The Golden Lesson Before Sarahah

I learned programming when I was 13. My first project was a tool to remove the infamous ILOVEYOU virus. I downloaded code for a tool that did exactly this from a famous website then called Planet-Source-Code and modified it a bit thinking now I have built an application, excuse my ignorance.
Fast forward to my last year in high school: Inspired by a famous website at the time, I created a blog using WordPress to explain how stuff works. It even got coverage from a local newspaper.

But it wasn�t until college that I actually built a real project�a platform where you could place a circle on any location on a map and pull social content from Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. I still think that idea has potential�
The social networks continued to modify, limit, or remove functionalities from the API, essentially killing the project, lessons learned.

Back then, my marketing strategy was simple: advertise on Google AdWords and target a global audience. One day, I received a message from Michael Rusignola, Twitter's ecosystem manager at the time. Over a Skype call, he asked me what my goal was. I told him I wanted to reach a global audience. He said, �I told a French person, if you want to reach the United States, start in France.� That was a golden lesson: start where you are.

Think about it�you have more connections locally, you speak the language, and you know the culture. It�s easier to market your product nearby. This doesn�t mean you shouldn�t dream big, but always start where you are.

I used that project in several university courses (web development, databases, and even added an AI element in my AI course). I kept changing partners, and one of them became Sarahah�s CTO later on.

After college, while job hunting, I kept building small projects. One thing that helped me a lot in my "mini entrepreneurial endeavors" was sticking with the same development framework. Focusing on shipping projects rather than jumping to the latest hot framework was key. Not to say I didn�t experiment, but being able to quickly develop a prototype and release it to the market, reusing the same code snippets, was a huge advantage.

I took my first job at a tech firm, and surprisingly, my entrepreneurial spirit went dormant�until I joined an oil company in a non-tech role. That's when I started Sarahah, my entrepreneurial rollercoaster ride