"I’ve quit my job.
I’ve quit my apartment.
7:th of May I’m moving out into the Swedish forest to live and work from a tent.
I do not know for how long.
There I’m gonna code om my startup idea.
I have a laptop, battery pack, solar cells and mobile broadband.
Stay tuned.."
This is Thomas Backlund's blog post from March 21st, the day the Swedish computer engineer officially decided to abandon the comforts of stable employment and shelter to move into the forest. But he is not fleeing from civilization with the goal of unplugging. Rather, Backlund is making the move in order to focus on developing his start up, Blockie.ie., a platform for coders to build back-end services "quickly and cheaply by combining blocks of functionality and connecting them together in a flow using a visual interface," allowing people to create tailored back-ends without programming knowledge.
While Backlund's fearless venture into the forest is admirable, it seems a bit too ironic. Yes, his blog bio proclaims, "I love the forest, I love to code." And it's true that one of the biggest advantage's of careers in computer science is that coders can do their work from anywhere. But personally, the whole tech-start-up-sphere-meets-Nature fusion sounds a little forced.
There are a lot practicalities to consider, of both the camping and coding variety. According to his blog, Backlund will be sleeping in a small to midsize tent. He also has access to a wood and tin hutch, which will come in handy for escaping the elements. Lying atop the roof of the structure is a strip of 64-watt solar panels, which Backlund will be exclusively using to power his computer. WiFi access is still a big question, as is what Backlund will do during a rainy stretch of weather, when his solar panels fail to generate electricity. The timeline of Backlund's excursion is undefined, hinging on when he finishes coding Blockie.ie. And while I have never been to Sweden, I imagine that Nordic winters are comparable to, if not worse than, Boston's.
Can Backlund's move really be considered a retreat to nature if he will be hunched over his computer for eighty-plus hours a week? Series A funding is über-competitive these days, so could this just be a marketing ploy to catch investors' attention?
If so, it's kind of working...
