Help! A fox has taken over my little housing startup for digital nomads!

June 24, 2025

I’ve been working on helping remote workers and mid-term travelers find high-quality, remote-ready places to live and work.

If you’ve been following me on @nbases instagram, it might’ve looked messy at times. So here’s a quick breakdown of how it started, what worked, and what’s next.

The problem: mid-term rentals aren’t designed for people who work online

The core problem is that a lot of mid-term rentals just aren’t designed for people who work online. They’re often noisy, under-equipped, with bad Wi-Fi or cold showers. And the worst part? You usually find out after booking, when it’s too late to switch.

The Checklist

So I started documenting all the recurring issues nomads were facing. That turned into a full checklist of what makes a place truly remote-work friendly. (you can grab it on nbases.com/checklist

I then spotted listings that were structurally solid and reached out to hosts with upgrade suggestions.

Things like real desks, external monitors, yoga mats. In exchange of attracting more llong bookings (6+ weeks).

nBases V1: finding great stays and dealing with hosts to upgrade them for remote work.

I built the first version of the platform using no-code tools like Airtable, Webflow, Make and Memberstack. Hosts were open to it. With help from two VAs, we created a curated list of places that matched the checklist across different countries.

It was promising, but the list wasn’t big enough to monetize directly. So, a year ago I offered custom sourcing. That’s how I got my first paying clients: remote professionals from 30 to 50 who found me via Facebook ads and lead magnets. They paid me to find places in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that met nBases standards.

Same process: I sourced and negotiated with the hosts. We even made a remote base next to a safari in Namibia. The idea was that the service could fund the search and deal making with the host to then offer access to the listing collection. Very few people paid access to the collection, because it was growing too slow. Even with smooth processes, it was still a service business. Very human-heavy. Low margin. Not scalable. Not ideal for a solo builder.

The smooth pivot: AI scoring Airbnbs focused on remote work, while encouraging hosts to upgrade their listings.

With the rise of AI, I was finally able to shift toward more automation. I stopped filtering listings manually and started using AI to score them based on remote work criteria. Using no-code tools for the backend and help from freelancers on the frontend, we built a Chrome extension that analyzes Airbnb listings, along with a new version of nbases.com showcasing the best stays by city for remote workers, based on the AI scores.

the very first v1 of the Chrome extension:

then it got a bit better:

The concept was well received by nomads and also helped hosts, who could now see their score and understand exactly what was missing to attract remote workers.

The best stays featured on our website:

nbases plateform some months ago : https://www.loom.com/share/50afd7d8736c446a9bba33a6f7fd1325

Finding a scalable way to influence Airbnb hosts felt like a real win, and soon some of them started reaching out to offer extra amenities to attract more nomads in a more systemic way than before since they were triggered by their scoring.

The extension was officialy launched end of january and got 100 users + in a 2 weeks. The idea was to keep it free at first and monetize later with sponsorships. But CAC were too high for that.

you can check the january video launch here

The focus: AI Chrome Extension

At the same time, I was juggling too many things:

the extension, the platform, and marketing freelancing gigs.

So I took a proper look at what was working:

Some hosts were open to upgrading their place to boost their score.
Some nomads were willing to pay for help finding solid bases.
The extension had real potential, but still too many bugs.
I needed a way to lower my CAC.
and go for a front-paid model, saas-ish. Not booking fees or sponsoring.

So I focused 100% on the AI extension.

I rebuilt a new UI, refined the scoring logic, and moved to a lighter tech stack. I could now vibe-code and no-code everything. Fixed bugs, cleaned up flows, and kept iterating.

I collected some feedbacks and got some paid users in beta. I was ready to launch and then I had this idea...

The reason I'm writing this post on IH: Sharing a marketing strategy I'm about to launch with the help of AI.

Since the project is now an AI assistant, I thought: why not personify it?

Make it more human, expressive, and relatable. So it’s not just a tool, but a real companion.

And since I don’t have a big marketing budget, why not build a story around this companion? Because storytelling is the deep root of marketing, branding, and it cost nothing to write.

So I'm now bringing this companion to life so it might connect better with my audience rather than if I was simply communicating on product features.

I hope it’ll make it easier to understand what nBases does, and why I’m building it, while having a bit of fun along the way.

We know it, marketing + bootstraping on a consumer (btc dtc) market is quiet challenging for indies. So I'm betting on the power of story.

Some beta users and early clients have already met this new companion. If you haven’t yet, you’ll meet him soon through a short series called The Nomad Code.