i don't know much but i know:

• i knew almost all if not all car and bike brands at 2-3 yrs old
• had an independent personality, begging my mum to wander the streets on my own around age 4-5
• used to sell my picturesque (dragons, fire, mythical creatures, etc) paintings at 5-6 years old to my friends' parents
• at 8 when i noticed a larger group of neighbors would buy their groceries at a given time and day of the week, i would press the emergency button in the building's elevator when i saw the first batch returning, so i could charge to help them carry their groceries for a fee

i just wanted to spend my time trying to improve myself doing multiple activities and trying out different ways to make money.

i was in a tricky spot as my grandparents were funding premium education (often top school in the country) for my brother and I, but our single mother didn't have a penny so to speak.

i remember i liked collecting zippo lighters and i needed at least 20€/week just for that.

so that meant my brother and I always felt a bit misplaced there as we'd go to the best school during the day and go to a "bad" neighborhood at night.

so when i wasn't getting in trouble doing stupid stuff with the neighborhood kids or trying to make some money any way i could, i used to play competitive chess, learn advanced maths, and just do lots of logic problems. and of course studying music (piano + music theory) as i was enrolled in a bi-educational system combining music and common core.

ended up winning the state's blitz chess championship under 14 and once travelled to madrid to apply for a mensa membership since the problems i liked to do were harder than typical IQ tests.

changed schools, started an e-commerce clothing reselling business. made some money from that and general reselling and that was the first business i had (vs systematic gigs/questionable one-timers lol).

first decided i was going to do the science coursework in highschool until i was going to be forced to study biology for 2 years - bye bye science course, changed to economics.

finished high school maths with perfect 20/20 grade (weighted average of 3-year course average grade + national exam grade) and it was the only high school subject i knew i liked.

thought about studying mathematics, but i wasn't so keen on going to college so i wanted something that would open some doors in the future and not demand too much of my time.

so because i had a perfect maths score and my high school average was good, i was accepted into the country's most prestigious finance university in the country, which definitely influenced my decision to enroll, as i saw it as an opportunity of dificult access.

in retrospect, without a doubt, i should've decided on computer science/software engineering or maths for my bachelors degree.

the subjects i would naturally enjoy studying were calculus I, II, and linear algebra. also had appreciation for data analysis and probability, statistics for economics, and finance.

while studying linear algebra during my first year i became so absorbed in understanding the deeper meaning of matrices and eigenvalues in advanced linear algebra that i ended up getting to an optimized output vs Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization, a concept we were studing at a superficial level.

after that the adjunct maths professor spent 3 months proving my conclusions as i couldn't do it on my own and offered me a chance to write a paper with him. however, he only got back to me about a year and change later when my focus was already way outside maths. years later though i tried reaching out to him to do it but this time he was the one who was unavailable, but at least i got an excellent reference letter from it which mentions this event.

mid-degree i knew i didn't want to get the usual office job for which the only palpable skill is ending up becoming a pro at excelsheets and office chit chat, therefore i decided to start learning about digital marketing and e-commerce.

so eventually enrolled in a 1-year academy and got a technical professional certificate in digital marketing and e-commerce management.

at this time i was also getting more and more involved in understanding the crypto world, from a technical understanding to general dynamics and how to potentially profit from that inefficient and new industry - this would then gradually pay a lot as i became a bit more comfortable in numerous topics ranging from applied game theory in trading, market microstructure, financial design, systematic futures trading, 2nd and 3rd order derivative events, basic data science, etc.

right after the academy, still in college, got my first more "serious" job after some digital marketing freelancing work which included a part-time digital marketing bootcamp teacher position. so for that first job it was a remote digital marketing manager position in a singaporean VC-funded crypto company tackling web3 data infrastructure.

at this point i realise there is no point in staying in my home country as i was getting paid remotely in crypto, therefore i hire an international tax law consulting firm and decided on an international structure that allowed me the most freedom, and treated me the best as a foreigner.

here my nomad journey began and location independence to me became a relevant topic as with the years going by and my grandmother (who i consider a mother) becoming older, i want to be able to stay with her if need be and not let that be a restricting factor in regards to my career growth and general life objectives and priorities.

