What's up, everybody? This is courtland from any hacker's 点 com and you're listening to the any hacker's podcast。 More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process.

And on this show, I sit down with these ni hackers to discuss the idea as the opportunities and the strategies they're taking advantage so the rest of us can do the same. I'm here with Peter levels, a man who needs very little introduction, but i'll do on anyway you're the founder of no mad list sort of v hub for digital. No mad.

You're the founder remote OK, the biggest remote job board in the world and you probably primary inspiration for anti hackers itself. And I think it's spent like forty years now. Yeah so four years since been on the show. So second time has going.

I'm great, man. So nice to see you again. IT feels like a century IT feels like we spoke last. 那个 好像 也是 个 it's great to see you men。 I heard you've been you've been living offline, lia recently, so that's really nice.

I've been super chill. I've been much less of a working holic and i've ever been in my entire life. And it's honestly, it's like disorienting because like what do with myself? Like what do I do? And like it's hard to like fine hobby and stuff because they sometimes don't feel like as meaningful is like doing like a crazy all start up being a maybe i'll get back and do IT oh so nice yeah I know exactly the .

feeling you know about yeah i've been trying to slow down as well uh repeatedly over the last years but I don't know that IT goes in cycles right like you ah yeah you go in these work .

times and then .

you you feel like burned out. You're like, oh my god, to work too much and then you want to relax but then you get bored because you've done real life and real life also gets boring after well so it's like this endless dance right yeah and you .

just switch them one of the other other you like I don't you use like a cyclical person because it's like what you talking about last week, you're like i've i've realized that i've shipped for a thousand days street work in progress to community. So it's like a literally not a single day in the last thousand days. Have you missed up? And that's like that's real consistency, you know yeah, I feel like i've had that for like maybe thirty four years rather than probably like eight, eight, eight, thirty four and then .

just like wait from eight, thirty four, you've been working on stop.

basically. A J was like, I want to go to, I want to get an IT. And I was like, work super hard, a brief. And one was like, I want to become a professional starcraft player.

And then I realized I was as good as all the trees and then back working in the graduates college, start up grind and then eventually in the hackers and grinding on that. And then like, yeah, it's six months. I was the first time like, what if I just chill out?

Yeah, I think i'm exactly saying actually yeah something like from like seven or asia like you want to that's already going. The ambition started for us, I guess. Yeah.

it's of what's the meaning of all of IT, right? Are you are you driven by like some outcome that you're trying to achieve by being so bias or is just like a thing that you just have to do for its own sake? You know like even if you aren't making any money, you aren't becoming famous because if you have so many projects that are so successful that make millions of dollars, yeah that you tons of fans are eating constantly like is at the .

point yeah I I think is a really good question. And I I think we're in a very similar situation um where you probably don't do that as much for the money anymore because you probably we required financial stable and you generally want to do IT for uh because you like the process, you like to do something with your day, like you like to wake up for something and you like to have this daily chAllenge where like something doesn't work and and or like a computer trying to take over getting Better than you.

You you want to have A A goal in each day that and that goal can spend for weeks and month, right? But you want have something you're working towards to and and I I feel like I ve spoken to a lot of people that are also that are northern startups and and don't have their own business and stuff, and a lot of them really happy. Uh, someone then tell me that they miss that kind, that thing we have like this meaningful like pursuit.

This probably unhealthy. It's not really healthy, I think, is that mental unhealth pursuit because love you want to do IT, right? They want to get into business or startups.

But it's really mentally taxing, I think. And you need to be looking to do IT. It's an obsession for IT.

Like, I mean, if you want to win, you need to be obsess like look at illam squire is really obsessed. Yeah he can barely keep relationships going. So it's it's not that really method. So but like a IT, doesn't you give you some kind of like meaningful thing that's different and like watching netflix.

you know yeah and I think I think like meaning often comes from doing things that are hard. Like if you're doing something that's entirely headng tic and IT just feels good the whole time, it's hard to describe IT meaning even if it's a helpful. But when there's like a part of IT that's like a little bit self sacrificial and you'll be easier to do something else, you're still doing this. I think IT forced you to dig and I try to find some deeper reason why you're doing this thing. That's hard and that's often like where you discover meaning .

and yeah and and the ethnic effects like foods or sex or whatever, uh they all you adapt to them really fast, right yeah like if you don't have them, you want them, you're hungry. If you have them, you like, okay, this was nice and then you when you're laptop again, you like, let's let's go make something right. Or I don't know if you're painting, you start painting.

So I think because of the the frame of the problem keeps changing and is like perpetual IT never bores generally because like the problem never ends, which is also the tiring part of IT. You like, you know, when is is business gonna end? Like, when is this when I do, I reached the goal because, you know me, musicians, they always finished an album and they're done. They can do the tour and they're done and IT feels really nice like I used to do that with you started with business you you keep going when does IT end and when you sell, right when you exit.

But what you don't like White like think you had another tweet, what you're talking about, like how many projects that you shipped and you said.

yeah, I calculate was like seventy or something yeah.

more than seventy projects. You said only four out of seventy plus projects that you ever did made any money in grew, which means that you have something like a ninety five percent failure, eight and a hit rate only about like five percent, which is crazy in a way. yeah. Like how much of your success with all the projects that you think comes from like just being a relentless shipper, which almost no one is like almost no one has like seven projects i've really tried to. And how much becomes from being like a strategic mastermind, having the right business strategy because you're pretty like solid business background education tip.

well, this is obviously bias, but I do get tired from the set like the security side guys in amErica where it's like everything is luck. If you're successful, it's luck. It's completely you're upbringing and your background.

