Fred 🫡

Photographer & dev, 20y B2B. Hetzner 2006. Aboard Ship or Die, shipping one product a month. Out-earn my agency by 1 Jan 2027. Me and AI as a team. Let's sail.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

Photographer, designer, web & backend developer. 20 years self-employed this February.

On paper, someone who's already made it. In the market I'm about to enter, I'm starting from zero. Trained as a software developer (Fachinformatiker, 1999–2002), then quit when the pay didn't add up.

Founded Partyfaces in 2002 as a hobby, drove for UPS for a year, and studied in the Netherlands marketing and business. In 2006 I left that behind, started my agency, and ran my own monthly magazine for four years while putting on my own events. Great time.

Layed the foundation everything else grew from.
Back in 2006 I bought a PCMCIA data card just to write emails from the lake. From 2010 I took it on the road: stopped the magazine and the website and started travelling the world with my wife, later with the kids, laptop always in the bag, delivering work from wherever I landed. Digital nomad ever since. Never told my clients. Hrrrr hrrrr.

We've run our own servers since 2002, constantly on Hetzner since 2010. 16 years supplying one of Europe's largest pet-supply retailers, where throughput and reliability are everything. Strictly B2B.

For the last two years I've rebuilt my entire system from scratch with the help of every major paid AI model out there. After my long-time admin vanished, it was back against the wall. I sit behind the machine everyday and use tokens wisely.

The result: I own it all, my own cloud, server infrastructure, mail, security and local AI, all self-hosted, all mine. Had some of it before, but never in my own hands.

Right now there's plenty running in production: a QR-code server, a full customer-management system, every one of my own processes automated. But none of it has made me a cent because all of it serves operations, not a market: it runs for clients, or it runs for me.

Everything I built for myself, I use myself. Nothing's been published to the outside. Yet.

My goal as Captain Strongbow on the "Ship-or-Die" boat: one product a month, every month — ship it or walk the plank. By 1 January 2027, earn more from my own products than from the agency and leave it behind.

Three kids, no team, foundation done, first pay button waiting to go live.

Time to turn all this outward, for myself and my family.

Let's sail.

https://t.co/Zcm1WkL2Cd

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

Hermes with Telegram

Anthropic and OpenAi and Gemini and Grok

Codex and Claude Code and Gemini.
Use them in all ways, locally in Cli, running in my servers in cli, in Chrome as side pilot and Codex and Claude as Mac App.

Cloud. The truth is they are the state of the art models. Hopefully better local models in the future.

Bootstrap

Now

Grow. Building and shipping. I made real used working productive tools and rethink my talent. Will ship my first game in the app store in the next 25 days. I made in the last months for me and my kids and they love it. Will polish it now for my first ship-or-die launch.

Goal for 01.01.2027 leave my other company I founded in 2006 behind.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@johnrushx @charliebcurran 14 mil n(O O)w

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@iamideaguy @levelsio Yes

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@DavidOndrej1 @levelsio Pretty weird, but I feel you.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@itsHujjat Don't know about people, but I celebrate you.

Congratulations.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@tibo_maker In for testing. Have kids in that age.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@jackfriks Earned 👍🏻

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@greediusgeek @jackfriks This will age like a Barolo

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@venturetwins Wtf

I thought my live Agent Office looked cool 😂

Builded something similar as a side project for myself, but this is in another level.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@jackfriks True!

My old pal Justin Time got new companionship lately Sir Ite Rate and Lady Never Stop.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@robj3d3 You are right.

So much value and insights. Worth watching.

Thanks to you both @robj3d3 @wickedguro

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@wickedguro Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

I appreciate it a lot. 🫡

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@floriandarroman SEO

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@jackfriks @marclou Feel you there, same in Germany, seasons have their good and bad.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@jackfriks @marclou Fair point

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@jackfriks @marclou Did you consider spending more time in the flip flop zones of the world, when the Canadian winter hits?

🏝️

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@marclou Nice.

Minimlism is the best lifestyle and very handy when nomading.

Pack a bag and go.

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

Let's ship from the ship 🫡🏴‍☠️

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@levelsio You considered hosting mails yourself on hetzner, or is this not an option?

[Fred 🫡 @manfredbreber]

@jackfriks Interesting. I have a QR system running for many years for a big client. Made a brand new version with Claude.

You have an example, how the wedding QR systems look like and which features they deliver?

Maybe I can just let you use mine for free, can setup a subdomain for you.