About
A rough timeline of where I've been and what I've worked on.
2008
- Almost had to do my second year of high school again. But I defended my case in front of a board and it worked (didn't work for my friend though and he cried lol).
- Read my first self-help book (Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins) and started on a path of self responbility.
- I never had to do an effort to study and never took school seriously but this shifted then
2009
- Started learning about trading and practicing with fake assets.
- Read too many books about psychology and manipulation.
- Passed the baccalauréat with merit by leaving almost all test 45 minutes before the end
2010
- Only got accepted at Economics at Panthéon Sorbonne because of a past of shitty grades
- Felt lost and did not finish the year
- Went deep into value investing
2011
- Came back to Economics at Panthéon Sorbonne and finished the first year (felt easy after science path in high school with math specialization
2012
- Felt Economics and university were too theorical and barely involved creating something of value or doing real projects.
- I missed an exam against my will and decided that was a sign to drop out and start my own thing.
- Went way too deep into the content of people making money online but I started writing a blog.
2013
- Filed my first company in Paris, a coaching outfit called The Real Lifestyle.
- I had no idea how to get clients, nor how to build and sell a product/service. I tried random things and made only 80 euros.
- Wrote a newsletter about coaching and leadership and met some of my readers in Paris.
2014
- First trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles (visited the Google campus).
- Bought a John Truby comedy-writing course. Comedy stayed in the toolkit.
- Wrote my first collection of poems.
- Moved to Montpellier.
2015
- Moved to Toulouse.
- Tried to launch a couple of education companies. Neither worked.
- Earned Octalysis Level 1 (a gamification framework).
- Started sketching the seed of a vision, "What if life was like a game?".
2016
- Joined the TERA ecovillage in Lot-et-Garonne.
- Designed a gamified onboarding
- Designed and planted a food forest with a small team (autumn–spring); published as photographer on the Permaculture Design articles.
2017
- Left TERA with €20 on a recumbent bike named Rosita. The goal was to see if I could have fun even in the hardest moments.
- Rode through France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Csechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy.
- Interviewed by an Italian slow-travel magazine in December.
2018
- Wrote an essay to connect games, play, playfulness and what I learned from Jordan Peterson's book (Maps of Meaning) and courses.
- Got accepted into Vancouver Film School to study game writing.
- Decided I wanted to walk from Rome to Jerusalem with my backpack full to the brim and no money.
- Walked from Rome to Assisi and never felt more sore.
- Came back to France because my knee was in massive pain (I was reckless).
- Completed Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain (Cohort 11).
- Took Chris Crawford’s 15-week interactive-storytelling course (the founder of GDC).
- First game-engine attempt: a small Scratch game called Lobster boi.
- Prepared the Canada move.
2019
- Landed in Vancouver.
- Started Vancouver Film School (Writing for Film, TV & Games).
- Did fun projects like directing, writing, producing, and editing a Motion Capture sci-fi scene.
2020
- Met my wife Paula.
- Wrote a lot, including CINDE-12, a Twine COVID satire co-written with Arthur Protasio for IntroComp 2020.
- Read a bunch of industry scripts as a coverage reader at Integral Artists.
- Made my first dollars as a writer.
- One of my freelance work won an award (but the name on Imdb has a typo).
- Started a rock climbing obsession.
2021
- BCIT business diploma, with honors.
- Project Coordinator/Manager at Lighthouse Labs.
- Earned CAPM + CSM certifications.
- Discovered Zapier.
- First 3-month long rock climbing course with Paula (twice per week from 6 to 8 am, hardcore).
2022
- Joined Turtle as a producer, working with Yahoo, Binance, Telus among others.
- Shipped my first Android game, The Dogginator (push-up fitness gamification).
- Earned Octalysis Level 1 again (they had me do it again to get Level 2).
2023
- Joined the small bets community to try to escape the 9-5.
- Decided to learn coding and I launched my first French web game with the help of ChatGPT (jeudupendu.com).
- Got married.
- Quit Turtle to go full-time on automation and operations.
2024
- Became a parent.
- Ran a 36-day “sell something for $1+ every day” challenge.
- Shipped a Substack with twelve essays and five founder interviews.
- Launched a paid Upwork course on Gumroad.
- Second 3-month long rock climbing course alone this time (once per week at night, mostly theory. Not a fan.).
- Started learning and practicing sales.
2025
- Not Operations expanded.
- Launched the Not a Lab newsletter.
- Focusing on legal-ops work.
- Finished the year with 3-month long bouldering course. Courses or having a coach is the only way for me to be consistent.
2026
- Started the year with the same bouldering course. My dream is to have a rock climbing group of people and I'm starting to build this.
- Built the jeuxvirtuels.com game-site portfolio (jeudupendu.com, jeudusudoku.com, lejeudusolitaire.com).
- Moved to Peru
- Now
What I'm focused on these days.