And I do you think that's a part of is I definitely like some percentage, like maybe your fifty or something. But when you see from this example, when you need to keep trying for lot of times, seventy times and more or hundred times and you might get a few successes. And if you try once, it's not ably, not onna work as you.

The other are not there. And I mean, i'm not the mathematic resident, but I do believe that if you keep trying something, you can somehow you don't change the odds but you keep playing ods and those must be a statistic fantasy in this. But I do think your rate of maybe getting success gets uh, higher. I think when you keep trying yeah and I .

think I do because I mean, you're building skills and stuff that is not like you just ruling the same set of it's .

like you in the same now a little bit Better .

at like you like figure out physics of the dice because you failed of them, want to start up so you okay, I don't do that mistake again and I really don't like these types projects.

That's exactly that. So is this a problem had like if you increase skills, your the odds next one will be Better and and that builds up and IT adds up and and also, I guess network, right? Like I don't have a network.

You probably have more than me. I'm just on twitter mostly because i'm like fully your modes around the world and stuff. So you also increase the people you know and like you get more known so you can you know tweet about stuff and and people. D, M, you like all we'd love to as a company, we love to use your product. That also helps yeah you just .

keep a curing advantages. And so I guess maybe the like the thing to do is to try to figure out how to put yourself in a position where you can do seventy plus projects because I don't think everyone can do that, like maybe they don't have the motivation. They don't have like the financial like sort of freedom and independence to do that. But yeah yeah, if you can keep doing that, eventually you will have one or two ones. yeah.

I think if you're in university, IT does like those for me to main time where I did like so many projects and there was a great time because in a hand you get like two hundred and fifty dollars a month for free from from the government back then I think like they called study financing and you don't have to pay IT back and you can borrow some money from the government for really low rates and um and you're pretty much just doing lectures, right? You're going to university and all the time you have a part of that. I think it's same in american college like you can work on your side projects.

I think I prisoned my college shears party mostly the first couple years take me too. Yes, i'm going to do i'm going to do startups. I just like me to you, ranter start up.

IT was a big mix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So time is like and like, that's a perfect time to start. A lot of stuff.

And you mentioned this like this sort of like pervasive attitude and um I think maybe it's just the united states, I don't know because I ve traveled in years. Where it's kind of like everything you do is luck, right? And no matter what you do, you can be proud what you've done because you there was only a result of your privilege of up bringing your parents money here or whatever.

And like that is kind of like a demotivating. I got to really like that perspective because like even if I was just say heathered ally seeking its true. Like what's the result of saying that right? IT doesn't necessarily motivate anyone to work any harder, just motivate everyone to give up. I think like .

kind of like a person yeah increases bitterness yeah yeah yeah yeah .

cases bidness maybe IT increases compassion I think it's of yeah think about IT but a decreases is like I think motivation because it's like, well, if you weren't born to a good circumstances ces your fuck you might well give yeah and if you were, you've no reason to push hard and work on anything because you can be .

proud you hundred and sometimes .

I feel like it's hard for people hold like two ideas in mind and it's like the two ideas I thinking hold in mind is like having compassion for people who came from backgrounds where IT is harder to succeed. But simultaneity having like optimism that like you still can make IT like that optimism is pretty important because without IT like you're saying, like what is little why would you even try if you didn't think this was possible that you need some degree of optimism? And like sometimes I feel like that's missing you know .

yeah I think is missing in in a little part in america. I think where you see is in asia though in in asia, like where I spend a lot of my time, it's the ambition is insane. And asia has all of its own problems for sure.

But there is this massive ambition to get ahead, get wealth, get successful that you don't see in in amErica especially, I think lesser and lesser. So and we should kind of not go into politics too much. But look at all the hate in moscow.

I think it's it's it's quite crazy because he wants to bring us to mars and works as as off to do this. And yet he's the Richard guy on earth, but he doesn't even spend this money he doesn't spend on like a lavish life. He just sleeps in the factory and he does so much stuff, obviously, to some bad things, probably the factory, I I don't know, but this seems like a net benefit guy to society and gets a lot of slack for just getting us to mars. So I think that's kind another strange you data point.

Do you feel like you get that kind of reaction from people? I mean, you're like you're way more active on twitter than I am. Like you're reading about everything that you're doing. And so you have a lot of fans and like people who follow like what you're ruck to you, like you publish your revenue numbers of stuff, know exactly how much money you make, like it's easy to put you like in this rich guy category. Do you get like obviously on a smaller scale, but like the same kind of criticisms that someone like england .

muskets yeah I I think I I had a few years ago, I started aggressive munting people and I had this robot, which if my mute person, they would also remove them as a follower, so they would be like shouting into the void and and they would have to be monitoring what I tweet because they followed me, but then they wouldn't notice that IT automatically remove them as follower. So I slowly, like, removed hundreds of these people.

And I honestly, I don't really get that anymore. I hardly get. And this is really cleaned up. Everything really helped. And I don't, anna block, I don't like blocking so much.

I mean, obvious i've blocked in the past, but generally the replies I get are quite positive these days. So I read got lot Better. I don't know. I just got Better for me or for everybody.

