The entrepreneurial adventures of a coder living in a tent in the forest

Hi peeps,<p>This was a nice surprise getting on HN =)<p>First of all, I was a weirdo before I moved to the forest. But now I'm a very happy weirdo.<p>I do have 4G (LTE) broad band, so Internet is almost everywhere I go.<p>I come from Stockholm but I live now on a trail called Sörmlandsleden, it's a 1000 km long trail and for the moment I'm pretty far south from Stockholm. But the trail never goes out "into the wild".<p>I also think that there is a right time for things. What I need now is to blaze forward with the coding. That's this phase.<p>I take swims in the lake and keep clean, shave once a week. Wash my clothes.. So when I do go into town to buy food or meet someone, I do not look like some troll. So meeting potential customers is not a big problem. I just have to get up really early in the morning to get there.. =)<p>I'm happy so many both here on HN and on The ListServe are interested in coding in the forest and giving support.<p>When winter comes I do not know what I'll do, but coding in the snow is not an option. But I will not surrender to any "normal" life until the startup begins to move, according to my earlier pledge.<p>Thanks!<p>ps. there are no bears around here.

Somewhat off-topic; but if you're wondering how this became a story on HN: it was submitted to the ListServe a bit over an hour ago.<p>The ListServe is a really cool email lottery where every day one person wins the chance to send an email to everyone else on the list, and the results have been nothing short of mesmerizing so far.<p><a href="http://thelistserve.com/" rel="nofollow">http://thelistserve.com/</a>

I spent two years driving from Alaska-&#62;Argentina, living in my tent and cooking on my little camp stove.[1]<p>I'm a Software Engineer, so I did a few freelance projects along the way. It was perfect to get online somewhere, get all the stuff I needed, then drive out to the wilderness for a week or more while I coded everything up. I'd come back into a town, upload what I needed to and continue on my merry way.<p>[1] <a href="http://theroadchoseme.com" rel="nofollow">http://theroadchoseme.com</a>

In another life, long before taking up coding, I spent 6 months in the mountains of southern Spain (near Grenada) living in a Rainbow community where tepees were the lodging of choice.<p>Amazing experience, obviously not much "work" getting done ;-)...except for this English guy, lived in a crude stone structure on the range across the way from where the community was situated. Somehow he had electricity, either through solar panels or running a mega cable to the small village higher up the range.<p>Anyway, he was a programmer (this is in the mid-90s, BTW) working for a bank in England -- would mail floppy disks to his employer.<p>Looking back now, I salute him deeply, living on the edge (literally of a mountain range) hanging out with a group of 200+ crazy pot/shroom/lsd huffing hippies -- how he got any work done is beyond me ;-)<p>Time flies...

So instead of <i>ramen profitable</i>, we have <i>tent profitable</i> now.

I'm sure it's possible to sit in isolation and create a livable startup. In my experience, though, the best things professionally, such as bizdev deals, finding people to work with or making large sales, come from personal connections. That is, people that you've actually met.<p>I love the outdoors and I love to code as well. This sounds super fun and I'm kind of jealous of that lifestyle, but I'm not sure if it's a sound business decision.

This is awesome. Personally, I occasionally daydream of "escaping it all" and coding by the ocean.<p>This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1].<p>In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, <i>Cottage Computer Programming</i> [3].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/index.html</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/cottage_computer_programming.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/cottage_computer_programmi...</a>

Wow, props for going "all the way".<p>I have to wonder though, is this a wise choice? If the product alone, e.g. the code, is what drives investment it surely is.. But I would guess that's only one of many factors. People are scared away from others that are too different when it comes to things like behaviour and clothing.<p>How long can he live in the forest before he's too "weird" to make meaningful connections to customers and investors? My guess is 2 days =/<p>Unless you're running a b2c SaaS, this might not be a good idea.

Couldn't help but notice that his April entry refers to 'trying out new wilderness recipes', and his next May entry refers to 'a rough time with food poisoning'.

