After selling the site and trying to run that transport business, the company went under fast. There was an investigation for delayed insolvency that got dropped, but I still owed VAT. So in 2016, I filed for personal bankruptcy. Back then, the process took five long years. Fortunately, as a freelancer, I received a trade exemption, which allowed me to keep my self-employed income.
During that time, I sat down to analyze what went wrong. I came to a surprising realization: the company's failure was actually a blessing in disguise. Otherwise, that business would have turned into a massive liability—it would have ended up running my life instead of the other way around. Failing gave me the space to question everything: my goals, my mindset, and who I actually was.
Later on, I tried to replicate my earlier success and rebuilt the site. study.com had barely touched it, so I restored the forum and Google started indexing it again. But the web had changed. The old monetization model using AdSense and ESL teaching materials didn't work the way it used to.
Around 2018 or 2019, I had a sudden wake-up call. I was daydreaming about making €15,000 a month again when a terrifying thought hit me: What if I actually manage to pull this off, hit €15,000 a month, and still feel empty inside? What then? That’s when it clicked: life has to be about something much bigger than just running a website and collecting €15,000 a month.
