I remember it was 2017, I just had moved from Quebec, Canada to Orlando, Florida. I had quit my job to get away from the cold, and move to another country to get a job and start my side hustle that was gonna be epic. I remember I made my first post on the fast lane forum when I was in a shitty Airbnb. I remember MJ answered my post, holy shit that gave me confidence that I could make it. I was so inspired, it was the start of my journey. I didn't have a place to live yet, and I didn't knew anyone but I was determined that this was my time to shine.
I was heavily influenced by MJ's story, I was listening to MFL while at work back in Quebec, and that definitely inspired me to make the move. After staying in different Airbnb for about 3 months, I found a job in a Fintech company as a software engineer. I have been a video game developer for the previous years but I wanted something a little bit more "chill" so I could have more time to start working on my side hustle. I got my own place 15 minutes from my job, it was my time to shine now.
The thing is that, I was stuck on what idea to start with. I started a shopify store selling vegan merch. It was a passion of mine, and I was tired on just keep looking for ideas so I started. I was motivated for about 2-3 months, then when nothing was happening, the motivation dwindled, and I was telling myself that maybe it wasn't for me. I fell into a depression as I was dealing with being completely alone in another country. At least, I had my software job but I hated it. I was always listening to content on youtube about business but I wasn't really moving at all. Then in 2019 someone said something that clicked with me: "move to somewhere where it's super cheap and quit your job cold turkey so the pressure that you will have to make it, will make it so you will succeed".
I wasn't sure but I took the leap of faith. A huge factor in this was also that I had met a very cute girl from Mississippi when I was doing a half ironman in New Orleans so the choice was easier to make. I had $35k saved and now I was gonna start a consulting agency. I was training for an ironman at the time, and I didn't take any PTO at my other job that year so I thought: I can chill for a bit so I told myself that I was going to take 3-4 weeks off. That turned into almost 2 years. I was so disappointed in myself. No need to tell you that again, I was in a big depression, feeling like an absolute failure. It would've laster longer if I have more saved honestly but when I saw that I was at $5k in my bank account, I couldn't tolerate any lower.
I was still programming a little bit on the side, and I googled "best paid programming language" and I found Go to be one of those so I told myself that I was going to find a remote job in Go even though I had 0 experience so I started learning it day and night, and applying for jobs was my job. It was fun honestly, it gave me some motivation even though part of me was also feeling like a failure to get back to the 9 to 5 grind but I wasn't going to back to freeze my a$$ in Quebec.
So after about 2 months, I found a job that paid twice what my previous job paid. I still wasn't proud to going back to 9 to 5 but at least that was something good for me. The fear now though was that I was going to get comfortable and totally give up on the entrepreneurship route.
I stayed in MS for another year but when I had a little bit saved from the job, I knew that I wanted to come back to Florida because I just loved the sunshine state so I moved to St. Petersburg. At that point, I didn't have any side hustle, and I was comfortable but the idea was always there. I've always wanted to start a business since I was 25 when I volunteered in a Farm Sanctuary. This is a place where animals that are often abandoned by farms because they are too sick and unworthy for meat/milk go and are healed, and live a normal life of freedom.
When I went vegan in 2014, it was such an emotional shock to me seeing all the pain that these animals had, that I wanted to see in person these animals that I had eaten for so many years. Before going there, I thought that I wanted to start a Sanctuary myself one day maybe. When I was done my 3 months of volunteering there, and I saw how much work it was, and how low the employees were paid, I thought that I could contribute way more if I found a way to make a lot of money and give it back so that's when for me I started looking into business and then eventually found the MFL and then started this whole journey of moving to the US.
Come to today, I'm still working that same job that I don't hate, and it's been almost 10 years since I first posted on the MFL. Part of me feels such shame that I haven't accomplished anything in that time. At my age (35), MJ was almost already selling his business for millions, and I've been feeling like it was too late for me. I cannot accept this though, I heard a quote yesterday: "a lot of people wait for the perfect condition to start but starting is the perfect condition" so I told myself on a random Monday, tonight is the night.
I set myself a challenge to make a $1k/MRR SaaS by the end of 2027. That gives me enough time that it feels believable. The goal would be to grow it to eventually go on it full time, but starting as a side hustle since I'm scared I would cone back to $5k in my bank and then repeat the same thing I did last time. I have no clue what I'm gonna build yet, I'm in the idea phase but I'm documenting my journey. I've always loved sharing but always thought: "who the F*ck are you to share anything?" but F*ck it, I've also learned to let some of these thoughts pass with some of Michael Singer's teachings especially in his book Wisdom Untethered that I read recently. The whole book repeats pretty much the exact same concept but angled a bit differently, and that stuck with me that getting out of my comfort zone with a business, and sharing my journey, would be a good way to quiet that voice inside my head by facing the music instead of just avoiding it.
So here's my first YT video in a long time:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_CW9FLASnQ
This is day 1 out of 495 (number of days until the end of 2027). I already got 10 subscribers, which I'm very thankful for. The video talks about pretty much what I just said here though not as much in detail but it's mostly the same. I will be posting an update on the journey every other week, and I'm thinking of posting more. There are plenty of things that I enjoy sharing, especially AI, I've been using it a lot to code, we use it at work all the time, and I'm very confident that I can build anything pretty much. The goal now is to find, what are we building, and who's gonna pay for that?!
