The End of Another Lap Around the Sun
As I write this on December 31st, 2025 is officially in the books. It's been one of those years where looking back feels almost surreal. So much happened, so much changed, and yet here I am, still standing, still building.
This isn't going to be a carefully curated highlight reel. It's more of an honest dump of what the year actually looked like: the wins, the grind, the things that worked, and the stuff I'd do differently. Let's get into it.
The Blackswan Chapter
Blackswan has never been in a better place than it is today. More clients, bigger projects, and an incredible team that keeps leveling up. The challenges we're tackling now would have seemed impossible a couple of years ago, and that's exactly what makes it exciting.
But here's the thing nobody talks about: growth is exhausting. Backend demands from our clients absolutely exploded in 2025. We hit record levels of complexity, and I spent about three quarters of the year in overdrive mode just to keep up with deliveries, last-minute client changes, broken APIs, providers going down or pushing updates at the worst possible times. It was intense.
My biggest pride at Blackswan isn't something you can see on a client website. It's the V3 of our internal framework. What started as a developer tool has evolved into something our entire team uses, including project managers and even the sales team. Who said a framework was only for developers? Seeing how it improves everyone's workflow, reduces bugs, and speeds up delivery without sacrificing quality is exactly why I love building internal tools. It's the kind of work that compounds over time.
Side Projects and New Ventures
I shipped two projects in 2025 that I'm genuinely excited about.
First, generatelogo.ai launched around March. It's been running smoothly, and there's a big update coming soon that I can't wait to share. More on that later.
Then there's monconseillerpatrimoine.com. The private development started in December 2024, and we launched publicly in September 2025. Building a platform that connects people with wealth management advisors in France has been a completely different challenge from my usual Shopify work. It's taught me a lot about a different industry, different user expectations, and different technical requirements. A major V2 update is already in the works for Q1 2026.
Life in a Suitcase
I traveled more than ever in 2025. Between Blackswan client meetings and visiting wealth management advisors in Bordeaux for Mon Conseiller Patrimoine, I was constantly on the move.
It sounds glamorous. It isn't. At some point, my entire life fit into a small carry-on. Everything was black or white, optimized for maximum versatility and minimum packing headaches. Living out of a suitcase for extended periods is draining in ways I didn't fully anticipate.
The trade-off hit me hard: I barely showed up in the Shopify community. In 2023 and 2024, I was everywhere, attending conventions, joining community events, hanging out with the amazing people in this ecosystem. In 2025? Almost nothing. The community is great, and I miss being more present. It's one of those things I want to fix in 2026.
Personal Wins
Not everything was about work.
I moved into a new apartment in Bordeaux. Nothing fancy, just a rental, but having my own space again after all the traveling feels like a small victory.
More importantly, I got back to the gym. After two years away, between an injury and work making it impossible to maintain any routine, I finally started again. The return is slow, but it's happening. Rebuilding fitness after a long break is humbling, but every session feels like progress.
The AI Revolution Changed How I Work
All that travel time did give me one thing: hours to explore new tools. And if there's one thing that shocked me in 2025, it's how much AI improved. Not incremental updates. Fundamental shifts in what's possible.
Back in June, I was still happily using Cursor and ChatGPT for everything. I didn't think I'd switch. Fast forward to today, and my entire workflow looks completely different.
Claude Code combined with Zed (a lightning-fast code editor that feels native and stays out of your way) has completely replaced Cursor for me. The depth of understanding and the quality of code suggestions hit different. On the chat side, Claude and Gemini have taken over from ChatGPT, which I don't use anymore at all.
But my discovery of the year, the one tool that multiplied my productivity by an order of magnitude, is conductor.build. It's an AI orchestration tool that lets me manage complex multi-agent workflows in parallel. I can't recommend it enough.
There's a darker side to this AI revolution though. The constant stream of new models, new tools, new capabilities creates a strange kind of FOMO. Claude Code gives me a 5-hour session to burn through my token quota, and if I don't use it all, it feels wasted. New LLM drops every week, and I catch myself wanting to test everything just to stay current. It's exciting, but it's also exhausting. This pressure to maximize every token, every tool, every update definitely pushed me to work more than I probably should have.
The way I work today is fundamentally different from January. I spend more time as an architect, designing systems and making decisions that only come from years of experience. AI handles the repetitive parts faster, but the expertise, the patterns, the "why" behind every choice, that's still very much human. If anything, these tools let me focus on what actually matters: solving complex problems and delivering quality.
What I'd Do Differently
Looking back, the main thing I'd change is making more time for myself. Between all the travel and the constant hustle, I didn't see friends enough. I didn't disconnect enough. The digital world has become almost addictive, and I let it consume too much of my attention.
This isn't a complaint. It's an observation. Building things is what I love, but sustainable building requires balance. That's something to work on.
Looking Ahead to 2026
So what's next?
For Blackswan, the priority is expanding our backend team to scale what we've built and create more capacity for ambitious projects. We're also developing internal tools that I can't talk about publicly yet, but they're designed to help us move even faster without compromising quality.
For Mon Conseiller Patrimoine, Q1 2026 will bring the V2 update. Significant new features that will make both advisors and their clients happy. I'm keeping the details under wraps for now.
On a personal level, I want to ship more fun side projects. Less serious business stuff, more weekend experiments and ideas that sound interesting. The joy of building something purely because it's cool has gotten lost a bit, and I want to bring that back.
I'm also committing to getting into serious shape. Not showing up at the gym occasionally, but building real, sustainable fitness. Health is wealth, as they say.
And finally, I want to be more present. More time with friends. More disconnecting from screens. More living in the moment rather than optimizing every minute.
2025 was intense. I learned a lot, built a lot, and grew in ways I didn't expect. Still standing, still building. Here's to 2026 being even better.
Happy New Year.
