Marc Lou of Habits Garden: How Fixing His Sleep and Embracing Authentic Solopreneurship Sparked a Wave of Productive Startups

Books have the power to shape, influence, and change our lives. Why is that so? What goes into a book that can shape lives? To address this we are interviewing people who can share a story about a book that changed their life, and why. As a part of our series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marc Lou.

Marc is a 28 years old French entrepreneur living in Bali. He created 12 startups in the last 3 years. A typical day in Marc’s life is surfing, reading, coding, and marketing.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and how you grew up?

I grew up in Paris in a family of 5. I spent most of my time building Legos in my bedroom. When I was outside, I was creating huts for my friends and me. I was terrible at school, my teachers hated me for disturbing the class. I somehow graduated from college where I learned the basics of coding. I realized I could build useful tools for people and make a living out of them. That’s when my life really started.

Let’s talk about what you are doing now, and how you achieved the success that you currently enjoy. Can you tell our readers a bit about the work you are doing?

I help people be more productive and stick to their goals with a gamified habit tracker (https://habitsgarden.com/). Games are so powerful to make us achieve things. The app is stuffed with psychological hacks to give people the motivation they need to stick to their daily habits, like reading a book for instance.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

- Authenticity is #1 because no one is better at being you than you.

- In life in general, everything takes time. Patience is critical to avoid quitting too early.

- Resilience will help you navigate through the inevitable trough of sorrow.

What’s the WHY behind the work that you do? Please share a story about this if you can.

Freedom. I want to make decisions about my startup, I want to wake up when my body is rested. I don’t want to ask permission to go on holiday. All the frustration pilled up from school is now my biggest source of motivation: I want to be free.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My wife, Wonji, has been the most supportive person and I wouldn’t here without her. She was always cheering me up when I was working alone on my startups and reminded me that, one day, I’ll be successful.

Awesome! Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Can you please tell our readers about “The Book That Changed Your Life”? Can you share a story about how it impacted you?

Wednesday, 9th June 2021. I started crying without knowing why. Suddenly, anger came out, I punched my bedroom wall and I sprained my wrist.

I crashed my previous startup and lost a significant amount of money on the stock market. I was depressed.

I watched a TED talk by Matthew Walker about the importance of sleep and decided to read his book “Why We Sleep”.

After realizing that lack of sleep is the source of multiple deadly diseases, I started to wonder if I get enough sleep. The book walks you through a couple of tests so you can figure this out. I was really tired without knowing it.

After following the advice given in the book, I fixed my sleep in a couple of days.

This created a domino effect and everything else followed (motivation, happiness, libido, etc…).

What was the moment or series of events that made you decide that you wanted to take a specific course of action based on the inspiration from the book? Can you share a story about that?

I tried this simple experiment: read a book for 30 minutes in the morning, without taking any coffee. I fell asleep after the first 10 pages. Something was wrong, how can I be tired even though I just woke up?
This was the trigger of a series of actions to fix my sleep and start living a better life.

Can you articulate why you think books in particular have the power to create movements, revolutions, and true change?

When you’re reading a book, you set up a time with yourself. Unlike podcasts, videos, or book summaries where you’re mainly passive, a book lets you be part of the adventure. Your brain is warming up, your thoughts are flourishing. It’s like the author and yourself are having a deep conversation about a life-changing topic. That’s where revolutions happen.

A book has many aspects, of course. For example, you have the writing style, the narrative tense, the topic, the genre, the design, the cover, the size, etc. In your opinion, what are the main, essential ingredients needed to create a book that can change lives?

As a reader, I want to relate to the story of the author. It needs to resonate with mine so I can be fully immersed and ready for a life-changing event.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started My Career” and why?

1. Be patient, everything takes time: I used to make videos on YouTube and quitted too early.
2. Put your ego aside, it’s not your fault if people are not buying your product.
3. Be yourself, it’s not because it works for someone that it’ll work for you.
4. Fear is much bigger than the pain.
5. Have fun! Don’t sacrifice today at the cost of tomorrow.

The world, of course, needs progress in many areas. What movement do you hope someone (or you!) starts next? Can you explain why that is so important?

How we’re raised shapes who we are. The school has a very big impact on people and there’s a lot to be fixed. For instance, why do we compare students’ grades with each others and not with themselves?

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://habitsgarden.com/ is where the magic happens :)

Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us and our readers. We know that it will make a tremendous difference and impact thousands of lives. We are excited to connect further and we wish you so much joy in your next success.