A few years ago I sold all my stuff to explore the world, creating 12 startups in 12 months and building $1M+/y companies as an indie maker such as Nomad List and Remote OK. I'm also a big pusher of remote work and async and analyze the effects it has on society. Follow me on Twitter or see my list of posts. My first book MAKE is out now. Contact me
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levels.io

Love, Anxiety and Startups: My Year in 50 Tweets

Society, Travel
Dec 31, 2014

This year, 2014, a year in review seems appropriate with everything that has happened. It might seem that this year was 100% awesome for me. But it was actually not. It’s better described as one crazy roller coaster that brought me to extreme highs and the lowest lows. I know posts like this don’t fit the whole positive “we’re crushing it” startup mantra, but at least it’s real. I like radical honesty, so I’m going to tell exactly what happened. I tweeted a lot this year, so that’s a good outline to write this around. Without further ado, my year in tweets:

Returning home

The year started off with me returning home from Hong Kong and traveling most of 2013:

.@levelsio @punspace @launchpad Last years travels to Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Koh Samui and Hong Kong pic.twitter.com/zwHf3Ob1Qj

— LayerUp (@LayerUp) November 1, 2014

Being back in Holland, I landed back at my parents for a while. In the first week I was robbed of everything I owned, minimalism eh?

Being back home, I felt a bit confused as to what to do next with my life. I just went from daily insanity of travel to daily absolutely nothing happens at home. So I moved around Holland for a while from couch to couch staying at my friends figuring things out.

And then in Amsterdam, I met the love of my life. She was everything I wanted.

But mentally I wasn’t that stable. Two months in back home now, I started getting severe issue with anxiety and went almost insane (about which I’ll write more later). The root of it was that I couldn’t settle back in to a normal life at home anymore. I had panic attacks, waking up for months EVERY DAY short-breathed. My senses were different, as in I became hypersensitive to sound and light (a common side effect of extreme anxiety). And I had severe derealization, which is best explained as feeling that EVERYTHING is a movie and you’re in the center of it. Something like The Truman Show IRL. Scary.

Twelve startups

To try and stay sane, I decided to set a goal. I wrote a blog called “12 projects in 12 months”. For fun I backspaced projects and typed “startups”. I was going to do 12 startups in 12 months. What happened after is, well, wow. I don’t know but I think I hit the internet’s nerve. It changed everything. Without asking for it, I received crazy press coverage from WIRED to the New York Times.

It didn’t help I wasn’t wearing shoes and there was a Starbucks cup there, good luck fighting stereotypes with that, hahaha.

Meet the guy who's launching 12 startups in 12 months http://t.co/iJwmBF41Aa pic.twitter.com/9m5re1sXnY

— WIRED (@WIRED) August 27, 2014

It changed my life instantly. I remember just after this article hit, standing in a coworking space in Manila and random people started taking photos of me from a distance. Completely insanely weird. I would walk into random coffee shops in Bangkok and local Thai would say they read an article about me. I was asked to go speak at events and help everyone with their “startups”. My best friends in Holland told me that THEIR friends asked them if they could get them in touch with me. WTF! It was fun but also made me very awkward, especially in the beginning. I had become a public persona overnight (in a niche, that is):

12 startups in 12 months: here’s how this digital nomad is f**king doing it http://t.co/f3FHsgqNiP by @legendt

— Tech in Asia (@Techinasia) July 29, 2014

I was interviewed by @RocketshipFM on shipping and why you need a narrative to get traction http://t.co/Dc0ncptpDN pic.twitter.com/nR09yf9jn6

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 30, 2014

It gave me imposter syndrome. Suddenly people were giving me way more attention than I deserved. Suddenly people wanted to talk to me, work with me and ask me for advice. And that’s weird because a few months before nobody did. What exactly changed here?

My goal was building successful companies, not being some startup guru. I hate gurus and idols are ridiculous to have. Nobody should pretend they know anything certain. Because nobody does. And if they do, they usually have ulterior motives (e.g. selling you courses and bullshit). Fuck that shit.

