My parents, and later the internet, taught me I could build anything.
I was about seven years old when I saw Apollo 13 (1995) on TV. It's about astronauts on a mission to the moon, who face catastrophic spacecraft malfunctions. They fight to survive and make it back home.
I was fascinated by astronomy, and for my birthday, my dad bought me my first computer. My mom installed me many apps on it, one of which was Stellarium, a free, open-source planetarium software.
I wanted to know everything about space. What is the universe made of? Why are there so many stars in the sky? Is there another form of life? My brain, probably sometimes annoyed by asking myself hundreds of questions, sparked my curiosity and encouraged me to tinker.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was going to be a builder. This obsession with building things continued throughout my childhood. By third grade, I was spending most of my time on maths and art. I loved drawing and painting.
You’d find video games at the top of my Christmas list every year. I’d rush off to my room to boot up my computer and play Anno, Civilization, Sim City, and more. And don’t forget Pokémon on Nintendo DS!
I had a love for technology and a desire to understand how it worked.
My early teenage years were spent on the internet. I was born and raised in a small rural town of France. There wasn't much diversity or places to hang out, just many fields.
While I enjoyed some parts of my town, I didn’t mesh with many of the kids at my school. I quickly discovered the depths of internet. I played video games with a friend from the UK and another from the US almost every week.
Video game culture led me to online forums, which led me to photo editing for signature banners, which led me to video editing for highlight montages. I learned through shoddy online tutorials and by stumbling through software.
Most 10-year-olds aren’t buying thousand-dollar professional audio/video software, so I found ways to (ahem) completely legally download it to tinker.
Photoshop. After Effects. Cinema 4D. FL Studio. I had unlimited free time and plenty of creative ideas. I edited videos, designed logos, and made soundtracks for fun.
When I was 14, I convinced my mom to buy a bunch of computer parts so I could build my own computer. I had no idea what I was doing. I learned from strangers on the internet.
I’ve always loved learning. Because my high school didn’t have programming classes, I learned it all by myself. I watched countless tutorials to learn more about Cinema 4D and After Effects. Then I decided to try to fulfill my childhood dream of becoming a builder.
I went to EMN business school to study abroad.
Aside college, I learned to code with HTML, then CSS, and finally JavaScript. The web made me love software. Being able to quickly iterate and share websites with anyone was incredible.
During college, I had three six-month exchanges: one in UAI (Chile) studying economics, another studying strategy at TUD (Dublin), and finally lean management at UMB (Boston).
I also spent a full-year in Oxford studying finance and another two in Paris studying marketing.
I went deep on web development in my free time, building Neap. During the day, I learned how to build and run a business, and at night, I’d take what I learned and apply it. I loved it.
There’s still much work to do. I’m only twenty-two and excited about what’s yet to come.
Maybe I didn’t end up exploring the universe, but I’m quite proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. I’m incredibly grateful to my parents and to those strangers on the internet who showed me I could build anything.