2024 : Year in review

I definitely have not followed all my wishes from last year, but who does? This year was my 30th year on this big rock, and it marked a turn, more than I thought it would.

• Traveled a lot
• Started my own company
• Wrote a lot more
• I got payed for Open Source work
• Now I'm poor
• But somehow happy
• What's next then?

# Traveled a lot

If you don't know, I'm living in a van.

I converted it myself and traveled through Western Europe.

But not much this year because I had some paperwork to do, and it took me 9 months to get through.

I still traveled a lot, though:

• January started strong: one awesome ski trip with my friends ⛷️
• In February, I attended Laracon EU in Amsterdam!
• In February, I also spent a week in Copenhagen with my friends.
• March: another ski trip with my cousins! ⛷️ I'm addicted!
• May and June: Festival 🎶 !
• In July, we had the Olympics in Paris. It was fun to watch, follow, and attend too. Really good vibes. Surprised.
• In August, I threw a big party for my 30th birthday!
• In October, I spent two weeks in Turkey.
• In November, I traveled in my van in the south of France.

I thought I didn't do much this year, but looking back at my photos:
I had a pretty good year of travels.

Also, that's the trick for your yearly review:
Take your phone and look back at your photos.

# Started my own company

I started a SaaS. Every developer's dream, right?

Well, this year, I realized mine. I launched the first version of unolia.com.

After being at Laracon EU, I made the decision to finally start working on my big idea. I wanted a proof of concept live as fast as possible, so the first three months were very productive. I limited my product to the basics I would need: connecting every major domain provider.

And in June, an open beta was online!

This is not even 1/5 of the ideas I had in mind. I knew I would need to break the project down into reachable goals, so I started with domains. But the ultimate goal is to connect every service you have and write automation between them.

Then... I don't know, it slowed down. I worked on it every month, but not enough.

In October, I took a week to write actual marketing content.

And in November, I integrated Stripe, and it's now a paid product.

I made myself a promise to work at least 1 complete year on it to give it a chance.

I think now that it needs 2 years because of what I see from other similar stories and also because I don't think I worked enough on it this year.

Coding a SaaS is not hard, creating a design can be fun, doing marketing is interesting, and even creating a legal structure is okay.

But doing it all at the same time... boy oh boy, it's exhausting.

# Wrote a lot more

Last year, I published 8 articles here, well 9 with this one.

I want to double that this year.

I love writing. I write a lot in my bed at the end of the day or on a public bench after long hours of driving. Even writing documentation for my code and projects, I just love it.

I secretly hope to write a book someday.

I feel like I'm better at writing in English, and I'm also better at writing in French. I write my adventures in my notes, and sometimes I even make rhymes for the fun of it.

I also tweeted more.

This led me to be more visible on social networks and slowly built an audience.

# I got payed for Open Source work

Last year, I published 4 open-source projects. This year, 8 more!

I like sharing, writing a good API, and creating beautiful READMEs. If I have a coding problem, I'll create a solution for it. It's a good exercise, and it's gratifying because when it's done, it's done (unlike big projects).

Yes, I know that after that, there is some maintenance and updates involved, but so far, I'm enjoying that too.

I don't make any money off it. It was never the goal.

BUT I still earned some money!

Not on my own project, but on NativePHP. Simon reached out to me and wanted to thank me for some of my PRs on the nativephp.com website.

I accepted, and shortly after, I had 250€ in my account.

I was honored and surprised.

It made me so happy! I told all my friends, even though half of my friends didn't understand what open source is.

I should have cried out loud on Twitter too. But I wasn't sure if I should. I hadn't been in this situation before. A "stranger" giving me money for something I happily did for free. Still today, I don't know why I kept it silent.

Because I think it's a movement we have to support. Open-source shouldn't mean free. We're helping each other. It's only fair to help each other financially too.

And everyone should know how awesome Simon is. He's just a good guy. I believe in him, and I hope that he will succeed in every project he decides to go after next year.

I wanna do more open-source, I'm good at it.

# Now I'm poor

Talking about Money, I never been so low.

All my savings are gone.

It's been almost 3 years since I've been unemployed.
I took 2 years to travel and 1 year to discover who I am and what I want.

Quite a long pause you may say but for the outcome, it was worth it.
(you'll see next chapter)

• In November: I had barely enough money to drive back to my hometown.
• Mid December: Don't have enough to pays my insurances.