Hope that this new introduction will lead to something better than last time.
Claude
I was heavily influenced by MJ's story, I was listening to MFL while at work back in Quebec, and that definitely inspired me to make the move. After staying in different Airbnb for about 3 months, I found a job in a Fintech company as a software engineer. I have been a video game developer for the previous years but I wanted something a little bit more "chill" so I could have more time to start working on my side hustle. I got my own place 15 minutes from my job, it was my time to shine now.
The thing is that, I was stuck on what idea to start with. I started a shopify store selling vegan merch. It was a passion of mine, and I was tired on just keep looking for ideas so I started. I was motivated for about 2-3 months, then when nothing was happening, the motivation dwindled, and I was telling myself that maybe it wasn't for me. I fell into a depression as I was dealing with being completely alone in another country. At least, I had my software job but I hated it. I was always listening to content on youtube about business but I wasn't really moving at all. Then in 2019 someone said something that clicked with me: "move to somewhere where it's super cheap and quit your job cold turkey so the pressure that you will have to make it, will make it so you will succeed".
I wasn't sure but I took the leap of faith. A huge factor in this was also that I had met a very cute girl from Mississippi when I was doing a half ironman in New Orleans so the choice was easier to make. I had $35k saved and now I was gonna start a consulting agency. I was training for an ironman at the time, and I didn't take any PTO at my other job that year so I thought: I can chill for a bit so I told myself that I was going to take 3-4 weeks off. That turned into almost 2 years. I was so disappointed in myself. No need to tell you that again, I was in a big depression, feeling like an absolute failure. It would've laster longer if I have more saved honestly but when I saw that I was at $5k in my bank account, I couldn't tolerate any lower.
I was still programming a little bit on the side, and I googled "best paid programming language" and I found Go to be one of those so I told myself that I was going to find a remote job in Go even though I had 0 experience so I started learning it day and night, and applying for jobs was my job. It was fun honestly, it gave me some motivation even though part of me was also feeling like a failure to get back to the 9 to 5 grind but I wasn't going to back to freeze my a$$ in Quebec.
So after about 2 months, I found a job that paid twice what my previous job paid. I still wasn't proud to going back to 9 to 5 but at least that was something good for me. The fear now though was that I was going to get comfortable and totally give up on the entrepreneurship route.
I stayed in MS for another year but when I had a little bit saved from the job, I knew that I wanted to come back to Florida because I just loved the sunshine state so I moved to St. Petersburg. At that point, I didn't have any side hustle, and I was comfortable but the idea was always there. I've always wanted to start a business since I was 25 when I volunteered in a Farm Sanctuary. This is a place where animals that are often abandoned by farms because they are too sick and unworthy for meat/milk go and are healed, and live a normal life of freedom.
When I went vegan in 2014, it was such an emotional shock to me seeing all the pain that these animals had, that I wanted to see in person these animals that I had eaten for so many years. Before going there, I thought that I wanted to start a Sanctuary myself one day maybe. When I was done my 3 months of volunteering there, and I saw how much work it was, and how low the employees were paid, I thought that I could contribute way more if I found a way to make a lot of money and give it back so that's when for me I started looking into business and then eventually found the MFL and then started this whole journey of moving to the US.
Come to today, I'm still working that same job that I don't hate, and it's been almost 10 years since I first posted on the MFL. Part of me feels such shame that I haven't accomplished anything in that time. At my age (35), MJ was almost already selling his business for millions, and I've been feeling like it was too late for me. I cannot accept this though, I heard a quote yesterday: "a lot of people wait for the perfect condition to start but starting is the perfect condition" so I told myself on a random Monday, tonight is the night.
I set myself a challenge to make a $1k/MRR SaaS by the end of 2027. That gives me enough time that it feels believable. The goal would be to grow it to eventually go on it full time, but starting as a side hustle since I'm scared I would cone back to $5k in my bank and then repeat the same thing I did last time. I have no clue what I'm gonna build yet, I'm in the idea phase but I'm documenting my journey. I've always loved sharing but always thought: "who the F*ck are you to share anything?" but F*ck it, I've also learned to let some of these thoughts pass with some of Michael Singer's teachings especially in his book Wisdom Untethered that I read recently. The whole book repeats pretty much the exact same concept but angled a bit differently, and that stuck with me that getting out of my comfort zone with a business, and sharing my journey, would be a good way to quiet that voice inside my head by facing the music instead of just avoiding it.
So here's my first YT video in a long time:
This is day 1 out of 495 (number of days until the end of 2027). I already got 10 subscribers, which I'm very thankful for. The video talks about pretty much what I just said here though not as much in detail but it's mostly the same. I will be posting an update on the journey every other week, and I'm thinking of posting more. There are plenty of things that I enjoy sharing, especially AI, I've been using it a lot to code, we use it at work all the time, and I'm very confident that I can build anything pretty much. The goal now is to find, what are we building, and who's gonna pay for that?!
Hope that this new introduction will lead to something better than last time.
Claude
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