Still, I had all of this attention, so what do you do with it? Well, I decided to channel it towards the startups I was building. It could help get my startups users. And sending out a more pragmatic message about startups then that was out there. As in, just build stuff and stop talking and listening to bullshit and gurus so much (I know that’s ironic):

The one and only @levelsio speaks about how he does stuff and why he shouldnt be the one and only. http://t.co/mRYpPvQ2QG /via @KrauseFx

— Andreas Klinger (@andreasklinger) December 18, 2014

The breakout success

One of the twelve startups, Nomad List, became a breakout success with everyone from Matt Mullenweg to Tim Ferriss talking about it. It did great on Hacker News and Product Hunt too and appeared to be the first sustainable business from the twelve.

It started as a spreadsheet:

I love how, while I was asleep, http://t.co/FCrL2bEE8z is actually still being edited on and slowly filling up! pic.twitter.com/AkGeyVI0z4

— levels.io (@levelsio) June 24, 2014

Then became a site:

NomadList: The best cities to live and work remotely http://t.co/zzZxaTfNvV via @emieljanson on @producthunt pic.twitter.com/4YORiUxhFO

— Product Hunt (@ProductHunt) July 29, 2014

[Post](https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/posts/10152592211767241) by [Tim Ferriss](https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss).
> [@photomatt](https://twitter.com/photomatt) [@tferriss](https://twitter.com/tferriss) thanks tim, this is what happened when you tweeted me [pic.twitter.com/FSfadgqlAL](http://t.co/FSfadgqlAL) > > — levels.io (@levelsio) [July 31, 2014](https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/494905950910705664)

Tied into it, a chat group made digital nomads everywhere less lonely (including me):

A @SlackHQ channel for digital #nomads: http://t.co/S5NPMG7K4J Sounds like: http://t.co/lywMBGaLSA /cc @bradneuberg @alexhillman #coworking

— Chris Messina™ (@chrismessina) October 30, 2014

And a forum full of AMAs with famous nomads and remote startups to inspire people to go out there and do it too:

I'm doing an AMA right now with fellow @buffer colleagues about remote working (or anything!). Come Ask Us Anything! http://t.co/T9oHyCXSMV

— Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) December 11, 2014

More startups

Apart from the nomad stuff, I did a productivity startup:

#LinkAboutIt Set a goal, specify a deadline and the amount of money if you miss it, and go fucking do it https://t.co/wLBZ4IX31i

— Cool Hunting (@coolhunting) May 1, 2014

…that made somebody drop out of college, wow:

How someone used http://t.co/0j6YqjtEYP to launch their MVP and drop out of college, sheer wows were had pic.twitter.com/1V3HgkpiI6

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 29, 2014

…however it failed to make people quit watching porn:

Someone just lost $1000 on http://t.co/0j6YqjtEYP w/ "don't watch porn for 90 days" pic.twitter.com/Vcv6amLFNv

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 3, 2014

And with pride I can say, this year I also helped make GIFs go IRL:

Yay! My 6th startup is live! http://t.co/UcvHRAq5Wa prints flip books from your animated GIFs: http://t.co/Jq1nl77qbI pic.twitter.com/z65egD4Qdu

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 3, 2014

.@davidkmckinney GIFCEPTION pic.twitter.com/wwZZxOdv2s

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 3, 2014

GIFbook now can turn any of Giphy's GIFs into flipbooks! Check it out!!! http://t.co/CkVQd65S1G @levelsio

— Giphy (@giphy) October 30, 2014

Twelve startups saved my life

The twelve startups project made me more productive, successful and changed my life completely. I had no idea it would be like this. And I can only be very grateful that this happened. It put my life back on track, and I don’t know what I did if it wouldn’t have. As I said before this, I was pretty confused even what to do with my life before this.

That love of my life had since become my girlfriend. And while the world gave me so much positive attention for what I made, my girlfriend hated everything I made. She wanted me to settle down, stop traveling and do stuff that mattered (instead of “stupid startups” as she called it).

It reached a point where I was literally embarrassed to tell her that I got press coverage in the New York Times.

Five months back in Holland, not feeling things were going well, and still feeling like I was going insane with anxiety from not being able to settle back here, and this girlfriend thing not working out, I left to see if it’d go better if I’d be traveling again. The first place I flew to was Hubud in Bali.

Bali

The island helped me a bit because it was so mellow:

Oh my days, so this is the view from behind my laptop at @hubudbali, slightly awestruck pic.twitter.com/QdBpyyhuth

— levels.io (@levelsio) July 10, 2014

And so its people were mellow too, I met some really down-to-earth awesome neo-hippies, as I’d like to call them. They have a hippie mindset, but don’t smell and are into tech, but have the values of a hippie. So they’re friendly and make cool shit. It was definitely one of the most inspiring places I’ve been creatively.

