How One Man Built $3M/year in Startups Without Hiring a Single Person

💡 Why You Should Care

Most founders dream of the unicorn exit.
Pieter Levels did the opposite.
No investors. No employees. No office.

Yet his solo portfolio earns $3M/year — and he works from anywhere in the world.

If you want to build something that funds your life without owning your soul, this is the playbook.

1. The Backstory – How Freedom Became the Goal

Pieter wasn’t a “startup guy” at first.
He was making YouTube music tutorials — 139K subscribers, a few thousand dollars a month.

But here’s the problem:

• The platform owned the audience.

• The work didn’t compound — new month, new grind.

Lesson: If your income stops when you stop working, you don’t own your time.

2. The Leap – Burn the Boats

2013: Pieter sold everything he owned.
One backpack. One laptop.

While traveling across Asia, he noticed two big trends:

• Remote work was about to explode.

• Digital nomads had zero good tools to live and work globally.

So he set himself a public challenge:
“12 startups in 12 months.”
Each month, a new build. No perfection. Just launch.

3. Breakthrough Products

Nomad List

• Started as a simple Google Sheet ranking cities for nomads.

• Went viral.

• Today: Paid community + travel data tool making ~$20K/month.

💡 Actionable takeaway: Start with a spreadsheet. Test the value before writing a single line of code.

Remote OK

• Job board for remote workers.

• Slow start, exploded during COVID.

• Peaks at ~$40K/month.

💡 Actionable takeaway: Ride macro trends — but position yourself before they blow up.

AI Tools (Photo AI, Interior AI, Avatar AI)

• Launched in days, some made $150K in week one.

• Now ~70% of Pieter’s total income.

💡 Actionable takeaway: Be early in emerging tech. Don’t wait for perfection — the first mover gets the buzz.

4. The Pieter Method – How He Wins

5. Mistakes to Avoid (From Pieter’s Own Words)

• Too many projects too early – 70+ builds, only 4 real successes.

• Isolation – Solo building can be lonely. Build a network early.

• Over-automation – Saves time, but can hurt user experience if there’s zero human touch.

Lesson: Keep experimenting, but know when to focus.

6. What Drives Him Now

Pieter’s not chasing “scale.”
He’s chasing freedom + fun.

He works on products he loves, automates the boring stuff, and uses profits to live life on his terms.

📌 Your Action Plan

If you take one thing from Pieter’s journey, it’s this:

Start this week:

1. Write down 5 problems you’ve personally faced.

2. Pick one. Build the simplest solution you can in 7 days.

3. Launch it publicly.

4. Get feedback. Iterate.

5. Repeat.

📚 Bonus Resource – MAKE: The Indie Maker Blueprint

Pieter also wrote MAKE: The Indie Maker Blueprint — a step‑by‑step guide to building profitable startups the indie way.

• 30,675 copies sold → $883,621 in revenue (and counting).

• Awarded 🏆 Product Hunt Book of the Year and #1 Startup Book.

• Applied by 30,000+ indie makers worldwide.

• Now updated with AI‑focused chapters.

• Available in PDF, ePub, and MOBI formats.

💡 Why you should read it: It’s not theory. It’s Pieter’s exact playbook — the same one he used to build Nomad List, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Interior AI, and Photo AI.

If you’re serious about learning to launch and scale solo, this is a must‑read.

📍 Follow Pieter Levels

• Twitter/X: @levelsio

• Personal site: levels.io

• Nomad List: nomadlist.com

• Remote OK: remoteok.com