of saying want to hang, Sam will just go I'm in San Francisco, let's Dude, he he sent me some [ __ ] that I won't say out loud, but yeah. But I think it worked. Yeah.
2:01
So Sam, what what is this and why does it work so well?
2:05
It's like a phrase, like you know, like people will be like you know, I [ __ ] with that guy.
2:10
Like I [ __ ] with Drake. I like Drake.
2:14
It extends from that and I just say it and people they reply. I don't know.
2:17
I just This particular one I It was a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company who I'm friendly with. I just said, "What's up? I'm in your hood.
2:25
Let's And he goes, "Down. When?" So like it worked out. It's amazing.
2:32
And now so normally we try to play it cool, but we've actually been chasing you, Peter.
2:35
We've been We've been talking about your projects.
2:37
We've been being like, "Hey, we got to get this guy on the pod."
2:40
Sam is a fan of you, for sure.
2:42
I would say I am less of a fan than Sam, but I am a I That doesn't mean I like you.
2:48
It's just I'm more in the closet about it, whereas Sam is very open.
2:52
Sam's like, "This guy's amazing.
2:54
This guy's like an artist.
2:56
This guy's got great hair."
2:56
And you do have great hair, so it's all true. We finally got you here.
3:00
And it was hard, I think, right?
3:02
Cuz you like don't do you don't schedule or something like that?
3:05
Like I mean it it like it it looks like being an ass, right?
3:09
Anytime if you do that, but I like you guys I would get so many DMs and they're all like I mean generally very low quality DMs, right?
3:17
Like I want to collaborate, but I don't want to invest I don't want to Like people want something from you.
3:20
I think it's like being a hot girl in the club.
3:23
Like people want something from you, but they don't want to invest the time to actually get to know you or you know, you feel like an object and I don't like to feel like that and I want to um spend more time with you know, like with my friends in real life, with my girlfriend or something.
3:38
I want to spend time on in the gym, you know, on my health and cooking food and and that kind of stuff. Going for walks.
3:44
And uh I think because I cuz I've been doing this for 10 years like startups like eight years and now I get the money's going well, so I don't really need to do any calls anymore, any DMs.
3:55
So I'm just trying to create a more chill life and I'm not an [ __ ] It It just means like I don't have time to to reply to everybody.
4:03
So I closed my DMs and and then people got really angry on Twitter.
4:07
They're like, "Why don't you Why you close your DMs?
4:08
Are you arrogant and stuff?"
4:10
So I wrote a blog post like kind of explaining my day and my routine and what I do in the day and that I don't really have time if I do all the things I do now to also DM everybody and reply everybody and do calls and stuff.
4:22
Um and that's pretty much the arguing argument for it. let's give the context.
4:24
So let's explain who you who the heck you are.
4:26
So uh your name is Peter Levels.
4:28
You're known on Twitter as levels. io, right?
4:31
That's the That's the right way to say it. I saw you a while back.
4:36
I'm just going to say some interesting things about you.
4:37
I believe Now you can correct me if I have any of these wrong.
4:41
I believe you publish how much you make every year and in fact it's in your Twitter bio in your location.
4:47
There's like a meter that's like your road to 3 million a year. Yeah. And it says 2.
4:53
7 million, so your your meter is almost all the way full filled up.
4:57
Um you build a bunch of random small projects usually around some things you like or believe or your lifestyle, which is kind of a nomadic lifestyle.
5:05
So I believe I I think you you you hop around or you you don't have like a home base.
5:10
So you live you know, you could be like in Bali and then you could be in the Netherlands, you could be a different place all the time.
5:18
And you make these small websites or apps and it says in your bio that you have 13 million monthly active users.
5:25
Um and I've I remember seeing you because you did a community like a like a nomad community, a Slack community really early on.
5:31
Like Slack had just come out.
5:33
And I was like, "Oh, this guy's like charging 10 bucks a I think it was 10 bucks a month or something to get into this thing."
5:39
I was like, "He's got like a thousand people in here.
5:40
Wow, this is actually this guy's making good money doing this like just by making a Slack group."
5:45
And you just do a bunch of small experiments like that. That's what I know. Sam, what did I miss?
5:51
I'll I'll give Peter Peter, let me give like the outsider's perspective that's a little more holistic.
5:55
So basically there's two things that are interesting to you.
5:57
The first one is your businesses, which actually are the least the lesser of the two interesting things.
6:03
So you have roughly five or yeah, you have seven different businesses ranging from Nomad List, which makes 2.
6:08
1 million dollars in the last 12 months.
6:13
That's a That's a a job board.
6:13
You have another job board called Remote OK that's making 115,000 dollars a month.
6:20
You have Read Make Read Make, which looks like it's like an ebook, something like that.
6:23
That Yeah, it's like an ebook, yeah. Yeah, 60k a month.
6:25
And you have got like Sam, you're seeing these numbers because he publishes them.
6:29
Where do you publish these?
6:30
He publishes all of them on like the the URL Go to his Twitter profile and we'll let you talk sorry Peter in a second, but go to his Twitter profile.
6:38
Go to his Twitter profile and then like click off and it's like open revenue at the very bottom.
6:42
But I'm reading off of of our notes.
6:43
So and then you have like a QR menu creator.
6:45
Then you have like an inflation chart which doesn't seem like it makes money, but tracks inflation.
6:51
And then you have Rebate, which is a platform to help people become a citizen of Portugal, help them relocate to Portugal.
6:57
So what's the first part is those businesses, like I said, you have those that are interesting.
7:02
I would narrow it down to say you have a series of job boards for nomadic or remote work that are pretty profitable.
7:09
But the second thing that's even more interesting is the way that you do these things.
7:12
So you do a few things that are interesting.
7:14
The first thing is I think you're the only full-time employee, right?
7:17
And you use a team of contractors.
7:18
And second of all, you have this weird personality that's very embedded in everything you do.
7:24
So that's kind of like my my big intro of of what you do. Does that add up?
7:28
I could see a website and I could know you built it without you having an about page.
7:32
Which is kind of looks kind of clunky to me.
7:36
It looks a little No, but it's in a nice way, I guess. Yeah. Cuz I know the designer. Yeah.
7:40
Um no, I think it's accurate description.
7:42
Um it's like like I'm not very nomadic anymore.
7:46
Like I'm slowly settling down, right?
7:48
But I started very nomadically.
7:48
I was like moving around every month.
7:49
Um I started like in 2014.
7:53
I started nomading and I went to all these places and I started building these apps, these little websites, little projects to validate.
8:02
And I remember I mean I told the story so many times, but I was following Patrick McKenzie, patio11 on Hacker News, famous Hacker News guy.
8:07
And now he works for Stripe.
8:10
And he would do he would share his revenue on his blog about all his little projects he made.
8:16
And it was like appointment reminder for barber shops, so you got a SMS just before your appointment, so you don't forget it. Uh that kind of stuff.
8:20
And I was really inspired like, "Okay, this is not like some big VC funded guy.
8:27
This just like an indie guy who's just on his laptop kind of building stuff.
8:28
Um and I kind of mixed it with the nomad thing where like building from your laptop, from your backpack, moving around.
8:36
Um I think also getting inspired from different places cuz if you move around, you I mean I know Sam moves around a little bit as well.
8:44
Uh you your life becomes very unique because you meet different kinds of people, you're in different kinds of places.
8:49
You see different kinds of products like in shops.
8:51
Like if you're in Asia, you see some futuristic [ __ ] you don't see in Europe and America.
8:56
Um and all that stuff kind of it helps for inspiration for creating products in some indirect ways as well.
9:02
Um so that's pretty much what I've been doing.
9:04
And I think it's I've been trying to be like radically honest.
9:06
Like I know this this American guy who pushes the radical honesty movement.
9:11
Um so I'm trying to do that in my personal life.
9:13
I'm trying to do it on the internet.
9:15
I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to be as honest and open as possible uh because I don't like this fake corporate stuff.
9:22
And it's because I studied business administration and I have a master's degree in it, so I know all the management consultancy [ __ ] You know, I've been there.
9:29
I don't know I know That's where my friends work.
9:30
I know investment bankers.
9:33
And I hate that that a lot of that world where it's like fake and not real and I want to be very open and honest.
9:38
And I think it's also a little bit of a European thing, not to slag off Americans.
9:43
I love America, but like in Europe people are very uh a little bit more direct and a little bit more straightforward.
9:50
And I think that comes across in my in the stuff I do a little bit.
9:55
So, what's the total size of all your of all your projects in terms of top line and bottom line revenue?
10:01
And isn't it true that you're the only full-time person and how many contractors are you using?
10:05
Yeah, so I have one customer support contractor part-time, uh, Isabel, and she works for all my projects.
10:13
Um, and I have a a moderator for the Slack group cuz dude, Slack groups they there's some drama in there.
10:17
Like I've had some crazy drama in these Slack groups and communities.
10:22
So, you need to have a moderator, you need to have rules, and you need to have a You cannot just automate this moderation away. Like I tried that.
10:27
But you need a real person there to, you know, check on messages and stuff.
10:31
Um, and then I have a devops, uh, guy.
10:35
He's my best friend, Daniel.
10:37
And he, uh, works kind of like a SLA SLA, like a service level agreement where if the server goes down, he gets a message.
10:43
You know, if I'm sleeping or something, he brings it back up.
10:45
But the problem is it never goes down anymore.
10:49
Like it doesn't We haven't really had that for years.
10:50
So, um, he does security updates and stuff, you know, like cuz I have a VPS.
10:54
I don't use Amazon, I use a VPS on DigitalOcean and Linode.
10:58
Um, and he kind of keeps that stuff safe, you know? So, that's good.
11:03
And how big's the business?
11:03
Top line and bottom big's the business?
11:05
Um, so RemoteOK is the job board, it's the biggest, uh, business. Makes the most money.
11:11
Nomad List is starting to grow though.
11:12
It's like it's past, I think, 100K this month. 100K a month.
11:14
Um, so almost like a million dollar business. Um, RemoteOK is 1.
11:19
6 million a year, I think.
11:21
Um, and Rebase is the new business.
11:24
It's the immigration agency.
11:26
So, I want to help remote workers immigrate to, uh, countries that want to attract remote workers with like, you know, beneficial tax uh, stuff.