But yeah, it's funny because it's like you block people or you're like we're moving people. It's like you kind of creating your own echo chAmber, which is you want to bad thing with the internet, you want to create eo, you want a variety unions. But it's like, well, how big of variety do you want? Like do you every day and see a bunch I haters? Like not really.

If people are hostile, like you can really get you you know that like a the you always remember red the hateful commons and and you you can have nine nine good comments and you always remember to have or so IT can be psychological texting if you're working really hard done something and and you just get all these negative comments so I agree this is echo o bb though but I don't mute like I try them on mute you know just negative uh replies. I tried to me like really like the hate kind of commentate.

There's another like topic that things interesting essentially because you're like you're Better levels, you travel over you like kind of your finger on the pulse of like what's going on internationally. I have no idea like how when business for people in asia compared to how people are in europe. Er yeah I have no idea.

You know i'm just like kind of stuck in my bubble. So you're living in what you're in thailand right now. Like what do you see in thailand? You know what motivated to move for thailand? And you're also doing this new project rebate that I sort of intentionally tried to learn very little about.

So I learn about IT from you. yeah. So I live, I actually live portrait on now.

So just IT happened. I mean, cover this work is absolutely terrible. Uh, two years ago I was in an asia two, and we know only. We all set on the podcast mark, you know, mark from battle st and stuff and golf started happening asia. So I flew back to hAllen's.

I stayed with my parents for like a few I think five months or something and then I started traveling again with mark because, uh, we were not uh, tax residents in hand anymore. We're not rested anymore. So if we stayed over six months, we become a tax resident.

We didn't want to do that, so we had to leave. So we went on a road trip to europe and we ended up in portugal. And he was very, very like i'd never been in portugal. I'd heard kind of I like you, but know if your european you know about spain and italy and stuff you don't really hear about portugo like a small country next to spain, you know IT was good so you couldn't really do lot of stuff.

So we we ended up in like a seaside village near lisbon d which is the capital and we live there and every day we'd go for walks on the beach um and you know we d have some coffee and we just kind of work from there. And I started also meeting other like no, that people kind of from body who'd also moved to porto, us. This is like a kind like a thing that's happening because of coffee a closed now.

So a lot of people are moving. We would go to bali in the winners of are now going to portugal, stuff in spain and mexico. And a lot of americans would also go to mexico s for example.

So anyway, i'm portugal and meeting these people and they're all saying, like I we're also becoming residence here and like why you become a present? Like, well, because we're no mad. So we we have this problem.

Where do we pay tax? Because we're always moving from place to place and we're never resent anywhere. And like you, it's very difficult. So these people were becoming residents in portugal.

They were becoming real, like portuguese residents and setting up their base kind of and paying tax and becoming part of, you know, partial because because this wasn't much you could do with cover. You still you cannot really travel much, especially not to asia. Asia still kind closed.

So I tried, I tried the same thing. I became a project residence and now I live there and I ran my own place in lisbon. I have a lot of friends there. And since i've been there, like it's been exploding, uh like crazy, it's a it's very often like number one, a Normal list I didn't change anything is just what IT is, is a lot of people are going there.

So supporting these resident, you just don't pay you don't pay any taxes to like like you're dutch, so you're not paying any taxes to the new lands.

I mean, european governments, western rope's goes a very trick. So if if you are not, if you want to leave your country, you really need to leave and stay away. AmErica just as strict. AmErica is more strict even with the international text off.

But if you say, like, i'm going to know that your home country always gone to tacks you and unless you say I don't live in my home country anymore, i'm going live somewhere else so yeah, it's partial S A great base for that and and a lot of no matter of me doing that so yeah I build a website about that which is called the reboot that co we based on CEO which is um the first it's kininmonth red by stripe atlas. I mean you kind of work for stripe so you know edas very well. Uh stripe edlin is like a service to create a company online really easily so they can make the whole process of uh, creating company much more easy with layers and stuff.

And I did the same thing but for immigration. So I smooth out all immigration process to move to portugal, show all the benefits of portugal. And yeah, that's been taking off now as well. So yeah.

it's interesting in me the way that you were going on projects like you're talking about musicians like you know put out an album and it's like a very final thing and done with them and they can just sort of like go on to our and like with me and ni hackers, for example. Like I ve never had anything like that. Like I just continue to work on any hackers as this model. I think this but you have like all of these different projects.

like you have no mad list. I figures like add maybe .

yeah yeah you like okay, don't with that on the next thing, do you get some of that? Like that head of if I finished maybe but like you you really finished like because you work rebate into no mad list, you know that so related, they're both, but they do not no mad like why make a separate project? Why I not just be like OK? Here's another branch of no mad list.

Honestly, I think these separate critics, they launch Better, right? Because if you make a sub page on india is a Normal list, people like I made a subway, but it's not really it's not really new business or but if you call a new business with a new domain me and new lending face, people like, wow, this is like a new that's also a marketing, right? And you can always integrate later.

So I think it's kind like a trick, but I think this is it's the same for motivate or moca. Started as a page on omi st like, no, my jobs. But then I realized like ninety percent of remote work jobs are not no MaaS.

They're like people that just like stayed home moms or stayed home dads there. They just want to have a work from home job, right? So I spit IT off into its own website.

