I Hated Every Day": The French Coder Who Sacrificed 15 Years Building an Agency He Never Wanted for an 8-Figure Exi

Ronan Bura turned down TechStars to focus on a consulting business he despised, living on $1,000/month while building a 190-person agency that sold for eight figures - then immediately returned to coding.

Key Takeaways

• Ronan Bura built and sold a 190-person consulting agency for eight figures despite never enjoying the work or wanting to run a service business
• He paid himself only $1,000/month for years while living an extreme minimalist lifestyle to focus entirely on business growth
• Turned down TechStars opportunity and US investment in 2015 to focus on consulting business, later regretting this decision
• Team loyalty and duty drove persistence through multiple burnout cycles rather than personal ambition or financial motivation
• COVID disrupted two separate exit attempts (2020 and 2022), causing severe stress and physical illness during deal processes
• Post-exit life lacks the urgency and pressure that paradoxically fueled his best performance, creating unexpected dissatisfaction with financial freedom
• Currently worth "comfortably in the eight figures" but spending months coding for $50/month in sponsorships to rediscover passion
• Plans to return to product building and move to US, suggesting the consulting detour was always meant to be temporary

Timeline Overview

• 00:00–08:30 — Current Status and Future Plans — Living in Singapore, planning US move, current coding projects and financial position
• 08:30–18:45 — French Military Background and Coding Discovery — Army brat upbringing, late discovery of programming at age 21-22
• 18:45–28:20 — Accidental Business Start in China — Getting screwed by first employer, starting freelance consulting out of necessity
• 28:20–38:15 — The TechStars Decision — Turning down US opportunity in 2015 to focus on consulting business growth
• 38:15–48:30 — Rapid Growth and Minimalist Lifestyle — Scaling to eight figures while paying himself $1K/month, extreme frugality
• 48:30–58:25 — Burnout Cycles and Failed Exits — COVID disrupting 2020 sale, team responsibility during crisis periods
• 58:25–END — Final Exit and Post-Sale Reality — 2022 sale completion, anticlimactic feelings, return to coding

The Accidental Entrepreneur: Building Success Through Necessity, Not Passion

• Ronan Bura's entrepreneurial journey began from financial desperation rather than visionary ambition, after his first employer in China failed to pay him for six months, leaving him to cover team wages with personal savings and forcing him into freelance consulting to make rent.
• The rapid transition from solo freelancer to agency owner occurred within two months of starting, when demand from US and European clients exceeded his personal capacity, forcing him to hire team members and operate from his tiny Shanghai apartment living room.

His success in early client acquisition stemmed from being "very direct and trustworthy" combined with jack-of-all-trades capabilities spanning design, marketing, and product development, providing immediate value to clients seeking comprehensive strategic guidance rather than narrow technical services.

• The fundamental tension between his product-building passion and service business reality created a 15-year internal conflict where he "always loved coding" and "building products" but felt trapped in consulting work that never provided the deep ownership and long-term impact he craved.
• For the first four to five years, Ronan actively resisted growing the consulting business, keeping the team at around eight people because expanding would make him "end up actually building an agency or a consulting firm and that's not what I wanted to do."
• The accidental nature of his business success illustrates how market demand and operational necessity can override personal preferences, creating profitable enterprises that founders never intended to build but feel obligated to maintain once team livelihoods depend on continued operation.
• His admission that he "never really liked consulting" yet achieved eight-figure success demonstrates how duty, responsibility, and operational excellence can substitute for passion in building valuable businesses, challenging conventional wisdom about following your dreams.

The TechStars Crossroads: Choosing Security Over Silicon Valley Dreams

• The 2015 TechStars opportunity represented a pivotal moment where Ronan could have pursued his true passion for product development, with both accelerator acceptance and investor interest for one of his side projects, but he chose to abandon this path at the last minute.
• His decision-making process revealed a maturity about business fundamentals that prioritized sustainable revenue over venture capital pursuit, recognizing that his product "didn't really have true traction" despite external validation from prestigious programs and investors.

The last-minute reversal required convincing two colleagues who had already committed to joining him in the US venture, demonstrating the personal cost of changing direction when others have aligned their careers with your decisions and showing early signs of his team-first mentality.

• The realization that he had been "running the business for several years with no real focus, no real understanding that what I was doing is effectively a business" marked a crucial shift from hoping to "stumble into greatness" to accepting methodical business building responsibilities.
• His choice to "not be bothered too much by what I want but just do the things that actually people want that actually work" reflects a philosophical surrender of personal desires in favor of market demands and team obligations.
• The geographical implications of staying in China versus moving to the US created different competitive environments - lower costs and less competition in China versus higher stakes and more sophisticated markets in Silicon Valley, influencing the practical viability of different business models.
• This decision haunts him today as he acknowledges they had built early versions of products that became successful for others (Kanban boards, chatbots, Slack-like communication tools), suggesting the timing and opportunity were right but his risk tolerance was insufficient.

Extreme Minimalism: The $1,000/Month Millionaire Lifestyle

• Ronan's radical lifestyle minimalism enabled complete focus on business building by eliminating personal expenses and lifestyle inflation, paying himself only $1,000/month for years while growing a multi-million dollar agency and living with possessions that fit in a single duffel bag.
• His four-year period of living full-time on company-paid Airbnb without a permanent apartment demonstrates how extreme flexibility can reduce personal overhead while maintaining professional effectiveness, though this lifestyle required extraordinary personal discipline and social sacrifice.

The San Francisco apartment story - containing only a mattress, blanket, and pillow for two and a half months - illustrates how wealth creation can paradoxically involve rejecting traditional markers of success and comfort in favor of singular focus on business objectives.

• His dietary restrictions (mostly carnivore, sometimes paleo), outdoor exercise regimen, no alcohol consumption, and home cooking represent systematic optimization for mental clarity and physical performance rather than traditional lifestyle enjoyment.
• The conscious rejection of expensive hobbies, restaurant dining, and material possessions created maximum resource allocation toward business growth while maintaining what he describes as "the most depressing and boring life you could think of" but one that enabled deep work focus.
• This extreme approach reveals how lifestyle design can become a competitive advantage when personal contentment requires minimal resources, allowing entrepreneurs to reinvest virtually all business profits into growth rather than maintaining expensive personal standards.
• The psychological sustainability of such minimalism depends on finding intrinsic satisfaction in work itself rather than lifestyle rewards, requiring personality traits that prioritize achievement over comfort and delayed gratification over immediate pleasure.

The Duty-Driven CEO: Leadership Through Team Obligation Rather Than Personal Ambition

• Ronan's primary motivation throughout the 15-year journey centered on duty to team members who "took a risk by joining us" rather than personal wealth accumulation or professional achievement, creating a leadership philosophy based on servant responsibility rather than visionary ambition.
• His role definition as "chief janitor officer" focused on handling "whatever mess is left by the team" and tackling daily tasks "you don't want to work on" reflects a service-oriented approach to leadership that prioritizes organizational function over personal satisfaction.

The decision to stay in China from 2013-2014 rather than pursue personal goals stemmed from team members who "had tons of opportunity working at Alibaba or Tencent or Nike" but chose to remain with his company, creating moral obligations that superseded individual preferences.

• During the 2020 COVID crisis, his commitment to retaining all employees without layoffs while growing the business 20% demonstrates how team responsibility can drive performance during crisis periods when personal motivation fails.
• The 2022 exit negotiations prioritized ensuring "other partners were taken care of" and "didn't necessarily have to work ever again in their lives" over maximizing his personal return, showing how team welfare shaped major business decisions throughout the exit process.
• His admission that consulting work was "marginally interesting" but never provided "full ownership" or the ability to "really go deep" illustrates the personal sacrifice involved in maintaining businesses that serve team needs rather than founder fulfillment.
• The psychological burden of team responsibility during multiple burnout cycles created a trap where personal exhaustion conflicted with professional obligations, leading to stress-related physical illness and the need for forced exits rather than natural transitions.

COVID's Double Disruption: When Exit Plans Collide with Global Crisis

• The 2020 exit attempt represented Ronan's first serious escape from consulting after years of burnout, with a "pretty large company" making substantial acquisition offers and detailed due diligence processes already underway when COVID hit and destroyed the deal timeline.
• The timing catastrophe included relinquishing their Shanghai apartment and preparing to move to Singapore, only to have the planned Chinese New Year 2020 signing cancelled and the entire deal structure collapse within two months of the pandemic onset.

His wife's pregnancy during this period added personal stakes to the professional crisis, creating family planning complications when the expected financial security from the sale evaporated and forced them to rebuild both business stability and personal living arrangements simultaneously.

• The psychological impact of having an exit path close unexpectedly while already experiencing burnout created a "not good" emotional state where he had to "come back and double down" despite being mentally and physically exhausted from years of work he didn't enjoy.
• The paradoxical energy boost from crisis mode - where "there's no more burnout" and "no more room for complaining" when facing existential business threats - reveals how extreme pressure can temporarily override exhaustion through pure survival instincts.
• The 2022 exit attempt faced similar COVID disruption with Shanghai lockdowns occurring precisely during deal finalization, creating physical illness from stress as he experienced daily fear that "this would not happen" again, demonstrating how repeated trauma around exit attempts compounds psychological pressure.
• The successful completion of the 2022 sale required navigating both pandemic-related operational challenges and his own learned helplessness from the previous failed attempt, showing how past disappointments can create additional stress during subsequent opportunities.

The Paradox of Financial Freedom: Missing the Pressure That Drove Success

• Ronan's post-exit experience reveals the unexpected psychological challenges of achieving financial independence, where the absence of urgency and existential pressure creates dissatisfaction despite having "comfortably" eight-figure wealth and complete freedom to pursue passion projects.
• His current coding projects generating only "$50 a month in sponsorship" represent a deliberate return to his original passion, but the lack of financial pressure removes the motivational intensity that drove his consulting success, creating an unexpected longing for constraints.

The admission that he wants to "get that back" referring to urgency and the feeling that "there's not enough time" demonstrates how high achievers can become psychologically dependent on stress as a performance enhancer rather than viewing it as an obstacle to overcome.

• The "neverending cycle of burnout and recovery" that he expects to continue throughout his career suggests an acceptance that peak performance requires unsustainable intensity levels, raising questions about whether this pattern represents optimal life design or addictive behavior.
• His observation that financial freedom feels "awful" compared to crisis-driven work challenges conventional assumptions about wealth and happiness, suggesting that purpose and challenge matter more than security for certain personality types.
• The concern about aging and maintaining relevance ("what do I do once I'm 70") reveals how identity tied to high performance creates anxiety about inevitable physical and mental decline, making retirement planning more complex than simple financial accumulation.
• His plan to eventually "advise other people" represents a common trajectory for successful entrepreneurs seeking to maintain relevance and impact while reducing direct operational responsibility, though this transition often proves more difficult than anticipated.

Product Dreams Deferred: The Cost of 15-Year Service Business Detour

• Ronan's current return to coding and open source projects represents an attempt to recapture the original passion that led him into technology, building "a few open source projects" with Discord communities that provide daily user feedback and engagement.
• The early products his team built - Kanban boards used by Adobe, chatbot platforms, Slack-like communication tools - demonstrate they had genuine product instincts and timing, making the consulting pivot potentially a missed opportunity for platform business creation.

His assessment that "others were able to go and succeed" in the product categories they explored suggests market validation existed for their ideas, but their execution or commitment was insufficient to capitalize on these opportunities during favorable timing windows.

• The current six-month coding intensive represents both skill rebuilding and passion rediscovery, as he needed to "learn how to code again" after years of management responsibilities distanced him from hands-on technical work.
• His goal to "assess opportunities" and "assess how tech is actually built" reflects recognition that executive experience must be combined with current technical competence to make informed product decisions in rapidly evolving technology markets.
• The plan to "prototype things myself" and "gain respect from colleagues" acknowledges that credibility in technical organizations requires demonstrated capability rather than just strategic vision or business success.
• The upcoming focus on "go to market" for existing projects suggests he's following a more methodical approach to product development this time, combining his proven business-building skills with renewed technical capabilities.

The Eight-Figure Portfolio: Managing Wealth Without Financial Expertise

• Ronan's admission that wealth management represents his "only stress" now reveals how sudden liquidity events can create new categories of anxiety for entrepreneurs who excelled at business building but lack investment expertise.
• His discovery that most bankers "are mostly salespeople" who "don't really know more than you do" reflects a common disillusionment among newly wealthy individuals who expect financial professionals to possess superior insights but find formulaic approaches instead.

The current allocation strategy - 20% high-risk assets (Bitcoin, Tesla, specific stocks), 20% indexes and equities, with the remainder in fixed income - represents a conservative approach that prioritizes capital preservation over aggressive growth, reflecting family responsibility rather than speculation.

• His critique of banker recommendations as "formula approach" that misses personal "convictions about AI or technology or certain companies" suggests he wants to maintain some concentration in areas where he has genuine expertise rather than diversifying into unfamiliar assets.
• The goal to increase equity allocation to "60 maybe even 80%" over the next two years indicates growing comfort with market risk as he develops investment knowledge and confidence in portfolio management.
• His delayed deployment of exit proceeds - taking "a month or two" just to deposit the money - illustrates how major wealth creation can be psychologically overwhelming and require time for practical adjustment.
• The family-oriented approach to wealth management reflects his consistent pattern of prioritizing others' welfare, ensuring financial security for his wife and children rather than pursuing maximum personal returns or lifestyle inflation.

Common Questions

Q: Why did Ronan stay in consulting for 15 years if he hated it?
A: Team loyalty and duty drove his persistence - employees had taken risks joining his company and he felt responsible for their livelihoods and career security.

Q: How did he manage to live on $1,000/month while building a multi-million dollar business?
A: Extreme minimalism including no permanent apartment, minimal possessions, strict diet, no alcohol, and rejection of expensive hobbies or lifestyle inflation.

Q: What was the TechStars opportunity he turned down?
A: A 2015 accelerator acceptance with investor interest for one of his product ideas, which he abandoned to focus on the consulting business.

Q: How did COVID affect his exit plans?
A: The pandemic disrupted two separate exit attempts (2020 and 2022), causing deals to collapse and forcing him to rebuild business stability while managing family planning.

Q: Why does he miss the pressure and urgency of running a business?
A: He admits to being "addicted" to stress and performs better when "really pissed off or really challenged," making financial freedom feel unsatisfying.

Conclusion

Ronan Bura's story challenges conventional wisdom about following your passion and doing what you love. His 15-year sacrifice of personal fulfillment for team responsibility and financial security raises profound questions about the cost of success and whether eight-figure wealth justifies a decade and a half of work you hate. His experience reveals how duty, discipline, and market demand can create valuable businesses even when founders lack passion for their industry, but also demonstrates the psychological complexity of achieving financial freedom only to discover that pressure and challenge provided more satisfaction than security. Most provocatively, his current return to $50/month coding projects suggests that the consulting detour, while financially successful, may have been an extended postponement of his true calling rather than an alternative path to the same destination.

Practical Implications

• Lifestyle Design Strategy: Consider extreme minimalism as a competitive advantage that enables maximum resource allocation toward business growth rather than lifestyle maintenance
• Team Responsibility Assessment: Recognize how hiring creates moral obligations that can override personal preferences and exit timing, requiring careful consideration of growth implications
• Exit Planning Resilience: Prepare mentally and financially for deal disruptions by maintaining operational excellence and avoiding lifestyle inflation before transactions complete
• Passion vs. Duty Balance: Understand that team loyalty and market demand can sustain businesses even without founder passion, but consider long-term psychological costs
• Post-Exit Identity Planning: Anticipate that financial freedom may create unexpected psychological challenges for high achievers accustomed to pressure and urgency
• Wealth Management Education: Develop investment knowledge independently rather than relying solely on financial advisors who may lack specialized expertise
• Technical Skill Maintenance: Preserve hands-on capabilities alongside management responsibilities to maintain credibility and assessment abilities in technical fields

Ronan's journey demonstrates that business success can be achieved through discipline and responsibility rather than passion, but raises important questions about whether such achievements justify the personal costs involved.