11:32
Uh, Portugal is one of the first ones to do that.
11:35
Um, so those are the three business really make money and the rest doesn't really make money a lot.
11:38
Like the book makes like, uh, I think like 4K a month.
11:41
So, But everything you do is part of one flywheel.
11:46
So, I've looked at your kind of like system and I've looked at a bunch of people because I got into a little pickle where I was like, "God, I'm doing so many things and I want to do all these things.
11:58
I'm interested in all these things."
12:00
But [ __ ] you know, am I going to be able to juggle five different things?
12:01
I got a podcast, I have a VC fund, I have my e-commerce business, I have a newsletter business, I have um, you know, I don't even know what else. A course business.
12:12
I got I got other [ __ ] right?
12:14
So, it's like am I going to be able to do this?
12:16
And what I saw that you did, I like I have this kind of like mental model of a solopreneur.
12:21
And a solopreneur, nobody's actually solo.
12:23
Everybody's got like a little support team around them that's like helpful.
12:26
Some some in a big way, some in a small way.
12:29
But basically it's like somebody who builds a personal brand and then builds a bit bit builds a a successful business and lifestyle around that.
12:36
And what I noticed was that you had this formula, which is I don't know if it's intentional or unintentional, but I'll say it out loud because here's my my read of your business.
12:44
It's basically you have you start with the red pill.
12:48
So, the a red pill is like, you know, that scene in the Matrix where Morpheus is holding out a blue pill or red pill.
12:53
He's like, you know, "Do you want Do you want the truth or do you want to You take the blue pill, you could just go back to your normal life just as everything was.
12:58
You could forget this ever happened."
12:59
And Neo's like, "No, I need to know the truth. What's the truth?" He takes the red pill.
13:02
And basically it's like every great solopreneur, I think, starts with one truth.
13:07
So, like, uh, Tim Ferriss's truth was basically that like the 9-to-5 work in a cubicle for 40 years model is like effing broken and you don't need to do it that way.
13:17
Like you could work 4 hours a week and live like a millionaire.
13:20
And so that was like Tim Ferriss's red pill.
13:22
And yours was basically like this is idea of being a nomad, a digital nomad.
13:26
Um, which is like, "Hey, yeah, you don't have to you know, prescribe to the uh, subscribe to the the normal way of living.
13:32
You pick a a place, that's where you are from, that's where you live, and you pay, you know, you just kind of stay where you grew up and like and you go to an office every day and like you have to wear shoes and whatever.
13:44
You're like, "No, I wear flip-flops.
13:45
I walk around on beaches.
13:47
I just kind of go wherever I feel like, whenever I feel like, and I carry a little like backpack and that's my life." Yeah.
13:54
So, you start with the red pill.
13:54
Then you then you create content around that red pill.
13:58
So, that's you talking about that lifestyle and sharing everything from like, "Hey, people always ask what I put keep in my backpack for the day. Here's what it is."
14:05
It's like There's every bit of content you can come up with that's like poppy, that's like fits that red pill.
14:10
So, then you that gives you authority on that subject.
14:12
So, you become like a authority.
14:18
And so, you know, Pomp became an authority around Bitcoin and Tim Ferriss became an authority around life hacking and you've become an authority around nomadism.
14:26
And then you take that and then you basically spin off one of many businesses that can come up with it.
14:29
But every one of those business either it's a big money maker or it's just another funnel, and more content, more new audience that's going to like get sucked into that same red pill lifestyle that you are like talking about.
14:41
And so it even though you're doing six things, they're all actually part of one flywheel and every one that you do is it going to feed it either cuz it's going to give you a bunch of cash that lets you fund this lifestyle in a better bigger and better way or it's going to give you new content, new stories, new things to be known about, um, that fit that lifestyle as well. That's how I see it.
15:02
Uh, I'm curious, is that a good Is that true or not? accurate.
15:05
And and my thing started when I was I was blogging, just like you said, I was blogging about like nomading, um, but I was blogging for my mom cuz back then you had like travel bloggers, like 2013.
15:16
And I was going to travel kind of and nomad and I wanted to, you know, every place I went I wrote a little how was this city to live in and stuff and what happened, all the crazy [ __ ] that happened to me.
15:27
And my mom was reading that, um, but I wrote it in English cuz her mom was obviously Dutch.
15:30
But I was like, "Okay, she can read English so it's maybe easier to get more traffic and stuff, more audience."
15:34
But it wasn't like super like a big idea.
15:36
It just kind of happened.
15:38
And then those blogs started showing up on Hacker News and I started writing more about like bootstrapping startups as a nomad in in Thailand or something or in Asia.
15:45
And those started going on Hacker News really high and I think that was the time. It was like 2013, 2014.
15:52
That was the time when I noticed that, um, the developers in San Francisco working for all the startups, they also were realizing, "Okay, maybe I can start doing this remotely."
16:00
Cuz remote work was not cool back then and nomading was not cool back then cuz you had the Tim Ferriss wave in 2008.
16:06
It was like the first nomad wave.
16:08
But there was I loved Tim Ferriss, but there was something about the the followers there and the the the business that were created, they were kind of like like shady.
16:15
There was a lot of shady [ __ ] I met I came across in Asia, in Thailand, like Americans and Europeans.
16:21
It was like A lot of brain supplements and [ __ ] like that. Yes, yes, dude.
16:25
Yeah, drug dealers, online drug dealers and like spamdexing and like there's still shady [ __ ] but less.
16:31
And I was like, "I really hate this shady [ __ ] I don't feel like part of this scene."
16:34
Uh, I think it would be cool to make it more like, uh, you know, mainstream, like reputable businesses, reputable jobs that do it.
16:41
Um, so I kept blogging about it and it kept taking off on Hacker News.
16:45
And, uh, and you're right, I think.
16:47
And then I went on Twitter and I think I kind of organically people started following me and then uh, a lot of people went nomad.
16:53
A lot of my friends went nomad cuz I was blogging and they became my friends now.
16:57
Um, and yeah, and then I started all these businesses.
17:01
And but I think it's it's not like some it sounds very like a constructed It's not a master plan.
17:04
No, it's not a master plan. It's very organic.
17:07
Like, uh, I kind of try I'm like user zero.
17:09
I try to build stuff for myself.
17:14
And I always have like I have like new ideas.
17:15
Like there's just like you said, red pill.
17:17
There's like something there's a discongruence in society and what I'm thinking.
17:21
And most people then think like, "Okay, there must be wrong something There must be something wrong with me."
17:25
But I think, like arrogance, I think there must be something wrong with society.
17:29
Maybe this is like a new thing.
17:31
So, I'll try and make a little website about it.
17:32
Like inflation, like 3 years ago or 2 years ago I was tweeting about inflation, like this shit's going to go crazy with all the Fed printing money.
17:40
And everyone's like, "Nah, inflation is fine.
17:41
Stop Stop whining about it."
17:41
I'm like, "No, I'll just prove you that the real inflation numbers are higher."
17:45
So, I made this inflationchart.
17:47
com website that shows the inflation numbers are really high.
17:50
Turned out to be true kind of now. So, Yeah, that's great.
17:54
What what a technology are you using to build those sites cuz they all do look alike and you seem like you can spin spin them up like really quickly.
18:04
Well, that's really funny cuz I get a lot of criticism for for the technology I use.
18:07
I use PHP because that's the language I knew cuz I was making a blog, like right? Like WordPress.
18:11
So, I knew PHP a little bit.
18:13
So, I was like, "Okay, I just need to write with the language I know cuz I don't know any other languages."
18:16
And I did that and then I use uh, JavaScript and I use jQuery.
18:20
So, everybody starts laughing now cuz jQuery is like way passé.
18:24
But I still use it cuz it's so easy to, you know, make a button, bind an event to it, Ajax query to the server, to the PHP script, does something with the database, sends it back.
18:33
And it works for me really well and I think it doesn't matter what you use, but as long as you use something that's really fast um, feedback loop and iterative loop where you can really quickly develop.
18:44
Like I can make a new button in like, you know, 20 seconds and deploy to the server and it's really fast.
18:49
And I know other developer friends of mine use a very big stack, all this, you know, Kubernetes and all this stuff, all these keywords I don't really know.
18:57
And for them it takes sometimes like, you know, an hour or maybe even days to deploy a new feature.
19:03
And I think what we learned from startup and lean startup is that the customer feedback, um, loop has to be very The feedback loop has to be very fast, iterative so you can really quickly change stuff.
19:13
And it also makes your customers really happy because they see something, they have a problem or a feature idea, you can really quickly build it and then they see it and they're that's I mean, if you want happy customers, that's how you get it.
19:24
You make something for them.
19:25
They're like, "Oh my god, I influenced this product."
19:26
And, uh, yeah, so that works for me.
19:29
So, very very simple stack.
19:30
Well, we won't laugh at you because not because we're nice.
19:35
We just we don't know anything about I don't know what jQuery is.
19:40
I mean, nobody these days knows jQuery anymore, do they? You're safe here.
19:46
We're too dumb to to to call you out on any of your technical choices. Nice, nice. It's a good podcast.
19:49
What do you What do you think What do you think this whole your whole thing's worth?
19:54
Cuz it if you go if you go it depends if you do 5x Sorry.
19:57
Sean, go to his like sites and you could see like I It's like something {slash} open.
20:01
It's usually like the website {slash} open.
20:03
And then like it says like so many stats.
20:04
Most of which honestly are kind of useless, but it's just like it's cool.
20:08
Uh it's like, you know, like how many 70% of them are like, you know, the equivalent of like a step counter.
20:13
It's like uh it's like oh, how many DMs did I get today?
20:19
How many No, I don't have that. No, you do.
20:22
You have It's But it's collective.
20:24
It's like DM sends, you know, it's collective events.
20:25
Yeah, but whatever, yeah.
20:27
for example, I'm on nomadlist.
20:27
com, which you said is I think your biggest one, {slash} open.
20:30
And on it you can see the revenue chart, you see, you know, CO2 removed from the atmosphere, you see the full P&L, you see a bunch of other things.
20:38
And one of them that you see is my Okay, so 73% profit margin. Your team says 0. 78.
