Hey 👋
This newsletter helps solo entrepreneurs, digital nomads, and experts build freedom - 1% weekly through tools, technical insights, and lessons from entrepreneurial and nomad life.
First week in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Played my first set here, met a French entrepreneur who inspired me about business structure, and had a conversation that reminded me what actually matters when things get hard.
🧠 Reflection of the week
Drive - the most underrated resource
Had a conversation with an old friend this week. He told me he doesn't know if he'll ever get that drive back. That energy to do things, to build, to move forward.
Hit me hard.
Because even when things are tight financially and hard in business, I still have health (physical and mental), people around me who support me, energy to create and move, and that inner pull to keep going.
Drive is the most valuable resource you have as an entrepreneur and human being. Money flows, clients leave, projects fail. But if you still wake up wanting to build something, you have what you need to turn it around.
If you have health, people, energy, and drive, then you're starting from a position of strength, not zero.
💡 Inspiration of the week
Geo-arbitrage lesson from a French entrepreneur
After my set on Thursday, I sat down with a French entrepreneur. 38 years old. Just sold his company (200 employees). Now building the next one.
His setup inspired me about business structure.
Company registered in Mauritius and Madagascar (both ex-French colonies).
Clients: Belgium, France, paying in EUR
Team: Local workers who speak French
Time zone: Almost the same as Europe
Services: IT, FinTech, web design
Here's what makes this work so well.
Language and culture match completely. No time zone headaches. Premium European pricing. Lower operational costs. Quality work, not just cheap labor.
Geo-arbitrage.
You don't need to move your company to Mauritius to use this thinking.
You can serve EUR/USD/GBP markets. You can hire from lower-cost markets like Philippines, India, or Eastern Europe for Western clients. You handle strategy, sales, and client relationships. They handle execution and delivery.
It's smart business structure where everyone wins.
🔧 Tool of the week
Ollama - run AI models on your computer
Ollama is open-source software (free) that lets you run AI models locally on your Mac, Windows, or VPS server. No API calls. No per-token billing. No data leaving your computer.
Think of it as a local AI server that runs on your laptop or desktop. You download models like Llama 3, DeepSeek, Phi-4, Gemma, Mistral and talk to them just like ChatGPT. Everything happens on your machine.
What you need to run it smoothly:
16 GB RAM and 8 GB VRAM (GPU memory) for 7-14B parameter models. This gets you about 40 tokens per second, which feels like normal chat speed.
Examples: Mac with M2/M3 chip works great. Gaming PC with RTX 4060 or better works great. Regular laptop with integrated graphics runs slower but functional.
What it's actually good for:
Draft emails, posts, landing pages. Code suggestions in VS Code. Summarize documents. Translate content. Answer questions about your private docs without sending data to the cloud.
Real talk on quality:
Local 7-14B models are roughly GPT-3.5 to mid-GPT-4 level. They're not as good as GPT-5 or Claude Sonnet on really hard tasks. But for many tasks of everyday work, they're good enough.
The privacy part:
Data never leaves your machine when you use local models only.
One extra point: Ollama saves chat history locally in plain text by default, so use disk encryption and secure your machine.
Cost comparison:
LLMs APIs: roughly $0.005-0.02 per 1K tokens
Ollama: $0 per token after you buy the hardware
Link: ollama.com
📈 Business development
Clawdbot (OpenClaw) - why it's big deal
Clawdbot (now called OpenClaw, but everyone still says Clawdbot) is an open-source AI agent that actually does things on your computer. And wrote about this last week.
Not writes you a script to copy-paste. It runs the script. Sends the email. Opens the browser. Fills the form. People are calling it an iPhone moment.
Why this feels different:
It's not a tool you visit. It's infrastructure that works for you.
Lives in WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack. Where you already are. Always-on, runs tasks overnight, messages you first with updates. Does actual work like commands, files, browser automation, scheduled jobs (cron jobs). Has a skill marketplace called ClawHub with over 3,000 community skills you can install.
The platform part:
iPhone wasn't just a better phone. It became a platform that let Uber, Instagram, and Spotify exist.
Clawdbot is becoming that for AI capabilities.
ClawHub works like an App Store for agent skills. Install with one command. Gmail automation. Calendar management. Research and reports. Sales workflows. Smart home control. You name it.
Developers are building and sharing skills like apps. Some free, some paid (still nobody's making serious money yet since it's only 1 month old).
Agent-to-agent communication:
Clawdbot agents can talk to each other.
Right now it's mostly "my research agent talks to my dev agent" inside one setup.
Near future: Your agent calls the restaurant's agent to book a table. Your agent negotiates with your supplier's agent.
Not happening at scale yet. But the infrastructure is there.
Real talk for entrepreneurs:
What works now: inbox management, research and summarization, file operations, scheduled tasks, browser automation, content creation.
What you need: dedicated hardware like a Mac Mini, VPS, or old laptop. Basic terminal skills. Time to configure properly.
The opportunity:
Clients will pay for AI transformation. Systems that work while they sleep, not just pretty websites.
Learning to think in agents, skills, and workflows is becoming a sellable skill.
🎧 DJ Journey 🌏
Thursday night. Open deck at Le Café des Stagiaires.
Almost empty room. But the view - whole city from the rooftop.
I play my set. After that, the bartender walks up: "Man, I can see you love what you do."
Yeah, and it's true. And beautiful that someone can see that energy.
🎵 Listen to the set here - SOUNDCLOUD LINK
Then I met Marylin. French owner of the venue. Music industry veteran. Businesses in Shanghai, Vietnam, Bali. Runs events, produces music.
We sit. Two beers turn into wine. More friends join. The French entrepreneur I mentioned earlier. Japanese guy from Kuala Lumpur.
Talk about business, music, building things across countries.
By end of night: she told me I can play in March (Friday or Saturday). Got contact to the ecstatic dance organizer here. The French entrepreneur gave me his business contact and said to call him if I need advice.
Passion is the best networking tool I have. People don't remember what you said. They remember the energy you brought to the room.
💬 Any thoughts or reflections? Text me back!
Thanks for being here.
Have a good week and see yaa next Sunday ✌️
Bart
