Who am I? The 2017 version.

Going to university was for me the equivalent of sending a member of a remote tribe from a small island to New York. I found out I wasn't the center of the world.

It was so heartbreaking at first because I was now surrounded by the elite, which after a couple exams made me realize I wasn't the cleverest guy anymore. That was worse than your girlfriend cheating on you, it was life cheating on me for 17 years! 😰

I started to learn proper maths and physics, and yes, I did enjoy the process of learning, but I was very lonely on my way to being an Aerospace Engineer.

Quickly though came my first friends, and they weren't like anything I had before. I'm not saying I had no friends at school, I did and they are still my friends, but I don't see them very often because I'm usually working on my projects (and that's what I want to be doing). But these friends were different, not in every sense better, but truly different and probably more appropriate for this period of life that I was going through.

The majority of them had gone through the same kind of scholar's life that I had, which meant that we understood each other perfectly.

We had very deep conversations. We would speak about how I conceive human relations and they would understand me, and even if we didn't agree on something, nothing was left unjustified. Wow, I was feeling very rich back then. The fisherman from the island didn't have to speak to the fishes about his ideas because he was alone fishing, now the other fishermen were willing to talk and understood him.

After half a year of university I had two friends that changed my life radically in very different ways, but both were very inspiring.

1- The first one I'd like to talk about was one of the quieter guys in my class. We once did a 4 person study group at my house and he came earlier. We didn't know each other very well, but we managed to have a lot of fun studying. It started there, but we kept meeting regularly for studying, going for a run in the mornings, watching films and degustating craft and imported beers. In a philosophical sense, I'm not sure I've ever met anybody that connects with me that way again. We do have our differences but this makes it even better. But we aim for very different lifestyles, and here is were the other friend comes in.

2- The second one I'd like to talk about, Héctor Anadón, was one of the loudest guys in my class. The kind of guy who always tells the teacher he's wrong whenever he thinks there's a mistake in a lecture slide. Yes, I know, exactly the kind of guy you hated. Well, he didn't want to be pedantic, he just couldn't tolerate a mistake. I met him because he was building a 3D printer from zero and I wanted to build one too. We didn't meet regularly nor talk frequency, but when we both had a 3D printer we would sometimes share thoughts about the possibilities of this technology and how expensive 3D printing services were at that time.

This might, and actually is, sound crazy, but just after finishing springs final exams we spent an hour on the phone and decided that we would start a business offering 3D printing services with 3D printers that we would build ourselves. Not only that, but we also decided that we would start studying a Business degree at the same time we did Aerospace Engineering. WTF was I thinking 😱 !!!

Note from 2022: Héctor is still my partner in every single business that I've built. I will surely make a post about this relationship, as I believe it to be key in my success, and something that other people should do.

I had just turned 18 that year.

The roller coaster of events starts here, with the constitution of our first company.