Hello, I’m Misir

I don’t know why but we usually introduce ourselves with our career first. Over the years I learned to play piano, flying planes and still working on taking better photos. Unfortunately, all require a decent amount of time and money to keep going - which I am getting from writing software professionally. When the industry feels hostile, I get motivation to start some business as well. So far I have founded and killed one startup, but I am looking forward to new ventures; hopefully to not kill them this time..

How it started

It all started when I was 13, I found a book on my dad’s bookshelf. Had no idea what it was about and learned Pascal by mistake. Then spent a few years writing windows apps using Lazarus. I knew just enough to be blindly confident about my skills and managed to make sound effect programs, video players, lots of unfinished attempts to replicate photoshop, a few games and security related software like file encryption toolkits.

I got my first few gigs to work on websites with almost zero knowledge of php, html, css, js. Along the way I learned that I have to use mysql and figured it out as well. Because I couldn’t find the native UI toolkit I have been craving to make desktop apps, I ended up becoming web developer instead. Learned more php, got serious with mysql, server-side stuff, MVC, template engines and so on. One of the projects I worked on is currently linked from all major Azerbaijani government websites. I am not going to share which website it was, as it wasn’t my most proud project ever, but it’s been the most long-living project of mine.

The rest is just a career progression. If you want more of that, feel free to check out my CV instead: https://flowcv.com/resume/2vtdsagms9e6

Piano

My career is still fulfilling to me, but I wanted to use my newfound freedom to experiment with new stuff. Mostly because I was bored. First I picked up piano since I love classical music and would often imagine myself playing them while listening. So enough of imagination, I put in the time and some money to actually realize it. I have detailed the progress more on my blog post “Reflecting on 1 year of piano training”. After around 1-2 years I got into a place where I was somewhat confident to pick up a new piece to learn. It would often take me a month or two to get comfortable with the piece, where playing became expression rather than execution.

As of now, unfortunately I forgot almost all of the pieces after taking ~2 years long break. I am planning to pick it up again once I get into more stable stage of my life since it requires owning a piano which I don’t want to carry around in Europe while moving around.

Photography

Around 2023-2024 for a brief moment I became obsessed with digital photography, camera gear, lenses and editing. I don’t exactly remember what caused it but I somehow ended up owning a camera and using it as an excuse to go out more and take random photos. Most of them were terrible to be honest, but over time I started collecting some photos that I enjoy looking at. Eventually my focus shifted from technical excellence to storytelling, and creating mementos for future. I enjoy going through old photos to reignite old memories, which reinforces my motivation to take new photos.

For a brief moment I became more obsessed about collecting the gear than taking the photos. Thankfully the 28-70mm f/2.8 lens was more expensive than the rest of my gear combined, so eventually I dropped the idea.

Also doing more photography helped me notice light, color, shape and composition. A photo is no longer just a 2D frame, it’s a multi-dimensional medium - combination of highlights, shadows, colors, details, all trying to convey a story. I started applying that outside photography too. Like it comes in handy when shopping for new clothes, now that I notice why certain things look good together.

Aviation

It’s probably a weird start, but I got into aviation after watching a lot of crash investigation videos online. The complexity of managing multiple systems and simplicity of pre-defined procedures lured me into learning and imagining more about aviation. Inevitably I got into sim-flying, but I found it rather boring after spending ~100 hours in 2 months. It was great and all, but to get most out of flying on a simulator, I would need at least a VR goggle to get head tracking, then a joystick and so on, it racks up quickly and I wasn’t sure if it’s worth the investment. So I did the obvious next step. Instead of paying the amount I would’ve spent for years of sim-gaming, I spent it to fly a real plane. For an hour. As they say in aviation, the bug has bit me. I signed up for training not so long after and got my own license on November of 2025. Now as a licensed pilot, I can more confidently fly on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (2024 is still buggy, and I didn’t want to bother setting up joystick controls for Xplane). But seriously, it was an awesome journey, perhaps a rough one, and costly. Flying off on your own for the first time, knowing that it’s all just you, that stress and reward after you land and taxi to park after 2 go arounds. It’s very fulfilling!

Aviation also taught me very good disciplines aside from mechanical flying. Interestingly the most challenging part of the training was on my head rather than on the plane. I had never questioned my thinking as much as I did while figuring out my behavior in different situations. Additionally, understanding weather systems, ability to utilize aviation related weather services felt very nice. Nowadays instead of checking my weather app, I’d check nearby airfield’s METAR, TAF reports and weather radars before deciding what to wear when going outside. Definitely worth purchasing extra weather radar services for that! I can also predict which runway my friend is going to land which is cool, i guess??.

How to connect

The easiest way to reach out would be sending an email to “me@themisir.com”. Feel free to say hi. I am less weird in writing than in person, so email is a good way to get things started.

If you reach out to promote your product I will report your email to the spam filters.