Launching My Professional Blog: The Start of a New Adventure

It’s January 8, 2025, and I’m finally taking the time to lay the foundation for this blog (which, by the way, took way too long to come to life! See the timeline below). It’s been quite some time since I last wrote a proper retrospective. My last post on the BearStudio blog, titled "4 Years of Entrepreneurship at BearStudio," feels like a lifetime ago… Since then, there’s been radio silence. But for good reason: I had a lot going on.

A Little Context: The Making of This Blog

For those curious, here’s a quick timeline of the conception and realization of this site:

Mid-February 2024: First discussion about the project.
May 3, 2024: Project relaunched.
June 5, 2024: Mockups finalized.
July 8, 2024: Version 1 of the site went live.
August 22, 2024: Content updates, including articles and (possibly?) the list of conferences.
September 10, 2024: Domain name secured, platform ready for publishing, site fully in production.

And there you have it. Funny how internal projects always take much longer than expected, right? (Quite ironic, considering how quickly we deliver for our clients…)

Why This Blog?

Good question.

The idea behind this blog is:

To share a roadmap of the themes and topics I’ll be addressing.
To hold myself accountable. Over the years, I’ve learned that when I publicly announce something, I feel obligated to follow through. (Making my projects public pushes me to execute them—something not so common these days, considering how many people talk big but deliver little. 😏)

Looking Back: A Busy Period

Here’s a glimpse of what I’ve been juggling over the past few years, in addition to the daily management of BearStudio:

International Development: Expanding BearStudio’s client base and sourcing qualified partners in the UAE, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Tunisia, and Belgium.
Open Source: While my personal contributions have been modest, I’ve championed open source within BearStudio’s culture. I’m particularly proud of projects like StartUI, Ficus UI, and Formiz.
Unique Team Retreats: For me, company retreats are not just about team bonding. They create shared experiences, build resilience, and foster personal growth.
Growth and Daily Operations: Like any growing business, BearStudio has faced its share of challenges.
Codeurs en Seine: I organized monthly meetups and annual conferences for almost five years before stepping away in late 2023 to focus on Fork it!.

And 2024? A Marathon of Projects

2024 was a wild year, where I launched far too many things at once:

Organizing Fork it! conferences in France, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Tunisia.
Expanding into the Benelux and Asian markets.
Strengthening my personal branding.
Overhauling BearStudio’s internal structure.
Personal milestones: welcoming a baby 🍼, buying an apartment 🏡, and learning to read and speak Thai.
Launching a podcast.

Quick note to all the “busy entrepreneurs” out there:

In nearly 10 years of entrepreneurship, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been late to a meeting or complained about my workload. With solid organization and a reliable team, there’s no need for excuses. 💪

A Vision for 2025

This year looks to be a bit different (hopefully!). With a little one at home, managing multiple projects simultaneously will be harder. But it’s the perfect opportunity to take a step back and share the lessons I’ve learned.

My main goal? Turning BearStudio into an even more efficient machine, especially on the marketing front. After years of searching for miracle solutions (spoiler: they don’t exist), I’m sticking to BearStudio’s “no bullshit” methodology:

Set clear objectives: No fluff, every action must have a purpose.
Implement concrete actions: Avoid endless discussions—act first.
Test, measure, and adjust: What doesn’t work gets refined.
Pass the baton: Once the framework is solid and results are consistent, I delegate to "run" experts—people far better than me at managing the day-to-day. (One day, I’ll write an entire article on the difference between "build" and "run.")

Projects for 2025

Fork it! Events

Organize 2–3 Fork it! Day events.
Plan a dozen meetups (even 5 would be a win).

Podcasts

Release 4–5 episodes of the podcast in French.
Launch the podcast in another language (likely Arabic 🇹🇳).

Content Production

Write 20–40 articles.
Prepare and deliver 2–3 talks on tech and entrepreneurship.
Host live Twitch sessions to discuss the IT industry “with no filter.”

BearStudio

Continue BearStudio’s international expansion.
Develop a solid marketing process to eventually hand over to specialists.

Why This Blog?

This blog will serve as a tool to:

Explain my projects and approaches.
Analyze what works (and what doesn’t).
Track my progress throughout the year.
Prepare the ULTIMATE project (teasing... stay tuned).

For those interested, you’ll get to follow a large chunk of my adventures, successes, and failures right here. I’ll share with my usual unfiltered, straightforward tone.

I also invite you to follow me on social media, where I plan to be more active 🤞. There should be a lot happening in the coming months, both professionally and personally. And if you enjoy my “no bullshit” style, that’s where you’ll find more of it!

Honestly, I’m not sure everyone loves this approach… The number of people who end up blaming me for their own failures is fascinating. 🤔 But hey, even if some think I’m a “jerk,” that doesn’t make what I share any less interesting.

Wait & see!