Pieter Levels

Quotes are word for word from the source.

• Building business moats

  “I'd expand the moats left to proprietary data, network effects, distribution, hardware, capital, and regulation”

  Our notePieter lists the remaining competitive advantages in an AI-dominated world.

• AI startup trap

  “Indie hackers build fancy AI factories but have no money or traffic”

  Our notePieter discusses the common mistake of over-engineering AI products without a business model.

• Free vs paying users

  “The difference between free users and paying users is about 1,000x from my experience”

  Our noteHe reflects on the vast difference in quality and commitment between user types.

• Alternative career path

  “If I was 18 today I'd skip uni and go nomad building startups”

  Our noteLevels shares his perspective on the value of formal education versus practical building.

• Post launch work

  “What I learnt from launching products is that the real work starts when everyone has stopped talking about you”

  Our noteThe reality of building a business after the initial hype fades.

• AI security audits

  “Luckily for us I think the attack and defense capabilities of AI models seems to somewhat match? So as long as we keep typing "do a security audit" regularly into our clanker we can keep it safe”

  Our noteHe explains how founders can use AI to defend against AI-driven security threats.

• Solving platform bias

  “I made Hotelist.com because Airbnb, Google Maps, and booking sites delete negative reviews so everything is always a 4.7”

  Our notePieter explains why he built a new hotel review site to counter review manipulation.

• CEO vs Maker

  “They don't like to be manager, where you become a CEO, you become a manager. And I think a lot of people that start startups, when they become a CEO, they don't like that job actually”

  Our notePieter explains why scaling a company can lead to unhappiness for builders.

• Plugin monetization challenges

  “I think it's hard to get people to pay for these extensions and plugins. Because it's not a real app, so it's not ... people don't value it.”

  Our notePieter explains why browser extensions are difficult to monetize compared to standalone websites.

• Happiness through constraints

  “I don't think that makes you happy. I think constraints probably make you happy. And that's a big lesson I learned then.”

  Our noteHe reflects on how total freedom led to feeling lost rather than happy.

• Building real startups

  “I wanted to make real startups and that was my thing. I would read Hacker News, Y Combinator, and they were making cool stuff, so I wanted to make cool stuff.”

  Our notePieter explains his motivation to build ethical products versus shady e-commerce schemes.

• Spotting business problems

  “I think you need to be able to spot problems. So for example, you can go in your daily life, like when you wake up and you're like, "What is stuff that I'm really annoyed with that's like in my daily life that doesn't function well?”

  Our notePieter explains how to find startup ideas by looking at daily annoyances.

• Travel as inspiration

  “you start seeing problems, you start seeing solutions that other people already did in the rest of the world, and also traveling in general just gives you more problems, because travel is uncomfortable.”

  Our notePieter discusses how traveling helps a founder see new problems and existing solutions.

• Statistical approach to startups

  “I was thinking statistically, "All right, I need to build all these things and one of these will work out probably. So, I need to have a lot of things to try”

  Our notePieter explains his mindset of building many small projects to find a winner.

• Inflated rating scales

  “Airbnb goes just from 4.5 to 5 with a median of 5! But most others aren't better, they all range from about 4 to 5, and almost all have a median of 4.25, with not many scores outside of it!”

  Our notePieter discusses how booking sites have lost credibility due to skewed rating distributions.

• Pre-emptive security measures

  “I pre-emptively disconnected all my sites and VPS servers from the web until PHP is patched”

  Our notePieter explains his immediate reaction to a critical PHP vulnerability.

• Speed of execution

  “It's such a weird experience that I can now build things faster than I get new ideas for things”

  Our notePieter reflects on how AI tools have accelerated his development process beyond his own ideation rate.

• Minimalist business expenses

  “I dropped my total biz expenses to just $300 per month”

  Our noteHe shares the result of his aggressive cost-cutting and automation efforts.