Smartfin's answer
It was a cold winter morning, marking six months since I had started at my new company. As usual, I took the subway, bracing myself for the day’s agenda: quarterly planning. Every three months, the engineering team gathers at a rented office space to strategize and map out the next quarter’s work. After a 40-minute commute, I arrived at the venue and felt a familiar wave of disdain. How do people do this every day? At least the warmth of my morning coffee offered a brief reprieve from the chill, both outside and within.
Being one of the first to arrive, I had a moment of quiet before the room began to fill with people. Gradually, the buzz of conversation grew louder as colleagues trickled in, all geared up to chart out how we could drive our bosses’ profits higher over the next few months.
But was this it? Was this my future—endlessly commuting to work, just to make someone else richer? These questions had been nagging at me for a while. Deep down, I already had an idea, one that could help me break free from this routine. It was a solid concept, complete with a fallback plan. Now, all I needed was the right person to share the vision and take the leap with me.
Fortunately, the ideal collaborator was right next to me—my talented coworker Ilias. He had joined the company just two months before me, and together with our team lead, we formed the core of the data science team. Moments before the quarterly planning session began, I decided to share my idea with him:
Let’s build a web application to help people find investments
In the worst-case scenario, we’ll gain valuable technical knowledge and significantly enhance our coding skills. Future employers would appreciate our expanded skill set and versatility. Plus, we’d have a powerful tool at our disposal to navigate the stock market and identify valuable companies to invest in ourselves.
In the best-case scenario, the application becomes a success, generating income, enabling us to establish our own company, and freeing us from our current jobs.
We committed ourselves to four hours of work every day, weekends included, to build our app. It became an obsession—we eagerly anticipated those hours each day. We pushed ourselves to learn, to code, and to step out of our comfort zones countless times. But the most fulfilling part of the journey was knowing we were creating something to share with the world. After 4,000 hours of dedication, just the two of us brought Smartfin to life.
And now, the moment has come to share it with everyone.
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