I'm Thomas, 24, founder and CTO based in Bordeaux. I run the tech side of Blackswan Paris, a Shopify agency where we build stores for brands like Dries Van Noten, Hôtel Mahfouf, Carven, and SVR. I also code custom Shopify apps and integrations - ERP connectors, automation tools, whatever needs to exist that doesn't exist yet.
On the side, I'm building Mon Conseiller Patrimoine (a wealth management platform) and experimenting with open-source tools like Web Draggable and generatelogo.ai.
I've been coding since I was 11, entirely self-taught, and I'm obsessed with building things that actually work.
Building Things That Last
Early in my career, I'd build something elegant for a client, and within weeks they'd break it. A weird update here, a hacky workaround there, and everything would fall apart. I realized: pretty things break fast if they're not built right. Good products work and look good. They work under pressure, they scale without breaking, and they're still elegant to work with.
That's why I built SharpJS. It started as a simple script with best practices, and I evolved it into a complete framework that powers everything we build at Blackswan. Sharp is opinionated by design. I believe good constraints make better products. When you define how things should work, stuff doesn't break at 2am during a product launch.
How I Started
I wrote my first line of code at 11, building Bukkit plugins for my Minecraft server. I wanted to customize everything, so I taught myself Java, then web development, then kept going until coding became second nature.
During those years, a game developer named Marc Fortin (Osaris31) answered every single question I had, for months. I was just a kid asking probably obvious stuff, but he never made me feel stupid. That shaped how I think about helping people learn.
I'm entirely self-taught. No formal training, no degree. Just years of building, breaking, and fixing things.
After some freelance work with GatsbyJS clients, I joined Delta.paris, a Shopify agency in Paris. My boss there became my business partner. When Delta shut down, we saw the opportunity to build something better.
French e-commerce in 2020 was stuck on platforms like Prestashop and WooCommerce. Sites crashed during product launches, pages loaded like molasses, and the whole experience felt painfully slow. I've always been obsessed with optimization and making things fast, so we knew we could do better.
We founded Blackswan Paris in 2020. Today, I manage a tech team of five people, and we work with brands that actually care about quality.
What I Do Now
I'm still in the code every day. Some days I'm building ERP connectors or custom Shopify apps for clients - integrating systems that need to talk to each other, automating workflows that were eating up someone's time. Other days I'm in R&D mode, building the tools and frameworks that make my team faster and our clients' stores better.
I love both the hands-on technical work and the leadership side. Building products from scratch, solving hard problems, shipping things that actually help. But also improving our processes, creating tools that make everyone's work easier, and pushing my team to build better stuff than we did yesterday.
Sharp keeps evolving. Every project teaches us something new about what e-commerce sites actually need, and we fold those lessons back into the framework.
Life in Bordeaux
I moved to Bordeaux after years in Paris. Paris was exhausting, even working from home. I needed space, greenery, a slower rhythm. I travel constantly for work, but when I'm home, I walk everywhere (usually around 10km a day), listen to music, and read science and tech news obsessively. I want to stay ahead of what's coming next.
I used to hit the gym every morning in Paris. That routine broke with all the travel, but getting back to it soon.
What's Next
I'm going to keep building Blackswan, keep evolving Sharp, and see where Mon Conseiller Patrimoine goes.
I write about Shopify tech, e-commerce architecture, and side projects here. You can find me on X, LinkedIn, or GitHub.