Philippines

I was then selected to pitch GoFuckingDoIt to Dave McClure and flew to the Philippines:

Congrats @levelsio @Getbooky ! You were selected to speed date with @geeksonaplane geeks on July 24 #Manila Will you attend? 🙂 rsvp email

— Geeks on a Beach (@GeeksOnABeach) July 18, 2014

It was fun but it seemed a lot more like a high school prom show then a startup event. That’s when I had the big realization:

Startup events are the only ones making money from startup events.

Stuck in the Philippines now, I decided to do a lot of coding, eat Filipino chicken and see jeepneys:

That's not exactly a minimalist setup anymore, now is it… at @aspacemanila pic.twitter.com/EEDgxfAET7

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 7, 2014

They let me into the kitchen today to meet the chickens that fuel my addiction (@ Greenbelt 5, Makati) pic.twitter.com/GJXqciaakY

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 11, 2014

So I'm getting midly obsessed by these jeepneys I keep seeing here, they look way too cool for school pic.twitter.com/mxMS5SPdWt

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 10, 2014

I went partying and entered the hospital due to some misplaced high heels:

Today we visited the hospital in Makati as a girl planted her high heels into my little toe, much hurt very xray 😛 pic.twitter.com/lCaQnMj66n

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 13, 2014

A pit stop in Taiwan

And after a month, I had to leave the Philippines again. Since a month later I had to be in Japan to meet my Dutch friends who would come over, I had no other choice then do a pit stop in Taiwan (physically located between the Japan and the Philippines):

I have arrived in Taiwan ^_o pic.twitter.com/3CqyTMxhsv

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 22, 2014

…where I visited temples:

Today I visited the Xiangtian temple in north Taipei and prayed to its God of War; more importantly tho I met Doge 🐶 pic.twitter.com/4vMpvWqYup

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 26, 2014

…had street food:

Strolling around the Taipei night market trying to find a real Taiwanese dish… pic.twitter.com/BqbsNNCekP

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 27, 2014

…looked at the crazy signs:

More pics of Taipei, as requested by @marckohlbrugge ^___0 pic.twitter.com/ZtWGcQ9SL1

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 28, 2014

Why am I feeling so “lost”

Meanwhile, the travel had helped reduce my anxiety slightly. But now I started feeling incredibly “lost”. Where last year I went on a 9-month “long holiday” with every intention to come back home, this year that home just didn’t feel like home anymore. And that caused the great deal of distress (and anxiety) in my mind. If you lose your sense of home, you also lose a lot of sense of who you are, and even what life is. So now I felt confused and “lost”. I had no clue as to what I was doing with my life:

It's weirdly satisfying to know that HN's Generation-Y is having a quarter-life crisis too, like me https://t.co/0VLfo5DWkJ

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 14, 2014

I felt lost and even though my ex-girlfriend had broken up, I missed her like crazy. After she unblocked me on Telegram and sent me a message, I booked a 1,500 EUR (!) direct flight from Taipei to Amsterdam to see go see her and tried to make it work again:

So many breakups these days because ppl don't even try to work things out anymore, when that's the point of a relationship, you make it work

— levels.io (@levelsio) August 27, 2014

In Amsterdam for a very special mission ^__^ pic.twitter.com/96bN1zGBfh

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 2, 2014

We built a robot together:

You can now tweet my dino friend Orkel a yes/no question to @orkel_AMA and he'll answer it from future space ^_0 pic.twitter.com/MeubqNY3LJ

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 7, 2014

Meanwhile, I hung out with the Dutch startup kids, including Product Hunt‘s awesome Dutch designer (and nomad) Jonno) and BetaList‘s founder Marc. Even though I don’t put much value to national identity anymore, it was awesome to finally meet people making cool startuppy products AND also being Dutch. I guess there’s a little Dutch left in my heart still 🙂

Fun times with @emieljanson, @KevGroenendaal, @levelsio and @marckohlbrugge 🙂 pic.twitter.com/OoIML0IhMx

— Jonno Riekwel (@Jonnotie) September 15, 2014

And I saw my friends in Amsterdam:

