At 16, I was flipping phones on eBay. By 23, I was running a $15M business. The real story started at 13 when I taught myself to code.
Everyone's looking for the secret formula. The real lessons? I learned them reselling broken phones from my bedroom.
Start with Code, Scale with Systems
At 13, I built my first website because I wanted to build things. That turned into an event registration app at 16 while I hustled electronics on eBay.
When you're selling refurbished electronics, you can't hide behind buzzwords. Either the phone works or it doesn't. Your customer is either happy or leaving a review that tanks your business.
Lesson: deliver what you promise. No fancy mission statements needed.
The Real MVP: Cash Flow
Everyone talks about product-market fit. Here's what they don't tell you: none of it matters if you can't manage cash flow.
Try buying inventory when you're waiting for eBay payments to clear. Nothing teaches cash flow like watching your business grind to a halt waiting on a payment.
Scaling Isn't About Size - It's About Systems
I went from shipping packages myself to processing 100,000+ daily requests. It wasn't about working harder or raising VC funding.
It was about building systems that work without you.
Manual processes are death. One person can pack 50 boxes. A good system can pack 5,000. One developer can handle 100 requests. A good system can handle 100,000.
What a Degree Can't Teach You
Everything I needed to know? I learned it in the trenches.
- Spot a market opportunity in 30 seconds
- Turn angry customers into loyal ones
- Build systems that scale without breaking
- Create MVPs that actually solve problems
This is the hard stuff that determines whether your startup lives or dies.
Why This Still Matters
Now I build AI-first operational software—a restaurant management system and an ERP for food distributors. Different game, same principles.
Too many companies chase "digital transformation" and end up with fancy dashboards that don't solve real problems. Like those eBay sellers with flashy listings and broken products.
The fundamentals don't change:
- Start with real problems
- Build systems that scale
- Cash flow beats everything
- Deliver what you promise
The Hard Truth
Most digital transformations fail because they skip basics while chasing trends. They want to talk about AI when their basic systems are broken.
I'm building AI-first operational software. Not chatbots or dashboards—actual systems that handle real work. The same principles from selling phones at 16 apply to building software that processes thousands of orders daily.
The businesses that win aren't chasing trends. They're mastering fundamentals while everyone else is distracted.