The Story of Nomadic Archer

Introductions are in order…

I’m Erik, the founder of Nomadic Archer. I built this app because I needed it — not just as a hunter or an archer, but as a husband, a father, and someone who doesn’t always have time for hours of perfect practice.

I remember staring down at a crumpled notebook after a rushed evening session in the backyard, trying to tally up my shots before I had to head inside. Ten minutes to shoot meant two or three of those were spent scribbling down notes, wondering if I was actually improving — or just going through the motions. I had goals: 2,500 arrows between January and September. I stuck to it. But tracking progress was clunky and inconvenient. Routines became inconsistent. I’d bounce between the same 25 to 55 yard shots, with no real way to know if I was sharpening my skills… or just reinforcing bad habits.

After a decade stationed on the East Coast, my chances to hunt back home in Montana were rare. I couldn’t afford to waste them. Every moment in the field had to count — and I needed a way to train smarter, not just harder.

That’s where Nomadic Archer was born. Out of necessity. Out of frustration. Out of a deep desire to track performance, create a metric that matters, and ultimately, maximize the chance of a clean, ethical kill.

The Spark — Where It All Began

I grew up hunting with my family. My dad was — and still is — the biggest influence on that part of my life. When I tell that to people who know my dad, they usually just laugh and say, “Well yeah… that checks out.” The man quite literally lives to hunt. That was his license plate when I was growing up.

I did all the usual Montana things — hunted and fished with my buddies, shot cans and gophers, lived outside as much as possible. I used to practice stalking the cows on my grandparents’ farm, sneaking up on them like they were elk, “tagging” them with water balloons. Hunting wasn’t just something we did. It was how we lived.

As I got older, life got busier. Sports took up my time — and girls, too. (Shout out to my wife, my high school sweetheart who’s been along for the ride since those early days.) I was lucky to sneak in one or two hunts a week.

Then came college in Helena, Montana — right in the heart of some of the best elk country and fly fishing on the planet. But between being a student-athlete and picking up every spare hour I could at Sportsman’s Warehouse just to make ends meet, I didn’t have much time or money to spare. Still, I always made it a priority to shoot my bow, get into the woods, and reset.

That connection to nature deepened into something else — a fascination with the history of hunting. I became obsessed with the tools of prehistoric man, the ingenuity it took to bring down megafauna with primitive weapons. It’s a rabbit hole I still dive down today.

Now, as a husband and father, I want to give my wife and son the same gift my family gave me: a life filled with wild adventure, the thrill of the chase, and a kind of fortitude and mental toughness that only comes from time spent in the woods. Because nature has a way of humbling you like nothing else.

The Journey to Nomadic Archer

I’ve always believed there should be digital tools to help with the day-to-day — not to remove the value of the routine, but to make the time we do have more meaningful. There’s a kind of meditative satisfaction in handwriting a journal or keeping a checklist by hand. I get that. But if we can mold technology to support us — not distract us, not demand more of our time, but serve us — then it’s worth building.

I remember leaning against my kitchen counter early one morning, coffee in hand and staring at the messy scribbles in my notebook, growing increasingly frustrated. Arrows tallied and circled for reasons I couldn’t remember. Vague notes written in what might as well have been hieroglyphs. Was that a great session? A bad one? Why did I circle that number? I had no idea — and I was just about ready to give up on tracking my shots entirely. It felt pointless.

Then came a vacation back home to Montana — a chance to reset. Like it always does, the trip grounded me. Even the things I used to complain about — the mosquitoes on the mountain lakes, the lingering smoke in the air from fire season — I found myself missing. One rainy afternoon, I was sitting in my in-laws’ camper with my wife, listening to drips from the larch trees ping the roof. Scrolling through the notes app on my phone, I came across a line I’d typed to myself: “You need to shoot 63 arrows per week to hit 2,500 by September.”

That little note was it. That was the spark. I thought — what if all of this was in one place? Simple, organized, useful. What if I could build something that showed my progress, held me accountable, and helped me train smarter — not just harder?

Right then and there, in a kind of flow state that I can only describe as divinely inspired, I started hammering out a plan. A business model. Core features. Functionality I’d want in a tool like this. I didn’t know the first thing about how to build an app, but I knew what I needed it to do. I outlined what needed to come first, what could wait, and what would make the biggest difference right away.

Of course, the biggest challenge wasn’t dreaming it up — it was slowing down. Learning the technical side. Accepting that this thing had to be a crawl-walk-run project when all I wanted to do was sprint. I was ready now — but the process needed patience, and I had to learn how to build something solid from the ground up.

The name Nomadic Archer came to me almost as quickly. It felt right immediately. Nomadic because there’s something ancient and purposeful in the idea of movement — of traveling with intent, like Paleolithic hunters following the migration of wild herds. That hasn’t changed. Even in 2025, if you want to chase elk, mule deer, or whitetails, you have to be willing to move, to explore new ground, to stay light and adaptable.

Archer because this is a craft. It’s not just hunting. It’s not just target shooting. Archery is an art form — an old one — and it demands precision, presence, and consistency. It’s not easier than rifle hunting. In many ways, it’s far harder. But the payoff is immense. That’s what makes it special. That’s what makes it worth building for.

What Nomadic Archer Does (and Why It Matters)

Nomadic Archer was never meant to be another flashy gadget or social platform vying for your attention. It was designed for one thing: to keep archers grounded in their practice — and progressing.