And I think here is the same case, because this seems to be targeted at people that are kind of at the end of the Normal journey, like they're been around the world for like a few years. They're like, okay, this is sustainable, at least in in in a legal way, in a tax way. And I want to build up a little bit of a base so I can still travel. But I have this portugal thing and I live here and I get like health care, for example, from portuguese government and I pay tax yeah and I think that's kind of word this yeah i'm .

read through the list because you have a list of like benefits for why people have in portugal like the personal then redwoods. And portugal has the royal doxy and the big taste double.

I put IT in as a joke, but then I accidentally deployed to get up. So and not somewhere .

the two percent tax on foreign income, zero percent tax on crypto, the percent tax on wealth. So this is all like very attractive for like entrepreneurs who were like OK make money and build something like this seems pretty like a pretty good place to get yeah .

and I think it's two americans is very similar to like like the climate is very simple to california, but IT was a very similar to like my yami and Austin, how they are attracting people from california. Now it's very same consent like portuguese attracting people like also america, but also like you know dutch people, germans, U K. Demarch weeden, those kind of people where it's it's cold, their temperature, you know projects warmer and they have these benefits. And yeah and they need foreigners, you know they they need this to this income.

Another party of website you talk about how portugo said, portugal, still recovering from the two thousand and eight financial crisis and experiencing a massive brain, brain. And in twenty twenty one, they have the largest population decrease in the last fifty years. And so they should have been dire need of foreigners.

And I see like the same thing, and like certain cities in america, just I did this road trip last year, I guess, a year and half ago where I was just driving around and like whatever I wasn't in like a really big city center and I was taught to people was like, pretty obvious. Like there's a lot of brain rain. You like the most, the most talented, ambitious people just left, didn't stay here.

And a lot times the places were really nice. You know, they're beautiful. The food was good, the weather was good.

But like in terms of like if you want to to be you a no matter you wanted to be surrounded, this kind of energy of other ambitious people like that wasn't there for you. So there's no reason to go. And that seems like porter goes like the best of both. It's like beautiful, but despite the brain drain, like you've for memories and you ve got all these people sort of collapsing and collapsing in this one place yeah.

but you hit the meal on the head. This is not like it's its lows of places that can do is like us is super head with remote work they wear before and they are had with this migration also because you see, for example, in amErica in u ski resorts, uh, snow resorts are sold out everywhere off season.

Now like bet well told me is because is I think his friends work at the school word and people are moving in the skies or is just a snowboard all day and worker model, you know, they they work a little bit. They have breakfast and then they they go ski and it's it's amazing you see people move to like I think tusa oklahoman, they pay ten thousand dollars now for you to move there. So cities are trying to attract people.

Countries are trying to attract people. Uh, remote workers village on twitter, I don't know you know him probably you know very faster. He talks a lot about like the network state in the nation state he talks about in very, very rational way. I am a big fan and I like that. Um I see IT more in a like more like informer way. Like people just want to live in cool places where they have a nice baLance between work and a private, you know, just like going aside, going for a walk in nice clean air on the beach, for example, if that's your thing, or going skin over every, if that's your thing, and all the place you saw on the road trip. But a lot of them can can do this because if they have fast internet, if they they're used very affordable because they're been a brain and right as, uh yeah exodus of people so yeah, all these place have opportunities to attract remote workers.

City think this will be like, you know you're doing the same with like we base. I mean, I guess you sort of business model is like you are charging people to like basically help on board them to set up the residency to help and file their tax return kind just like doing like like you know you have no idea how to be a as don't know mad. We're just going to do IT for you all the people yeah do you want to like happy pace at other places too?

Yeah so I am pulling twitter because um twitter is really good for for research now. And i've been as like where do you where do you people want to move next? Like what's interesting for you and people say like dubai or spain, mexico, yet most mexico do by spain I think I mean thailand, bali.

But I think the problem with with the place in asia for europeans and americans is just too far, which for america, is asia just too far to settle down for a long time, maybe when you're retired or something. But americans are okay with settle down somewhere in mexico, I think, and and maybe some other parts of letting amErica like colombia made a gene, for example. And maybe you also see a lot of amErica and portico, you see love europeans in in portugal and spain and stuff.

So those are kind of places that seem more realistic. And like, I love island, I love asia. The problem is it's it's still hard to can integrate, or what he called assist late here as a foreigner. On the long term, that is very difficult.

How is IT like on the ground? And portugal right now was like a lots of different sort of entrepreneurs know that moving there. Like, are you hanging out with them? Yeah, spaces is like, is, is social. yeah. I mean.

this one a super social. So social you you walk on the street, you go for coffee and somebody showers a guter, and you walked in you. And that I met some people. Then I at the same night we went to house party outside on the roof. So IT was go with safe, kind of, yes, super easy to meet people. It's kind like the people like we know know, attack people, but also artists, you you know the cypher people moving in from web, treating stuff like there was a big crypto conference, I think recently so it's really a collective mix of like artist entrepreneurs, crypto tech very states makes like really, really kind of like nineteen, twenty paris. I think people sometimes, yeah look, are these plays to like bona and the the the the cafe where people would artists and still yeah because you're like this like .

you've got a sort of moving picture portugo to you like like kind of any looping you in the top left of rebate and it's like beautiful IT looks not like the day almost like like beautiful bay .

and it's like red IT looks like a that's .

the same bridge, right? Yeah that a bridge? Yes.

it's the the same bridge. IT has the same trams like it's the same IT has the same hills. It's literally cisco europe. It's the same. It's smart for you to .

put that emerge air and reminds me we have like one of the reasons why airbnb like they sort of figured out early on the like the pictures are so motivating. You see this really beautiful place. Like said, I got to go i'm looking at this like pork yeah just like pictures. It's like looks.

