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Frame from How to Build a Startup Without Funding by Pieter Levels @ Dojo Bali Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

How to Build a Startup Without Funding by Pieter Levels @ Dojo Bali

@levelsio
Talks
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this talk2 months2018–2021 score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Pointed to as an inspiring talk for solo makers turning side projects into profitable businesses.

Pieter Levels talks at Dojo Bali about building startups without venture capital through bootstrapping, persistence and learning many skills as a generalist. He reviews his own past projects.

“Probably the best startup talk I've seen in a while.” (HN, 2018)

1 strong recommendations · 1 recommendations · 5 citations · Talks

7 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@dharma1 Feb 2018 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
Here's a recent talk by Pieter - [this video] I think it's really good. Probably the best startup talk I've seen in a while. In my opinion, there are benefits to doing things alone, but you have to be able to learn a lot of things quick, have a lot of available time with few distractions, and be very focused and persistent. Cons: it's not as fun, and will probably take longer than working with people with specific talents.
Pieter Levels on building startups alone
@satvikpendem Oct 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Remote OK Open Startup
Check this video out where he goes over his past projects: [this video] The truth is, out of the dozen or so products he made, only two had real commercial success, NomadList and RemoteOK. So there is survivorship bias present, he just kept trying until he succeeded.
Levels reviews his past projects

Citations, criticism and jokes

@filipm Feb 2018 Cites it
on HN thread Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
Here's a couple of links you might like, although not all of them are exactly what you're looking for: - [link] (of course) - [link] - [link] - [link] - Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Jan 5, 2017): [link] (thanks @jbonniwell) - Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Mar 9, 2014): [link] - Ask HN: Sideprojects/passive income businesses with little or no own coding?: [link] - Pieter Levels - Turning Side Projects into Profitable Startups (1h presentation): [this video]
Presentation on turning side projects into startups
@vatotemking Mar 2018 Cites it
on HN thread Show HN: Run Training Calendar
Hello HN. I was partly inspired by Pieter Levels' talk about [0] turning side projects into startups and his 1 startup per month. So I finally got my act together, and launch my own sideproject to a greater audience here in HN. Honest and brutal comments are welcome. [0] [this video]
Inspiration for launching a side project
@fouc Apr 2018 Cites it
on HN thread I wandered off and built an IDE
I think that there's a rising "Maker" culture that focuses on building first and launching fast. For example: [this video]
Example of build-first launch-fast culture
@tim333 Mar 2019 Cites it
on HN thread You Don’t Need All That Complex/Expensive/Distracting Infrastructure
8 days ago also, 81 comments [link] After the last time I watched a video of the Nomadlist guy, Pieter Levels, talking about it and he said >I've woken up so many times at 4:00 a.m. to just check if my website down and I have to do all this stuff and then I'm awake for three hours because the server crashed. [this video] So maybe just PHP on Linode has some drawbacks
Levels on server crashes waking him at night
@fouc Apr 2019 Cites it
on HN thread Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?
It's painful. It's supposed to be painful. Anyone that successfully launched kept working through the pain. Think of non-coders that taught themselves to code and launched webapps just by googling and facing the pain. [this video]
Example of pushing through the pain to launch

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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