# @levelsio (Pieter Levels)

> Bootstrapping startups while traveling the world. Personal blog of Pieter Levels (@levelsio): 878 published posts on building bootstrapped internet startups solo, AI, travel and living as a digital nomad since 2013.

All content here is public. Posts are @levelsio's own writing — please link back if you quote them.

Last updated: 2026-09-09 (most recent post). This file is generated live, so it always reflects what is published right now.

## About

Hi. I’m @levelsio and you’ve found my blog!

I build internet startups by myself: Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI. All bootstrapped without funding and just me coding everything on my laptop.

Since 2013 I write here about building businesses, traveling the world, AI and whatever else is on my mind.

Recurring themes: bootstrapping over fundraising, shipping fast and in public, remote work and visas, AI as a tool for solo builders, Europe vs Asia and the US, air conditioning and degrowth politics, health and training, and living deliberately with few possessions. I post opinions with radical honesty and publish revenue numbers openly.

## Machine-readable access

- [JSON API index](https://levels.io/api): what the API offers
- [All posts](https://levels.io/api/posts): every post as JSON, newest first. Filters: `?tag=`, `?since=YYYY-MM-DD`, `?q=` (title search), `?limit=` & `?offset=`
- [One post](https://levels.io/api/posts/{slug}): metadata plus markdown, html and text
- Plain formats: `/api/posts/{slug}.md`, `.txt`, `.html`
- [Tags](https://levels.io/api/tags): every tag with a post count
- [MCP server](https://levels.io/mcp): Model Context Protocol over HTTP (JSON-RPC 2.0). Read-only tools: `search_posts`, `get_post`, `list_tags`
- [RSS](https://levels.io/rss) and [long-form RSS](https://levels.io/rss/longform)

Please be gentle: the API is rate limited and uncached. Prefer `/api/posts` once over fetching every slug individually.

## Pages

- [Home — every post, newest first](https://levels.io/)
- [Projects — everything @levelsio has built since 1996](https://levels.io/projects)
- [Stats — posting history, tags, followers, subscribers](https://levels.io/stats)
- [All tags](https://levels.io/tags)
- [Ask me anything — AI chat over the blog](https://levels.io/ama)
- [levels.vc — angel investments and AI fund](https://levels.vc)

## Main topics

Tech, Society, Entrepreneurship, Travel, Analysis, Stuff I made, Europe, eu/acc, AI, Future, Asia, SaaS

## Recent posts

- [I replaced all these SaaS with my own vibe coded services, so about $25,000/mo savings](https://levels.io/replaced-saas-with-vibe-coded-services) — 2026-09-09
- [I vibe coded my own Scrapingbee alternative and replaced my $249/mo plan with a $1/mo scraper](https://levels.io/vibe-coded-own-scrapingbee-alternative) — 2026-09-09
- [Never connect an LG TV to the internet; use an Apple TV instead](https://levels.io/never-connect-lg-tv-internet) — 2026-09-08
- [Anyone can try making money on the internet with AI, but entrepreneurship is still like pro sports](https://levels.io/anyone-can-try-internet-money-ai) — 2026-09-07
- [The smartest people I know have strong opinions weakly held](https://levels.io/strong-opinions-weakly-held) — 2026-09-07
- [After a decade, I have made nomads.com free for everyone now](https://levels.io/nomads-com-free-after-a-decade) — 2026-09-05
- [I've tried for weeks to build my own ScrapingBee but I'll keep paying $99/mo](https://levels.io/tried-to-build-own-scrapingbee) — 2026-09-04
- [When I see people build a "software factory"](https://levels.io/when-i-see-software-factory) — 2026-09-04
- [Portugal could have been the Silicon Valley of Europe](https://levels.io/portugal-silicon-valley-of-europe) — 2026-09-03
- [If both xAI and Claude are down, does that mean the Colossus GPU farm is down?](https://levels.io/xai-claude-colossus-gpu-farm) — 2026-09-03
- [153,000,000 American driver licenses leaked in KYC hack](https://levels.io/153-million-american-driver-licenses-leaked) — 2026-09-02
- [The new price for Minimax H3 Max dropped to $32,940/mo](https://levels.io/minimax-h3-max-livestream-price-drop) — 2026-09-02
- [You stop wondering why the US is so insanely rich when you travel the rest of the world](https://levels.io/why-the-us-is-insanely-rich) — 2026-09-01
- [AI could permanently fix email by scoring and ranking every message](https://levels.io/ai-could-permanently-fix-email) — 2026-08-31
- [I keep getting rejected by Claude for the most benign things now](https://levels.io/claude-rejecting-benign-things) — 2026-08-31