Enjoying Every Bite of Life

In September 2023, I found myself lost.

I had just wrapped up five long years of engineering studies.

Then came a year of quantitative finance, plus a three-month class at Harvard on design thinking, where I explored dry aging meat. Crazy, right?

I even turned down a $40k-a-year job that promised security.

And just like that, I was floating in a huge, endless ocean.

Luckily, French security aids gave me a lifeline to start a company.

I figured I’d kick things off by finishing a trading algorithm I’d been tinkering with for years.

But here’s the thing. I didn’t know enough about trading.

Sure, I had the technical analysis and fundamentals down, but without real practice, the market was a mystery.

Then my brother-in-law stepped in.

He offered to cover a trading course for me.

The academic ones? They cost a fortune, like $10k a year. Too steep.

So I turned to Guillaume, this YouTube trainer I really liked.

His style clicked with me. I asked to join his trading room, and guess what? I became his first student.

For 10 months, we traded together every day. I could ask anything, say anything. It was hands-down the best experience ever.

Huge thanks to my brother-in-law and Guillaume.

It wasn’t all easy, though. I had to commit hard. Better sleep. Started running to stay sharp. It paid off.

While all this was happening, I started a cybersecurity startup.

Got into a big-name accelerator too. I soaked up so much—how to launch a company, pick good partners, figure out what customers want.

Eight months in, though? I realized cybersecurity wasn’t my thing. Not even close.

Summer rolled around, and I stumbled into a French builders community.

Baptiste ran it—he’d built a SaaS for UX/UI design and knew his stuff.

We’d chat almost daily about our projects. It was perfect. I threw myself in, building things left and right in record time.

At some point, I hit a wall with my trading data. Nine months of it, and Excel just couldn’t cut it anymore.

So I made a web dashboard to load it all in. Shared it with my trading room buddies. They liked it! But they wanted more.

I added charts, tinkered with features. Soon, it was too cluttered.

So I switched gears—built a customizable widget dashboard instead. Threw in authentication and a pricing plan too.

That’s when it hit me. I loved this. Building tools for trading? That’s where my heart was.

Around then, I started coaching with Aurelien, who’d just left a decade-long gig running a multimillion-dollar company. He saw it clear as day—I didn’t care for cybersecurity. I had no real background in it, no passion. So I ditched it.

Trading and this software became my everything.

I started spreading the word about my tool, thinking it was fresh and unique.

Then I spotted a new competitor charging ahead fast.

Solo, it’s going to be rough to outpace them. But I’m all in. I love the fight. My goal? Make the absolute best product out there.

This journey’s been wild. Ups, downs, twists I never saw coming. But every bite of it? Worth it.