Sylvain was working in sales when he got an idea for a hospitality startup. He reached out to developers for a quote. They came back with a number: €50,000.
“I didn’t have €50,000,” Sylvain says bluntly. “But I had a brain.”
He started teaching himself on OpenClassrooms and YouTube, but realised he needed structure. That’s when he found Le Wagon Bordeaux and connected with Bertrand, the campus manager.
“He convinced me,” Sylvain recalls. “I signed up for the Web Development bootcamp and got funding through a professional training programme.”
Leaving his sales job wasn’t easy. His employer didn’t want to let him go, but Sylvain found a way. In 2019, he launched Room In Touch Match, his hospitality platform. Then 2020 hit, and Covid shut everything down.
“Bad timing,” Sylvain admits with a shrug. “But that’s entrepreneurship. You know the risks.”
The Web Development bootcamp taught him more than code. It taught him to be curious, to read documentation, to ask questions, to keep learning.
“Le Wagon is an impulsion,” Sylvain explains. “Like a dad helping you ride a bike. The training wheels come off, you get a push, and then you have to keep pedalling.”
He stayed connected to the Le Wagon community, first as a teaching assistant, then as a teacher. He discovered he loved the pedagogical side.
“I was helping classmates during the bootcamp,” Sylvain recalls. “I thought, maybe teaching is something I’d enjoy.”
Now, at 42, he’s a freelance developer and educator. He teaches at various web development schools, something he never would’ve predicted seven years ago.
“If you’d told me I’d be a professor, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Sylvain laughs.
Building fast, testing ideas
He’s also launched two new projects. Wasteal, a marketplace for DIY services that’s attracted clients like Unikalo (painting industry and shops for pros) and several trade suppliers. And a gamified Google review app that took four days to build and already generates revenue.
“That’s the beauty of knowing how to code,” Sylvain says. “You can test ideas fast.”
He works with Le Wagon’s B2U division now, running seminars for partner institutions. Recently he spent two days with HEC teaching Figma and GenAI and Automation, showing future entrepreneurs how to use AI tools critically.
“AI will write code for you,” Sylvain explains. “But you need to know enough to review it, to spot the mistakes, to make it better.”
He sees developers becoming more like project managers, directing AI tools and analysing the output rather than writing every line by hand.
“Someone who doesn’t know code can use AI to build a proof of concept,” Sylvain says. “But to take it further, you need technical knowledge.”
Looking back, Sylvain credits Le Wagon with the entire trajectory. The methodology, the community, the impulsion.
“I worked hard,” he acknowledges. “But without Le Wagon, I wouldn’t be here. Simple as that.”
Thanks a lot for the interview, Sylvain!
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