# About · Kenny Alami > A rough timeline of Kenny Alami's path from a Paris coaching company in 2013 to TERA ecovillage in 2016 to game writing in Vancouver to operations work in 2025–26. Canonical HTML: https://kennyalami.com/about Markdown source: https://kennyalami.com/md/about.md --- # About A rough timeline of where I've been and what I've worked on. 1. ## 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 2. ## 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 3. ## 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 4. ## 2011 - Came back to Economics at Panthéon Sorbonne and finished the first year (felt easy after science path in high school with math specialization 5. ## 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. 6. ## 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. 7. ## 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. 8. ## 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?". 9. ## 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. 10. ## 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. 11. ## 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. 12. ## 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. 13. ## 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. 14. ## 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). 15. ## 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). 16. ## 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. 17. ## 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. 18. ## 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. 19. ## 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 20. [Now](https://kennyalami.com/now) What I'm focused on these days.