at this point i was also trying to get familiar with HTML, programmatic SEO, and other software development topics.

at my then first job i kept on accepting more freelancing work to maximise income, which led me to accept a 2nd job.

i overestimated my capabilities with everything i needed to do, not only related but unrelated to the job, and was released from my 1st job. however, got another right after doing something i liked a lot which was conversion rate optimization. in simple terms, my job was to identify the desired customer actions, analyse data to break down journey components setp-by-setp, test improvements for each, and then re-evaluate the data to verify enhancements.

also landed a fractional CMO position in another VC-funded startup not much later.

this led me to try and learn how to automate certain everyday tasks with python, which was a pivotal moment i will touch on later.

during my travels i ended up meeting many location independent entrepreneurs or simply remote workers, and became very interested in the startup world. found numerous interesting blogs from widely acknowledged venture capitalists and with my crypto and income profits joined a VC syndicate, created an overseas LLC for my investments, ending up becoming a small-time VC investor. at this point i believed i could also potentially guide a company i was investing in on their digital marketing efforts.

i then enrolled in an online program from a a16z-funded VC incubator, but of course lacked the technical software engineering skills to design and implement software from scratch, and as an exceptional late entry, i didn't find a co-founder.

this meant i had to pay for 2 developers to get any returns from the inbubator, and i wanted to dedicate myself to it full time so i resigned my most stable job and only did gigs here and there just to have some "financial discipline", so to speak.

things were great at first. i was minimally known in a twitter subset of the industry the start-up was tackling, got validation in form of payment, service delivery was outsourced, amazing right?

well things took a bad turn. by the 2nd month both my remote developers were gone, i was -10k€ down overall because i hired top developers, and apparently the design wasn't even that great because a 3rd developer looked at it and thought he'd have to build it from scratch.

so here my startup ended, although it was a blue ocean in a very profitable service industry. and i'm one of the main target customers of the hypothetical start-up - someone who is location independent. so as you can see a year later and that idea is still stored somewhere in the back of my mind.

but the material i got from the incubator was extremely practical and spot-on for more beginner founders, so definitely something i will go back to in times of need.

in Q1 2024 my overall returns in crypto and VC at this point were comfortably profitable. my international law structure becomes more complete, looking for countries that fit with it and i began getting interested in international real estate investing - i feel financially safe and locked in some profits.

career-wise, i end up deciding i already possess enough knowledge in the digital marketing space for any regular business and for any potential future personal ventures, that it would be a great complement if i could feel comfortable with practical computer science/software design/programming knowledge. why?

• i may want to build software for my own needs
• i may want to be able to accurately tell the quality of a software engineer or niche developer
• i may need to spin up quick software prototypes and change them on the go depending on customer feedback
• i may want to be able to engage in higher level discussions with an engineering team and make my needs known
• i may want to try and contribute to a revolutionary movement by building connecting infrastructure and get involved in it that way

so that's where i'm at right now, working to become a truly rounded digital professional that has the capacity to successfully build and distribute, if need be.

i understand i probably won't be at the top 10% skillset in almost all areas i will dedicate myself to because in software engineering there's always a group of people that have been programming for 15+ years, or a group of people typically in big tech companies that have been programming since they're 7, or a group of people that choose 1 frontend framework then learned the whole environment around that and that's their everyday job anyways.

however, i know for a fact i'm improving myself and my skills. i'm gathering tools to increase my range of opportunity and the effects are clear - i feel more powerful everyday with the knowledge i implement. i can now build personal tools i couldn't in the past even with the help of top-tier AI coding agents. i can now try and explore data-driven edges in the cryptocurrency markets and building almost fully automated (harder to fully automate and not have any significant discretionary input for desired output prediction. typical arbitrage strats revolve around high frequency trading, which is not my focus) profitable trading strategies.

later this year will decide whether to join the 42 school network, offering a solid (no bootcamp) alternative to a bachelors in software engineering with the benefits that it's peer-to-peer-figure-it-out-by-reading-the-freaking-documentation style and i can change campuses. right now i still have a few reservations about certain details, but seems like a viable option since it's primarily self-directed (excl. structure and evaluation) i could continue the studies independently if necessary.