Trader Joe's founder recounts his bear market experience: The world kisses me with pain, and asks me to sing in return
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Trader Joe's founder recounts his bear market experience: The world kisses me with pain, and asks me to sing in return
Never lose hope in life, no matter what you're going through—these experiences can become an incredible source of motivation for what comes next.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: CryptoFishx, Founder of Trader Joe
Translated by: TechFlow intern
If this market crash has left you feeling hopeless and helpless, then listen to my story.
Around 2017 and 2018, I watched my 20x gains gradually vanish, until eventually I lost two-thirds of my principal. I became unreasonably angry at the world, shouting at what I saw as an unfair market.
At that time, I was still a doctor, studying code in my spare time. I made a plan: in the next cycle, I would make it big. By then, I had nothing left to lose. I channeled all my anger and frustration into learning—into studying computer science.
A man must shoulder his mission. Even though I was already 30, I was still playing this game meant for the young. There was so much for me to learn, and keeping up wasn't easy.
I was no longer young, but I always knew my strengths were resilience and hunger. I began taking every course I could find, tearing knowledge apart and stuffing it into my mind—advanced algorithms, advanced machine learning, functional programming—fields I'd never known before. I'd never studied math, so to catch up, I taught myself calculus every night.
Finally, after two and a half years, I earned two degrees. I'm not a math genius, but as the saying goes, the early bird catches the worm, and diligence makes up for lack of talent. After graduation, I landed a job at Google, which gave me a real sense of achievement.
But my dream wasn't just to earn money and buy a luxury car. Months later, I remembered my original desire—to become a builder in the crypto space.
Then, I laid out my timeline: work at Google for 1–2 years, then spend a year at a major DeFi company, and finally launch my own DeFi project.
But life had different plans. Just three months into my new job, I started working on Trader Joe. At first, it was just a side project. And then, the rest is history.
Looking back now, without the pain that the crash brought me, would I have had such strong motivation? To be honest, without being driven by pain, I don't think I could have become the better version of myself that I am today.
So no matter what, never lose hope in life. No matter what you're going through right now, it can become an incredible source of motivation for what comes next.
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