At its core, Nomadic Archer is a digital journal, performance tracker, and personal motivator all wrapped into one. It brings together a few simple, powerful features that solve the biggest problems most of us face when trying to stay consistent.

First up — digital journaling. Every shot you take is logged automatically by session and by round. No more fumbling with notebooks or trying to remember what you worked on last week. The app tracks everything in the background so you can focus on shooting, not scribbling.

Second — profile-based tracking. Each archer creates gear-specific profiles, which means your practice with your primary hunting bow doesn’t get lumped in with your tournament setup or your backyard long-range experiments. Each profile carries its own data — cumulative shot counts, session breakdowns, trends — so your feedback is always relevant to that bow, that sight tape, that string tune.

Third: Minute of Archery (MOA). It’s a nod to “minute of angle,” something rifle shooters will recognize — but repurposed here for the bowhunter and target archer. It gives you a scaled measurement of your shot deviation, which means it doesn’t matter whether you’re shooting at 20 yards or 70 — you can compare accuracy across distances in one clean, easy-to-understand number. It’s not just how close your arrow was to center — it’s how consistent your performance is, shot over shot, across all ranges.

That’s the heart of this app: consistent, meaningful feedback without adding friction to your routine.

The biggest win? Motivation. Because when life gets busy — and it always does — it’s easy to skip a session, to fall into the trap of “just a few arrows,” or to mindlessly replicate the same old shots without any sense of progress. Nomadic Archer gives you the context and data to stay locked in. You know how far you’ve come. You know where you’re headed.

And maybe most importantly, it gives you back those few precious minutes — so if you’ve only got 10 minutes to shoot, you can actually shoot for 10 minutes.

This first version is intentionally focused on the fundamentals. It lays the foundation. It digitizes the repetitive stuff, tracks what matters, and gives archers a performance snapshot that makes sense. From here, we’ll grow. But the goal is simple: help archers practice with purpose, stay motivated, and become more effective — in the backyard, at the range, and in the field.

Where We’re Going from Here

What you’re seeing now in the Nomadic Archer app is just the beginning. The foundation is laid — clean design, intuitive tracking, and a real way to monitor performance. But the broader vision? It’s much more ambitious.

We’re not here to simply build an app. We’re building a platform — and more than that, a community.

In the near future, you’ll see us rolling out features that bring more depth to the training experience. Think scenario-based drills that simulate real hunting situations. Think cold-shot tracking — so you know how you perform when there’s no warm-up, just like that first arrow in the field. Think streak tracking to keep you consistent. You’ll see features evolve that help you not just practice more, but practice smarter.

We’re expanding MOA, too. One of the biggest upgrades coming is maximum yardage estimation — a tool that uses your performance data to estimate how far you can ethically and consistently take a shot based on past performance. It won’t just tell you what you wish you could hit — it’ll show you what your practice actually supports.

Beyond the personal training features, Nomadic Archer will grow into a network. We want to connect archers with coaches and mentors. We want to help families shoot together. We want to see this used by school archery programs and local ranges — not just for better shot tracking, but to foster excitement, participation, and community.

Because at the end of the day, the most important thing we can do isn’t build software — it’s to grow the sport.

We want new archers. We want kids who get excited when they see their first arrows hit the target. We want parents out there flinging arrows in the backyard with their kids. We want seasoned hunters refining their craft and passing that knowledge on to the next generation. And we want to give all of them the tools to stay motivated, stay connected, and keep growing.

Nomadic Archer will keep improving. There will be updates, rollouts, and refinements — but the real goal is something bigger. It’s about building a culture. A tribe. A modern community of archers rooted in something timeless.

Final Thoughts: What It Means to Be a Nomadic Archer

At its core, Nomadic Archer isn’t just a brand. It’s a mindset.

It’s the understanding that the chase is seasonal, but the preparation is year-round. It’s knowing that whether you’re hiking into a high-country basin or walking the line at a 3D shoot, your craft matters. The repetition, the discipline, the shot execution—it all counts.

The periodic and cyclical nature of the chase is what drives us. Living in a state like Montana, I’ve always known how limited the seasons are. You only get so many days to bugle in elk, sit patiently in a tree stand, or hit the competition circuit before it all resets. That finite timeline? That’s what fuels the fire.

Nomadic Archer was born from that reality. From the desire to make every shot count, and to help others do the same.

Our mission is simple:
Driven by a passion for the outdoors and the craft of archery, we’re committed to empowering hunters and competition archers with cutting-edge tools and technology. We want to improve every aspect of the archery experience—from training efficiency to success in the field—helping seasoned hunters reach their full potential while welcoming new archers into the community.

And our vision is even bigger:
To build a thriving community of hunters and archers, united by passion, driven by mastery, and constantly pursuing the next challenge. Whether it’s through innovation, connection, or just getting out to shoot more arrows, we’re here to support that pursuit.

We’re not here to replace tradition—we’re here to enhance it. We believe tech can coexist with time-honored skills. That practice can be modernized without losing meaning. That a simple tool—a bow and arrow—can still teach us the most important lessons in life.

Nomadic Archer is the bridge between the old and the new. Between the roots of our hunting heritage and the tools that will carry it into the future. For the cold mornings, the missed shots, and the one that finally lands — we’re in it with you.

Train. Track. Elevate your craft.