20:45
So I guess that's like part-time uh Yeah, like full-time equivalent, like FTE, yeah. And then plus 492 bots. What is that? Server costs? yeah, yeah.
20:54
Yeah, so uh on the server you can do like has a valuation, too.
20:57
He If you scroll down it says if we sold for like uh whatever the multiple profit.
21:03
If if it was 30x profit, this would be six uh 17 million.
21:07
So I I tried to take the PE I mean, it's not super accurate.
21:08
I did business, but it's the PE ratio of public companies that are similar in industry and I try like sync it to that sometimes.
21:13
Um But the dude, it completely depends on the multiple someone's going to pay for it, right?
21:19
Like uh Did you Did you sell What was our extremely low No, I've sold nothing.
21:22
Uh but I've I've been in I've been in selling processes with previous guests on your podcast.
21:27
You know, so uh but it kind of bounced off.
21:32
I'm just going to I'm just going to guess it was Andrew Wilkinson cuz he loves Andrew Schmalkinson.
21:36
Yeah, cuz he loves job boards.
21:38
That that's just a guess.
21:41
I can't say anything, but 80% I signed any 80% of the acquisitions they bounced off, right?
21:45
So right now I'm like I don't really care I like that I have cash flow and my life is nice and But I Until recently I was really like Until like a few years ago I was like obsessed by this selling because you build a startup like in the movie, like social Well, not the movie Social Network, but in a big movies about startups they're like, "Oh my god, grow big and then sell and you're a millionaire."
22:06
But then if you become millionaire yourself with your cash flow, you're like, "Okay, why does it matter, actually?"
22:09
Well, let's actually talk about that because the what's interesting about you is you have a few that you could sell.
22:14
So like Remote Okay and Nomad List are both pretty cool.
22:19
Have you calculated like how much money you want and how long it's going to take you to get there via cash flow and if it's better to like Well, why don't I just sell one and I can get like an eight or 10 million dollar lump sum, but then I still own this other one that's making like $3 million a year.
22:31
I mean, have you thought Have you done that math?
22:34
And and and what have you?
22:35
the The thing is most of my revenue is profit.
22:38
Like the margins are really high, especially Remote Okay is like it's like 94% margin uh pre-tax. So it's very high.
22:43
Um So I'd say 10x After 10x it gets interesting.
22:48
I think the problem with bootstrap companies is you usually get three, four, five x uh profit or revenue, I'm not sure. Which is too low for me.
22:55
It's like I can I might as well wait three years or four years and sit in this chair and the sites will probably keep running cuz they're fully automated and I barely need to work on them.
23:04
They kind of just keep going.
23:04
It's like heavily automated, like really heavy heavy.
23:07
Uh it's just that I won't build new features anymore then and the site will start looking a little bit old cuz, you know, design trends change.
23:13
But generally it will keep running.
23:15
So it doesn't make sense for me to sell for, you know, 5x or 4x if I might as well wait.
23:22
And also like Nomad List is like my baby, so if I sell it uh they're going to [ __ ] it up.
23:26
I already know because they always do.
23:31
Um Like let's say a big a big remote startup buys it.
23:34
Okay, I know VC fund of remote startups are cool, but they're also going to be bought by big boring companies later, like corporate companies, right?
23:40
Um and they're going to shut this [ __ ] down.
23:42
They're like And this is my contribution. This is my life's work. It's like legacy.
23:46
So uh Remote Okay, I care less cuz it's a job board.
23:50
Job board is not very interesting.
23:51
But Nomad List is like this whole movement and culture and and there's like tens of thousands of people on there and my friends are on there and it's like this work of love, you know?
23:59
And um So yeah, it it's hard It would be hard to sell that cuz people going to [ __ ] it up.
24:06
Are you the largest Go ahead, Sean.
24:09
Well, one thing I was going to say, you tweeted out something that said a 10-year overnight success, which I think is a common uh idea that most people don't don't realize, which is by the time you hear about something, you don't know the 10 years of kind of toiling and tweaking and iterating that it took before the big kind of breakthroughs happen.
24:26
I have my my life was the same way.
24:28
You know, I started my first startup when I was 20, 21 and I made my first million by the time I was 30 or 31, right?
24:34
Like it wasn't it took 10 years. yeah.
24:37
And um and you know, and then and then every year since then a bunch of great stuff has happened, but like it took a long time to get that breakthrough.
24:43
And I was looking at your chart, Sam.
24:45
I don't know if you saw this tweet that he has, but the chart basically shows I think you start the sum of all my revenue together in one chart, yeah.
24:52
Yeah, it's all your revenue from all your projects all together in one chart and it's looking like it's like I don't know, 2012 or 2013 start.
24:58
And basically if I go all the way up until let's call it 2019 you're at maybe 600, 700k in per year in revenue.
25:06
And only in the last like like kind of the pandemic boom, like you know, let's say 2020.
25:15
From 2020 you went from under a million dollars to 2. 5 million a year, right? So you 2.
25:20
5x and you like it's cuz it sounds amazing.
25:23
Wow, this dude's making almost 3 million a year.
25:24
It's like yeah, but he's also been building that momentum and stacking these assets and it just really took off in which I'm guessing is like pandemic fueled a lot of people wanting to be nomads and like you were there to catch that wave.
25:38
You were the guy ready to catch the wave.
25:40
had no idea it was coming.
25:40
Like right, this was Like I did this presentation in 2015 where I predicted there would be 1 billion remote workers in 2030.
25:49
And everybody laughed at me and I was like even in the comments, like YouTube comments were like, "This is ridiculous. Where are your sources? It's bullshit."
25:56
And then COVID happened and it suddenly seems very reasonable.
25:58
And but nobody could have seen this coming and I had no idea.
26:01
I was actually kind of like And cuz COVID or what? I exactly. With Fauci.
26:07
Um No, but it kind of like it If you look at the chart, it's kind of like, you know, it doesn't really go anywhere and I was like thinking, "Okay, this is bullshit."
26:15
Like I I I try I I tried everything to make it grow and sometimes it grew and sometimes it didn't, but generally it wasn't very It wasn't like a VC startup where like Well, it looks like there's these There's these run-ups and then a plateau and run-up and a plateau, which is by the way that's how all progress actually looks if you zoom out far enough.
26:35
And I remember that like during 2014, when I first moved to Silicon Valley, there was a small group of people like you.
26:41
This I think when you created that first Slack community that was like, "Nah, being a nomad is the way to go."
26:46
And I Yeah, but those people were like freaks.
26:48
You know, they were completely freaks out there. 100%. Yes.
26:53
And but there were some people who took the red pill at that time.
26:55
I think Steph Smith, who works in San Francisco, worked at the hostel, she met you in I don't know, Indonesia Bali or something like that because um she had I think probably during that more like that time period, 2014, 15, 16, something like that, she was one of those people that defected then, whereas now there's like another wave.
27:13
And like if you look at kind of like any lifestyle movement, it it happens this way.
27:17
It starts with like very Take crypto.
27:19
It starts with the the cypherpunks. Dude, exactly the same. You're right. Yes.
27:24
They hang out in cryptography forums and they took the pill first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:27
And then came, you know, the next the developers.
27:28
Then came the the finance bros.
27:30
And then came the next wave.
27:33
Like music genres, like hip-hop, like early hip-hop.
27:35
And I come from electronic music, so drum and bass music was my previous career, like music producer.
27:40
It's the same thing, like EDM taking off in in the US in 2009, 2010 with dubstep.
27:45
That's what broke EDM in US.
27:47
That kind of stuff, it you like these these movements, these scenes are almost dead and then suddenly something happens like Right.
27:56
And it's so unpredictable.
27:56
You have no clue what's going on. You can only surf it.
27:59
So I think the metaphor of surfing is very accurate.
28:01
It's better to surf these waves in general, I think life. Just surf waves.
28:06
Stop trying to control it.
28:06
Uh just surf it and and kind of like you know, pivoting, like pivoting startups into That's pretty much just surfing, like steering the surfboard over the waves.
28:15
Cuz you cannot you cannot control the market at all.
28:16
You cannot control society at all, you know?
28:20
One of the things that bothers me about the this indie hacker movement is Well, I I I really I I really like it.
28:26
I like it, but in general what I don't like about it is like people think pretty small.
28:30
So they're like uh you know, like there's it's kind of related to like the FIRE movement, which is like, "Oh, I just want to save a little bit of money so I can make $40,000 a year in passive income."
28:42
And I'm and and I'm like, "Oh, that's cool."
28:45
Like getting your first step is cool, but like that can't be it with life.
28:48
Like you have to like you know, you're going to want more.
28:50
You want to do more things and contribute to society.
28:53
And with a lot of these indie hackers, they kind of come up with silly stuff where it's like a small widget that they sell for $4 a month and they hope that they can get to $1,000 a month.
29:01
And I'm like, "Man, that's like neat if you're just starting out, but I think that this could be bigger."
29:04
And you're actually one of the few people that I've seen go harder, you know, you're going harder on this.
29:10
Um are there any others like you or what?
29:14
Like in which Well, your numbers are bigger.
29:15
Like like like it's it's substantial.
29:17
Like your numbers are nice already and bias, right? Well, yeah, definitely.
29:25
But I still think that there's a mindset of like um Like I still think that your Twitter bio thing says your meter is going to 3 million.
29:33
I would say most people who are indie hackers and makers and kind of like the the the sort of tinker community, they don't even have their meter today.
29:42
Their meter, you know, initially it it going to start much lower, 60,000 a year, 70,000 a year. Yeah.
29:48
And maybe yours did too, but then you like, "Oh, cool. I filled up that meter. I leveled it up."
29:51
So, what was your like initial goal?
29:53
Was it like make enough to not need a job or what How Where did you start?
29:58
And when did you get more ambitious?
30:00
So, I I mean, back when I started I had a YouTube channel for like this electronic music I was making and stuff and I was making like a few thousand dollars from YouTube AdSense.
30:07
So, I had some runway, uh some cash flow to live off of, travel off and work on mini startups. But, it was very fast.
30:14
It was shrinking because of the competitive like the copyright claims on YouTube in 2012 and stuff.
30:18
So, it was pretty much becoming like below a thousand dollars a month.