Bye Amsterdam! See you in a bit 0_x pic.twitter.com/n8BafNJj5L

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 18, 2014

Japan with my best friends

I then left Holland again after 2 weeks and traveled all throughout Japan with my best friends from Holland:

Bye Tokyo! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/4Ueg38goaR

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 24, 2014

What's good Kyoto? @levelsio pic.twitter.com/MqGgc4bhJN

— RASA (@RasaHiphopNL) September 28, 2014

Today I played with doges in Hiroshima, saw the temples and went on the Shinkansen super super speed train 😍 pic.twitter.com/uxhPJyXHRO

— levels.io (@levelsio) September 27, 2014

Back in Thailand, after a year

….before returning back to where I started my nomad journey last year, in Bangkok:

Bye Tokyo, hi Bangkok! Who wants to have chicken and rice with me today? pic.twitter.com/iPWz1cIBle

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 5, 2014

…where I met Amarit from HUBBA and Yury from #nomads:

RT "coffee date w/ Pieter @levelsio @nomadlist_ and Yury @ytspar at our fav coffee shop in BKK" (via @AimAmarit) pic.twitter.com/BAaMUjzFzI

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 6, 2014

After a year without, I had Bangkok’s amazing street food again:

Awsm to be back in Sukhumvit 38, BKK's best street food place and the first place I arrived 1.5 yr ago; memories 😭 pic.twitter.com/fbEADoZsp1

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 6, 2014

My brother came to visit

And I finally welcomed my bigger brother to Asia and nomadism. It was awesome cause having him with me helped me feel more familiar and rooted:

A night of food + code with my (actual) brother @tokyopancake pic.twitter.com/G5leJMo1eW

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 11, 2014

My brother @tokyopancake is doing 24 startups in 6 months, this is his new press photo pic.twitter.com/59A56x6V6A

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 4, 2014

2 brothers, 2 codebases, 1 hairstyle @hubudbali @tokyopancake @nomadlist_ pic.twitter.com/5yjrButmd1

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 20, 2014

Back to Bali

And then I returned to Bali to become a neo-hippie:

Bye Bangkok, you were beautiful 😊 + hi Bali!! Let's go neo-hippie in Ubud again, I have my wristband already! pic.twitter.com/bNIMAKrqQK

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 7, 2014

And I ended up in more hot springs:

Yday we went for an awesome swim in 🌋hot vulcano water (no lava tho 😛) at Batur National Hot Spring in Bali pic.twitter.com/yoXJZiGUsA

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 17, 2014

I coached at Startup Weekend and we hit the Wall Street Journal!

Awesome to see Startup Weekend Bali where I was a coach get recog in Wall Street Journal http://t.co/diqmO6fMN3 @wsj @hubudbali #suwbali

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 17, 2014

At Hubud, I pushed ergonomics forward:

Mr @levelsio is pioneering new ways of working again: this time while sitting on top of a bin at @hubudbali pic.twitter.com/ye6RPFP49h

— Clare Harrison (@ClareJHarrison) November 18, 2014

Worked with monkeys:

This is my life right now 🐒🐵🐒 @hubudbali pic.twitter.com/0CnJGAMVHg

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 26, 2014

Had lots of Indonesian food:

Nasi Campur, real Javanese coffee and fresh banana juice, that's my breakfast in Bali (at $2.50) pic.twitter.com/2X1E9HckVd

— levels.io (@levelsio) December 4, 2014

I led the first Nomad List meetup in Bali myself:

Let's the #digitalnomad meet-up start at @hubudbali. @levelsio on stage! pic.twitter.com/8ja7P0S1rO

— Hubud (@hubudbali) November 21, 2014

I went surfing for the first time:

Yay! Today I did my first ever surfing with my brother @tokyopancake 🌊🏄🏊🌅😍 pic.twitter.com/BaQsWkD3Ik

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 19, 2014

My startups did matter

My ex-girlfriend’s words that what I made “didn’t matter” had hurt me a lot. I was in love and that made me believe every word she said. But it’s a bit hard to keep believing in what she said when I was meeting people daily that had moved to the other side of the world because of my blog and sites. More and more I felt convinced I was on to something here:

Just added a grid view to give you a better feel of where to move to next 🙂 #nomadlife http://t.co/lNszo6OTm3 pic.twitter.com/CwqIIQEELx