Now my coworkers can't think i'm the weirdest coder ever for moving to Montana...at least i'm in a house!<p>Also to offer a prospective, while this sort of thing does change ones ability to interact personally I've found that it is also a hugh boost for productivity...I can code for hours, go climb a mountain to clear my mind and then keep coding.<p>It also seems like Thomas has found a great way to get publicity depending on what his target demographic is.

This is really cool and I'm glad to hear of someone doing this. Having the time to learn and work is key. It's hard to make any real progress when you're still trying to maintain a social life and work full time.<p>An idea: It might be much much easier to simply move to Mexico or Thailand. You could live on around $200-300 USD per month if you made your own food and you'd probably be a lot more comfortable than living in the woods (though I think that's amazing in its own way too).<p>Does anyone know of any dev boot camps or coworking spaces in the "developing world" that I should check out?

Get out of the building - love it!<p>Currently doing something similar - not a coder though, I'm living on Rugen Island in Germany. Made my first fire last night (embarrassed to say I'm 32 years old) and it gave me a kind of satisfaction I've not felt for a long time.<p>Feeling a lot more creative out here - enjoying being reconnected to nature. Spent 3 months in Brooklyn earlier in the year - the contrast is unreal. For me living in the city feels so toxic now. I want to make this a more permanent living arrangement - that's my next goal.

I absolutely love this. I'm jealous. I've been thinking about doing this, even if just once per year for 1-2 weeks. Some type of personal code jam, a chance to fully focus on personal projects distraction free.<p>I just did some research into the solar panels, they look fantastic but they're a little pricey. (~1000$ each) A little more digging gives me the impression that one could fairly easily DIY similar solar panels for considerable less, though obviously at much less quality.

Just wait for winter, Thomas.<p>I'm from the south of Sweden and even I wouldn't like to be living in a tent come winter. He better stop coding and start building some proper shelter. ;)

But what about wi-fi? Even if his thing doesn't require Internet, still, no Stackoverflow?

The food poisoning reminded me of "Into The Wild"

Damn, I'm jealous... Coding, writing, or doing any sort of work is always better outdoors, on a beach or in a forest.<p>Sounds like an adventure, and lots of fun. I frequently take long trips through the forest, back-country camping, but we do have bears, mountain lions, and the potential of blizzards in August (and laws that govern what we can and can't do in our wild spaces).<p>I hope your start-up is a success, and if it isn't, at least you'll have had an adventure and a story to tell (but I hope you success).

Good luck! I think it's a great way to live close to nature for a while. Camped once in the forest in Finland near a lake for a week with my gf, eating fresh fish every day and drinking spring water is awesome, can't wait to do it again sometime.<p>I also lived in a tent in London, in my garden, for 3-4 months (weekdays only) while my house was being renovated and extended - it's fine. I did it until November, in Sweden you'll want to move back indoors a couple of months earlier.

This is amazing, but I can only thing of the terrible screen glare issues from working outdoors. Yuck!

I wish more startups would spend all of their time out of doors in outdoor offices. I keep wanting an outdoor covered workspace here in Texas, even when it's 100 Farenheit outside. I think offices dull the senses, and separate us from the world.

I looked into trying something like this and abandoned the idea after a little research into the power issues and realizing what an ergonomic disaster it would be for me. Props to this guy, though, for following his dream.

Maybe he is taking "Lean Startup" a bit too seriously ;-)<p>But otherwise great idea. I wonder how far into the swedish wilderness their mobile broadband extends and how soon someone is going to rob him of his posessions...

This is so cool. Someone should set up a startup house that is a giant log cabin in the middle of some remote forest (but with a fiber connection of course). I would totally pay to be there.

Awesome, it's a code camp with actual camping!<p>On a related note, does anyone know if it would even be possible to do something like this in the USA (short of buying a few hundred acres with a lake on it)?

Wow this is really exciting. After reading his experience via his posts i feel like at least before i die i wish to experience such thing once for sure.

how do you do customer development in a forest, unless all your customers are gorillas and bears.

This guy is living my dream.

Reminds me of "Doppler" by Erlend Loe :)

A former coworker of mine.