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Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Hi Fastlaners,
I’ve just finished Choose Hard, Live Easy: The Art of War for Decision-Making. By the way, I couldn’t find a way to mark it as read in my profile settings—perhaps it hasn’t been added there yet.
I’m Almir. I currently work in the corporate Slow Lane as a Senior Software Architect, while building independent products on the side.
Long before reading MJ DeMarco’s books, I had already followed some of the Fastlane principles—sometimes intentionally, sometimes simply because life pushed me in that direction. At other times, however, I made exactly the mistakes the books warn about.
I’ll try to tell the story in order without turning this introduction into a novel.
I was born in Macedonia, a small country in Southeastern Europe, but moved to Italy when I was still a child. I grew up and went to school there. During those years, my family and I also opened a small boutique, alongside my father’s other company, so I had an early glimpse of what it meant to run a business alongside school and everyday life.
I started learning how to build websites and write code when I was around 15. I loved it from the beginning, which eventually led me to study Computer Science.
My first vaguely Fastlane business idea was simple: build websites for as many small clients as possible, host them myself with a small recurring margin, and eventually live from the accumulated hosting revenue.
It didn’t work.
There were too few clients, and several eventually stopped their websites or hosting altogether. There was no meaningful scale, and I certainly hadn’t solved distribution. Nevertheless, the skills I gained would soon become valuable in another way.
During my second semester at university, I took a Web Design course normally attended by students in their sixth semester. The regulations didn’t prohibit first-year students from taking it, so I chose not to wait.
That decision turned out to be important.
Italy was going through a difficult economic period, so I moved to Germany after that semester. I continued my degree remotely a few years later, travelling back to Italy for exams. The websites I had built as side projects became my portfolio and helped me secure a programming position at a startup.
The startup had a model I still find interesting today: one major client paid the bills, while the remaining time was invested in developing an internal product with greater scale potential. The product never made it, and the startup eventually went bankrupt, but the idea stayed with me.
After that, I worked first at an agency and later moved into my current corporate career.
The side projects never really stopped. Even when they failed economically, many of them paid me back in knowledge and career opportunities.
For example, the startup was exploring game development, so I built and published a few small games of my own to understand the process better. I relied too heavily on the distributor, though, and learned that access to a large platform does not mean you control your channel—or even your own business. That is another story, but one that made the Control principle very real to me.
While completing university, I also learned native Android development. In addition to my graduation project, I built an app for tracking cryptocurrencies with a small interactive coin-flip feature. Before that project, I was almost completely unfamiliar with candlestick charts and financial markets, even though I had some ETFs as a typical Slowlaner. Once again, building a product gave me a reason to learn an entirely new field.
When generative AI arrived, I naturally had to experiment with it. By then, there was already a clear pattern in my life: whenever I wanted to learn something new, I connected the learning process to an actual product.
That experiment eventually helped me publish my first books: collections of children’s stories in English and Italian, accompanied by corresponding colouring books. AI assisted with grammar, editing, and parts of the production process, but the stories and ideas were mine—it wasn’t a “write me a book” prompt.
The project also helped me take on more AI-related responsibilities in my main career because I had already spent significant time practising prompt engineering and applying generative AI outside work.
The books were a worthwhile experiment, but Amazon’s print-on-demand economics made me question whether pushing them further would be a sensible use of my time. They may become the foundation for future books, but writing requires a lot of focused time. Before investing more heavily in it, I would prefer to have a business “paying the bills” and creating the freedom to write properly, or to dedicate more effort to other projects that could last, even without immediate economic ROI.
For the past couple of years, I’ve also been building my personal brand around software architecture, product building, and the lessons gathered through these experiments. I’ve produced a few AI-assisted podcast episodes and related videos, including content connected to my books. It is still at an early stage, but I see it as another long-term asset I can build and own.
More recently, the emergence of agentic AI gave me the leverage to revisit another idea from my project backlog. That idea eventually became GoOverlay.
GoOverlay is a web-based service for streamers and their collaborators. It allows a streamer to give selected moderators or producers permission to trigger and manage on-screen overlays remotely while the stream is live.
The inspiration came from television, sports, and esports productions, where someone in a control room manages what appears on screen while the presenter concentrates on the show. GoOverlay aims to bring a simpler, remote version of that collaboration to streamers without requiring the collaborator to be in the same location—or directly control the streaming software.
