Nomad List: a crowdsourced spreadsheet that became a paid community for remote workers

What it is

Nomad List helps remote workers pick where to live "based on their preferences like internet speed, cost of living, weather and safety", and is "a paid membership site where people can meet other nomads" (levels.io). The old domain nomadlist.com now redirects to nomads.com (Nomads.com, checked 1 Nov 2026).

Timeline

• 2014: started as part of Pieter Levels' goal to launch 12 startups in 12 months (levels.io).
• 24 Jun 2014: he tweets a public Google spreadsheet asking people to help build a list of cities for remote workers (levels.io).
• 29 Jul 2014: the site goes live by accident after a server reboot, is submitted to Product Hunt by someone else and reaches #1; it then reaches #1 on Hacker News (levels.io).
• Aug 2017: last-30-days revenue of $18,473 for Nomad List, alongside Remote OK and his book (levels.io).
• 30 May 2019: "It took 4 years to get here": $83,333+ a month across Nomad List and Remote OK (levels.io).

Why it worked

• Demand tested before code. "Instead of building a site first, I simply made public Google spreadsheet"; people filled it in and added columns such as safety and coffee shop density (levels.io).
• A personal problem shared by many. He was travelling and working remotely himself and "thought we needed a city index for remote workers" (levels.io).
• Launch traffic captured. Hacker News sent about 50,000 unique visitors and Product Hunt about 12,000; an email box collected about 2,500 emails in two weeks (levels.io).
• Profitable from day one. Within 24 hours a company looking for remote workers took a pay-per-view sponsorship, "making this project profitable from the first day" (levels.io).
• Monetised through community. He "built a paid community around it, that first started on Slack" (levels.io).

What to learn

1. Validate with the cheapest artifact that can fail. A spreadsheet told him more than a landing page would have.
2. Ask users what to sell. He emailed 2,000 people on his list and got over 400 survey answers about what to build and charge for (levels.io).
3. Ship many, expect few hits. Levels says "Only 4 out of 70+ projects I ever did made money and grew" (levels.io).

Risks and what didn't work

• Revenue swings. He described Nomad List revenue as ranging "from $20k-$40k/month" (levels.io).
• Crowdsourced data gets copied. He planted a fake Japanese city, Dorobō ("thief"), and later saw it "showing up on sites all around the web" (levels.io).
• Launch spikes fade. In his own words, being #1 on big tech sites "doesn't mean you're on top of the world. You need to have a way to funnel this traffic" (levels.io).
• All revenue figures are self-reported by the founder.