After the peak in 2017 everything started falling apart.
I didn’t sell my crypto at the top. Within a year most of the gains ($300k+) evaporated. The worst part wasn’t even losing the money. It was how quickly I had gotten used to having it. Losing it hurt much more than gaining it ever felt good.
To fill the hole in my self-identity I threw myself into launching a clothing brand. I drew detailed schemes and processes (I love making diagrams for complex things).
The beautiful plan met reality: bureaucracy, unreliable manufacturers, and six months of stress instead of two. The first batch came out completely defective — the T-shirts were literally cat-sized. I still don’t understand how an entire factory could produce and ship that without anyone noticing.
Then came the final blow: my main Instagram account with 600k followers — the center of my income, opportunities, and self-worth — got banned. It felt like losing a big part of my identity.
I tried to rebuild a new account, but the rocket growth never returned. Then COVID hit and a couple of years passed in a lazy, directionless fog. I kept releasing small collections, trying new hobbies, still secretly believing I was more capable than others. That illusion quickly broke. I wasn’t significantly better at music or FPV drones than younger guys who started earlier. The clothing business also proved unsustainable and I closed it in 2022.
Meanwhile the photography market itself was collapsing. Phone cameras got better, banner blindness became normal, and the barrier to entry dropped dramatically. ROI fell by orders of magnitude.
When my original Instagram was finally unbanned after two years, over 100,000 people unfollowed within a week. It was a clear message: the old game was over.
By the age of 30 I finally started to accept that I wasn’t exceptionally talented. I had just gotten very lucky at the right time. This realization was painful but necessary. Depressions became more frequent.
I began considering more “normal” paths I had always dismissed — including IT. That’s how I ended up joining School 21 (the Russian campus of the French 42 School). Later I transferred to the Paris campus.
In the next part I’ll tell how the idea for my first app was born, why I decided to build it with almost zero coding experience, and all the chaotic early steps.
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