Hi everyone! And welcome to this new episode.

In last week's episode, I shared some learnings about the hyper freelancing model and growing B2B SaaS companies, as an advisor.

Today I want to share the reflections that I had on: why I started working in technology.  

I’ve thought a lot about this when I was alone in Bali six months ago, and the answer I've come up with is: it's about The Magic.

About the magic you can feel when you first discover something new, with technology.

Let me give you some examples of that. Some of them will probably resonate with you, because you've also lived the experience, and some of them are personal.

The first time I discovered Twitter.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was maybe 14-15 years old.

I was at my grandparent’s house, in the French countryside, in the garden on my iPod touch (and remember: the iPod touch was not connected to the cellular network it was only connecting to the internet through wifi).

To connect to the internet, I had to somehow hack the neighbor's Wi-Fi — and link it to my iPod touch. So here you have the context.

And I don't remember how, but I signed up to Twitter and I discovered something absolutely crazy at that time.

It was a new way to interact with others.

It was absolutely transforming because it was the first time that you were able to interact with others online, in real-time, in a really nice and innovative way.

But the thing is, as I wasn't connected to the internet (except with the neighbor's wifi) I had to stick to the Bush on the side of the garden to be able to connect to the wifi.

And I did it, maybe for 11 hours straight, just because I was absolutely amazed with this new thing that was Twitter, back in the day.

It was really something that felt like magic because it was absolutely new. We weren’t able to put words on what was happening basically.

Plus, Twitter was quite small also, especially in France. There weren't a lot of people connecting to Twitter in 2010, 2011. So I was absolutely amazed and shocked by it.

This is the first example of the magic that you can feel thanks to technology.

The first time you “Shazamed” something

Again, this felt like magic at this time and I super into it — right away. It was a very special moment.

It was an old cousin who bought an iPhone at this time, and he was just happy to share what he was capable to do with his iPhone.

And Shazam was one of the things he was capable to do, and it was really, really amazing.

I think we all have souvenirs and great moments of magic that we felt thanks to technology.

Pinch to Zoom

Speaking about the iPhone. I also remember the very first time that we've seen the pinch to zoom. You know, when you put your two fingers on the screen and then zoom with it.

Today, it feels pretty normal but, again, it felt like magic at the very beginning.

And that's the whole point I want to describe here.

It’s that technology, at some point when it's new, feels like magic.

And then it becomes part of our lives until a new technology comes again that feels again like magic, and so it goes.

Spotify felt like magic

The last example I have about this magic thing is an example that you are able to see on a Netflix series (on the Spotify one).

And it's the scene when Per Sundin (he is, if I remember well, a big director in the music industry, let's say Sony Corporation— the music branch of the company).

And he discovers Spotify for the first time on, Daniel Ek (Spotify co-founder's computer).

And he doesn't understand what happens basically.

And this feels like magic to him, and to anyone actually who discovered Spotify for the first time back in the days 2004, 2005/6 Spotify was playing music right away without any delay, and for people at this time, it felt like magic.

It was unbelievable to see all this music playing without any problem thanks to Spotify's technology.

This post deserves to be shared because I just screen-recorded Netflix. Do you know how hard this is?! (Highly illegal too 🫨)

I guess you got it.

The reason I got into tech is just because of the magic you can feel thanks to technology and the magic I felt when I was a kid discovering technology.

And actually, I am still a kid. I think we are all still kids. I like to believe this, that we are all still kids wanting to build great things that feel like magic.

The examples I gave have things in common. Most of the time they are mobile. There are B2C products.

Magic, in B2B SaaS?

Of course, Apple and the iPhone played a big role in the reasons I got into tech.

But I think B2B is getting funnier and funnier.

So another great example, of the magic you can feel with tech is the first time you play around with Notion.

And more recently with AI, and maybe within Notion with Notion AI.

I wrote recently a post about the "post-Notion B2B SaaS area". And I think this is really something that is going to happen.

Many people will be able to create B2B products that feel like B2C products and that have some magic within them. Pretty excited about this.

Also for instance, right now I'm recording this podcast and writing at the same time with Descript, as I mentioned previously. And Descript is absolutely magic. Magic at its finest in technology, and it is a B2B product.

So of course there are, and there will be many opportunities, to create B2B products that have magic in them.

And this is absolutely what I want to do.

Disregard the words

I also feel that. Technology feels like magic when you discover things that don't exist yet — that you cannot put words on it.

I read recently a great post about this. It was called "disregard the words". Basically describing this:

You were not able to describe Snapchat at the very beginning, because it was absolutely new, and it didn't exist yet.

Same for the iPhone, same for Notion. And same for the AI wave that is happening right now.

I think this is really one of my goals. To create something that you cannot describe yet. Because it doesn't exist, basically.

The questions I asked myself (and then answered)

Were questions like: what's going to make me happier?

* The answer was not necessarily making more money.

* But I thought that:

* working on something that makes sense to me in the long run

* to build something you're proud of on your deathbed

* and that is pleasant to do along the path.

I thought, well, that is going to be making me happier.

So the conclusion here is that I am optimizing for the process, for the path — and not for the destination.

Two more things:

1. First: It has to feel like a game.

I've never worked because I was supposed to be working. I always worked because it was fun. And because I was passionate about it.

Here I remember a quote from Jeff Bezos

Have fun. Work hard. And make the history.

The beginning of the sentence is: have fun. And I feel like I need to have fun. To play. Not to work.

Because “I'm a kid”. And I also believe that we are all still kids that want to play games. And business is just a game. Like another one.

2. Second: It has to be beautiful.

So I remember joining Qonto, the very first company I worked for when I was a student because I just liked the design and I hated traditional French banks. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Like really. I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing back in the day and now Qonto happens to be a 5 billion company.

And I've been lucky. But I didn't change my mindset about that. I've also been lucky that Qonto served a mass market, which is actually closer to B2C than B2B in the way we were building and growing, which speaks more to me.

Nice design, good apps, useful things… I don't ask for anything more than that.

And it was similar with Ulysse the flight booking website I've worked on for more than a year as well. I mean: I just hate traditional flight booking websites.

So I decided that I would work for a company that improves that.

And this is basically what I want to do all my life.

I don't ask for anything more.

As you can notice, all the companies I've worked for are improving things that feel important to me by leveraging software. And software is the thing that had the biggest impact on my life.

And I also believe that it has the biggest impact on anyone's life actually.

Because software is still eating the world, right?

That being said, I think software is the best way to express myself. I think software is where my genius zone is.

And I really, really want to focus on this for now and for the next years.

So maybe software had the biggest impact after hardware, after Apple hardware, but I don't see myself building a hardware company, yet.

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