Doing my best.
I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with two loving parents. I was good at sports and good at school, and honestly I was a bit of a jerk for most of it.
Life humbled me a couple of times. I grew over one off-season and went from one of the best players in Little League to the worst on my travel baseball team. I wanted out so badly I kicked a wall trying to break my toe. I quit anyway and never played again, which I regret. As a freshman I made varsity basketball and lost us a game by throwing the ball out of bounds with eight seconds left. That same year, pre-calc was the first class I actually had to study for, and I was lazy. I still am a little.
I was committed to play basketball at Goshen College, then called the coach and went to Ball State instead. I joined a fraternity I didn't expect to join, full of normal, laid-back guys. I quit being an RA halfway through the year to become chapter president, because giving back to the guys who made college feel like home mattered more to me. I was voted homecoming king, and the next year I helped run the royalty process. That's how I met my girlfriend.
After college I worked at Epic. It was full of smart people, but the 60-hour weeks weren't for me. I learned software, user experience and how to manage change. Then I cleaned physical therapy rooms and scheduled patients at a hospital for $17 an hour.
We moved to Chicago, and I worked my way up at Albi from SDR to account executive to sales development manager. I had a promotion and a raise approved, then walked away from them and my equity to start my own thing. Then I hit a really hard stretch, mentally and financially, and ended up driving Uber to get by.
I climbed back out through a great sales job at EnergyCX that took too many hours, and then took a step back in pay to work in sales and revenue operations at a fire protection company. That's where I am now.
I've had this idea for six years. I've also put it off for six years. It wasn't until AI made it this easy that I finally did it. That's what I want to help other people do. Not use AI to replace people, but to make money, build their own thing and take care of their own community, without waiting on anyone else.
And just like in high school, I can't dunk.