Two years ago, I quit my job. I was divorced, and I had $80K on my bank account. Today, I am still without a job, still divorced, and, not surprisingly, out of money. I wish I had written about my first year of unemployment, so I can compare the regress progress. At the very least, I can do a short overview of this year, so I’ll have something to compare in the next one.
Money
At first, I was sad that I had spent all the money so quickly. If you think about it, $80K in two years is $40K a year, or $3,300 a month. It’s a considerable amount, and I used to think that I overspent. That my groceries could have been cheaper. That I could have eaten out or traveled less. Then a few months ago, I went on NomadList and found out that the average living cost in Montreal is $3,750/mo. Considering that I spent the first year in Ottawa/Toronto, where the cost of living is even higher, my spending habits turned out not that bad after all. I’m not just average — I’m slightly better! So I said goodbye to my money and made peace with the fact that I would be broke for a while.
At the end of 2022, when I quit my job to work on my projects, I made resolutions: to make $1M in revenue in 2025. Well, that’s not really happening… But rest assured, I do everything possible to reach that goal rather sooner than later.
(the picture of the money left in my bank account)
Work
Since January, I worked on four projects with four other founders. First, we launched Guitartonic with Armaan, and it was fulfilling to build something for fun. Then we tried to get a fintech product going with Nima, but failed to agree on a common vision. After that, I took a month off to try to resurrect Wonderbook. I reworked the entire app, redesigning screens and introducing a couple of important features. But as much as I would rather not admit, Wonderbook was a dying project, and none of my changes helped. So I watched the traffic plummet, made a loud sigh, and went on with life.
In April, Zane reached out with an idea of a product he wanted to build. We spent two weeks putting an MVP together, and shortly after, we landed the first two customers. Blymp was born. Zane had to step down from the operations in July, but I kept going. Of the four projects I worked on, blymp is the only one generating money — about $600/month — and the one I plan to continue next year. Yay!
Housing
This year I stayed in the same place, an old victorian-style house in downtown Montreal, with 3 other roommates. But the house is not by any means a usual co-living situation. The person who launched it is also an entrepreneur, and he started this project for other entrepreneurs to collaborate and inspire each other. When I signed the lease last year, I already had an offer for another place, a one-bedroom apartment in my favorite neighborhood of the city. Plus, the price was similar, so I wouldn’t have saved a lot of money by living with other people. But collaboration is the seed for innovation, so I decided to give it a try.
These days, we do a lot of things together, and it has a positive impact on my mental health. Once a week, we play board games, cook food, or do coworking sessions. Living with others is not always easy, but it is fun. I got very lucky with these folks, and I hope we keep the good vibes going forward in the new year.
Numbers-wise, my rent is $1250 for a room, which is between one-third and one-half of my monthly budget. I could find something cheaper, but I chose sanity over an extra month of runway.
Music
In June, I started playing piano. I have always loved music, and the fact that I still play guitar after 18 years only confirms it. While the guitar entered my life through my desire to play songs for friends, the piano was an accidental discovery. My roommate, who just moved in with us this spring, brought his piano with him. It stood untouched in our living room for a month. One evening, while watching Amélie with Yann Tiersen’s beautiful music, I felt an inexplicable urge to learn that song. So I did. It took me about a month to sync the movements of both hands — remember, I had never played piano before — but it came together and sounded decent.
After that, I went on to learn Sleeping Lotus by Joep Beving and Ascent (Day 1) by Ludovico Einaudi. Approaching the end of this year, I am 90% done with my fifth piece, Lumières by Alexandra Stréliski, and it’s both the hardest and most beautiful song I’ve learned so far. It took me two months just to finish reading it, and it will likely take another two to get comfortable playing it.
Guitartonic, the app that I built back in January, also reignited my passion for guitar. It helped me learn a few positions of a minor pentatonic scale, so now I can improvise along when playing with other people. It’s not great by any means, but it’s progress nonetheless.
Sports
Oh boy, did I do sports this year! At the end of 2023, I joined a climbing team to train for provincial and national bouldering competitions in Canada. The training stopped suddenly when our coach got injured and couldn’t come to the gym anymore. So the beginning of 2024 was rough, as my team continued to train without him. It simply wasn’t the same thing anymore. But we decided to keep up with the schedule our coach had set for us, and it kept us motivated for a few months. By summer, bouldering moved to the back of my priorities, as I started going outdoor more often. I introduced lead climbing and went on climbing trips. Nima and I bought gear of our own — a rope, quickdraws, and peripherals. While I avoid spending a lot of money on new hobbies, this felt justified. Now, looking back, I don’t regret that we did it.
Along with climbing, we started to train for a triathlon around June. The triathlon was scheduled for September, so we had about three months to prepare. Swimming terrified me the most, but turned out the most pleasurable exercise of all three. Biking was never an issue for me — I always liked it. But running was a different story. I have a love/hate relationship with running, dating back to 2020. I was bored during Covid, started going for short runs in the evenings, and because of my poor technique, I killed my knees in only 3 months. It took me two years to fully recover.
These days, running feels much better, and I have my climbing sessions to thank for it — my butt got much stronger, so my knees don’t have to work as hard.
Gut
Unlike with sports, the relationship with my stomach is rather tough. For the last two years, it’s been giving me a hard time. I have only two possible explanations. Stress from not having a stable income, or a side effect from a year-long course of Accutane — the timing aligns well with this. The end of this year was the time I decided to make changes. I went on a FODMAP diet and finally saw improvements. For the first time in months, I had no symptoms. No gas and no bloating. I still remember the first evening of my diet, as I felt like a happy man, all because my stomach was also happy.
My diet is not over, and I am slowly reintroducing food groups to my meals to find out what causes intolerances. Being on a diet without lactose, gluten, and many other foods is hard. But having a healthy gut is certainly a step up from not having one. For better or worse, it forced me to cook more. And knowing me, that’s not a small win.
At first, I thought I would only write about my projects, as any struggling entrepreneur should. But this year was about much more than just projects. Without music, sports, and friends, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with work, especially unpaid. No matter the angle under which I look at it, it was a great year — fulfilling, with a lot of love and care. It’s exciting to look ahead. I am always intrigued by what comes next. For the past few years, my rule has been simple: keep the good things, cut the bad things, and acquire more of the good things. But this year… I don’t really have bad things. Minor inconveniences, maybe. Hiccups. But nothing that I am looking to part with.
Here’s to a promising year 2025. My third year without a job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with myself. Cheers!