30:23
Um but uh So, I had that cash flow, but to go to your question, I think it's a power law.
30:30
Like you always have a few people in a scene who will make more money or get more successful and stuff.
30:36
I Also, there's a delay effect.
30:36
I started in 2013 or 2014.
30:38
All these indie this indie scene didn't really It wasn't cool until maybe I think 2018 or something, 2017.
30:46
Um So, these people that are going into it now, they're just starting kind of and I think the widget thing is interesting because you said it's only a widget.
30:54
Uh if you make one feature really well that solves like one problem, you can get some customers and you get some cash flow and then you can build a second feature and you can slowly scale up uh to a bigger to a real business, to a real product toolkit, right?
31:10
And then I think another thing is you don't see a lot of people with multi-million revenue because they will quickly raise VC.
31:16
Like once you pass a million dollars a year, they will switch to, "Okay, let's go big.
31:20
Let's go become a billion dollar company."
31:23
And I think I'm the exception.
31:25
I'm like, "I don't want to be a billion dollar company.
31:27
I'm fine like like this kind of chill."
31:29
Um and that's why you don't see those people a lot cuz I do know them and they quickly disappear.
31:32
Like this app we're using now, Riverside, I think it's raised VC now. Started bootstrapped.
31:39
And then I think Oprah Winfrey used it and cuz it's my friend Nadav, he makes it.
31:43
He's like, "Dude, Oprah Winfrey used it."
31:45
I'm like, "Oh my god, this is crazy."
31:46
He's like, "Yeah, I think I'm going to raise VC."
31:48
I'm like, "Okay, yeah, you should do that."
31:49
Uh because they think this is like this could be bigger than just a few million, right?
31:55
So, so you tweeted something out the other day that's related to this.
31:57
You go, "Not sure if people realize it, but if your app does 20,000 a month in revenue, you're probably already a millionaire."
32:03
$20,000 per month times 12 months, assume you could sell for let's call it four or five x multiple, that's a million dollar selling price, right?
32:13
You you're sitting on a million dollar asset.
32:14
And when you put it that way, I think that sounds and it is way more achievable than this idea of like, "Oh, I got to build a a million dollar business."
32:22
Like, "I don't I don't know.
32:24
I I don't Do I have the big idea? Whatever."
32:27
But, getting something to 20 to 30,000 a month in revenue is doable.
32:31
It's approachable and that's kind of awesome.
32:33
I think that's an amazing like just a Like you didn't You all you did is you said something that was true out loud.
32:41
And I think if more people heard that, that's why I'm kind of bringing it up here.
32:45
I think if more people heard that, that is a pathway to a millionaire status that does not require like winning the startup lottery of like inventing the next big thing or working and saving and you know, paying your crazy W-2 taxes for like, you know, 15, 20 years to get the same same outcome. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
33:04
And I think it's it's reachable, especially if you think about high automation, very high margins.
33:10
So, software business, you you're not going to hire a big team of 10 people immediately.
33:16
Um you work with part-time contracts like I do and you keep your margins very, very high because then you can sell for five x, right?
33:22
Then your revenue is almost your profit. So, it's the same.
33:25
Um yeah, that it I think 20k is approachable.
33:28
Let's brainstorm a business together that could get to 20k.
33:31
So, what's an idea that you you're not currently building, but you thought of because I'm sure you're an idea guy and you you think you could make a website that does x or you could make Nomad List for this other niche or you could make Yeah.
33:44
you know, um the the the immigration one for this other thing.
33:47
So, what's a business Let's brainstorm a business together.
33:50
What's a business that you think could get somebody to this millionaire status?
33:53
Dude, I think what's Man, it's like again, this is so personal.
33:55
So, I've been living like I used to live in hostels, right? Like dorms in 2013. I didn't have money.
34:02
Shared with six people like crazy.
34:02
Then I started like private rooms in hotels.
34:07
Then the rooms got a little bit more luxurious cuz I had more money.
34:08
And then I started discovering like apartment hotels.
34:13
And it sounds like [ __ ] but it works so well with remote work.
34:15
So, I'm in an apartment hotel right now in Europe on the beach and there's a kitchen.
34:22
It's like does that mean? Sorry.
34:22
Apartment hotel is essentially a hotel, so full serviced, furnished, uh nice interior hotel room, but you also have a kitchen, you have a bedroom, you have a living room, you have a you know, it's very big.
34:33
It's pretty much like an Airbnb, but it's a month or per night or what?
34:37
You pay per month Well, you can pay per night, you can pay per month. It's just like a hotel.
34:41
um it's like that guy or whatever.
34:41
Yeah, it's like Sonder and it's like all uh I forget the other one, the guy who was supposed to come on the pod but he canceled last minute.
34:47
Yeah, Sam, you you did one of these in Nashville, right?
34:48
Or something where you're like, "This is awesome."
34:51
It's like a lobby where everyone's working.
34:54
Yeah, it's like a it's basically just an apartment that you can rent for five days. And they're pretty cool.
34:58
I do them I do them all the time.
35:00
The problem that I've experienced is with in the New York, it's like 10 grand a month and it's like 600 square feet.
35:05
So, that's why I tend to go Airbnb.
35:07
But, when I'm in smaller, less expensive cities, you can get like a thousand square foot place for like 6,000 a month.
35:12
And it's just it's basically uh an apart- apartment building that has one floor or all floors dedicated to Airbnbs. Yeah.
35:22
The problem with Airbnbs that I've noticed is the quality is very varies high.
35:27
There's a big range of quality. And there's problems.
35:29
There's no daily cleaning.
35:30
It's it feels too much like um unexpect- like you don't know what's going to happen.
35:37
The water stuff might break.
35:38
If things break here, you just get a new apartment, right?
35:41
And I've done this in Europe and I've done this in Asia too in Thailand.
35:44
And I spend about you see two to three k, three and a half k. So, it's a lot of money.
35:49
It's more than normal rent.
35:51
But, the cool thing is that it it solves a lot of problems you have in your daily life um because it's serviced and stuff.
35:56
And it's it's a huge thing in Asia.
35:59
It's a huge thing in in in Southeast Asia, even in Korea, Taiwan and stuff.
36:03
So, I think that's going to be bigger because of remote work.
36:07
Because you have remote workers even with families, with kids and you don't want to live in a hotel room.
36:12
A hotel room is very depressing.
36:14
Like I go insane in hotel rooms.
36:15
It's just like a bed and you can barely walk around the bed. There's no space. I need to cook food.
36:19
I need to buy steak from the local butcher.
36:22
I need to cook it with broccoli and spinach and with my friends and stuff.
36:26
And you can do it in an apartment hotel.
36:28
And I think the if you target it's a high-end market I think of remote workers that make a lot of money like 200k or 100k something.
36:36
Um if you target them, you can make a lot of money because it's um serviced, furnished and So, what would you build?
36:42
You'd actually build an apartment hotel or you'd build a digital product or what? cuz I'm a software guy.
36:46
I don't want to I don't want to own stuff.
36:49
I don't want to have all this I don't even want to buy land.
36:52
I don't even want to buy a house.
36:54
I want to be able to be a consumer, a customer of these kind of things, right?
36:58
But, I want it long-term.
36:59
I want to like be able to rent for like six months, you know, or 12 months even.
37:02
Um I want to be guaranteed to stay.
37:05
So, we uh my wife and I are are like we're at the point where we're going to start having kids soon.
37:08
And I live not like you entirely, but a little bit where we spend we spend half the year one place, half a year the other place.
37:16
And what we're going to do next year is just rent do a 12-month monthly in New York and just not be there all the time.
37:24
But, I'm looking to rent all of my furniture.
37:26
And I've been looking at a place where I was like, "All right, I just want to like book this one place.
37:32
And I want to pay someone like three grand a month, but they have to show up before I arrive.
37:35
They've got to completely set it up.
37:36
And they've got to furnish it 100% furnished for me."
37:38
And I've been looking at these and there's a few startups in the space that are doing furniture rental.
37:44
And furniture rental is not popular right now.
37:46
And I tell people all the time, I'm like, "I just want to rent all my furniture.
37:48
I don't want to own any of it."
37:49
And they they they they think it's nonsense and they think it's crazy.
37:54
But, if you run the math, it it's significantly like it it's about the same in terms of price, but in terms of headache, I think it's a thousand times better.
38:02
And I think that's another Yeah.
38:07
Yeah, it's Yeah, so it's it's all about the headaches.
38:09
So, if you can afford it, you can reduce the headaches of ownership.
38:12
And ownership uh it sounds so privileged though, but whatever.
38:15
It ownership is a is a big hassle.
38:17
[ __ ] breaks all the time.
38:18
And if you are like if I spend my time on my laptop building on these apps, it's probably better use of my time than managing all this this this stuff.
38:28
And uh if a company can specialize in, you know, managing the stuff and renting it to you, it's it's much better.
38:33
I think there's a real You're on point. That's a real business.
38:36
And um imagine you can go to a website and you can say like, "Okay, you can choose different sets of furniture, different interior and stuff, uh paintings on the wall or whatever."
38:44
And you can just click and you arrive and it's already done for you like you said.
38:46
I think that would be really interesting. Uh yeah.
38:51
What what else interests you?
38:51
Thing Yeah, things that you're interested in either kind of niche categories or things in your lifestyle that you're like, "Huh, I do this lifestyle thing differently than people.
39:02
This could be You could build a business around this."
39:05
I think the the the biggest problem with the digital nomad thing is that there's a maybe it's a good big podcast just to say that there's a perception that people travel really fast.
39:12
And I have the data that they don't travel fast.
39:15
They travel like every few months or even I think the average is seven months now. It's very slow.
39:18
So, the the word digital nomad is it's a horrible word.
39:23
Of course, we have so many connotations, but it's mostly remote working people who want a little bit of a different life, who want to see different places a little bit.
39:30
Um and they have boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands. They have kids even.
39:34
There's families doing this as well.
39:36
Moving around every week doesn't really work.
39:38
Um being very slow is big.
