The idea for SavvyNomad sparked when one of our co-founders, Jameson, was on a nomadic journey in Morocco. While there, he crossed paths with a group of surfers from California who had been living abroad for years with no plans to return to the U.S., but were struggling to make the U.S. tax system adapt to their new lifestyle.

Jameson, who is from Nevada — a state with zero income taxes — had studied accounting extensively at Northwestern University and knew there had to be a better way for Americans abroad to manage their taxes. With his brother, a full-time RVer and fellow CPA, he realized that while there were solutions for RVers and domestic travelers, no one was addressing the unique needs of expats and digital nomads.

Around the same time, Bohdan Drozdov fled Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion. After rebuilding across Europe and later settling in Portugal, he kept meeting nomads and expats dealing with the same headaches: tax traps, banking friction, and confusion about domicile. With a background in startup marketing and growth, Bohdan launched and worked on a taxation-focused startup for nomads — and through that work, he saw a clear gap: U.S. expats and nomads faced a uniquely complex version of the problem that existing solutions weren’t built to handle.

When Jameson and Bohdan teamed up, it clicked: expats didn’t need more scattered advice — they needed a straightforward path, the right documents, and a system that helps them stay compliant and organized while living outside the U.S.