🚀 Pieter Levels: The $2.7M/Year Solopreneur Who Works Solo (and Sleeps In) 😴💻

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🎙️Snapshot and Who Is He

What if you could make $2.7 million a year—with no meetings, no employees, and no plans? That’s exactly what Pieter Levels, the OG of digital nomads and solo indie hackers, pulls off every year by spinning up simple but profitable businesses from his laptop. In this episode, he breaks down the chillest empire you’ve never heard of (but definitely wish you built first).

Pieter Levels is the king of solopreneurs and the internet’s most transparent indie hacker, known for building a $2.7 million-per-year portfolio of minimalist, bootstrapped web apps—all without a team, office, or investors. Best recognized for creating Nomad List and Remote OK, Pieter has quietly become a one-man media-tech empire by serving the exploding market of remote workers and digital nomads. His businesses are lean, his margins fat (94% on some), and his tech stack hilariously simple—think PHP, jQuery, and a DigitalOcean VPS. He shares every dollar he earns in public dashboards and believes in shipping fast, living lean, and building only what he’d personally use.

But Pieter’s impact goes way beyond revenue. He’s sparked a global movement around location independence and “slowmad” living, inspiring thousands to ditch cubicles for coconut trees. With no meetings, no plans, and barely a suitcase to his name, he’s built a career—and lifestyle—around radical freedom, transparency, and staying ruthlessly true to himself. Whether he's charting inflation trends or helping others relocate to Portugal through his platform Rebase, Pieter proves that success today doesn’t have to look like Silicon Valley—it can look like a laptop on a beach, with just enough Wi-Fi to ship.

👤 WHO’S ON THE POD

Pieter Levels (@levelsio) — The ultimate solopreneur. Creator of Nomad List, Remote OK, Rebase, and several other indie web tools. Known for making $2.7M/year, sharing all his revenue publicly, and building alone with a 94% profit margin. He lives minimally, invests in ETFs and crypto, and somehow manages to live like a king on $5K/month.

💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS

• You don’t need VC money to hit millions. Pieter proves you can do it solo with tiny products, high margins, and obsessive focus.

• Radical transparency builds trust. Pieter posts all his financials publicly—down to the CO2 removed from his servers.

• Simplicity scales. He still uses PHP, jQuery, and DigitalOcean—no fancy tech stack, just fast iteration and shipping.

• Everything's part of a flywheel. Each business he builds feeds into his nomadic content and personal brand.

• $20K/month = millionaire status. Build small, high-margin software that earns that and you’re sitting on a million-dollar asset.

🛠️ TOOLS, WEBSITES, RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Nomad List – A site helping digital nomads choose where to live. Brings in $2.1M/year.

• Remote OK – Remote job board. $1.6M/year with 94% profit margins.

• Rebase – Immigration help for digital nomads (e.g. Portugal). Emerging biz.

• Read Make – Ebook platform, $60K/year.

• DigitalOcean + Linode – VPS hosting where he self-manages infrastructure.

• PHP, jQuery, JavaScript – His no-shame tech stack. Fast and familiar > trendy and complex.

• S&P 500 ETFs, Bitcoin, Ethereum – Where he invests his cash flow.

💼 BUSINESS IDEAS & OPPORTUNITIES

• Nomad List for niche communities – Find a vertical with a loyal tribe and copy his job board + community model.

• Digital relocation services – Think “Rebase for X country.” Focus on countries with tax perks and remote-worker visas.

• Apartment hotels for remote workers – Build a listing, booking, or even SaaS for slowmads needing mid-term luxury stays.

• Furniture-as-a-Service – Pieter (and many others) want to rent, not own. Big headache-saver = big opportunity.

🧠 LIFE HACKS

• Close your DMs, open your life. Pieter shut down calls and DMs to protect his peace—and people still find him.

• Live like a broke minimalist—even when rich. He spends just $4–5K/month despite making millions.

• Build for yourself first. Pieter is always user #0 for his tools.

• No meetings, ever. His whole empire is built async. If it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t matter.

💰 FASTEST MONEY-MAKING IDEAS

• Remote job board in niche markets – Like Remote OK but for Gen Z, cybersecurity, AI, etc.

• Subscription-based communities – Slack groups with real value still work (he charged $10/month and had 1,000+ users).

• Tiny tools with massive margins – Pieter’s inflation tracker didn’t make money but built audience and trust. That’s a win too.

📊 STATS & TRENDS WORTH NOTING

• 13M monthly users across his portfolio.

• 94% margin on his top product.

• 20K/month SaaS = millionaire (w/ 4–5x exit).

• Most indie hackers give up too soon. Pieter’s real success hit seven years into the grind.