I'm adding music next to the video. So that's gna increase. Actually i've dated on this because I I launched ribs as a form, just a test like a year go and I love type form does nothing I from, but IT was kind like a black, uh, color typhoon with White letters like do you want to move the portugal homing and you could fill out the text.

And IT didn't really work. There wasn't many sign ops. So I think you need this whole design vibe. It's it's quite an intense somebody told me it's quite an intense step to move to the country. You want that to be a kind, comfortable and you know you can not do type form.

So yeah, it's like if you you have a fancy restaurant, you got to have clean floors, a good store front, ali, you built on trust kitchen and if you are doing something different, crypto project and it's an exclusive yeah just put radio or something .

do ah letter with you means really .

slim can cool maybe like a dark background, maybe little cypher trying to get somebody like moves somewhere or stay in a place and be like bright and look really happy and clean.

And I am not very good design, so it's like that I start very functional. So so to me a while to get to this point there.

So you said, like we basement viral twitter, give me like, can you like that? So I guess andy had like breakdown. Like, okay, how did you come up with the idea? How did you like launch IT? How did you I grow IT to eat is .

now yeah so I made this um I was working on this landing page and of course it's like true fashion. I wasn't done, of course, but was already online and I already kind worked.

So um I made a photo of me sitting on my bed, uh working on this with my left, like just like i'm sitting here on back with my laptop and rebates being open and then I wrote a tweet like P O, V building an immigration as a service start up and then every are redoing IT and they ask a URL and I gave you all and then everyday start signing up and then suddenly had like thousand retweet on some other retweet and IT was everywhere. And then you know that point you probably had the same. India is like where.

Your friends start sending that. Their friends send something that you made and then, you know, it's viral, you know and I had that. And I the last time I had, I was a Normal list and I was eight ago or something. So so well to eight years to go viral with a start up again.

You know that's crazy. Was like you talk about like having like these seventy plus startups that you started and like four of them was succeeded. Like rebate is really like a standout among those seventy. It's the biggest in's no at list.

Yeah yeah this is one of those four. yeah. So I took took like ages to make something again. It's like successful and like making money. So but i've been building somewhere stuff between that that didn't work.

So IT feels like, you know, you want to have you have like you still got that, you know, that feeling, come on, I want to show. So because everything are you just you ve made a project once that was successful, been eight years ago. 来 go feels nice。 Okay, so you tweet IT IT just goes .

viral like that's IT, you just decide to tweet IT and like the right product to the right audience.

And yeah, but I tweet loads of stuff that doesn't go viral, like I tweet all the time and I doesn't go vial, so I not predict what works and what doesn't. So again, it's the odds rate like I didn't know this was such a thing. It's hit like a vin. Okay.

consistent thing you've always done because even when you refer starting like you to that blog post twelve tarbes and twelve months in your whole flows feels like i'm going to do a lot of stuff. You and i'm not going to a hundred percent counter, only one thing working, but if I try a lot of stuff, maybe one thing to work. And like here you are ten years later, same thing.

You know, like no matter what IT is, you're still on twitter you're promoting into your audience. You're super hike to about IT. If IT fails, you just seem to not care. He just be wanted.

The next thing I know, it's not so weird. Yes, pray and prayed.

I don't I don't see people on your twitter like, hey, what happened to that one thing you start what happened .

to like make chat for just forgets .

about your failures doesn't matter .

yeah unless suppose about them yeah but I don't think is the only like this is the problem. People start thinking what you do or what you say is like the only way I don't think is only way like you see so many other people do. The slack founder like butter steward butterfield or .

somewhere he yeah.

he made slack. He made slack. And before he made clicker, I don't think he made that many projects.

He made two games or something and both games became a startup like flickr was a video game and became flicker and then slack was a video game, uh as well, became slick. So I don't think everybody does the same thing. I think that works for me.

I think one of the reasons I use so popular is because you're like crazy, like vulnerable and like transparent. You just share everything, but also like what you're doing right now. You're just like excessively humble, that a blood and like really inspiring.

You know like it's like when I was first sorted reading yourself. And like, okay, Peter can do IT. Like, I can do so humble about all the stuff. And like, I know behind the scenes that you are really thoughtful. I know what ever I think like for someone just getting started. Like the approach that you take in, if like try a lot of stuff, be OK with the fact someone it's not going to work out, a lot of it's not onna work out. But I keep trying to let that discourage you um and OK you don't have to be like some sort of mad scientist genius, you know like I think that just like probably the most approach able thing for us and I think that's why it's like really inspirational.

I have to be like that because when I started IT was I was looking up to all these people, and they look like god's to me, like they knew everything. And they they could make these websites in these startups and these building teams, and like hiring people on raising money. And all this stuff seemed like magic to me.

And I I was like, I can never ever get to that skill level ever. I I barely can code, I bail. I didn't know how database work and self. So so I I think you you need to I think the nicest thing to do is to show that you that I still don't really know what i'm doing because that makes IT accessable like you say, and that brings more people into IT because the the worst thing I I see with developers and special developers, engineers is the gate keeping right?