— Nomad List (@nomadlist_) September 20, 2014

The UK's @Telegraph wrote a nice article on @nomadlist_ today; thanks @laurendavidson! http://t.co/44qHT1NJqw pic.twitter.com/j2VXOQ2rkm

— Nomad List (@nomadlist_) October 7, 2014

Off to NomadList's #1 ranked city for living & working remotely, Chiang Mai. Msg me to meetup! @nomadlist_

— Victor Lai (@VictorLai) October 26, 2014

Reading this stuff makes me happy 🙂 @KrauseFx pic.twitter.com/IvuJ2MT2Px

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 12, 2014

There was now Nomad List meetups everywhere in the world:

Pics from last night's @nomadlist_ meetup in Berlin, looks like they had fun and wish I was there! (h/t @DavidNagy) pic.twitter.com/XxalB7ABAd

— levels.io (@levelsio) November 6, 2014

It's been such a pleasure meeting all the fantastic nomads at the first @nomadlist_ meetup in Chiang Mai tonight! 🙂 A brilliant start!

— Jerome Dahdah (@parasight) November 13, 2014

And Nomad List was reaching a lot of people:

My ex-girlfriend’s words that my startups “didn’t matter” was literally being proven wrong. They were changing hundreds of people’s lives every month now. They were being mentioned in arguments between Paul Graham (Y Combinator), Matt Mullenweg (WordPress) and David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby on Rails).

When I met even more people through #nomads, that were thanking me for what I created and were also traveling and working, it supported me in realizing that this is what I want to do. I didn’t want to settle at home. I wanted to see the world. I was not insane, after all.

Then, the bubble popped

Suddenly, everything became clear. I was in love with a person who was intrinsically bad for me. And blind love made me believe in her false doctrine about what people (and I) should do with my life; a doctrine drenched in negativity:

There's skeptics but "if you bet on the side of the optimists, generally you’re right" @pmarca http://t.co/oWEAQefGrV pic.twitter.com/UA5JMuuLrN

— levels.io (@levelsio) October 20, 2014

I decided to break up with her definitively. Those weeks after felt like walking away while you’ve got sticky bubble gum stuck to your back that just keeps pulling you back. Love is sticky.

If you’ve ever loved somebody so much that you wanted to be with them the rest of your life, you probably know how deep that love goes. Even if you hate what they did to you, even if they hurt you on a daily basis, you’ll still love them. And trying to get away from them, well…

But I left.

If you're dating someone who doesn't believe in your dreams, GTFO ASAP

— levels.io (@levelsio) December 3, 2014

The end

It’s now months later, and by sheer magic, just before the end of the year, I met someone who taught me it’s not normal for your partner to bring you down, ever, and it’s not normal to be embarrassed to talk about the stuff you love, your work, ever. She’s been the most supportive person I could ever wish for. And best of all, she doesn’t think I’m insane for wanting to fly everywhere and see the world. She’s doing it herself:

"Why you should absolutely date a girl who travels" I'm so happy I do now 👫✈️🌇🚁⛺️🚂🌅🚄🌋 http://t.co/A1QPd7J82k

— levels.io (@levelsio) December 24, 2014

All of these transient places, they had become my real home now:

@levelsio Look about right? 🙂 pic.twitter.com/cNANFvahPj

— Daniel Lockyer (@DanielLockyer) January 23, 2015

Maybe this shows a bit how personal startups can be. We’re not just making sites here, this HTML, CSS and JS we write affects people’s lives. It affects our own lives. For me, it helped me to steer my personal life from total fucking disaster, just at the right time.

I don’t feel lost anymore. I feel confident that what I’m doing is the right thing. And that feels great.

The roller coaster’s track has ended now and I can get off again. I hope next year I can replace the loud, unstable and fast roller coaster with a silent, stable but still fast Tesla instead.

And if this year shows me anything, it’s that good and bad can go hand in hand.

End of my mega airplane 36 hours to Amsterdam, concluding that @emirates on-board cams and wifi are awesome 😧😬😝 pic.twitter.com/9xDluTvseB

— levels.io (@levelsio) December 22, 2014

I’m ending the year in the same location as where I started, at my parent’s. It’s good to have a place to go back to, as a constant, as a point of reference. It gives me a perspective to see how everything changed so radically this year, while right here, nothing changed at all.

It was all in my mind.

