Uneed Residency #2 - Recap

Hey 👋🏻

The second batch of the Uneed Residency is over, and I have a lot to share 😄!

I won’t go through everything that happened day by day here. I’d rather share my impressions and some of the highlights. In the coming days, I’ll also publish an article about the finances, like I did for the first batch. I’ll publish another one about the upcoming batch #3, which will probably be a bit different.

As a reminder, this second edition took place from October 26 to November 2, 2026, at the Manoir de la plume in Nantes.

The interviews

During this edition, my days revolved around the 12 interviews I recorded. Thanks to Virgile and Anna for their help, I would never have managed it on my own.

The idea was to interview every resident about their current projects, their plans for the future, their experience at the Residency, and so on. These interviews will be published in the following week!

Honestly, these moments were magical for me! They gave me some one-on-one time with each resident, and even though it happened in front of a camera, it was still a great way to get to know them and have a good time together.

Cheese and Friends

On Thursday, after exploring the city center, we spent the evening at Cheese and Friends, a cheese bar run by friends of ours.

Emanuele, Dorian and Emmanuel

Emanuele, me, Sergey and Oleksandra

Anna and Emanuele

Emanuele, Dorian and Emmanuel in front of Cheese and Friends

That evening was one of my favorite moments! I feel like that’s when a lot of the residents started to feel more at ease and to chat with everyone. Emanuele did a lot to lighten the mood by telling his stories 😂!

I also really enjoyed the few hours before that, when we walked around the city center with Piotr, Elitza, Anna, Venelin and Sylvain, before grabbing frozen yogurt in 10°C weather (sorry). It was a calm moment away from the manor, and I’m not sure exactly why, but I’ll remember it for a long time!

Visiting the castle of Nantes

The Castle. Photo by Venelin

Frozen Yogurt

The Residents

To select the Uneed Residency participants, I use criteria that are pretty personal and varied. I try to bring together all kinds of projects, people from all backgrounds and all levels of experience, but above all: people who are interesting and easy to live with.

It might sound silly, but that’s my number one criterion! These residencies aren’t meant to create buzz, to work like crazy or to take photos: they’re about meeting people and building a community.

I think it worked out well: everyone was amazing!

You might notice a pattern: thanks to Elitza for the photos 😂!!

Nevo, Piotr, Oleksandra, Pete, Dmytro, Sylvain and Elitza

Sylvain, me and Emanuele

Everyone after the livestream

Us burning (yes) marshmallow on the fire!!

Anna, Sylvain, me, Venelin, Piotr and Elitza

Here’s the full list of all of them, with their projects:

• Serg Karakhanyan: Blogr, grows websites on autopilot (and sold Directify before that)
• Elitza Vasileva: own.page, a personal website builder
• Venelin Kochev: Directify, which he bought from Serg
• Oleksandra Lysenko: PredictionJar
• Dmytro Bavykin: DistroChef and SimplePoo
• Emanuele Totaro: mobile apps grown through TikTok
• Sylvain Obegi: an AI assistant for people with ADHD
• Pete: High Signal, ghostwriting and newsletters
• Emmanuel Marboeuf and Dorian Ouvrard: BWorlds
• Piotr Kulpinski: OpenAlternative, Dirstarter and EuroAlternative
• Lilian: a portfolio of mobile apps
• Nicolas Papegaey: a portfolio of iOS apps
• Nevo David: Postiz, one of our sponsors
• Annika Ljaš Eilat: Creem, one of our sponsors

The Board Games

One board game Elitza brought along was a huge hit: Temple of Terror, a bluffing game played in two teams. I lost count of how many rounds we played, but I think it was close to twenty 😂. Board games are amazing for breaking the ice and getting to know people, since everyone feels more at ease when they're playing.

I already miss playing it 🥺.

Halloween

Saturday was Halloween! Unlike the previous batch, I decided not to throw a big open house party. A week is already really short, and I think it's better to make the most of every moment together as a group 😊.

Elitza and Oleksandra spent some time doing makeup on a few of us: what do you think of the result??

Everyone with their makeup!

Sylvain, Oleksandra and Nicolas

Elitza doing my makeup!

Conclusion

What can I say?! I had an incredible, very intense time, and I'm already looking forward to the third edition!

This edition was a bit harder for me than the first one, for many different reasons, the main one being my lack of sleep during the first few days. To be honest, at one point I really thought I was going to throw in the towel 😅.

That said, it doesn't change the fact that I spent an amazing week with people I loved meeting and hope to see again very soon. It's extremely hard to describe this feeling, but spending a week with people who are so driven, so unique and so like-minded has a really powerful effect. Most of us didn't know each other at the start of the week, and yet we're leaving after sharing very intense moments and building strong bonds. I hope this week gave them as much as it gave me, and that it will inspire other people to start or join other residencies!

Thank you

Thanks again to Creem and Postiz, our two sponsors.

Thanks to Anna and Virgile for their help with the interviews.

Thanks to Vincent, our cook, for his incredible meals, his patience, his good mood and his weird noises.

Thanks to the Manoir de la plume team for being there, for their help and for all their work on this beautiful place!

Thanks to Chris and Flo for welcoming us at Cheese and Friends.

Thanks to Sergey for his amazing brasero 🥩

And of course, a huge, heartfelt thank you to all the residents 🫶🏻. If I could make just one wish, it would be this: I hope to see you all again soon.

Thomas