Courtesy of Thomas Backlund Thomas Backlund: “I needed to cut costs.”
Dashboard
A weekly roundup of small-business developments.
Thomas Backlund, 33, is a programmer from Stockholm who is trying to start a business, Blockie.io. As mentioned in this week’s Dashboard roundup of small-business news, Mr. Backlund has quit his job and left his apartment and moved to a Swedish forest in order to save expenses while creating his new venture. We contacted Mr. Backlund by e-mail for a conversation that has been edited and condensed.
What’s your start-up about?
Blockie.io consists of me as the coder and my friend as the designer. We are trying to bring software development to the masses by building a service that would take the coding part out of the equation and make logic the only necessary component for building a technical back-end, which would save a lot of time and headaches.
Why the woods?
I needed to cut costs because I wanted to totally focus on one thing in my life, Blockie.io, and I’ve longed to get out in nature for some time now. I started on May 9.
Have you had wilderness experience before?
Some, not much. The first time was two years ago when I tagged along two friends to the Swedish mountains. Since then, I started to get out on my own, sleeping out in the forest sometimes and then going to the office in the morning.
How do you get online?
I can access the Internet from my phone. It works pretty good most of the time.
You must encounter problems that are unique to being in the woods.
Small problems are big problems. If my phone breaks it takes a whole day to get to town and back. I’ve got sick two times so far — that is not fun at all. And sometimes it’s a hassle finding good places to stay since you do not want to waste time moving too often. But then again I can spontaneously throw off my clothes and take a swim anywhere it looks nice!
What about speaking to others: potential partners, investors, customers?
I do most everything through e-mail. But I do not hesitate to book a meeting in the city (Stockholm). I have no strict policy of not ever leaving the forest.
How are you paying your bills?
I have some reserves of my own still, and if it runs out, I may pick up some small consulting gigs. I pay them all electronically. I get some help for the small amount of paperwork for the business.
Do you feel isolated?
I do not meet my friends very often now, but this experience still makes us closer I think. I get many responses from the Listserve I subscribe to and also from many others who have seen me on Hacker News, Mashable and other places. Many people reach out to me just to say they really support me in this. Some have questions about how to do the forest thing. Some want to help develop Blockie.io, and some just want Blockie.io right away.
Many start-up owners prefer to be around people so they can share ideas — like an incubator.
I think such a place would be great for me when Blockie.io is ready for testing because then I could get people to test it, and I would get instantaneous feedback. But for now I think the isolation is good because in this phase there are things that have to be solved in my mind and then just hammered into the computer. I think that when your head is full and your ears are hurting, then it’s time to be alone to let your mind summarize all the information to something useful. The next phase may be different.
How long do you expect this to last?
There is a physical limit. First the sun will get too weak to charge my batteries, although I could work around by sleeping in hostels every third day and recharging everything there. The next limit is the cold. I cannot sit and code when it’s too cold. So when winter comes, I must think of something else.
What did you have for dinner last night?
I had grilled elk beef with grilled halloumi cheese, chili béarnaise and a grilled onion. My cousin came to visit and brought some goodies with him. Otherwise it’s a lot of beans, eggs, red peppers, carrots and hummus.
Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.
Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/an-entrepreneur-retreats-into-a-swedish-forest/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.