And that love of my life? That wasn’t love at all, and that wasn’t the love of my life (which is a silly concept to begin with). That was a troubled person preying on my unstable mind. Instead, love is when you care about someone and they truly care about you. And you celebrate each other’s successes, not hate on them. It seems so obvious now.

And luckily, just in time, I found real love which made me realize that.

Oh, life.

P.S. I'm on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my stories. And I wrote a book called MAKE about building startups without funding. See a list of my stories or contact me. To get an alert when I write a new blog post, you can subscribe below:

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My third time in a float tank and practicing visualizing the future
2016
15 Jun
How to add shareable pictures to your website with some PhantomJS magic
2016
29 May
My chatbot gets catcalled
2016
19 May
From web dev to 3d: Learning 3d modeling in a month
2016
09 Mar
My second time in a sensory deprivation chamber
2016
04 Mar
Day 30 of Learning 3d 🎮 Cloning objects 👾👾👾
2016
02 Mar
Day 29 of Learning 3d 🎮 Glass, reflectives, HD, coloring and more details
2016
29 Feb
Day 27 of Learning 3d 🎮 Details, details, DETAILS!
2016
25 Feb
Day 23 of Learning 3d 🎮 Filling up the street and adding shadows
2016
24 Feb
Day 22 of Learning 3d 🎮 Added rain, blinking lights, sound, textured menu sign and a VR web app
2016
23 Feb
Day 21 of Learning 3d 🎮 High res textures, physical rendering and ambient occlusion
2016
22 Feb
Day 20 of Learning 3d 🎮 Objects and camera perspectives 🙆
2016
19 Feb
My first time floating in a sensory deprivation tank ☺️
2016
12 Feb
Day 10 of Learning 3d 🎮 Making complex objects by combining shapes 🙆
2016
06 Feb
Day 4 of Learning 3d: @shoinwolfe visits the actual street I'm modeling 🏮😎🏮
2016
03 Feb
Day 1 of Learning 3d 🎮 I learnt how to make shapes, move, rotate and scale them + how to texturize, and add colored lights 💆
2016
02 Feb
I'm Learning 3d 🎮
2016
27 Jan
The things I have to do to read an email sent to me by my government
2016
12 Jan
How to use your iPhone as a better Apple TV alternative (with VPN)
2015
23 Dec
Here's a crazy idea: automatically pause recurring subscription of users when you detect they aren't actually using your app
2015
17 Dec
Stop calling night owls lazy, we're not
2015
16 Dec
We are the heroes of our own stories
2015
25 Oct
There will be 1 billion digital nomads by 2035
2015
21 Oct
Tobias van Schneider interviewed me about everything
2015
18 Oct
Why doesn't Twitter just asks its users to pay?
2015
17 Oct
Punk died the moment we learnt that the world WAS in fact getting better, not worse
2015
15 Oct
Stop being everyone's friend
2015
14 Oct
Vaporwave is the only music that fits the feeling futuristic Asian mega cities give me
2015
09 Sep
We live in a world built by dead people
2015
01 Sep
Why global roaming data solutions don't make any sense
2015
26 Aug
How to export your Slack's entire archive as HTML message logs
2015
24 Aug
How to play GTA V on your MacBook (and any other PC game)
2015
14 May
I uploaded 4 terabyte over Korea's 4G, and paid $48
2015
08 May
How I sped up Nomad List by 31% with SPDY, CloudFront and PageSpeed
2015
04 May
My weird code commenting style based on HTML tags
2015
01 May
Now is probably the time to make HTTPS the default on all your sites and apps
2015
17 Apr
Do the economics of remote work retreats make any sense?
2015
17 Apr
Don't grow up
2015
06 Apr
Calling people "expat" or "nomad" is just as irrelevant as calling internet users "netizens"
2015
02 Apr
How I built Remote | OK and launched it to #1 on Product Hunt
2015
29 Mar
Our society is not in line with our natural reward systems, and alcohol and drug abuse proves it
2015
28 Mar
Makers have become the invisible hand
2015
07 Mar
How technology is shaping our future: billions of self-employed makers and a few mega corporations
2015
