I’ve been a loser most of my life

I’ve been a loser most of my life.

As a kid, I fought with my mom because I hated school, and school hated me back.

As a teenager, I didn't grow up. I was 155cm and super skinny when all the other guys were 180cm. I became an easy target, and I had to stop playing sports.

As a uni student, I lost the remaining bits of self-confidence. I had no role model, no idea what to do. So I became the guy who drinks the most and plays World of Warcraft the hardest.

As an entrepreneur, the first four years were painful. I spent an entire year thinking I was the next Mark Zuckerberg, I lost my friends who followed the traditional path, and I felt completely misunderstood by everyone.

Nothing ever seemed to work.

And in 2021, I hit what felt like the natural conclusion of that losing streak — broke, 27, living with my wife in my parents’ house in Paris, still trying to prove I wasn’t a failure.

I thought I’d build something clever: The Golden Plumber. A $2 PDF to help men stop dribbling after peeing. Yes, really.

I even printed stickers with QR codes and stuck them in public toilets in Paris, hoping strangers would buy it. Nobody did. Another failure.

Every day felt like a parody of entrepreneurship. I was broke, embarrassed, living in my childhood room, and my parents still didn’t understand what I did for a living. One morning, I punched four holes in the wall. Then I cried in my wife’s arms.

That was rock bottom. But looking back, that’s where everything started to flip.

Failure strips away your ego. Once there’s nothing left to lose, all that’s left is the work.

I read books. I worked out. I learned Korean. I started coding again. And slowly, I realized something simple:

Success isn’t luck. It’s a law of physics. If you keep showing up, something will move.

In the past 4 years, I lived the same day 1,460 times. Workout. Code. Repeat. I built 30 startups. Most failed. But each one made me a little sharper. A little faster. A little closer.

Until one day, one of them hit. And that was enough to change everything.

If you’re in your loser era right now, the universe is testing how much you actually want it. Keep showing up. Keep losing forward. If you put in enough reps, something will move.

And one day, you’ll realize you were never really losing.

— Marc Lou