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@levelsio (posted 2026-08-03) claims you lose a bit of the literal hunger once…

2026-08-03 · 12:06 UTC ·@levelsio ·1 min read

Brief

@levelsio argues that escaping poverty reduces literal hunger and motivation, and proposes a behavioral hack: simulate being broke by routing each month only your new project's Stripe profit into a separate virtual Revolut account to re-create incentive, while acknowledging partners/kids make this impractical. Josh Pigford adds he’s spent five years experimenting without converting projects to viable businesses.

Why it matters

@levelsio (posted 2026-08-03) claims you lose a bit of the literal hunger once you’re no longer broke and recommends artificially constraining money to restore incentive — e.g., open a virtual Revolut account and each month deposit only the profit you earn on your new project's Stripe to 'trick your brain'; notes family makes this hard.

Key details

  • Josh Pigford (@Shpigford) reports five years of trying many experiments, saying he feels 'right on the cusp' but still can’t turn efforts into viable businesses and questions whether the issue is focus or something else.
Source evidence

It might be because you're already rich

You lose a bit of the (literal) hunger when you're not broke anymore and it changes your biology

You could artificially constrain your money so you live like a broke guy and can only spend money you make from your new businesses

Hard to do in practice with gf/wife and kids etc

But you could do it on some micro scale like make a virtual bank account on Revolut or whatever, then every month put in an amount of money the same as you make on your new project's Stripe (only the profit of course)

That might trick your brain into being incentivized

Josh Pigford (@Shpigford)

I've been slinging so much at the wall for the past 5 years.

Keep feeling like I'm right on the cusp of SOMETHING.

But it's been so hard to turn anything into a real viable business.

An issue of focus? On some level, sure. But maybe it's something else? I don't know.

— https://nitter.net/Shpigford/status/2084243773580611990#m