From my current perspective, the product has several qualities I was missing in previous projects. I own the product and the direct customer relationship, and the standard Free and Premium services can operate asynchronously without being tied directly to my working hours. Custom Enterprise work may still involve my time, but the core service is designed to remain automated and scalable.
I believe the collaboration aspect could be the product’s strongest differentiator—but I may be wrong, and finding out is part of why I am here.
There is also a funny side effect. Producing short promotional videos for social media was taking me far too long, so I built an internal feature that automatically records ready-to-publish vertical videos from predefined settings. It solved my immediate problem, but it may also have standalone potential one day. Apparently, my response to a marketing bottleneck was to build more software—which probably tells you exactly where my comfort zone is.
My account here is actually more than a year old. I created it after reading The Great Rat-Race Escape, but only now have I finally decided to participate properly instead of observing from the outside.
I’m here to connect with other Fastlaners, learn from people who are stronger in the areas where I am still lacking, and hopefully contribute something useful from my own technical and architectural experience.
The recent newsletter about the current AI opportunity particularly resonated with me. On paper, I have the technical background and experience to take advantage of this moment. But being able to build software is not the same as being able to build a successful business.
Recently, as I was preparing to move to a new assignment in my primary job, I was approached about three different projects at the same time. We now have to decide where I can add the most value. It was a reassuring reminder that my skills are clearly in demand within the corporate world.
What has not fully clicked yet is how to translate that same value into demand for something I own—something with asynchronous potential—outside a company that already provides the reputation, clients, and distribution, and that is not tied to my time.
My biggest gaps are currently validation, positioning, marketing, and creating a repeatable customer-acquisition process. Those are the areas where something has not fully clicked yet.
So this is where I am today: grateful for the stability my Slow Lane career has given me, but no longer willing to confuse stability with freedom.
Unplugged—and building consistently toward an Unscripted life.
I’m looking forward to meeting you all.
I suppose my first small “choose hard” decision was to stop observing, stay up late, and finally write this post. Whether “live easy” follows will depend on what I choose—and what I do—next.
I’ve just finished Choose Hard, Live Easy: The Art of War for Decision-Making. By the way, I couldn’t find a way to mark it as read in my profile settings—perhaps it hasn’t been added there yet.
I’m Almir. I currently work in the corporate Slow Lane as a Senior Software Architect, while building independent products on the side.
Long before reading MJ DeMarco’s books, I had already followed some of the Fastlane principles—sometimes intentionally, sometimes simply because life pushed me in that direction. At other times, however, I made exactly the mistakes the books warn about.
I’ll try to tell the story in order without turning this introduction into a novel.
I was born in Macedonia, a small country in Southeastern Europe, but moved to Italy when I was still a child. I grew up and went to school there. During those years, my family and I also opened a small boutique, alongside my father’s other company, so I had an early glimpse of what it meant to run a business alongside school and everyday life.
I started learning how to build websites and write code when I was around 15. I loved it from the beginning, which eventually led me to study Computer Science.
My first vaguely Fastlane business idea was simple: build websites for as many small clients as possible, host them myself with a small recurring margin, and eventually live from the accumulated hosting revenue.
It didn’t work.
There were too few clients, and several eventually stopped their websites or hosting altogether. There was no meaningful scale, and I certainly hadn’t solved distribution. Nevertheless, the skills I gained would soon become valuable in another way.
During my second semester at university, I took a Web Design course normally attended by students in their sixth semester. The regulations didn’t prohibit first-year students from taking it, so I chose not to wait.
That decision turned out to be important.
Italy was going through a difficult economic period, so I moved to Germany after that semester. I continued my degree remotely a few years later, travelling back to Italy for exams. The websites I had built as side projects became my portfolio and helped me secure a programming position at a startup.
The startup had a model I still find interesting today: one major client paid the bills, while the remaining time was invested in developing an internal product with greater scale potential. The product never made it, and the startup eventually went bankrupt, but the idea stayed with me.
After that, I worked first at an agency and later moved into my current corporate career.
The side projects never really stopped. Even when they failed economically, many of them paid me back in knowledge and career opportunities.