I should be at the bottom of a pit being eaten by anxiety.

In fact, I almost fell into it.

But I did see it coming one evening. From my bed, I woke up again. And made a list of all my expenses and earnings. Gone through all my accounts, savings, everything.

The result was.. concerning to say the least.

But at least I stopped burying my head in the sand and I had a short-term plan.

So I sold some unused hardware.
And later, all my remaining cryptocurrencies.
I won a little amount of money here and there.

By my estimations, I can live until mid-February. Then... well, I don't know.

I started searching for short missions and peeked at some real jobs, but I don't want to go back to any company. I can't handle having a boss anymore. I want partners. I only want to work with people I could eat lunch with every day (in the sense that I like them).

Having no money has been "good."

Living in a van taught me how valuable water, hot water, electricity, and comfort are.

Being poor taught me how to live with a minimum amount. With my current way of life, I could work on open source all day, every day, for just about ~2000 € per month (before taxes 😅).

Of course, I want more. Just look back at every trip I've taken last year.

But at least I know how to live with less now.

This is now my new minimum I have to achieve.

# But somehow happy

The thing is, I think I finally found how I want to live this life.

Far less alcohol (and drugs)
I used to say that alcohol has no effect on me. And yes, I can drink a considerable amount before losing control. But I also discovered that it was one of the culprits for my degraded health. I don't want to be drunk anymore, even for a good party or a big festival. Life is short; I don't want to waste any days by being hungover. I feel like I'm too old for this. It was fun, but now my body is taking too long to recover.

Live outside
Ok, obviously I don't want to live in a van for the rest of my life. But I like being in contact with nature. If I can, I would continue to travel, go backpacking, and cycle. But the ultimate goal is to have enough money to buy land, have a tiny house, and a garden. Programming with a view.

Focus on myself
I'm done doing things for the love of others. I don't want to be defined by others. I don't want to please anyone. It seems extreme said like this, but I hurt myself a lot just to find someone to love me back. I have made peace with myself. I'm okay being alone most of the time.

Doing what I love
I love tinkering. That's what makes me happy. Domotizing a house, upgrading a car, converting a van, and making web, CLI, and desktop apps are some of the things I have made in the last 3 years, and I absolutely loved doing them. When I was younger, I said that I wanted to be an inventor. And look mom, I did become one!

# What's next then?

Last year I had money but I wasn't really happy.
This year I'm happy but I don't have any money.

Funny how the life works, huh.

So.. Make some money.

Yep, that's the goal..

I still strongly believe in unolia.com. I have many things I would like to solve with it and It didn't get the time it deserved.

You'll see me at Laracon EU.

Last year I did go back from Amsterdam with the motivation to start unolia.com. This year will mark the 1st anniversary of me starting the project and I would like to go out from there with the motivation to double down on it.

I also strongly believe in NativePHP. I think I have submitted at least one PR every week for the last two months. I have ideas for apps to sell and ideas for advanced packages to sell. It has a bright future; I can guarantee you that. I would be involved in this project as much as I can.

But the thing is that I have to start earning money fast.

Like, really fast.

I'm finally good with myself, good with my mind, and my body.

So having a good financial situation is my way to an happy stable life.

I "only" have to reach the 2000 € / month revenue.

I'll make it, for sure.

One way or another, I don't have a choice anymore.

But I think I will stop open-source for a bit and make real money.

Sadly there isn't enough Simon out there to make open-source worth it.

I don't want to ask, but if you read this far and want to support my efforts, I would be grateful! Depending of what rewards you want:

• You can sponsor me through Github Sponsors
• Or subscribe to unolia.com

Either way, it would be life saving right now.

And please, comment below.

Even just a smiley would mean a lot to me, it shows real people are reading it.

I'm going to end this article by wishing you all the best.

If you are that far into listening to a man struggle, you're one of the best people this planet has to offer.

I hope you’re okay and that you take care of yourself.

I wish all the you success and happiness.

See you in 2025.

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Post scriptum.
I read somewhere that the decisions taken in the European Commission were better because most of them weren't using their main language. The experiments showed that communicating in another language put distance between the writer and the text, eliminating emotions in the decision-making.

At some point in this article, I asked myself why I don't ever express myself that much outside of my blog. I think writing in English may help me have the courage to write some of those lines.

So I'm grateful for this. Hope you liked it.