Comes story : Decision

As promised, in a series of articles entitled story, I will attempt to tell the project's entrepreneurial tale: Comes.io.

It wasn't easy to know where to start. A project doesn't happen overnight. However, there is a crucial moment when you get started. In my case, I took that leap the day I switched 100% on a project. I will try to explain how I came to this decision.

Since I was 14, I have been passionate about IT. I started a community around the iPhone and its hacks. Subsequently, I worked on managing a community of video game servers. Then, I took a self-entrepreneur status to generate some income on web / iOS projects. And finally, we worked together at three auto-entrepreneurs for shared projects.

Therefore, I did my studies and career in this field, a technical diploma in networks and telecommunications, then a generalist engineering school. I'm not what you might call an expert (some are so great !). But I like to test every subject from start to end of a project. Through my studies, I also understood that what I loved were teamwork and management. Accordingly, I completed my engineering school with a dual degree in business school. Management became my principal career goal, but also my passion (many magazines, books ...).

I was fortunate enough to accomplish this within the creation of the Big Data team of a major bank by experiencing the overall team's growth to over 120 people in two years. What a race! An excellent experience. It allowed me to try different roles and technologies in various positions like management, sales, communication. A learning bubble, Dev Front & Back, Big Data, DevOps, Data visualization, UX, Story Telling ... And a wish to break things up! Everything was in for a foolproof dynamic except handling time passing by.

The time, this absolute thing always present. I'm a Steve Jobs mindset and accomplishments fan :

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, dare to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. ”

Like any sizeable group, there are difficulties. We all know it. It's an ocean liner; turns are challenging. Things are too slow, a lot of resistance to change, for good or bad reasons, it's a complicated subject. Like all things, there are pros and cons, and we often learn that with age, the importance of taking a step back. I cannot thank enough my team, whom I see regularly and with whom I hope to work again. Excellent job, fantastic situation, exceptional team, but we had finished the mission... Some are there to initiate and break things; set first production. Then you have to know how to pass the torch and hope they will take it up at scale. This delicate moment often acted by strategy must be carefully managed and done in the right way at the right time. It requires insights and a good view of the state. I see time flying by, some people thinking about moving. I thought maybe my time had come.

Like anyone of my generation, came the question... what am I going to do next?

Since I was young, I always told myself that one day I would start my business. In my treehouse, I was thinking about what I could do. Why? I couldn't explain, maybe because I met entrepreneurs around my parents. I wanted to try it, build with my rules. That's probably the key, the appetite of creation.

So, besides my studies and my work, I have had many experiences and this tendency to realize projects or ideas all the time. But I found that the cost in time to try a project was too high, without finding a suitable solution.

That's why I started working on WeAreOpenSource. We try to build a toolbox to create projects. Open source in his mindset is something fundamental to me. Work shared free, helping standard progress. What could be better than putting assets in place to help try out scalable projects while avoiding costly refactors. So many things will not be realized because of these first gaps… If I can reduce them and share how, individuals, companies, I could use it.

Coming back to where we were, I had this asset on hand, many ideas, and I felt that the time had come for me to change jobs. The choices available to me were :

• A startup: I have always dreamed of a startup, but I didn't find an opportunity that made me dream.
• A company: I just had this adventure; it would probably be a similar one. I didn't want to and didn't have an alternative opportunity that I liked.
• A consulting company: It's enriching; it allows us to see several companies in several missions. However, I did not fall in love with the opportunities. And I feel like too many people are doing this. Maybe old school, but I still believe in the feeling of belonging to a company, a common goal.
• Go independent: Why not, but ... Remember, you love teamwork. There is not a lot of mission to manage people. But it allows us to work from anywhere, and to go deeper into tech, can be something to target after.
• Or try to start my startup: I've always dreamed of it; I promised myself to do it once before I turned 30; I listen to lots of podcasts on the subject ... Maybe now is the time?

My conclusion was that now was the time to jump into the void. Life had taken a lot from me from a personal perspective these last years.  It's now or never. I don't yet have a particular attachment, what should happen soon in the next few years. And after having given all my energies on professional and personal subjects, it is time to provide it for me, time to change and get back to that early rage.

After giving it a lot of thought, the goal is to learn, step back, and grow. Whatever it's a failure or a success, that learning is still there. It's a big jump, but the progression of myself and life will always be present. We have nothing to lose, everything to gain. The risk is, therefore, relative. Believe in your project and target success, but it's normal to consider everything. A quote I appreciate without remembering the author says:

An entrepreneur is a pessimist in the hold with an optimist at the helm.

So I jump, but what am I going to do with my knowledge? We will talk about it in the next Story: the plan.

Contact me by email to discuss or give me feedback. I am open to any criticism and always ready to help :).