In 2005 I became self-aware and started hacking. I learned C++ and AutoIt to write desktop applications; I then moved to the web with PHP and JS. I started a few communities around security and programming and started experimenting with advertising revenue and selling software.
In 2007 I decided to leave hacking behind and focus entirely on freelancing. Eventually I was able to grow a pool of repeated customers and stop competing with developers from LCOL countries. Through countless iterations, the prototype of an API creation framework was born - which would then turn into APIPlant.
While freelancing, I jumped on the node.js bandwagon and I started building products, until one became successful enough to pay all my expenses. In 2013, I decided to pursue bigger goals: I co-founded a startup and moved to London to recruit a team.
In 2015, many lessons later, we ran out of money. I got disillusioned with the startup world and started offering my services to the world once more. I then ventured in the corporate and startup world, putting some notches on my career. I started playing around with Machine Learning and exploring a new promising language, Rust.
After adding a few more products under the APIPlant umbrella, in 2021 I decided I had enough of the rainy weather and high taxes - and moved to Paphos, Cyprus.
I didn't spend all my time at beach: I helped organize the Cyprus Developers Community and started a Rust User Group. With the boom of AI, I started working entirely on Generative AI projects, splitting my time between building chat assistants with RAG and generating video and audio.
Will this newfound experience turn into a new product? To be continued...