39:38
work. Um being very slow is big. And if people are more aware of that they can find a lot of products built for this long-term slow mad market which most of us are we're mostly slow meds and Also slow meds yeah think about education think about like homeschooling is taking off also because of remote work
39:58
if I have kids I I don't know if I want to put them in a regular school maybe you know Elon Musk builds his own school that's kind of cool but you can do things in a different way and like now it's still very we're still niche like this remote work thing is still niche it's going to get only
40:12
bigger there's only going to be more and more people doing this once physical jobs get automated so if you make products I don't know a specific product but if you know if you build products for those people that's a high-end market of like tech workers that are remote so If you don't but you said that you don't own stuff or
40:30
you kind of said like you don't like owning stuff you said that you you said that you don't want to own real estate so if you're making two and a half million dollars a year in profit this is a question that Sean always asks that I'm stealing it which is what do you do with your money then? Yeah so I'm heavy in ETFs
40:45
Yeah so I'm heavy in ETFs I read a blog post by what's his name the guy from Google that does SEO and he's like I just put everything in ETF in ETFs so Vanguard ETFs S&P 500 but also I'm heavily invested in Asia cuz I believe in Asia I believe in the future I know the West there's a lot of things about
41:05
Asia that are good but it's very I still think it's very futuristic and I also invest in crypto like I hold Bitcoin and Ethereum it's always scared to say those things on the podcast right but it's all like very secure and stuff so That's not exactly the most shocking thing to to assume that you you own stuff like that right? Every tech bro has crypto exactly but I
41:23
Every tech bro has crypto exactly but I I mostly You're actually not allowed to have that haircut if you don't own like three You can't have a high fade like long top hair Yeah yeah yeah if you don't own three I spend about like four five K a month or something that's it so most of it is just I do need to pay tax and after that most of it goes to you know
41:43
ETFs and stuff it's scary to invest now cuz it's a scary time but generally I'm like I want to do this for 20 30 years in ETF invested and stuff and some of my stocks but I did a benchmark my S&P 500 ETF outperformed all my stock decisions over the last two years so I'm stupid just like most people with stocks and stuff like that right? you did recently? you did recently? What oh selling? With your stocks?
42:07
Yeah Yeah I sold I sold not everything but pretty much everything I sold maybe 70 80% of the stocks that I hold Um I get that I mean yeah but I'm scared they always say like don't try and time the market so I'm like okay I'll just sit and just crash with the you know the old people and go you do that?
42:25
Why don't you just like chill?
42:28
Uh two reasons one I didn't want to risk a margin call cuz I'd borrowed a little bit against my stock portfolio but and you know to what I felt was extremely safe and it's still safe but I was like uh look if this drops another you know 20% then all of a sudden I'm having a headache that I don't want to deal with I don't want to have to deal with freeing up a bunch of cash just to buffer this so I was like I noticed that
42:52
every morning I was waking up and I was checking it and I was like okay logically I know I'm in pretty good shape here but the stress of having to think about this is taking away from my like you know my day-to-day quality of life and it's like that's the opposite of what I want money to do I don't want money to give me stress my money is supposed to take away my stress So what did you do with the money? What did you do with it? Where is it? What did you do with it? Where is it?
43:14
It's just it's in cash right now like I might do some like whatever some short-term you know fixed income type stuff but like for now I was like again I don't care like I don't need the 2% I needed the peace of mind and so that was the first thing the second thing was
43:28
I thought what will I regret more what do I believe more do I believe that this is the bottom or do I believe that this is kind of like actually thinking that this is the bottom you know 6 months in and that it's all going to get better soon
43:42
basically like there's three paths either it gets better now it stays this is about the bottom but we stay here for an extended period of time one two three four years or it has further down to go and I basically thought that it getting things
43:57
going up soon seemed like the least likely thing like I would I would actually be betting against that heavily and so I thought okay I have I have nothing to lose here in terms of upside because I just fundamentally don't think that stocks and everything is just going
44:10
to go rip back up again and and we're all going to pretend like you know that was it we just had a few months of pain and then it all went right back up and and remember things go things are all green again So I thought either it's going to be
44:22
flat boring and sideways for a period of time or it's going to go down more and I thought well in either case then I won't regret being in cash because A I don't have to sweat it every day I don't have to think about it every day and B I'm there's no I'm not losing anything
44:37
during you know by doing this and so that was my thought process and I figured okay there's going to be these little bear market rallies so just sell at the top of the next bear market so that's what I did everything rallied 5% I just sold and I kept like I don't know
44:50
20% still in the market and I just put left the other 80% in uh and you know not thinking about it cash but I held my crypto I didn't I didn't sell my crypto That's good yeah Are you guys mostly invested in the American stock market or worldwide? Yeah
45:03
Yeah like you said I believe in Asia I'm like yeah I believe in Asia too but I don't know what the [ __ ] you're talking about how do I even go invest in Asia and where would I invest I don't even know what what does that mean?
45:12
Are you buying the equivalent of like an ETF for like Japan or something? What are you doing?
45:17
Dude I had a Vanguard ETF China and then suddenly it disappeared from my broker app and I'm like what the [ __ ] is happening and I get this message they're like Vanguard left China in March or something cuz they they were like this is too crazy so I had to buy a different
45:29
ETF I I don't know the government basically they they made private companies public or something Yeah no they they [ __ ] Jack Ma for sure there's a lot of weird [ __ ] happening but I'm I still think I should be invested in those markets and uh um Sam have I told you about the Jack Ma thing? How it's crazy that the third richest
45:48
How it's crazy that the third richest man in the world that they were China was like hey Jack shut up and he's like yes sir They just took Jack off the planet My brother-in-law calls me like so we had one moment where like a month in when people started noticing Jack Ma is missing and my brother-in-law in the car one day he was like where's Jack Ma?
46:08
Like he was in the car but he's like bro why aren't we talking about this?
46:12
He's like where's Jack Ma?
46:13
And we just started laughing like how crazy is that that Jack Ma is just not like what if you just couldn't find Elon Musk cuz he said something you know that that Biden didn't like like that that idea is crazy they did it with the tennis player too Yeah I saw that dude it's so scary still calls me he'll be like he'll just call me out of the blue it's been like a year now he'll be like you know where's Jack Ma?
46:33
And then he'll hang up and like that's the whole call he'll just be like yelling where is Jack Ma?
46:40
But dude that's the thing with Asia and China like all this stuff is accurate there's some crazy [ __ ] but the other thing is also accurate that there's there's a lot of happening in in Asia and I think in the West in Europe and America we have a blind spot because we get so much information that's
46:56
negative about Asia especially about China and I'm I'm not a China spy or something my friends call me China spy because of that but I think it's a blind spot a little bit in the West they were we're going to miss out on you know and China's going to be the biggest economy
47:08
in 2030 I think by GDP it's already the biggest economy by purchasing power parity or something ignoring that just you know because there's a lot of arguments why we should ignore China but it sounds like a blind spot in the West a little bit to me Do you uh what well I'll do it we'll do an easy one do you you like tweeted out your
47:32
calendar and it was like free for a week or something like that and I know Sean does that too and I I I kind of like that sometimes I don't like that cuz I'll do that for three days and I'm like oh my god I'm so bored it are you is it real that you just don't plan anything? Yeah so this is the only planned thing
47:47
Yeah so this is the only planned thing and it gives me stress cuz I'm like oh [ __ ] the summer's coming up um but I mostly I like I spend my days like I live with my friends so my friends are my neighbors now so I brought all these nomads friends to Portugal in Europe and we kind of live together a lot of our a lot of them are in the city near here
48:04
whatever everybody's kind of near so we just have like dinners outside and we cook food and the sunsets on the beach and just this nice chill life that I never had cuz I was always alone in hotel rooms I had friends but they were always around the world and now they're all kind of here so I mostly do that so I don't want to do calls about like cuz what am I going to call about? Like I
48:22
Like I like having calls with you guys what am I going to call with other people about?
48:26
Like new business opportunities you get bored?
48:29
No cuz I can I cuz I work on my websites right I I open I make coffee I make open my laptop meet my friend and we code a little bit together make a new feature you know then you go to the gym we go to sauna we go swim they're kind of like but that's very
48:44
recent right this kind of chill life and I don't get bored as long as I ship a little bit on my websites I don't really get bored You're like the only rich person so basically it's almost always the truth that no matter how hard you try the more income that you make your life your lifestyle gets
49:04
inflated maybe sometimes not as much but then other times a ton and like I was like oh I'm I'm going to fight it like I can't imagine spending more than $10,000 on a car or whatever and then you make more income you're like oh whatever who cares you said you spent four or five thousand
49:19
dollars a month you're one of the few people that has acknowledged that your lifestyle actually doesn't seem like it's been it's it's not lavish at all it's 100% on purpose like it's very um it's not always true cuz incidentally sometimes you spend more right? Like
49:32
Like last month was hotels were really booked so we had to pay a lot of but now it's chill again.
49:37
Um I think it's on purpose because I I I tried to follow uh like last month was like 10K or something for a hotel nothing, though.
49:44
We're in Lisbon and we're You're making $3 million a year.
49:47
Yeah, but paying 10K for a hotel is ridiculous.
49:48
It doesn't make any sense.
49:50
Like it should be the max like 2 or 3K for me personally.
49:51
But I've seen a lot of people um do that lifestyle inflation cuz I know from corporate from again from studying business, I know the management management people and stuff.
49:59
They get paid more and they get golden handcuffs, right? And they can't leave.
50:03
A lot of my friends are like that.
50:04
And I don't want that to happen to me.
50:06
I mean, it can't happen to me, but you get what I mean.
50:09
Um And I I know that material goods don't really make me happy.
50:12
So I buy a new shirt or something or I buy a new iPhone.
50:15
Within 2 weeks I'm used to it.
50:17
And there's studies on this.
50:17
There's like research about this stuff.
50:18
Like if you buy a new car, even if you get married, after 6 months you're at the same happiness.
50:22
If you buy a house, so after 6 months same happiness.
50:24
So if you know that stuff, you know that okay, you don't really need to spend money so much.
50:29
You don't need to buy stuff essentially.
50:31
And um generally it will probably make you happier.
50:35
Do you What do you think you would want to spend more on?
50:37
Let's say that like, you know, Food. Like good food.
50:39
Like organic, uh you know, free-roaming.
50:42
I mean, it's cliche like Joe Rogan, right?
