After graduating high school with reasonably good grades, I took a gap year to travel before completing my one year mandatory military service. After that, I entered an integrated Master's program in Maritime engineering and did pretty well in my first experiences with programming and CS courses. But then my path took a turn when I made the (in retrospect; overly) risky decision to try out for special forces upon receiving the unexpected opportunity to do so. I actually got quite far in selection, but it ended abruptly when I was rushed to the ER with a pretty severe back injury.

The aftermath was challenging—I lost my scholarship and tried to power through my studies while working full-time, with little success. And over time I slowly dug myself into a hole of shame, debt, and bad decisions. After eventually dropping out, I spent several years moving around and slowly working my way back out to where I now finally find myself in a stable enough situation where I can truly go after what I want again. Despite some rough years, I don't regret much; I made mistakes and learned.

Well, now I am making an attempt at becoming a full-time bug bounty hunter! Actually, the project started a few months ago when I began laying the groundwork with a few CS50 courses and moving to a more stable life-style, which you can read about in detail on the roadmap page. But week 1 of 2025 is the first time I am going at it full-time with essentially no other big commitments in my life.

How?

The short answer is: Brute Forcing.

After going through an embarrassingly long list of roadmaps and "How to get into cybersecurity in 2025?" videos, the one thing that kept coming up was: This is going to be hard, and you have to be willing to put in the work. So that is exactly what I'm going to do.

And I do have a pretty well-documented ability to put in long hours. Whether it's physical—in extreme triathlons, marathons, or SF selection—or mental—in the three times I've gotten the top 500 trophy in Lichess' 24-hour chess marathon tournament. I know how to go hard and stay consistent when it gets tough.

That being said, I acknowledge that I have a long way to go. A really long way. And I get a lot more concrete about my plan ahead in the Roadmap section. So now that the road is built only thing left to do is start walking down it.

Probably the most important question. Anyone can make an ambitious and detailed plan when they are motivated, but it's the why that keeps you plowing forward when it gets really hard. For me, the why is quite multifaceted:

Genuine interest: All the way back in high school, I was messing around with computers, writing bash scripts to prank my friends, etc. (I might've been that asshole who indirectly deleted a teacher's system 32 once). But my school didn't have a CS course, and when it came to deciding studies, I kind of just chose something respectable that I could get in to. Over the years, though, I've consistently drifted back toward working with computers. Whether it was when I ran a student website for a year, worked part-time as a data analyst for the university when I was trying to get by without a scholarship, or even took the Security+ certification just out of personal interest a few years back. To me, being good with computers feels like knowing some kind of hidden magic that the vast majority of people don't know but that runs everywhere and literally powers the world. (The fantasy nerd in me might be showing a bit with this metaphor). And I am so damn excited to get really into the weeds of it.

Being my own boss: After having spent numerous hours working under difficult bosses, covering for unmotivated coworkers, and completing tasks that felt meaningless, Freedom from corporate structures and being my own boss appeals to me on a very deep level. I am completely willing to take a significant economic hit for a while for that privilege.

Freedom: Having lived in three different countries over the last three years, it is quite obvious that the flexibility that getting good at this could potentially bring is an absolutely massive upside for me. I am not ready to settle down yet, and having a job that could allow me to truly live out the lifestyle I've dreamt of for years is another major motivation. I realize that this comes down the line with (hopefully) eventual success, but it can still motivate me now.

Ambition: The money is obviously also a big draw, but for me, it is honestly quite far down the list. Don't get me wrong; I like having disposable income and a financially secure future as much as the next guy. But there are a lot of jobs that can give me that with much more stable and predictable results. Sure, I get excited hearing about the big players in the space crushing it and earning eye-watering amounts. But I might actually get more excited about the prospect of maybe eventually one day getting invited to a Live Hacking Event. Money is great, but being flown out to hack with the best in the business just sounds like the coolest thing in the world to me. For now, though, this is probably my ambition running wild. Let's find our first bug before we start dreaming of LHEs.

Community: Learning more about the BB community has gotten me really excited to become a part of it. There are so many awesome people in this space who put a lot of effort and care into the community with YouTube channels, podcasts, Discords, and blogs. And I am going to do my best to become one of those people by honestly and consistently documenting the process of a complete noob doing their best to break into this field.