The 2 years that have just passed have been rich in discovery and teaching. They led me to create this site and especially to start writing.
To introduce myself, I have been a project manager in IT for almost 20 years. Looking back to my career, I realize that in the first part I have let myself surf on the waves of opportunities that have been presenting themselves to me.
By going from a first job as a fibre optic technician (overseas, please), to a position as a network technician of a French bank, and finally as a project manager within a subsidiary of the same bank. Then I learn all about project management in a IT integrator: managing several projects and clients at the same time, managing deadlines, financial profitability, etc. Learning the hard way… I finally jumped on the other side and became a freelance, to gain a sense of “freedom”, more than for a wish of entrepreneurship.
Like many others, I began to reflect on my situation, how I worked and what I wanted to do next, during 2020’s spring.
I like my job as a project manager. But I have, since college and the discovery of MO5 and other TO7, always liked to code. Why is it not the path I took during my studies, remains a question to which I do not have a satisfactory answer to.
This passion for coding has led me to write small unpretentious programs of which I was, for the most part, the only user. From an animation mocking my employer in merging with an American company, to a Gnome 2.x extension displaying wind forecasts for the coming days (still a fan of windsurfing), to a sports application for WebOS , then for Firefox OS , and an attempt to port it to Cozy Cloud , I touched on C++, Python, and HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
A true happiness, but an amateur happiness. I tried a few years back to convert myself by enrolling in a web developer training at the CNED. But I quickly realized that this type of training (a mixture of face-to-face and work at home) was not suitable for me. I had started to train myself alone with online and physical resources (I have a weakness for good old books with paper in them). So I naturally continued.
Slowly but surely, the idea of adding a software product to my revenue streams has made its way. Until then, the monetization of my «software productions» had never crossed my mind, reflecting the amateur I am.
I came to realize that product do not have to be perfect to be launched that I have crossed the mental threshold and started the search process. Because product means problem to solve.
During this period of reflection and awareness, I continued to explore different topics and areas. That’s how I ended up setting up a home accommodation infrastructure for various services that I use every day. This will be the subject of a series of articles. I learned a lot about containerization solutions, deployment, backup, security tools…
From a more personal point of view, I consider myself a sportsman. I practice by pleasure swimming (between 3 and 4 times a week), by pleasure and utility the « vélo staff » (2 times a week), by necessity running (between 1 and 2 times a week), and windsurfing as soon as I have the opportunity and the time (which means nothing for the last 4 years 😞).
Time passing by and with a professional occupation that allows me to sit on a chair most of the day, keeping a regular physical activity has become essential for me.
A sentence stood out for me. I heard it a morning from a college trying to convince me to go swimming during lunch break, “the hardest part is to get your bag and Go!” Since then, no more bad excuses.
This regular practice leads me to ask myself about the subjects around sport and my past experiences of sport applications offer me a starting point. I will, on this site, share my thoughts and questions about software products related to sport.
The launch of this site was born from this need to write and to share during this journey.
Will it lead to a product that can be sold, or to something else? Time will tell us, or it will prevail.
I just hope that these contributions can be of interest, help, and give ideas to those who have the courage to read them.
See you soon!
Nicolas Delebecque