50:44
But free-roaming, grass-fed cow beef, you know, that are happy animals, organic vegetables, uh you know, that kind of stuff.
50:53
Like not goods, you know, experiences.
50:55
It's on purpose I do this.
50:57
What What are some experiences that you think are worth the money? What what? Sorry.
51:01
What are some experiences that are like worth the money that you know, when most people go to buy something good don't even cost money, right?
51:07
Like uh What do you fly coach? Life coach, what?
51:11
No, do you do you fly sorry.
51:13
No, so that's Yeah, you're right. So man, you got me.
51:15
Like you're trying to find like stuff, right?
51:17
Yes, I fly business class cuz No, exactly.
51:18
I'm done with uh I I can't sit Well, I only do it long haul and I only fly like I flew only once in the last 16 months and I flew uh business uh Qatar, really nice.
51:31
And you can lie down and sleep and stuff.
51:32
Um but that's about it, I think.
51:36
And You know, there's a one thing I noticed.
51:38
Like I was in Bangkok in this luxury kind of apartment hotel stuff, but it was a little bit too luxury for me, you know?
51:43
And I was there for a month and you start noticing that you don't meet as much interesting people.
51:47
Like I met one interesting person who had this giant weed farm, the biggest weed farm in Thailand, cuz I just realized it was kind of cool.
51:55
But generally, it's a very different It's more like a socialite kind of Paris Hilton audience, you know?
51:58
But in the hostels, you would meet crazy people.
52:02
You would meet backpackers, but also like researchers and entrepreneurs and fledgling entrepreneurs, you know?
52:06
You met generally more interesting people because you were more uh in those areas.
52:12
And I think the problem Yeah. Sorry.
52:15
Uh did I tell you about Did I tell you guys Listen to this.
52:18
Sean, did I tell you about Sam Corcos from Levels Level Other Levels uh What's the Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah. Levels Health. Yeah.
52:26
The Levels Health, the thing that goes in your arm.
52:28
So this guy So he raised Yeah, that's right.
52:30
He raised uh So he has a startup that makes eight figures in revenue.
52:35
It's worth I think it was $400 million.
52:37
So let's just say that he's worth $150 million on paper. Not real, but on paper.
52:41
He came over to my house and he was with his girlfriend and she made a comment like joking like, "Oh, you know, he always gives me a hard time cuz it takes me forever to pack, but that's ridiculous.
52:51
I only have this one carry-on."
52:51
And I was like, "Well, how long does it take you to pack, Sam?"
52:55
He goes, "Oh, I don't pack."
52:56
I was like, "What do you mean?"
52:57
He's like, "Well, he had a drawstring bag."
52:59
You know what a drawstring bag is?
53:00
It's like a bag that like where you put like gym shoes and stuff. Yeah.
53:05
He had That's all he had was that bag.
53:06
And he goes, "Well, you see, I only own the clothes that I'm wearing right now, which is a white T-shirt, a pair of pants, socks, underwear, and shoes.
53:12
I only own that plus another pair of underwear, a jacket, and uh this bag and my laptop, which I have right here on me.
53:21
That's literally the only thing that I own."
53:24
I was like, "Wait, what?"
53:24
He goes, "Yeah, I've been doing I've been doing this for like 8 years now or something like that.
53:28
And I only live in like I do what you do."
53:30
He's like he does what you do, Peter.
53:31
He lives in um like these Airbnbs and hotel-style setups.
53:36
And he's been doing it for years, and that's all he owned.
53:37
And I thought that was the craziest [ __ ] I'd ever heard in my every day? I don't understand.
53:41
How does he live off of two shirts?
53:44
I was like so I was like, "Well, what if you got to go to a funeral?
53:45
What if you have to do this?"
53:47
He goes, "Well, I just go to a thrift store um when I need to go and I buy stuff and then I just bring it back."
53:52
And he does it partly out of I I think This is my guess.
53:55
He does it partly out of um like convenience of not wanting to worry about stuff.
54:00
I also think that there's like a philosophy, like a very philosophical thing going on here because it's like extreme.
54:07
But have you ever heard of anyone, Peter, being that crazy? Dude, yes.
54:12
Exac- Actually, like in 2015 I was in Chiang Mai and there was an Australian guy who would fly from Australia to Thailand to Chiang Mai with only his MacBook Air and the clothes he wore and not even a bag.
54:24
And he would buy everything he needed on the spot and he would be there for like 2 or 3 months.
54:29
Uh and he would donate the clothes he wore uh to charity and then he would fly back to Australia with his MacBook Air in his hand. And I was so impressed.
54:39
This data is wrong every freaking time.
54:42
Have you heard of HubSpot?
54:44
HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.
54:46
Well, I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed. HubSpot, grow better. That See, that's cool.
54:59
I would do that cuz I think that actually adds to the experience of traveling. Like Yeah.
55:04
traveling fully light and then when you get there yeah, I always carry on only and then giving it away when you leave.
55:11
Like I'm I'd actually get down with that.
55:13
But like I I rotate two underwear and I put my underwear in my bag with my MacBook.
55:17
So I don't know about that. Yeah.
55:21
No, but I I think it comes down to philosophy and I do think it sounds pretentious, but I don't care.
55:26
Uh it comes down to constraining your life in a certain way.
55:29
I think constraints are good in creativity in life and stuff and um it makes you focus on the really important things in life for you personally.
55:38
It must be different for everybody, you know?
55:39
For me, that's like, you know, uh girlfriend, friends, uh health, food, uh you know, happiness, all that stuff kind of.
55:48
And and creative work, meaningful work, very important.
55:50
Like I need to be able to I need to have something to do in my day.
55:53
I need to feel like I'm contributing something like Sam said.
55:56
And uh So what do you own? So I have a backpack.
55:58
I have a I have a rolling suitcase, though, like a small one. Um I have clothes.
56:02
I have a iPhone, MacBook uh Pro uh What the I have a toothbrush.
56:09
Um I have two Stadia you don't have a lot of stuff.
56:13
Like you can name all the things you own.
56:16
I'm looking around, right?
56:16
I I I have two Stadia control- controllers like gamepads. You can use Stadia here. It's kind of cool.
56:22
Um Yeah, that's about it, I think.
56:23
I mean, I mean, I have like backup phones and stuff cuz, you know, two-factor authentication stuff, but it's not a lot of stuff. to do this?
56:31
You mentioned you you can talk about your family or not if you want, but do you think you're going to do this when you have kids?
56:38
So what does doing it mean?
56:38
Cuz I'm I'm mostly settled down. I'm mostly in one place.
56:41
I'm just like trying to not buy stuff from Amazon.
56:45
as in uh not owning stuff.
56:45
I mean, like I I think your life is cool, but you have to acknowledge that there's alternative in the sense of like, you know, 1% of the population does what you do. for sure. For sure.
56:56
I think it's interesting that like the stuff I do may or may not become a thing cuz a lot of things I did 8 years ago now are normal, right?
57:05
So it might be that the things I do become I mean, if you're happy, who cares if it it becomes a thing? about me.
57:11
It's more like Yeah, it's more like it might become mainstream.
57:12
Um I think uh I think even if you have kids, you can do it in an alternative way.
57:18
You can uh you know, you can go to thrift store, get like second-hand toys or something, second-hand clothes, that kind of stuff.
57:24
But it all doesn't have to be this so consumerist and and buying and You know what I mean?
57:30
It It can We can do it in a different way.
57:31
And um I'm just trying to figure out like how how I yeah, want to do that.
57:36
And We're trying to keep the focus on Yeah.
57:38
a nomad-less style red pill before briefly, which was um my I forgot what it's called.
57:43
Sam, do you remember the name of like the zero waste project or the zero the zero project or something like that?
57:51
So basically, my wife told me about this.
57:53
She's like, "Yeah, you know, there's like like in the city in the little town we live in, there's uh like this Facebook group.
57:59
And what they do is it's just like it's like a barter It's like a It's not even a barter economy.
58:03
It's like a giving economy.
58:04
So it's like if you have stuff, you just give it into the giving circle and other people can take it out and then they can give stuff in.
58:11
And it's basically like, "Oh, your kid grew It's I think it's a lot around kid stuff.
58:14
Like my kid's grown out of this."
58:16
But that's it It doesn't make sense to buy it new, right? Yeah. randos.
58:20
It's like amongst this trusted group of people who all believe the same thing.
58:24
But the buy nothing project. Yeah.
58:26
Um and I think I might have butchered exactly how it works.
58:28
Sam, do you do you know a little bit how it works or like just the idea of like um instead of like reduce, reuse, recycle, it like for like consumer or for like plastic and [ __ ] they're like, "No, no, no, let's just like uh reuse.
58:39
We're going to reuse everything."
58:41
So instead of buying a new toy, we're going to go get one for free and then we're going to give it away when we're done. It's just a mindset.
58:48
And then there's uh there's a bunch of companies in the space, but the the big one is like this uh buy nothing series of Facebook groups.
58:54
So it's just like, "I'm going to give away I'm giving away these children's clothes. Come get them." Yeah.
58:59
I think it I mean, it's That's nice.
59:01
I I Like it doesn't make any sense.
59:03
You have a baby and it it grows out of its clothes every month or something or every 2 months.
59:06
So why would you buy everything new if you can ask your family for clothes they already wore or whatever, right?
59:11
It makes more sense to me personally. Um yeah.
59:16
Who do you want to be like?
59:18
Who do you Who do you admire and who do you want to be like?
59:19
Because like the reason why people buy [ __ ] for their kids is cuz they want to they want their kids to have Jordans so they look cool for other people because they want to impress other people.
59:29
Who do you want to impress and who do you want to be like you think?
59:32
Like who who do you look up to?
59:35
Um I I like Derek Sivers.
59:38
I don't know if you know Derek Sivers. Yeah. He's a He's a cool guy.
59:43
He's um he started a company called CD Baby in the '90s I think or in early 2000s and it which was like one of the first uh indie kind of music distributors where you could send your music as an indie uh musician and they would press the CDs for you and they would send it to your customers and stuff.
1:00:00
And and they also known as Spotify and stuff and he sold it for $30 million.
1:00:02
I interviewed him for my bachelor's thesis actually. He's really nice guy.