🔑 ACTIONABLE STRATEGIES

1. Find your Red Pill: What truth do you see that others don’t? That’s your niche.

2. Build in public: Share everything—money, process, mistakes.

3. Ship simple MVPs fast: He deploys in 20 seconds with PHP + jQuery.

4. Automate early: Minimal team, max leverage.

5. Use one content flywheel: Everything feeds back into your personal brand and projects.

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED

• Not explicitly named, but his philosophy aligns with The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss and Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton.

🧠 GROWTH HACKS / CHEAT CODES

• Sam Parr's “Let’s” DM trick: Skip pleasantries. Just say “Let’s [do thing]”—makes cold outreach more casual and effective.

• Use Twitter as your top funnel: Pieter’s Twitter is a real-time window into his world, with links to live dashboards.

• Public dashboards = viral credibility: He shows revenue, usage, even carbon offsets.

Absolutely! Here’s a sharp, analytical breakdown of Pieter Levels’ business model and strategy based on the My First Million episode, using the criteria you provided:

🧠 Pieter Levels: Business Model Analysis

📉 External Factors

Several macro and micro factors have shaped Pieter’s success:

• Remote Work Boom: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the normalization of remote work globally, massively expanding his customer base of digital nomads and location-independent professionals.

• Regulatory Shifts: Nations like Portugal introduced favorable visa and tax policies targeting remote workers, which Pieter capitalized on with Rebase—a platform helping people relocate with ease.

• Consumer Behavior: There’s a cultural shift toward minimalist, experience-based living. Younger workers crave flexibility, international experiences, and are increasingly distrustful of corporate conformity—all of which Pieter’s products and personal brand embody.

• Low-Competition Niches: He intentionally enters “unsexy” markets—job boards, Slack communities, immigration tools—where big tech ignores and indie hackers haven’t saturated the space.

📊 Business Metrics

Pieter's financials are both impressive and radically open:

• Total Annual Revenue: ~$2.7 million

• Profit Margins: Up to 94% on flagship products like Remote OK

• Top Revenue Drivers:

  • Nomad List – $2.1M/year

  • Remote OK – $1.6M/year

  • ReadMake (eBook platform) – ~$60K/year

  • Rebase (immigration) – Emerging revenue, high potential

• Operating Costs: Minimal—he’s the sole full-time employee, using only a few part-time contractors.

• Monthly Spend: Personally spends just $4–5K/month despite multi-million-dollar revenue.

📈 Significant Trends

• “Slowmadism”: Contrary to the stereotype of constantly-on-the-move nomads, Pieter reveals most nomads now stay in one place for 6–7 months. This shift opens demand for long-term furnished housing, relocation services, and stable community platforms.

• Indie Hacking Goes Mainstream: Indie hacking is no longer niche—it’s a viable career path. But Pieter stands out by not raising VC and building for profit over hype.

• Transparency as a Brand Strategy: Posting public revenue dashboards, open metrics, and personal insights has driven loyalty and trust—turning users into fans and customers into advocates.

🚀 Business Initiatives

• Full-Stack Solo Operation: He’s doubled down on staying lean—running everything himself with a simple tech stack (PHP + jQuery) for fast iteration and deployment.

• Rebase: A strategic bet on immigration-as-a-service, helping high-income remote workers move to tax-friendly countries like Portugal.

• Content Flywheel: His businesses feed his content, and his content feeds his businesses—creating a perpetual loop of growth.

• Lifestyle-Controlled Business: Every product Pieter launches must enhance his lifestyle or solve his own pain point, ensuring deep product-audience fit.

🔮 Forward-Looking Statements

• Revenue Goal: He’s tracking publicly toward $3M/year in revenue.

• Long-Term Vision: Not aiming to sell—he wants to keep businesses cash-flowing and automated, preserving freedom over exits.

• Market Prediction: He still believes in Asia as a long-term growth bet, investing heavily in ETFs tied to that region despite volatility.

• Next Wave Opportunity: Slowmadism, mid-term housing, and lifestyle services for remote workers and families will see a boom as the remote work trend matures.

• Automation First: Pieter anticipates doing even less manual work in the future, relying on systems and lightweight human help to maintain and scale.

This isn’t just a story of smart business—it’s a masterclass in building lean, independent, and future-proof systems that ride macroeconomic waves instead of fighting them. Pieter Levels didn’t just catch the remote work trend—he helped shape it, and he’s setting up to quietly dominate its next phase.

Would you like this in a slide deck format too?

📝 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Pieter Levels is what happens when you blend Tim Ferriss with Mr. Miyagi. His $2.7M/year empire wasn’t built on scale—it was built on simplicity, iteration, and radical transparency. Whether it’s job boards, Slack groups, or immigration platforms, everything he touches fits into one coherent, freedom-driven lifestyle flywheel. He’s living proof that you can skip the rat race, own your time, and still win big—if you’re willing to think differently and build for yourself first.