IndieHackers - 🗞 What's New: Nomading with kids

Is it possible to nomad with kids?

• This indie hacking family is "slomading" by choosing a home base country during the school year, then traveling when it ends.
• Writing, drawing, and editing can be slow and repetitive. AI-powered SaaS helps you get results faster.
• $32K in total revenue. Katt Risen started the No-Code Exits newsletter as a side project, and recently decided to go all-in.

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by Mac Martine

My wife, two boys (9 and 11), and I have been "slowmading" since July 2022. We've been to 14 countries. Here are the most common questions we get about how and why we're doing this!

What is "slowmading?"

Digital nomads work remotely while traveling the world. We're doing the same, but because we have kids, we have a base during the school year.

We make a base for nine months, then travel. The boys attend international schools, which has been our splurge. But it's worth it, as the schools have been incredible!

Our living expenses and travel add up to about the same as our non-travel living costs at home in the US.

How much stuff did you take?

We each brought one bag. We've acquired some things since, but not many.

Shouldn't your kids have more stability?

We feel they have stability. Being based in places for the school year, they adapt and make friends quickly.

It can be hard at the end of the school year, and the start of the new one, being that we're in a new place. However, again, they adapt quickly. We also don't plan to do this throughout their whole childhood. We're only in year two.

How do you find places to stay?

For the places we rent for nine months, we find them with local agents. For weekends and our summer travel, it's usually Airbnb or Vrbo.

What's your favorite place you've been?

That's so hard! Sarajevo surprised us in the best way. Korçula, Croatia is hard to beat for ocean swimming.

Venice in the off season will always be special.

Have people come to see you?

Yes! All four of our kids' grandparents have come to visit, and a handful of our friends have met us somewhere along the way.

It's a great excuse for others to go abroad!

What's the best part?

So many new adventures! Not every day feels the same.

We've all been exposed to so many new cultures. The kids have made friends from various parts of the world, and have found immense curiosity (as have we). We all desire to see so much more!

Discuss this story.

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from the Trends.vc newsletter

Problem

We write first drafts, draw wireframes, edit videos, and more. This is slow and repetitive.

Solution

AI-powered SaaS helps you get results faster.

Players

AI-powered SaaS:

• Loom: Video recording for screen, camera, and audio sharing.
• Notion: All-in-one workspace for notes, tasks, and collaboration.
• Grain: AI meeting automation tool.

How to build

• "Dogfood" your product by using it yourself.

• Build an audience first. Fans are more eager to support you by buying or sharing your tool.

• Build a waiting list to validate demand.

How to grow

• Use side project marketing to get more users. QuillBot has a suite of free grammar tools.

• Use a freemium model to fill your funnel. Aaron Edwards made DocsBot AI. It’s free for chatting with docs with up to 50 pages.

• Use affiliate marketing to get others to sell for you.

How to monetize

• Offer subscriptions to get predictable revenue.

• Offer single-use plans for a one-time price. This serves users with occasional needs.

• Use a free trial to convert more leads into customers.

Predictions

• Companies will let existing users try AI features for free before locking them behind a paywall.

• We’ll see AI startup studios that take a systemized approach to building AI companies.

• AI will be embedded in hardware. The era of “smart things” will turn into the age of “AI things.” Samsung has washing machines with AI Control.

Haters

“Most of these companies are retrofitting AI into existing products. The future is AI-native UX.”

This is common with technology. It took decades for manufacturers to redesign factories around electricity instead of adding to existing factories. Progress is iterative.

"Some of these are AI wrappers with weak moats.”

If an AI wrapper can make people’s lives easier, they will pay for it. Seize the opportunity.

“Uncontrollable growth can lead to bankruptcy. Freemium users can eat up API credits faster than expected.”

Limit the number of available credits to free users. Design Sense lets you generate only one image for free. Logie has user caps.

“This market is crowded.”

You can differentiate by offering unique features, great customer support, or serving a niche audience.

Links

• $22K in One Week with a Better UI for ChatGPT.
• Building a Report on AI-Powered SaaS.
• What The Generative AI Craze Will Look Like.

Related reports

• Niche AI Models.
• AI Agents.
• Prompt Engineering.

Become a Trends Pro Member to get the full report on AI-Powered SaaS, or get the next free Trends.vc report here.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trends.vc for more.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

💡 18 B2B SaaS marketing strategies for 2024.

💻 Browser extensions are underrated.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

🤔 Here's what to do when you're out of ideas.

🌟 Improving your Google Ads campaigns.

💀 Doom spending is a security blanket for young Americans.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

by James Fleischmann

Katt Risen started her newsletter, No-Code Exits, as a side hustle in September 2022. She freelanced throughout 2023, and now, she's decided to drop everything to focus solely on the newsletter.

Creating freedom

Katt is focused on creating freedom for herself, and she's set a goal: Hit $75K in six months. She's laser-focused now.

She says that means no freelance gigs and no shiny objects. Just growth.

The numbers

• Total revenue to date: $32K.
• Monthly revenue: Variable (~$2K in December).
• Founder pay: $3.7K per month total for she and her husband.
• Bank accounts: One year of runway.

Katt keeps her business expenses low by leveraging the free tier for the tools she uses.

Monetization

No-Code Exits makes money through sponsorships, affiliate partnerships, products, and the Medium Partner Program. Katt is also currently experimenting with other monetization methods.

When she started, she was charging ~$50 per classified ad, and she was selling them through Passionfroot. However, she didn't like the cut that Passionfroot took, so she no-coded her own solution: Partnership page with rates via Softr, and Airtable automation that sends an email with a payment link from Stripe.

Now, she's charging ~$125 for a classified ad, and ~$250 for a primary sponsor placement.

Katt also directs her readers to her other products, which include infoproducts and an accountability tool called sprints.so.

She uses Medium as a distribution channel, adds two clear CTAs to subscribe to her newsletter, and brings in ~$100 MRR from the partner program.

Growing calmly

As parents of two young children, Katt and her husband are not looking to build the next unicorn. They want to build a calm business, where they can balance working on something they love with being there for their kids.

No-Code Exits currently has ~9K subscribers, and is gaining 1K+ subscribers per month. To grow, Katt repurposes every issue into posts for LinkedIn and X, a Medium article, an Indie Hackers post, and a Substack note.

She's currently experimenting with posting on Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt, etc.

Keeping expenses down

Katt likes to keep expenses down, both in her business and in her personal life.

She says that her biggest splurges are ski trips and travel. Last year, she and her family traveled around the US in an RV for two months. They saved up for years, and got some priceless memories out of it!

Tax optimization > conversion optimization

Katt recommends setting up a system to track your finances properly every month. Do it manually. Once you have the systems in place (this can be a simple spreadsheet), it will become easier to track everything each month, and it is a great moment to reflect.

She also suggests spending time with an accountant to understand your finances, and think about what can be optimized.

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Mac Martine, Darko, Dru Riley, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing