Built After 100 Experiments
I shipped 100+ projects in 20 years. Most "failed." I'm still here with a house, passive income, and freedom.
The projects weren't failures. They were the path.
But there's one thing I never solved.
The Pattern
During my time at Founder Institute Hong Kong, I helped dozens of new entrepreneurs. I watched them crash. I watched them succeed. I watched them make the exact same mistakes I made.
Then my autistic pattern recognition kicked in.
There's an 80% overlap in every founder's journey. The same paralysis at the start. The same scope creep. The same burnout. The same retreat to building when marketing gets uncomfortable.
Everyone thinks their journey is unique. It's not.
The Gap
Here's what 100 projects taught me: I can build anything. I can ship fast. I can iterate until something works.
I've never lost money I couldn't afford to lose. Twenty years in the game, still standing. Not successful by any headline metric — but never blown up either.
But I kept skipping marketing.
Every time. Post-launch, when the work shifts from code to people, I'd find a reason to go back to building. "One more feature." "The product isn't ready." "I'll do marketing tomorrow."
Tomorrow never came. Good products died in silence.
I won anyway — through volume, persistence, and iteration. But I won ugly. I left money, users, and impact on the table because I couldn't face the work that doesn't feel like work.
The Path
Nice, France. Age 10-17.
Started karate at 10. Switched to kung fu at 15. By 17, I was teaching it.
Age 18.
Trained at Shaolin Monastery in China with monks Shi Heng Fa and Shi Yan Lu. Came home different.
Age 19.
Selected for French special forces. High IQ scores plus physical ability. Then broke both knees before deployment. Military career over before it started.
Age 20. China.
Most people would've spiraled. I went back to China.
Got scammed. Lost everything. Homeless. No money, no visa, no contacts.
Police didn't care. French embassy didn't help.
The local triad did. They saw me on the street for a few days, invited me for tea, and gave me a way to survive. The people society calls criminals were the only ones who showed up.
Spent 15 months figuring it out. Learned Mandarin in a month by drinking with people and listening. Found a way home.
Three months later, I was selling suits. A year after that, I launched my first ecommerce store and sold my jeans brand to buyers from Paris.
That's when I knew: I can build my way out of anything.
The Experiments
Then came two decades of building:
- Raised $200K for a fitness startup in Hong Kong — learned fundraising, lost to cofounder misalignment
- Esports bar & restaurant in Lyon — opened, hired staff, ran it, still rated 4.8 stars. Closed when the economics didn't work.
- Glitterbomb company — $100 in revenue (still funny)
- Bitcoin mining rigs, Discord bots, custom keyboards, 3D printing, dozens more
At one point in Hong Kong, I had 5 HKD in my wallet. Less than a dollar. Still playing the game. Still figuring it out.
Each experiment shipped. Most didn't scale. All taught something.
The portfolio outcome? A house. Passive income. Stocks. Crypto. Freedom to build what I want.
The gap that remained? I still flinch at marketing.
The Turning Point
At 40, with three kids and a printing business running with my wife, I did something nobody expects from a high school dropout:
I took Harvard's CS50 and finished it in 2 weeks.
Not 2 months. Two weeks. At 40. While running a business. With three kids.
Now I had the skills to build the thing I always needed: a system that forces me to do marketing first. Before I'm allowed to retreat to code.
Not a productivity app. A system that doesn't trust me to do the hard stuff.
The Founder
Jude Cale
@judecale on X- Karate at 10. Kung fu at 15. Teaching at 17. Shaolin at 18.
- Selected for French special forces at 19. Broke both knees.
- Survived 15 months in China with nothing. Built my way out.
- Father of 3 — they "help" me code
- Nice, France — dreams of Texas
- Asperger's as a tool — pattern recognition and hyperfocus are my unfair advantages
- CS50x graduate at 40 after 2 weeks of hyperfocus
- Drove into Ukraine war zone with supplies, solo, self-financed (proof)
- 100+ projects shipped. Still building.
The Philosophy
- Marketing first — building is the escape, not the work
- Ship over ideas — everyone has ideas, nobody ships
- Share the journey — wins and losses, publicly
- Keep it simple — built for solopreneurs, not committees
- Sustainable pace — no burnout theater, no hustle cosplay
"I built the system my brain needed to stop hiding in code."
— Jude