Like where I was like, oh, you need to do, you need to code things in a certain way and you need to do this in a certain way or, you know, but there is no a certain way. Of course, you can just do whatever you want as long as is legal, and you can ship a startup and and and the the most cooler, ingy and creativity, like new projects, are built with these weird creative constraints where, because you don't know how to do things properly, you do partly wrong, but is so kind of works. And the ends up very different, because the processes are different. And that you see that an art, you see that in music, everything you see that and start up to, well, uh, your design might be really bad, but that might become aesthetic you know like brutal list or something right?

right? right? Yeah you get your own very unique design. You're like, okay, i'm not gonna a bunch of images and up like I really .

like .

emogene so you're and it's like very distinctly Peter levels .

yeah but it's because I am too lazy to to figure out I can set how they work so I just use the most you know exactly.

And now like a lot of people copy you. But when I see that, i'm other biting off like Peter levels style because I hear the first person I saw did this. So you have this other start on your rebate.

A rebate now helps. This is nuts. Rebate now helps nine percent of all people who moved to portugo.

So every year of that's .

like the most ridiculous i've ever seen. Like you're like a major part of this entire countries like import of like new citizens and residents here.

This is super way. So I didn't realize this until I I was like, there must be like half a million people migrating to portugal. L every years I never really thought about. Then I goole IT was only like fifty thousand or something. And then I realize, okay, if I do like some like four hundred a month or five hundred month, that's almost six thousand and a year that's like, you know over to something yeah and what same I didn't know that like so nobody is moving to particle and now every is moving to the gal because this website and and I do IT from my laptop. I don't even, you know, I don't have an office IT all is weird to me too yeah but .

that I think the government should be like reaching and talking .

to you yeah but government is so hard to talk to I mean, imagine B2B ent erprise sal es but the tim es the n it' s lik e it' s imp ossible to I t ri ed I t ri ed tal k the gov ernment tha t can eve n rep ly so I i 'd giv e up lik e i'l l jus t mak e my web sites and the y can ema il me if the y wan t but yea h i'l l jus t use the law s tha t dec orate to uh for my bus iness but yea h, there's some cool stories I heard.

Does someone you to or I saw I think there's people from venezuela now. They're trying to get out of venezia la because venezuela like a disaster now and they're trying to move to portugal on the using rebate for IT. And it's like four venezuelans, uh, in the database that are using IT to move to portugal. So that's that's a next level cool because you're helping people, you know change their to move to europe .

to how does the product actually work like that. So I could to start .

now button so you entered this form with legal data staff income sources I think and so I A sense what this is because i'm not legal firm. It's like legally sensitive territory. You you cannot like not a lawyer so I shouldn't uh, do lots of, but I can resell, I can refer legal services.

So I have lawyers that I refer you to that are goods. They know how to deal with the types of people that I attract, like workers, and they help you true the process and I get a commission on the amount of money and you spent and um but i'm not legal firm. I just real and I think stripe atlas like I talk to the stripe etl as uh had a product, I think and he said they do something similar because I I was always you must hire all these layers and often actually I don't think they do. They do kind of similar, but I think they do IT nonprofit because they're just doing IT to like stripe wants to increase the like amount of businesses on the internet, right exact the mission, uh, but I think they Operate in a similar way. You just resell to equality lawyers that are in a trusted so it's a very strange.

any point to you like collect payment like is like a stripe like you know .

payment yeah you after you after fill out the form that a stripe check out and uh you pay and then there's a dashboard where i've used stripe a lot. Like I I use stripe for K Y C. So know your customer.

Uh, so the moment you've paid, you get into the dashboard where you need to do K Y C with stripe identity, so stripe identity the service and strive where you can upload your passport um stripe checks for me kinds and then I don't need to see the best word so IT stay safe at stripe. But IT tells me, okay, this best word is verified, this person is real. And you know, K Y C know your customer and that also makes IT legal for, uh the for the layers and stuff.

S K Y C. And so then you get the money and then the people who sign up basically guess you contact the lawyers on their behind and then you pay the lawyers but you keep your commission.

Uh, yeah so it's like, uh, I get to keep the commission and h the lawyers, uh, take the money that comes after uh, so it's it's quite a simple business mode. I can change the business model may be later where I take more of the commission from the large, but I wanted to keep you like super simple, easy. Just to see if that would have work, you know and IT works now yeah right yeah.

And just breaking like a business of money for this because it's like OK, if you can, five winter people a months signing up and this currently this is not like a five dollar or months to do list APP that telling the people it's like, yeah no over to you. It's A A giant move people are making with their life like they are used to paying a lot of money for this kind of stuff. And so it's like hundreds of dollars you know that you're making person who who .

joins I think right now something like thirty, forty, fifty, the the problem maxes that the there was too many um like this lawyer was used to getting like I don't know, like fifty customers a month and suddenly I brought him like four hundred so huge bottles next so I needed to email these people like OK. It's going to take a little longer because it's been going vial. Too many people sign up.

Uh I close to sign up for a few times as well and not if ve been hiring more people, even hiring five more people. And who are you train them now for the back office and stuff. So they're also growing. Yeah.

so it's gona cool. Yeah yeah. Also since I guess the last time we taught, you hadn't even started remote. okay. So it's not like the biggest remote jobs of world.

So not only is like rebate talk taking off in the last four years, you have this other project that's not making anything millions of dollars and is like huge. And so like you just like keep having like head after hit and then between those hits like a bunch failures that nobody remembers but doesn't matter. Let's like about remote cake because it's all I mean kind of all the same vein, right? No mad list.

