Aporia(@aporia9n):That's what being a post-money founder looks like. You stop optimising for money but instead focus on scale / relevance / cultural influence (and maybe eventually status/power). And weirdly that can make the underlying thing much bigger. Cause you become your own VC, making asymmetric bets with your accumulated capital: you can kill the paywall, maximise network growth and figure monetisation out later. The big advantage of succeeding with cash-generative businesses (like Peter did) is eventually having enough money to make those venture-style bets yourself, while still keeping 100% of the company (no dilution, no external investors, all the upside still yours if it works). IMO that's one of the most underrated things money buys ambitious founders. Not retirement, but the ability to build things that don't need to make money immediately.

2026.09.05 17:59

That's what being a post-money founder looks like. You stop optimising for money but instead focus on scale / relevance / cultural influence (and maybe eventually status/power). And weirdly that can make the underlying thing much bigger. Cause you become your own VC, making asymmetric bets with your accumulated capital: you can kill the paywall, maximise network growth and figure monetisation out later. The big advantage of succeeding with cash-generative businesses (like Peter did) is eventually having enough money to make those venture-style bets yourself, while still keeping 100% of the company (no dilution, no external investors, all the upside still yours if it works). IMO that's one of the most underrated things money buys ambitious founders. Not retirement, but the ability to build things that don't need to make money immediately.

@levelsio@levelsio

2026.09.05 10:05

🎒After a decade, I have made free for everyone now! Well almost free, it's $1 to sign up to avoid getting lots of spam The reason is 1) I have made enough money (from it) 2) charging for a community artificially limits the size, if you put the price at $299 you get 50 new members per month, at $99 you get 200 people, at $29 you get 400 people, etc. And this always annoyed me, I don't want to put a limit but I had to, to be able to make money from it, so it's free now I want it to be it the biggest community for digital nomads, world travelers, sovereign thinkers and network state type people For years it has has a great sponsor with @SafetyWing and I think that's maybe a better model for the future, get much more people in and then just add more sponsors Right now for the record it has 43,252 paid members (so about 300/mo for 12 years!), so it will be interesting to see what it can grow too I think now that AGI is on the horizon (or some say already here), online and offline (IRL) communities will become really important. People are talking more to AI now than to humans, and there was already a loneliness epidemic before AI Making new friends and dating is not so easy for people now. And with remote work and entrepreneurship, people lack a space like an office where people would usually make friends or meet partners I made most of the friends I have now through traveling and living around the world for the last 10+ years (and many via my site too), and I also met my girlfriend through those friends! So I think communities can have a real role in that post-AGI Post-AGI business wise, communities also have a moat where many of my SaaS apps do not. So there is some urgency I feel to make Nomads in to the best community there is for those people. But that's why I have to remove any limitations to its growth now So in a way after 12 years I am switching to the subsidized VC model a bit, but still 100% bootstrapped, kinda like "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" Having enough money now I can afford to do these things and figure out the business model later, which I think will be more sponsors Enjoy and please sign up and tell me what to improve!!! 😊

472

Forward to community