Latest / The Indie Hacker Podcast with Fexingo: Solo Developers, SaaS Side Projects, and Independent Tech / How a Solo Dev Built a SaaS While Traveling Full Time
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this solo dev named Sarah Chen — she built a SaaS called TimelyInbox, which is basically an email scheduling and analytics tool for freelancers, and she did it while traveling full time for two years. No permanent address, just a backpack and a laptop. Luna: I've heard of her. She's been pretty public about the whole nomadic journey. I think she hit around 120K ARR before settling down recently. Lucas: Exactly. And what I find interesting is not just the travel aspect — it's that she structured her entire business model around location independence from day one. She didn't start building a product and then decide to travel. The travel was the constraint she designed around. Luna: Right, so the product itself had to be low-touch, fully self-serve, with minimal customer support. That's a pretty smart constraint. Lucas: Yeah. Her tech stack was deliberately boring — Python on the backend, PostgreSQL, a simple React frontend, and Stripe for payments. Nothing exotic. But what she did differently was build a very robust onboarding flow with in-app guidance and a knowledge base, so she could go days without checking support tickets while in a different time zone. Luna: Did she have a co-founder or any part-time help? Because managing everything solo while on the road seems brutal. Lucas: No co-founder. She did hire a part-time virtual assistant after about six months — just for data entry and social media scheduling. But the core product development, customer support, and marketing were all her. She said the key was ruthless prioritization: she only worked on things that directly moved the revenue needle. Luna: Which meant she probably said no to a lot of feature requests. Lucas: Constantly. She kept a public roadmap and was very clear about what would and wouldn't get built. And because she was traveling, she had a natural limit on her time — she couldn't just work 80-hour weeks. She averaged about five hours of focused work per day, mostly in the mornings. Luna: Five hours a day sounds low for a solo founder. But I guess when you're disciplined, that's plenty. Lucas: She wrote a detailed post about her productivity system. She used a modified version of the Pomodoro technique — 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off — but she'd batch all communications into one block at the end of the day. No checking email or Slack during her deep work hours. Luna: That's a classic indie hacker habit. But the travel introduced another challenge: internet reliability. How did she handle that? Lucas: She carried a mobile hotspot with a global SIM, and she had a rule: if the internet dropped for more than 15 minutes, she'd go find a coffee shop or coworking space. She actually planned her itinerary around places with good connectivity — she'd research on Nomad List and stay in each city for at least two weeks to settle in. Luna: So she wasn't moving every few days. That makes sense — constant moving would kill any deep work rhythm. Lucas: Exactly. She said two weeks was the sweet spot. In the first week she'd explore and set up a routine, and the second week she'd crank out code and handle bigger tasks. And she always scheduled her flights for Fridays so she had the weekend to adjust to a new time zone. Luna: That's really strategic. Most people think 'digital nomad' means working from a beach in Bali every day, but the reality is more about logistics and discipline. Lucas: Totally. And she was upfront about the trade-offs. She said the biggest cost was loneliness and the lack of a stable community. She'd often go days without a meaningful in-person conversation. That's something a lot of solo devs don't think about when they romanticize the nomadic lifestyle. Luna: Right. It's not just about productivity — it's also about mental health. Did she do anything to combat the isolation? Lucas: She joined a few online co-working groups — there's one called Focusmate where you video pair with someone for a work session. She also made a point to attend local meetups and stayed in hostels or coliving spaces rather than Airbnb apartments alone. And she did weekly video calls with a small mastermind group of other indie hackers. Luna: That sounds like a solid support system. I can see how that would help. But I'm curious — after two years of constant travel, she decided to settle down. What changed? Lucas: She said she hit a wall. The constant novelty became exhausting, and she missed having a regular coffee shop where people knew her name. Also, her business was growing to the point where she needed to hire more help, and it's harder to onboard employees when you're bouncing between time zones. So she rented an apartment in Lisbon for a year. Luna: So the travel was a phase, not a permanent lifestyle. I think that's a realistic take — it's okay to do it for a while and then stop. Lucas: Yeah. And honestly, if today's conversation gave you something usable, that's the kind of thing that makes this podcast possible. If it was worth a coffee to you, there's a link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Totally optional, but it helps us keep the show ad-free and focused on stories like Sarah's. Luna: Absolutely. It's a small way to support the kind of deep-dive conversations we try to have here. Lucas: Anyway — back to Sarah. She actually wrote a whole playbook on how to structure a nomadic SaaS workflow. One thing that stood out was her approach to customer support: she used asynchronous communication almost exclusively, with a public roadmap and a FAQ that got updated every week. Luna: So customers knew when to expect replies — like a 24-hour response window. Lucas: Right. She set expectations upfront. And she used a tool called SavvyCal for scheduling calls — only two slots per week, and always during her morning hours. That way, she had predictable blocks for deep work and only a limited time for real-time communication. Luna: That's a good system for any solo founder, not just nomads. Boundaries are huge. Lucas: Exactly. And she also automated a lot of the business operations. She used Zapier to connect her payment system with her CRM and accounting software, so she never had to manually invoice or reconcile payments. That saved her maybe five hours a month, but it was five hours she could spend on product development. Luna: Five hours a month doesn't sound like much, but if you're only working five hours a day, that's a day of work you get back. Lucas: Exactly. And she used that time to build features that increased her average revenue per user. She added a team plan tier and a reporting dashboard — both of which bumped her ARR by about 20 percent in the second year. Luna: That's impressive. So the nomadic phase wasn't just a lifestyle choice — it actually forced her to build a more efficient business. Lucas: I think that's the key takeaway. The constraints of travel pushed her to automate, to prioritize, and to build a product that could largely run itself. She ended up with a business that was leaner and more resilient than if she'd stayed in one place with unlimited time. Luna: But it's not for everyone. Some people need stability to do their best work. I think the lesson is more about designing your business around your personal constraints, whatever they are. Lucas: Yeah. And Sarah's story is a good example of that. She didn't just chase a lifestyle — she built a business that supported that lifestyle, and then when the lifestyle stopped serving her, she adapted. That's the indie hacker mindset: be flexible, stay intentional, and keep your overhead low enough that you can change course. Luna: Well said. And for anyone listening who's thinking about taking their SaaS on the road, Sarah's blog has a ton of practical tips — we'll link to it in the show notes. Lucas: Definitely. And that's our show for today. Thanks for hanging out with us — we'll be back next week with another indie hacker story.