22 Jan
We are the orcas at Sea World
2014
31 Dec
Love, Anxiety and Startups: My Year in 50 Tweets
2014
15 Dec
How to backup your Linode or Digital Ocean VPS to Amazon S3
2014
01 Dec
The total chaos that the dawn of the 21st century has become
2014
23 Nov
How I hacked Slack into a community platform with Typeform
2014
05 Nov
How to successfully build a community around your startup
2014
27 Oct
The ideal place to start a startup is not necessarily in Silicon Valley
2014
23 Oct
"If I had this, I would be happy"
2014
14 Oct
This is what happens when FlightFox copies your entire site without attribution
2014
02 Oct
GIFbook, the first animated GIF flipbook
2014
01 Oct
On Thailand's immigration police targeting digital nomads
2014
13 Sep
Why traveling makes you feel lost
2014
02 Sep
How I build my minimum viable products
2014
31 Aug
How I built Nomad Jobs, a remote job board for 100% distributed startups
2014
27 Aug
Danism & Rae - Sirens
2014
16 Aug
How I got my startup to #1 on both Product Hunt and Hacker News by accident
2014
15 Aug
Why does Generation Y feel so lost? And what's the cure?
2014
23 Jul
Bali is the magical voodoo spirit island of Asia
2014
05 Jul
Ideals, fears and the script of life
2014
22 Jun
How to access anyone's Telegram messages without unlocking their phone
2014
14 Jun
The achiever in crisis
2014
12 Jun
How I did not sell my startup today
2014
07 Jun
The free fall that is coming home after traveling the world
2014
02 Jun
Never dismiss your ideals as post-adolescent fantasy
2014
31 May
My 3rd startup: Tubelytics, the real-time dashboard for YouTube publishers
2014
29 May
How Go Fucking Do It raised $30,000+ in pledges in less than a month
2014
24 May
We have an ideologically broken and personally unfulfilling society
2014
24 May
On self-funding startups
2014
22 May
Run through ideas quickly
2014
11 May
If you can't express yourself by email, you're not worthy of anyone's time
2014
19 Apr
My 2nd startup: Go Fucking Do It, set a goal + deadline and if you fail, you pay
2014
18 Apr
Over 2,000 people played their inbox with Play My Inbox
2014
13 Apr
Celebrating my birthday North Korean style
2014
02 Apr
How Automation Left Us Feeling Empty
2014
09 Mar
Play My Inbox, collect music from your inbox and playlist them
2014
01 Mar
I'm Launching 12 Startups in 12 Months
2014
14 Feb
How to protect your backups from solar flares with a faraday cage
2014
06 Feb
Linkoban - Oh Oh
2014
05 Feb
Nationality is an accident of birth
2014
18 Jan
How I Went From 100 To 0 Things (Or How I Was Robbed of All My Stuff)
2014
04 Jan
All Watched Over by Machines of Living Grace
2013
31 Dec
Celebrating NYE 2014 in Hong Kong
2013
30 Dec
How I ended up in Hong Kong (or my adventures in the New York of the East)
2013
28 Nov
It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin
2013
27 Nov
2014 is the year techstep drum and bass makes its comeback
2013
25 Nov
Rinse FM, here's your podcast feed we've always wanted
2013
23 Nov
How I travel the world with just a carry-on bag
2013
23 Nov
How I spent the night with Singapore's migrant workers
2013
22 Nov
Why I want to live in Singapore
2013
21 Nov
How I predict Bitcoin's price by tracking Twitter mentions
2013
04 Nov
James Blake & Chance The Rapper - Life Round Here
2013
03 Nov
Sasha Keable - Careless Over You
2013
30 Oct
My not so great time in Vietnam
2013
27 Oct
Wiley - And Again
2013
27 Oct
The myth of a globalized world
2013
19 Oct
Remote working is the future
2013
19 Oct
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
2013
14 Oct
Steve Summers - New Surroundings
2013
12 Oct
What I learnt from bootstrapping my startup from Thailand in six months
2013
11 Oct
Palms Trax - Equation
2013
11 Oct
Cash means controlling your own destiny
2013
24 Sep
You're just a piece of a heartless shitty machine that makes money
2013
16 Sep
Automation Will Free Us From the Endless Consumption/Production Cycle We're In
2013
16 Sep
National Borders Have Become Irrelevant