For example, the startup was exploring game development, so I built and published a few small games of my own to understand the process better. I relied too heavily on the distributor, though, and learned that access to a large platform does not mean you control your channel—or even your own business. That is another story, but one that made the Control principle very real to me.
While completing university, I also learned native Android development. In addition to my graduation project, I built an app for tracking cryptocurrencies with a small interactive coin-flip feature. Before that project, I was almost completely unfamiliar with candlestick charts and financial markets, even though I had some ETFs as a typical Slowlaner. Once again, building a product gave me a reason to learn an entirely new field.
When generative AI arrived, I naturally had to experiment with it. By then, there was already a clear pattern in my life: whenever I wanted to learn something new, I connected the learning process to an actual product.
That experiment eventually helped me publish my first books: collections of children’s stories in English and Italian, accompanied by corresponding colouring books. AI assisted with grammar, editing, and parts of the production process, but the stories and ideas were mine—it wasn’t a “write me a book” prompt.
The project also helped me take on more AI-related responsibilities in my main career because I had already spent significant time practising prompt engineering and applying generative AI outside work.
The books were a worthwhile experiment, but Amazon’s print-on-demand economics made me question whether pushing them further would be a sensible use of my time. They may become the foundation for future books, but writing requires a lot of focused time. Before investing more heavily in it, I would prefer to have a business “paying the bills” and creating the freedom to write properly, or to dedicate more effort to other projects that could last, even without immediate economic ROI.
For the past couple of years, I’ve also been building my personal brand around software architecture, product building, and the lessons gathered through these experiments. I’ve produced a few AI-assisted podcast episodes and related videos, including content connected to my books. It is still at an early stage, but I see it as another long-term asset I can build and own.
More recently, the emergence of agentic AI gave me the leverage to revisit another idea from my project backlog. That idea eventually became GoOverlay.
GoOverlay is a web-based service for streamers and their collaborators. It allows a streamer to give selected moderators or producers permission to trigger and manage on-screen overlays remotely while the stream is live.
The inspiration came from television, sports, and esports productions, where someone in a control room manages what appears on screen while the presenter concentrates on the show. GoOverlay aims to bring a simpler, remote version of that collaboration to streamers without requiring the collaborator to be in the same location—or directly control the streaming software.
From my current perspective, the product has several qualities I was missing in previous projects. I own the product and the direct customer relationship, and the standard Free and Premium services can operate asynchronously without being tied directly to my working hours. Custom Enterprise work may still involve my time, but the core service is designed to remain automated and scalable.
I believe the collaboration aspect could be the product’s strongest differentiator—but I may be wrong, and finding out is part of why I am here.
There is also a funny side effect. Producing short promotional videos for social media was taking me far too long, so I built an internal feature that automatically records ready-to-publish vertical videos from predefined settings. It solved my immediate problem, but it may also have standalone potential one day. Apparently, my response to a marketing bottleneck was to build more software—which probably tells you exactly where my comfort zone is.
My account here is actually more than a year old. I created it after reading The Great Rat-Race Escape, but only now have I finally decided to participate properly instead of observing from the outside.
I’m here to connect with other Fastlaners, learn from people who are stronger in the areas where I am still lacking, and hopefully contribute something useful from my own technical and architectural experience.
The recent newsletter about the current AI opportunity particularly resonated with me. On paper, I have the technical background and experience to take advantage of this moment. But being able to build software is not the same as being able to build a successful business.
Recently, as I was preparing to move to a new assignment in my primary job, I was approached about three different projects at the same time. We now have to decide where I can add the most value. It was a reassuring reminder that my skills are clearly in demand within the corporate world.
What has not fully clicked yet is how to translate that same value into demand for something I own—something with asynchronous potential—outside a company that already provides the reputation, clients, and distribution, and that is not tied to my time.
My biggest gaps are currently validation, positioning, marketing, and creating a repeatable customer-acquisition process. Those are the areas where something has not fully clicked yet.
So this is where I am today: grateful for the stability my Slow Lane career has given me, but no longer willing to confuse stability with freedom.
Unplugged—and building consistently toward an Unscripted life.
I’m looking forward to meeting you all.
I suppose my first small “choose hard” decision was to stop observing, stay up late, and finally write this post. Whether “live easy” follows will depend on what I choose—and what I do—next.
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