Komby in 14 Steps — Step 13: Like a Dragon, Be water, my friend

In Hong Kong, I stopped in front of the Bruce Lee statue — the Little Dragon — and a guide explained in English who he really was: an entrepreneur, a peaceful silent fighter, a philosopher, not just the man of the kicks. I told that scene in Wan Chai, and I didn't name right away what it planted. Months later, under build pressure, that seed became Like a Dragon — not because I needed a quote to stick somewhere, but because I needed a discipline to hold without breaking.

Bruce Lee said you had to be formless, like water: take the shape of the vessel, be able to flow or strike depending on the moment. Even today, his wife Linda and his daughter Shannon carry that philosophy — Shannon extended it in Be Water, My Friend — and that's precisely the continuity that interests me. The Little Dragon died young, but the water keeps flowing, and I had to learn to embody it in my own fight rather than quote it to look good.

Bruce Lee, the face that served as my compass

To understand why this story stuck to my skin, you have to look further than the films. Bruce Lee — Li Xiaolong — wasn't only a martial arts star: born in San Francisco, raised in Hong Kong, also trained in the United States, he founded schools, invented Jeet Kune Do, and refused to imitate a successful personality. When Hollywood closed its door on him, he didn't wait for someone to open the front; he went to build elsewhere, where risk was still possible.

It was Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest studios that brought him back to Hong Kong. With The Big Boss, then Fist of Fury, records fell and a side door opened to the world. But Bruce wanted more control: with Chow, he founded Concord Production — him on creative, Chow on admin, Golden Harvest on distribution — and wrote, directed, produced and starred in The Way of the Dragon, before Enter the Dragon with Warner Bros. and Game of Death, left unfinished. To the end, he was an entrepreneur: not just the actor in front of the camera, the man who took the risk of producing.

That face — the fighter who becomes producer, the man who refuses to only want and who acts — is the one the guide had already named in front of the statue. Later, building Komby without a net, I understood why that trajectory spoke to me: DJ yesterday, CEO today, coder and composer, you can be several things if you refuse the single schema. Concord reminded me you can hold creative and risk at the same time, without waiting for a Hollywood door — or a raise — to validate you.

The trial: when rigidity costs more than the blows

The market hits, life hits too, and sometimes both on the same day, in a chain that leaves you little time to breathe between impacts. The natural reaction, the one the body knows before the head has thought, is to harden: defend the position, double down, clench your fists. Sometimes that rigidity is necessary, when it comes to holding a fundamental promise. Often, though, it's suicidal.

I learned it in concrete situations. I kept features out of pride when they contradicted Make It Easy and complicated life for those we claim to serve. I sent emails too fast, under adrenaline, and burned deals that twenty minutes of distance might have saved. There were periods when technical, client and staff issues arrived together, and my bootstrapper instinct wanted to lock everything down — control every variable, micro-manage every detail — until exhaustion and cascading errors. Underdog Man screamed to hit back, and meanwhile rigidity was breaking me more surely than the blows themselves.

I wasn't praying for an easy life: I didn't have one. What I lacked wasn't more will, but fluidity — that capacity to release a fixed form without releasing the fight, to accept that plan A dies without it being a personal defeat, to find another path when the first is blocked. Bruce Lee taught precisely that: water doesn't break like concrete; it changes shape and stays whole.

There was also, at a specific moment in the company, an image that sums up well where this lesson stopped being a travel anecdote. The vision was clear, the envelope limited — around three hundred thousand —, the team held at two developers in the city, and fear would willingly have shrunk everything. It wasn't a pitch: it was bootstrap reality. Staying alive and free at that size, without stiffening into concrete, is exactly where the Little Dragon lesson became a survival tool.

What the body remembers

Fluidity doesn't stay in the head: you practice it, or it doesn't exist. I learned to wait twenty minutes before replying to an aggressive email, to delete a feature because the market had changed and not because ego refused to admit the mistake, to walk in London as in Wan Chai reminding myself that London isn't Paris and Hong Kong isn't a trophy on a CV.

Shannon and Linda still carry the demand that knowing isn't enough — you have to apply — and wanting isn't enough — you have to act. Me, I had to live it in the dashboard, in the calls, in the nights when a team too small holds a vision larger than its size: first let it flow, then strike; first clarify the vision, then build.

Why I had to release this track

Those situations had stacked until they became pressure: the statue in Hong Kong, the story of Raymond Chow and Concord, the blows from market and life, rigidity mistakes, nights as two in the city. Composing wasn't sticking a quote on a beat; it was releasing something. I was fighting against water, and I needed a place to transform that lesson into something I could replay when my head wanted to stiffen until fracture.

Sharing this track was also offering that discipline to those who confuse tenacity and concrete — founders, independents, retail and service sector building without a net — and telling them you can hold without breaking. Without this step, The Undertaker would be a concrete arena. With it, you enter differently: you take the blows, you change shape, and you stay.

Freeing the mind

The Komby album is quasi-autobiographical, and Like a Dragon is the combat mark of that mindset — the one a guide named in front of a statue in Hong Kong, the one Linda and Shannon still carry, the one I had to learn under bootstrap blows. On France Je Te Quitte, I told other moments where you had to bend without breaking; here, the lesson runs all the way to the dashboard, to daily decisions.

In the background, Komby — combination, MetaSaaS, international ambition — builds a bit like Lee built his films and his art: yourself first, action next, fluid form facing change. You can want for a long time; what matters is to act, and to build.

Like a Dragon is the thirteenth combat mark: the track you listen to when you want to strike, and you need to remember that water wins — provided you act, not only want.

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Alexandre Auger — CEO of Komby

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