2013
04 Sep
A Culture of Distraction is Not The Problem
2013
20 Aug
Governments are always ready to grab the greatest degree of power that the people will give them
2013
17 Aug
You constantly need to be painting or it looks like total crap
2013
09 Aug
Oversight: Thank You For Volunteering, Citizen
2013
07 Aug
Stripe launches beta in the Netherlands
2013
22 Jul
Google+ spamming people every 2 weeks to put up a profile photo
2013
20 Jul
The 100 Thing Challenge – From 200 to 20 things in 3 months
2013
17 Jul
Living in a Hotel
2013
16 Jul
The Story of my Visa Run to Tachileik in Myanmar
2013
16 Jul
This is what "acting professionally" results in
2013
08 Jul
Lockah - Sly Winking Usury
2013
30 Jun
Stand-up comedians on creativity
2013
24 Jun
With jobs gone, will robot owners pay people's income?
2013
24 Jun
Money as an enslavement method
2013
19 Jun
Make money where prices are high, spend it where prices are low. Does income arbitrage work?
2013
16 Jun
Finding an apartment in Chiang Mai
2013
13 Jun
Add HTTPS to NGINX for free and help make the world more secure
2013
11 Jun
Co-Working Spaces in Chiang Mai: PunSpace
2013
10 Jun
Moving to Chiang Mai
2013
04 Jun
My Bad Day At The Co-Working Space
2013
03 Jun
If it's in the news, don't worry about it
2013
29 May
The 24-Hour Coffee Place in Bangkok: Too Fast To Sleep
2013
28 May
Nosaj Thing x Chance the Rapper - Paranoia
2013
23 May
"There simply are no other fields in which I can spend $100 tomorrow and set up a new business..."
2013
21 May
"Speaking as a graduate of one, top schools teach you credentialing and ladder climbing..."
2013
17 May
Visiting Koh Samui, the island of paradise
2013
05 May
From dive bar to roof-top bar to roof-top pool in Bangkok
2013
02 May
"To awaken quite alone in a strange town..."
2013
01 May
Co-working spaces in Bangkok: Launchpad
2013
24 Apr
The 100 Thing Challenge
2013
24 Apr
"Do whatever you're drawn to"
2013
23 Apr
Co-working spaces in Bangkok: Hubba
2013
22 Apr
Reset your life
2013
09 Mar
OSX Terminal Tricks
2013
09 Mar
OSX for Windows users
2013
09 Mar
How I switched from PC to Mac in less than 7 days
2013
21 Feb
Black Mirror is the best TV series I have seen in years
2013
20 Feb
Why overnight success is a myth
2013
20 Feb
Constraints make people more creative
2013
13 Feb
Kitty Pryde & Riff Raff - Orion's Belt
2013
13 Feb
Dedicating our lives to what is essentially an organization to make money
2013
11 Feb
Watch The Pirate Bay: Away From the Keyboard
2013
16 Jan
My new music video for rap duo RASA
2013
14 Jan
What if money was no object in your life?
2013
03 Jan
Why attention to detail matters, even if no one notices the details
2013
03 Jan
In the 21st century, Maria Montessori shows to be more relevant than ever
2012
30 Dec
Unless the job itself is your dream, stay the fuck away from salaried jobs
2012
30 Nov
Success is One Big Hoax
2012
18 Oct
The death of the corporate drone
2012
13 Oct
The West's unemployment problem is permanent
2012
04 Oct
New Panda Mix Show branding and website
2012
29 Aug
Headhunterz - Power of Music
2012
21 Aug
Essendle interview on my music and my YouTube show
2012
07 Aug
The XX - Angels
2012
02 Aug
Spenzo - Ova
2012
02 Aug
Anna Lunoe & Diamond Lights - Stronger (Willy Joy Remix)
2012
10 Jul
Herve feat. Ronika - How Can I Live Without You (Make it Right) (Death Rose Cult Remix)
2012
09 Jul
Pheo - Nyquil
2012
05 Jul
I love minimalist living
2012
05 Jul
Why buying YouTube views is bad
2012
05 Jul
Citizen - Deep End
2012
03 Jul
D!RTY AUD!O intro
2012
01 Jul
Anybody can monetize their passion (now)
2012
28 Jun
Diplo - No Problem
2012
27 Jun
Skream - Thoughts of You
2012
21 Jun
TEED - Blood Pressure
2012
19 Jun
Today is the first day of the rest of your life
2012
17 Jun
Happiness maximization vs. profit maximization
2012
16 Jun
Music genres are dead
2012
15 Jun
Make a great product
2012
15 Jan
Rasa - Noem 't Wat Je Wilt
2011
23 Dec
Rasa - Hard & Soul
2011
15 Nov
Earth