1:00:06
Like the most nice guy in startups I think.
1:00:07
And he's very he writes a lot.
1:00:10
He writes a lot of books now and he's very philosophical. Also kind of nomadic.
1:00:14
He's been in like living in Singapore. He lived in New Zealand. Lived in US and stuff.
1:00:18
And he's very um if you go to his website like Derek Sivers. org or Sivers. org I think.
1:00:22
Uh he writes very much kind of same concepts that I talk about like um about simple life and and uh Yeah, it's hard to describe him but I think that's a very inspirational guy to me and I don't really need to impress I think I want to impress my parents just but they're already happy with me so it doesn't really matter.
1:00:44
I want to um I want to try and stay have like a stable you know happiness cuz I've I've been depressed a lot of I've been anxious.
1:00:53
I had like especially when traveling you go crazy in these you know in a hotel rooms alone like um Traveling can can it brings you very deep into your own self and stuff and I think the most important for me is to impress myself by just you know being stable and and having a stable happy life with with people around me and uh Yeah, like kind of wholesome life you know and that's my What what part of your life are you not impressed by?
1:01:21
For your either yourself or Derek Sivers or if any if if any of those people right you just mentioned or people the lifestyle you mean?
1:01:26
Yeah, what what part of your life is not at that point where they uh you you feel like it's not impressive in that way that that that you feel like I want to have a family too like you guys uh and that's what I'm working on um and yeah, that's like it's more of a of a focus now you know like Pretty easy by the way.
1:01:46
You just got to do one thing. I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you about it.
1:01:49
the right girlfriend you know and then you need to like see if they're not crazy.
1:01:51
You need to like connect and all this stuff and I think uh yeah, that's that's it done.
1:01:55
Um Dude, Sean, do you have a Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.
1:02:00
I want to hear what the answer is.
1:02:01
mean like a little bit like you you say like like I think about Elon Musk.
1:02:04
Every time Elon Musk presents something you're like oh [ __ ] like that's so cool like why am I building shitty internet websites?
1:02:12
This is my only life I have. I'm going to die.
1:02:13
I should do something bigger.
1:02:16
But then I have to like bring myself back to like no, it's cool what you're doing.
1:02:18
Okay, like doesn't really need to be bigger but I mean everybody wants to make like space rockets I guess but it's just so hard to do that you know.
1:02:24
Sean, you um you have a you have a dog right a little dog? Yep. I've got a big dog. How do I love dogs?
1:02:33
Yeah, so you like animals.
1:02:33
I love owning animals like big aggressive looking dogs.
1:02:37
That's what I'm that's my thing.
1:02:39
It's like a I'm a weirdo.
1:02:41
But how do you live this the the I want to live a little bit more like you.
1:02:43
It's and I can do it uh A now cuz I have a little bit of money so I can just like pay for fancier Airbnbs that are pet friendly and B I can only do it basically in America.
1:02:53
Doing this lifestyle with abroad with an animal even in America I drive either have to fly private or you have to drive most places. Um I drive most places.
1:03:01
How do you How do you live this life with an animal? I don't have animals. But I want them.
1:03:09
I had I had two cats with my ex-girlfriend and it was actually interesting.
1:03:12
We went to in Bangkok to this this luxury apartment hotel and they were cat friendly and it was like this you know high society of Bangkok people with cute cats and cute dogs and Asia all the dogs are small. They're like small dogs.
1:03:24
I like big dogs too like you said.
1:03:25
But and they walk around in the hotel and they're super cute and they have like cats and dog ice cream and stuff and food and and they have little like a uh little beds for them to sleep in and stuff and everything is service and uh that's another big market I think you know uh tech people with pets and stuff they want to travel as well.
1:03:44
Dude, Sean, have you looked into Have you guys looked into flying in America with an animal?
1:03:47
So basically if you're do you think I don't go places dude?
1:03:51
What am I supposed to do with my dog?
1:03:53
Your animal's under 20 lb right?
1:03:55
Yeah, she is but like that also means like she's not like tough enough to do all this stuff like we're like oh god how's she going to handle this experience um you know of going on a 7-hour flight or whatever.
1:04:07
Yeah, but she she's the dog's able to so like in term I don't I don't know if she's physically able to but she's allowed to you could put it in a carrier and put it on your lap or like in the above whatever the suitcase thing.
1:04:18
And if you have an animal that's above 20 lb their dog in the above thing?
1:04:22
You can put your dog It's not that [ __ ] up. I don't know dude.
1:04:27
It's like but it's like put a blanket over a It's like put a blanket over a birdcage. It's all right. I don't know.
1:04:32
That's just what Or you put it underneath.
1:04:33
You you put it underneath there. Whatever you [ __ ] do. I don't know.
1:04:36
I don't even I don't have one of these things.
1:04:37
But uh that's what they say on the directions when you look online.
1:04:41
But uh like if you have an animal above 20 lb you cannot you basically cannot This whole emotional support animal thing that's kind of nonsense that it's kind of getting phased out.
1:04:51
You cannot bring an animal a dog on a flight.
1:04:53
I I'm always amazed that for popular routes they don't have like a once a month or twice a month animal friendly Dude, it's going to happen.
1:05:03
It's absolutely going to happen.
1:05:04
It's a huge growing market I think because a lot of tech people are not having kids. Sorry. Right.
1:05:08
I was going to say I read something that one airline is like being like yeah, we'll fly pets.
1:05:14
Like I think they do a lot of pets in the cargo or whatever cuz most airlines have been phasing that out and what I think it's Southwest.
1:05:20
I forgot which airline some airline is making bank cuz they take all the pets and uh it was like a differentiator.
1:05:25
It's like you know bags fly free but it's like yeah, we we let you fly your pet and everybody else is saying no nowadays.
1:05:32
Man, I think you can do it.
1:05:32
You can I think it's all about slow matting.
1:05:34
So if you do if you move like every let's say every 6 months it's not that bad for the dog or the cat uh and you you give them a stable life in where you arrive and not too much chaos and stuff. I think it's okay.
1:05:45
I think it's not okay if you keep moving like every week or every month.
1:05:49
That might be a little bit stressful for the dog and the cat right?
1:05:51
But 6 months like yeah, it's okay.
1:05:53
And especially if you get the It was a what? You had a great tweet.
1:05:56
It go It was If you don't have a dog in your profile picture on Twitter are you even trying? That's a growth hack.
1:06:04
It's the biggest growth hack right? Sam has one right?
1:06:07
You have a Facebook picture I think.
1:06:07
Uh Yeah, dude cuz guys used this on Tinder right?
1:06:11
This was a Tinder dating trick.
1:06:13
Like you you cuz they swipe right for the dog not for you but they still swipe right so Yeah.
1:06:18
I've noticed there's like two hacks.
1:06:19
When I was single if like if I ever walk around with like a niece or nephew or like a kid uh that's like an automatic door opener to meet women and then the other one was having a uh an aggressive but nice looking dog.
1:06:29
It's like doors I'm on They're disarmed. We're good you know?
1:06:37
And why does it have to be aggressive but aggressive looking but nice?
1:06:38
Is that one of those things where it's like dog owners look like their pets and so if your dog looks a certain way they'll think that about you?
1:06:47
They want to heal you you know?
1:06:47
Like women want to heal you sometimes.
1:06:51
It's like seeing a guy with like sleeve tattoos who smokes cigarettes in the in a in a tattoo under his eye who like you know just wants to like spend time and cuddle you know?
1:06:59
Like it's like a It's you know you're you're you're eclectic. I don't know. It just works. Don't ask me. Uh but that just works.
1:07:09
Um So Dude, I love Samoyed dogs by the way.
1:07:12
The the big white polar bear dog right?
1:07:15
And I think it kind of reminds me a little bit like it's it's so fluffy.
1:07:18
It's like That's a very Asian move of you.
1:07:20
That's they're very popular in Asia right?
1:07:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:07:24
What I've seen him here too yeah but yeah.
1:07:27
What are some Is there anything that people assume about your life and your lifestyle and your businesses uh that you like for example with the Hustle as well as Sean's Milk Road a lot of people are like oh, that's it.
1:07:38
It's just a [ __ ] newsletter.
1:07:40
You just write these these words and you just hit send. That's so easy. Anyone can do it.
1:07:45
And it's like well, no, it's actually like a user acquisition play.
1:07:46
Like you got to know how to do that.
1:07:48
And then it's also like you're just not good at writing.
1:07:50
Like you have to be good and that's just talent.
1:07:52
You either have it or you don't.
1:07:53
And so that that's like some misconceptions about our businesses. What what about yours?
1:07:56
Is there anything that um people always assume and you're like no because like people can anyone can copy you. Yeah.
1:08:04
I think generally people think that every website or app or company that they're a customer of that it's more simple than actually is because you can't see behind the hoods and it's actually way more complicated than you think because there's so many edge cases in every business that you need to code like if statements for or build like little scripts for special features.
1:08:23
It's much more complicated and I think people realize that when they start cuz people always clone you right?
1:08:28
Like they make a copycat of your website and somehow it doesn't take off because they've been able to copy the outside of it the aesthetic kind of but they don't know what's happening under the hood.
1:08:37
So it's um it's much more complicated.
1:08:40
Like dude a job board is much more complicated than you think.
1:08:44
Like um [ __ ] how do you explain this?
1:08:45
There's so many little parts that you know especially companies want.
1:08:49
They want you know invoices for every little thing they add.
1:08:53
Um the price is dynamic that kind of stuff.
1:08:56
I I change job post pricing based on how many people post jobs on my site for example.
1:09:00
There's so much stuff happening behind the curtains that you don't see.
1:09:04
Um Yeah, it's much more complicated.
1:09:05
I also think that the misconception about Yeah, sorry.
1:09:09
And a lot of your stuff is automated to where like you don't have to be involved. It kind of runs itself.
1:09:12
You said everything's automated. I think it's 99.
1:09:15
9% And to post on your job board it ranges from $100 to $1,000.
1:09:19
I think of whatever the huge range for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:09:22
How would you for the like I'm I'm tinkering with something that costs many many thousands of dollars a year.
1:09:27
Is there how would you figure out how to do that?
1:09:31
Like and so in my head I'm like [ __ ] I got to hire a bunch of sales people. That sucks.