You did not no mah moto cai get a remote job rebates like relocate to portugal like you're sticking in the the the wheel house, but they're just different aspects of IT. They're becoming these huge projects. So what's the story behind remote OK?

Yeah so um I started IT as like I said before, like Normal jobs like I was, I build no this first. After a few months, people were like, okay, is there uh, remote jobs we can do as no mats and back then, remote jobs where an even big yet IT wasn't like a big thing and there was still a lot of stigma against remote work, just like two thousand and fourteen, two thousand and fifteen. I remember buffer was pushing remote work really hard.

A few other companies, I think, automatic from wordpress were pushing a year. And so that those way that once hiring appear to but I wasn't a big thing at all. And so I built this job board, I know my jobs, and then I sponged off as remote.

K, because I realized quickly, like I said before, that the most remote jobs are not for nomads. Most people were not nomen. Just like ninety five percent of the remote job market is not Normal. It's just Normal people that are want to work from home, for example. So I spent off this model and the first year didn't even make money.

I think I was just I was aggregating a lot of uh, jobs from non remote job boards because there was not really love remote job boards except mine, but there was classic job boards which had remote jobs and they would be located in remote organ. So remote is a city in organ or a village. So I would just take those jobs and then put them in on my site.

There was a really big problem back then, and this kind of started growing. I started charging like one dollar for a job post. So the company started directly posting on my site as well. After few years, like IT made, uh, okay, money, but then went go what happens like everything changed. IT was like like if you look at the revenue chart is like a remote com flash um IT just goes up critically basically twenty .

twenty and just took off dette change. And then they also like twenty twenty one like around like marcher April just took off again. Like all different.

Yeah yeah. And I didn't do much stuff. This the weird thing. So I thinks I heal from gum road SAT tweet this ones that is all about like the market that you think you are doing IT, but the market is doing IT.

And as long as you're in the market, you will benefit from the market. And I think this is super true. Like selling remote work is is mainstream now like I mean, we were pushing for IT for years.

We were treating about relentless ly like the world works, the future and nobody believe those. And I suddenly just a worldwide andel c and everything changes is in saying predicted, you cannot predict this. And and it's also it's also a grim because it's a really bad thing up on them. It's like a lot of people died, means of people die, right? And it's a good for your business is a very strange feeling.

Yeah, it's trains i've seen so much on any hacker is we're like if most people end of you have tech businesses and like if any category businesses, well, during the pandemic, IT was online tech businesses and IT is like this weird, just persistent between like, well, it's hard not to be happy when your process is doing well, but it's also like damer happy that like essentially this like worldwide tragedy occur yeah yeah, yeah no one would like you know, we could to all go back and no one would want to depend them and to happen yeah.

it's it's not good and it's a just like wars have changed society, right? Like society changes, I think, very slowly and very rationally, right? Like revolutions happen like Spikes and yeah, it's cool that he does things change.

But right well, what's that? You're so consistent with your project because some things changed. Like you know there's some chance to some of your projects will be moving with this ice and some might not, but really all you need is one or two and remote OK. I obviously remote work the humongous now it's like huge. I'm looking at the jobs right now is like you have like seemingly like hundreds are thousands of posts on your joyed board as I got to be the I mean, it's the number one remote jab boards so you just be at out all the other remote job boards.

Yeah I just began in a wonderful job or like this month um I mean but again, I also don't know how I did did it's just it's just kind of happens.

It's hard.

I no have no clue. I think what I did recently help I there was the sole trend of like I woke up, I drink coffee and I was browsing redit and I was a mean they went viral about a like a south mark me like if you want me to apply for this job and you know, tell me what salary is or someone I forgot the joke, i'm so Better jokes, but I was like, fifty thousand up force.

Like, people want jobs s with salaries so okay, this is obviously again, like a society thing, like everythin's the same about something. So this is, this is a cultural moment. So I started threading about this mean, and that's okay.

Maybe I should just require companies to show salaries on the site. Like, not just optional, because I head IT on the site. IT was optional. So like, okay, let this go to the no to my code, and I make this input type text books required and checked javascript is required if it's filled or not. And immediately I started to getting the emails from the companies, being angry.

Of course, we don't want to share our salary and come to find them over email and me while I was treeing about that as well and that I was really hard to do this because like big companies that pay like you know twenty thousand dollars for a job post bundle, like ten jobs at the same time or more and uh and they were trying to get out of not showing salaries. And then in I think this was fruit of this year, colorado. I think the state of colorado made IT the law to require a salary jobs to show salaries.

So so okay, now it's not just my thing, it's actually a law. So I can say like, okay, if you hire remotely worldwide, colorado is included. So you need to do this legally and that helps a lot like having IT as a law. And and also I think in in other countries and staff, all the jobs seekers, we are more happy. And I think then also, you started to get seeing more traffic because people want to see salaries when they apply for a job.

It's like in a way, the like these things that the internet is like that you think would come with the internet, like transparency, okay, if so many who want to interact, there's so much more competition. Ultimately things should get more transparent. Or like you, the sort of like distribution of people geographically, okay? And anybody can work anywhere because the internet you should see people spread out. And yet it's taken like thirty years to get to this point or starting to see some of these things happen.

I I think this changes parts with remote work. Was that in, I think two thousand and fourteen, there was entire santa eco tech like cc, and started on us, were fighting against remote work. And I was weird for me because I was like, this is the the center of tech.

