I’m Joining Myli as a CTO (and Other News from Yours Truly you Might Have Missed)

Hi readers, long time no see! Almost 10 months if I’m counting well.

As of today, I’m joining Myli, My Local Influence, as a CTO. Myli is a 7 people startup developing a suite of tools to improve reviews management and more on the Web located in Marseille, in the south of France. I’ll be working remotely from Paris, which is exactly what I’m looking for considering everything that happened to me since last summer.

The past 12 months have been quite a rollercoaster, and I had neither the time nor the energy to publish anything. Lots of things happened which I’ll try to summarise so you can understand my choice to leave the world of hyper-growing international startups for a small local company.

Burnout.

According to my former Synthesio colleagues and friends, I’ve been in burnout for 3 years and a half, always being on the edge of a massive breakdown. This breakdown eventually happened last year, and I had to leave Ledger. For almost 2 months, the only thing I was able to do were cooking, doing the washing up, housecleaning and some shopping. Being a hyperactive person always looking for more challenges and new fields to discover, I was feeling miserable. But, as Nas once said, "it was written".

Since I came back to Paris in 2001, I’ve been working almost 24/7. I had to work so I could pay for a very demanding and expensive private school. Then, after 1 year, I had a kid and 3 years left before I graduate. So I had to work even more to raise a family. Then, their mom restarted to study, so I was the only one working for 3 more years. And so on… until I eventually exploded.

As I was trying to get some rest, I decided to change my life priorities. For the past 12 years, I had heard the same things way too many times:

Why is dad constantly working?

I didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Having 3 kids, I wanted to catch up with all the time I didn’t see them grow up. So I decided to take care of them every second week without delegating anything to anyone: pick up my daughter at school at 4:30, helping them doing the homework, taking them to their activities, cooking good meals every day… And much more.

Being a single, dedicated dad requires an extremely flexible schedule, which every company doesn’t allow you to have, especially in an exec position. I worked with my coach, the wonderful Magali Mounier-Poullat on what I like to do, what I do well, and how I can do it while taking care of my kids. I decided to leave the security of employment to become a freelancer CTO/VP Engineering to help startup scaling their engineering teams. I joined Aircall as an interim VP of Engineering for a 6 months mission, which allowed me to set up my new life priorities.

Despite a few hiccups, things went quite well. The kids are happy to finally have their dad taking care of them, for real. And I'm happy too. I'm happier than ever. This is quite new, but I might eventually get used to it.

But I ended my mission exhausted, once again. I needed a longer break, which I could not afford. My daily 50kms minute-timed commute was insane. I was working from 6:30 AM to 4:00 PM, was taking care of my kids from 4:00 to 8:30 PM, then back to work until 1:00 AM. Then basic housecleaning, my job as Chief Laundry Officer, then sleep, when my crippling insomnia let me do so. It had to stop.

After leaving Aircall, I went through lots of job interviews, up to 14 in a week. That was exhausting too. I had offers in some of the best, most exciting startups in Paris. They were ambitious, offering great opportunities, people able to challenge me…

And then, there was Myli.

I had the first contact in Myli back in February, but I was already working at Aircall. When I left, they contacted me again, and we started to talk. But why would I join a 7 employees company with only 3 devs after being an exec in 2 of the top French startups, managing almost 50 people?

The product is perfectible, but it sells like lemonade on a summer day. Despite a very small team, they managed to build something useful with a great product-market fit. Their working hours and rhythm are way different from Parisian startups, and they offered me a fully remote position, with the ability to take care of my kids. And there’s a lot to do, way beyond the usual CTO role. Thanks to the experience I’ve gained along the years, I can also work on business, marketing or HR topics. And I’ve been missing doing tech stuff a lot.

Choosing was not easy. I spent several nights thinking about it. I had an offer in a big data company, an industry I love, with an amazing product and mission statement. I was interviewing for an impressive mobile payment company, and many more…

I talked about it with my therapist. I talked about it with some friends and former colleagues. I talked about it with my coach and eventually made my mind.

And when I told my therapist which company I chose, she simply answered:

But Fred, you had your mind made last week already!

So much time wasted thinking, I hate her 🤣.