1:09:36
Do you think that you could automate most things even that are high ticketed items? Oh for sure dude.
1:09:41
I sell job post bundles for like 50k via stripe.
1:09:48
Which is like amazing for me to me like that I'm like that works.
1:09:52
So you make a page called buy bundle and you have the this you can go to remote okay dot com slash buy dash bundle and you'll see like a slider where you can make your own bundle and get a discount based on it and it's all automated.
1:10:07
And you add your credit card and then you pay you know 50k or 40k whatever.
1:10:10
And how many people do that?
1:10:14
Oh this it's like a lot of it's like 30% of the revenue I think bundles.
1:10:19
Yeah using a debit card or whatever for 50k.
1:10:21
Yeah dude these company cards this is what this is lagging information.
1:10:26
People don't know the company cards have been upgraded I think because they're using it for much more these days.
1:10:31
Really like it's a lot of money.
1:10:31
And I have no idea like I never thought it like I don't I'm not hiring people.
1:10:36
I don't know how this works.
1:10:37
I just tried it like okay maybe I think companies asked me like can we buy a few job posts for in the future like okay I'll make this thing and a lot of companies use this.
1:10:46
So you figure out the features that people want based on the talking to them of course.
1:10:50
Dude I'm looking at this sales page for this buy bundle so buy 25 25 jobs it's $22,000.
1:10:54
You do something interesting on your sales pages is you just pack it with information.
1:10:58
That's totally the right move.
1:11:01
But you pack it with text.
1:11:03
Like you use icons to kind of break it up to just yeah I use emojis a lot. Yeah.
1:11:10
No it looks like a circus right? But it kind of works.
1:11:15
It's not like well designed right?
1:11:15
It's not like minimalist design.
1:11:16
It's just like I just add stuff every day and it just keeps growing but it works kind of.
1:11:24
What's the biggest purchase someone has made?
1:11:25
I can scroll all the way up to 100 I I got another call.
1:11:28
I got to I got to run to.
1:11:29
Peter this has been amazing. I got to go. Thanks for having me go. See you.
1:11:34
What's what what's the been the biggest purchase that you've had?
1:11:37
This scrolls all the way up to 150,000.
1:11:40
I think 50k or something around 50k maybe 49k.
1:11:42
But that happens that happens a lot of times.
1:11:44
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Dude this is crazy.
1:11:46
Yeah I'm working on this thing and like it's like 10k a year and I'm like oh man I'm going to have to like get on the phone all the time.
1:11:55
Seeing you is quite inspiring.
1:11:57
But I get annoyed if I if I need to use like I want to use these location service APIs to figure out where are people traveling to for example and it's always like you need to do a sales call you need to like contact us and stuff and I get so annoyed with it and I know people on Twitter get annoyed with it that they can't get a price directly and sign up you know.
1:12:17
Yeah I think it's much easier to do it like this like a sales flow. I think it's easier. I would argue maybe not.
1:12:26
It's easier for you but I would actually argue there's there's a world where it's not effect as effective though because I would I'm in the same boat as you is I don't want to have to do all this crap and I'm not naturally a salesperson.
1:12:36
But when I hired a sales team and they they shockingly were shockingly good at drumming up demand and I remember a cool podcast with the founder of Squarespace I think it was and he was like you.
1:12:48
He was an engineer he's like I don't want to leave my room.
1:12:51
I don't like talking to people.
1:12:53
I like freedom this and that.
1:12:55
And he goes the and and he goes the biggest one of a huge mistake I made was I looked down on sales people and I looked down on this like type of pricing where get them on the phone but he was like I looked down on it and I was wrong. It it was effective.
1:13:08
They they they created demand for a product and that surprised me most. So like I don't know. No I think you're right.
1:13:16
I think I think my problem is that it's it's it's been it's very hard to meet good sales people or to find them and it's unclear for me how I how I can hire them and um you know I how can I rate a a person to hire them as a good sales person.
1:13:32
I don't know what's a good sales person and I I've never done outbound almost never done outreach and stuff.
1:13:40
And I'm scared that if I hire sales people I need to manage them and then you know they might [ __ ] up they might start spamming everyone on LinkedIn and then it becomes like a screenshot thing on Twitter like Luke Peter levels is spamming with his website and stuff.
1:13:48
So it might turn bad and but I think you're right.
1:13:52
If you get the right sales people it can work.
1:13:54
I just I've never been able to you know find those people.
1:14:00
It just matters what you're optimizing for.
1:14:01
If you're optimizing for happiness and a and a well if you're optimizing for happiness and like a good life do it your way.
1:14:07
Your way is working really well.
1:14:09
If you want to like grow at a certain rate per year and you want to really push it I I do think a salesperson is is you do need a sales team but that's not what you're optimizing for freedom so and happiness.
1:14:22
Yeah and I always think there's there's there's there's different types of companies.
1:14:25
For example there's companies that ask for a lot of forms like they want like a W-8 form like all these US IRS forms and stuff.
1:14:30
They want you to sign everything they want you to sign an NDA and and there's some companies that just you know enter their credit card on stripe and it's done and it's different customers and the customers that ask for a lot of questions on email they generally convert less.
1:14:42
For me they pay less money and they are more of a hassle to you know do customer support for and stuff.
1:14:48
Um So you also you you get different types of customers.
1:14:51
If you do it all automatically you get more kind of modern customers that are easier to deal with I think.
1:14:59
Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about?
1:15:04
Um No I think I think we maybe transparency like the reason I'm so transparent is uh um I think it's very like I said before I think it's very important to to to be honest and to to show other people that you can build a nice indie company like this by sharing every like ups and downs of it.
1:15:26
Um and instead of because everybody else is only sharing like the good things and the we're growing so fast and we're hiring and we're funded and blah blah blah and I think it would be cool if we did business in a maybe in a more wholesome way where we you know share everything and share the ups and downs and maybe not grow super super super big but more in a you know wholesome manner.
1:15:47
I have a I like that but I have a few critiques.
1:15:52
The first is I think that if you're hiring so you remember Buffer?
1:15:55
So Buffer they did the whole stick.
1:15:58
They did it even more well equally as extreme as you I would say but they revealed everyone's But they revealed everyone's salary and they did that I think they did it as a marketing stick.
1:16:10
They did it because they're like well like you know like our product's okay it's good enough but like let's come up with a a cool stick so we stick out and it aligns with our philosophies great and it worked really well for them.
1:16:19
But I actually think that it probably hurts them after a while.
1:16:23
It's really hard to do that after 100 or 150 I don't know what the number is some amount of employees because you're like dude I don't want my [ __ ] all out there.
1:16:31
And when I if I was you like there I don't like like when we sold our company I didn't exactly reveal how much I made because I'm like man I don't want to be a target.
1:16:39
I don't want people to take advantage of me.
1:16:40
I don't want to be judged in a particular way.
1:16:44
I don't want that type of attention so I'd rather just say like round whole numbers instead of like exactly what I do.
1:16:53
Like you don't want to talk about where you are right now.
1:16:54
And part of it is because Yeah for sure 100%. Yeah yeah yeah 100%.
1:16:59
So like that's part of the downside but at the at the same time it's a marketing it's maybe it's agree it agrees with your with your life philosophy and also it's a pretty sick marketing stick like Yeah thank you yeah.
1:17:15
I I think it's all it's hard to stop it because I've been doing it for so long it's become part of my identity.
1:17:18
It would be hard to like hide all this stuff now and they're like where did this open page go like why are you not sharing anymore?
1:17:23
I'm like I'm just done with it now.
1:17:25
Um You know and I do think it's it's this recurring marketing machine that I think it's a big part of why my business is work became successful and why I got a lot of audience on Twitter is because of this. I cannot deny that.
1:17:39
So it's very hard to quit that right?
1:17:41
Once you've been doing it for so long.
1:17:45
Yeah that's why I'm nervous about even doing it in the first place. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
1:17:48
You know it's kind of like a I haven't gone hard on YouTube or any other social platform because I'm like uh I don't want a commitment.
1:17:57
Like you got to keep doing it.
1:17:57
I wanted to do YouTube as well and I have the same problem yeah.
1:18:00
I'm like this is going to be a new recurring like activity I need to do every week.
1:18:02
I I need to upload a video make a video yeah.
1:18:06
I think there's a world where you could do seasons you know like a a TV show has a season.
1:18:10
I think there's a world where you could do seasons and do quite well but the majority of people do it like regularly and I'm like oh man I don't want to get on that treadmill that's scary.
1:18:20
No I think it burns you out.
1:18:20
Like look at all the YouTubers burning out. It's true.
1:18:24
Yeah yeah yeah it's extreme schedule.
1:18:26
Yeah I think this is my way I think it might be interesting if I just sit in the front of the laptop like this and I just tell the stuff I I know and I think and instead of writing it down and just making like little videos.
1:18:35
Derek Sivers also did that.
1:18:35
He he makes little videos about small topics you know 5 minutes explain something in the next video and So Alex Hermosi is doing it.
1:18:45
The guy on our he came on our podcast Alex Hermosi.
1:18:46
He's been doing it lately and he loves it and he and it seems it seems like a lot of kind of a lot of work but not that much work.
1:18:52
No more work than this podcast and I don't consider this podcast to be too much work. Um but it works well.
1:18:58
But dude thanks for coming on. This has been fun.
1:19:00
I I hope you you will come on more often and we'll do a little more brainstorming this time.
1:19:08
Yeah dude it was super fun. Thanks for having me.
1:19:09
Yeah hopefully we didn't you you said you were nervous cuz we were going to ask I don't think we asked anything we didn't ask anything crazy. Yeah cool.
1:19:19
There's not much to ask when you tell everyone on the internet about everything you do. Yeah.
1:19:23
This is always when the good part of the podcast starts, right?
1:19:25
Cuz you end it and then like the the real [ __ ] Hopefully not.
1:19:30
The real stuff I I hope was was going on the whole time. But yeah. Dude, thanks. This is awesome. Pimp out your stuff. So it's @levels. Yeah, it's twitter. com/levelsio. So l e v e l s i o.
1:19:46
And there's all the links on for my website there.
1:19:47
So you can click from there. Thanks, dude. Thanks for coming.