These people make the big, intense companies, which is, the internet is like a virtual concept, and they cannot work remote. They cannot accept that you can work from around the world, that we have internet to just connect with each other like we do now. And is so weird I was yeah and sobs are weird.

Like how like uneven, like the distribution of technology is too. Because remember, like two thousand four playing water for craft as like a seventeen old and like we are basically living in the future, we are always on you know basically the discord of the time. And we would be on team speak, which be like like you know audio chat, like clubhouse or something.

And it'd be like forty people and they are a distributed remote all over the world, and they had different little jobs as part of like our guilt. And we'd be on every night like talking. And I was like two dozen four.

And yeah like I was like a video game, you know and I wasn't just me. I was like millions of people doing that. Now it's like fifteen, sixteen years later, people are sort of just catching onto the stuff.

I was in quick two clans. We were already doing this. We were already in the metaverse as well.

So yeah yeah IT took a long.

long as time and i'm looking .

at your grab for a moto k even mok to a long time like, okay, the. Very begin of your revenue graph is like two thousand and fifteen. And so I look at IT today, it's like, okay, you're out like one point four million dollars a year runway, like that's huge yeah ah job boards like printing cash, but like know for many years revenue run rate was like you know ten thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars .

yes he was was good. But I I and IT was gonna stay stay there and for a while I stayed. IT was the kind like you know like this.

I remember being feeling like kind like me about IT in like two thousand and sixteen, two thousand seven because I was nothing was growing, was kind of like this. And no, but this was the same. I didn't didn't grow and I this is IT. I mean, just be happy now you made it's still a lot of money was like, I guess like right uh five hundred and eight years something so half year was still lot of money but I was like, okay maybe it's not gna grow much more and and then call IT yeah know the end of two doesn't .

sixteen so I just read some the numbers. The energy doesn't sixteen. Uh, mok was making thirty thousand dollars a year at the energy thousand seventeen.

So this is like three years and you're making eighty two thousand years and I was like a pretty you know like OK salary and even two thousand and eighteen grew quite a lot. It's making like two hundred thousand dollars a year. And then at the end of two thousand nineteen, right before the pain demand is making almost three hundred thousand dollars a year.

So like IT grew to like a pretty size mom out. But I compared to the last couple years, that's like that almost like just like flat on the grab. You getting to see that looks like no grave. And the first two years definitely .

look flat on the graph. You putting so much effort into the site and like it's kind like that you .

not seen a lot of like reaction in terms of the revenue space on the average putting in. And that's some people quit like the first couple years. It's that.

yes, they always IT the first five years. And the reason I didn't quit was because I was in music before. I was in drawn base and done music.

And I quit after, like five years. And I remember the people that started at the same time as me. They continue and they went for like a whole decade, like for ten years, they became world famous.

They became like in that scene, in the music scene, they became world fame as d and I, I gave up. So I gave up too fast, I think, with music. And I didn't want to do that again.

So like i'm just gonna do this for ten years at least and see where that ends up. And I think it's a ten year rules and like ten thousand hour or like you need to do some for for a very long time to a to get good. I think it's ten years as a it's a really long time, but it's a it's a good time to see if you can get something somewhere because you've done IT over over, over, over over. And yeah, you really understand the the industry kind of after that time.

I think what do you think you understand about like launching these products and building startups that you sort of crew from probably spreading at least ten thousand hours on the over on the staff over the past decade?

I think the biggest mistake of people make is that the only focus should be your user in the customer and how you make them happy. And IT doesn't have to be like very special. IT has to do a basic function like really, really well.

Like nominalist tells you if you have specific preferences where to live, like I want to live in a warm place in january in in europe. Okay, i'll tell you that exactly is a very simple problem. And IT solves that problem very, very easily, very fast.

And remotivate no, you say I need a remote H B job, okay? You can find that really easily. And this amount of salary and this company information problem, and very simple, but IT IT does everything that the user wants in what I think is the best way a user wit.

And you see all these other websites, they look too good. They, they have two gradients, and they have, there are two aesthetically, this as too much focus and older stuff. And I think that's like a red flag for me, almost IT should be function over form.

And like john y. Eve is a good example, uh, with apple red apple designer, where he made his mac books the last five years, like two thousand and fifteen, I think two thousand and seventy, two thousand and twenty. He made the worst macbook that existed because he chose form.

He's a good guy, but he chose, he chose form of a function. And now you see the new mate books are function of a form again, like they have sd reader. Again, it's amazing. I just got IT here. Yes.

I just have IT here too. awesome. I had me .

too and we paid some money for this, the shit book, but now it's good. I think that's a point. Like, like function over form should be the key in business.

Like you need to solve this problem easily. And that almost again makes IT more accessible for more people too, because you don't need to be again, a designer or big developer. You need solve something in a very basic way, but you need to solve IT.

And a lot of apps don't even solve something. They just look good and they don't even write. I mean, lot of them don't even have a problem there's solving in the first place. So you know.

I mean, yeah yeah, I think with startups, even like the boot strapper s now there's like a scene like on twitter, arms look very like and it's like, I think it's really easily accounted in the scene. You're trying to impress the gatekeepers and you're trying to impress your peers instead of like talking to your customers actually.

all right.

we ve talked about no mad list remote OK and Peters other projects. There's still a ton that I wanted talk to Peter about. And so listeners, this is a two part episode. You can find the second part of this conversation in next week up. so.