The year was 2017.
On my way to work, sitting in the subway, I had a thought:
“What if I finally brought that idea to life?”
The idea? Funny T-shirts for developers.
I called it IT-shirts (or “TI-shirts” in Portuguese).
After five years working on major e-commerce projects like Calvin Klein, Havaianas, and Walmart, I knew how complex running an online store could be.
So, I decided to do something unusual: launch a store inside my GitHub README.md.
I designed the prints, added payment links for each one, and handled customer support through email.
Simple, fast, and it worked.
Early Return
Even if I had chosen a ready-made e-commerce template, I know I would have spent countless hours customizing it — because… well, that’s the fun part.
But by choosing the simplest path possible, I was able to test fast, get real feedback, and focus on what really mattered.
That was my early return — validating the idea before overinvesting in features or infrastructure.
Overcoming Fear & Learning New Things
Every technology we use today came from someone asking themselves:
“What if…?”
What if I launched a product?
What if I learned a new technology?
What if I sent that LinkedIn message?
In my case, my “What if” moment was showing my project at a dev event.
There, I could see people’s genuine reactions: laughing at the shirts, asking questions, sharing feedback — and I learned more in that one day than in months of coding.
Training My Mental Model
Stepping out of your comfort zone stretches you — not only as a professional but as a person.
Even when things don’t work out, you grow.
Looking back, I can clearly see how that experiment shaped my mindset.
It was a chain of small “What ifs” that changed my career trajectory:
- Sep/2017: left a comfortable technical leadership role after 5 stable years.
- Nov/2017: launched the “funny dev T-shirt” project ❤️
- 2018: switched from frontend to fullstack — in a company that builds submarines (really).
- 2020: launched an online e-commerce course for developers (VTEX).
- 2022: started working for U.S. companies.
- 2025: specialized at the MIT in AI & Machine Learning, expanding my horizons.
So… what happened to the store?
In the end, the business itself didn’t succeed.
But what if I hadn’t tried?
I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to take many of the next steps in my journey.
The store taught me lessons about product thinking, marketing, fast validation, and the importance of testing ideas early.
And honestly — it was a great excuse to reconnect with friends at that developer event.
