The Day a Simple Challenge Reignited My Desire to Become an Entrepreneur
A phone call, a lockdown, a challenge between friends. In 2020, without realizing it, I launched my very first entrepreneurial project.
In 2020, my professional life was on a comfortable path. I was working for a commercial real estate company, I enjoyed my job, my days were full, and objectively, everything was going well. Yet deep down, a small flame kept burning. The flame of entrepreneurship. A quiet desire, never fully expressed, but always there.
Then April arrived. The world came to a halt. Covid forced everyone into remote work, days started to feel different, and conversations took on a new tone. It was at that exact moment that I received a phone call that changed everything.
My friend Yassine Rochd, who had just started his entrepreneurial journey, called me. The conversation was simple, almost ordinary, until he said something that stayed with me for a long time:
"Vincent, if you do not build verbos-irregulares-ingles.com, I will do it for you."
It was an instant wake-up call. Not a mystical revelation, but a mix of pride and deep excitement. Why had this domain been sitting quietly in the back of my mind? Why was I doing nothing with it, when it already represented an intention?
The answer goes back well before 2020. I had bought this domain after being inspired by François Grante. During his studies, he created a website dedicated to irregular verbs in English for French speakers, which over time became a true reference. His journey left a strong impression on me. Without realizing it, I had planted a seed by buying this domain, but I never watered it.
Yassine's challenge did the rest. I decided to go for it. No complex business plan, no sophisticated tech stack. Just my evenings and weekends in 2020, a code editor, and a clear idea: keep it simple and useful.
That is how verbos-irregulares-ingles.com was born. An almost minimalist page. A list of English irregular verbs, a filter, translations, pronunciation, a small interactive exercise, and a few PDF pages to download for offline practice. Nothing more. HTML, CSS, a bit of JavaScript, and above all, no unnecessary layers. A static, fast website, hosted and deployed with ease.
Against all expectations, the project found its audience. I quickly monetized it with Google AdSense. The model could not be simpler: pay-per-click ads displayed automatically. A few euros a day started to come in. It is probably the most passive business you can imagine. Once the site was online and the ads were set up, there was literally nothing to do. The income kept coming, month after month, without any intervention. It was not a financial breakthrough, but it was a personal breakthrough. Seeing a project built in my spare time generate its first income deeply changed how I see work and creation.
Carried by this momentum, I adapted the concept into other languages: Romanian and Portuguese. But never French. Out of respect. I did not want to compete with François Grante's website, which has dominated search results for more than ten years for the query "English irregular verbs" ("verbes irréguliers anglais" in French). And honestly, I am convinced that even ten years from now, his site will still be there, firmly holding the top position.
This project, as simple as it was, became my first real step into entrepreneurship. It did not aim to change the web, but it taught me something essential: sometimes, all it takes is a challenge, a suspended moment in time, and an imperfect idea to get started.
And very often, getting started changes everything.