Entrepreneurship
A decade of building, failing, learning, and occasionally succeeding across multiple ventures
The Entrepreneurial Detour
It started as an escape route from a life I didn't want in Huntsville, Alabama. What followed was a decade of ambitious attempts, spectacular failures, unexpected successes, and learning absolutely everything the hard way.
The First Leap: GENI
As CTO of a building automation startup, I wore every technical hat imaginable: IT infrastructure, manufacturing, software development, database design, hardware integration. The company never succeeded, but it taught me I could learn anything if motivated enough.
Early Lessons
- • When you're desperate enough, you'll learn anything
- • In startups, "not my job" isn't an option
- • Technical skills matter less than adaptability
- • Everything is figureoutable
The Technical Ventures
CompassioNote
Django-based contact enrichment platform. Elegant architecture, solid partnership, but unit economics killed it.
MESXpert
Industrial IoT platform with async Python backend and Vue.js frontend. Beautiful tech, but manufacturing companies weren't buying from a one-person shop.
UserDocs
Documentation automation combining Phoenix LiveView, Electron, and browser extension. Technical achievement overwhelmed by operational complexity.
None of my tech ventures achieved significant commercial success, but they gave me something more valuable than money — a systematic approach to learning and problem-solving that applies everywhere.
The Manufacturing Detour
At StoryWood Bowties, I scaled revenue from $1K to $20K monthly by rebuilding everything: lean manufacturing, 5S methodology, production workflows, e-commerce, analytics, and bookkeeping. Not sexy tech, but real revenue through systematic execution.
The Practical Success
Desert First Cleaning: No rocket science, just straightforward execution. Google ads, phone sales, contractor management. $252K+ cumulative revenue, $16K+ net profit in 2024. Sometimes the unsexy business wins.
The AI Evolution
Discussit
Conversation intelligence platform using LLMs, real-time transcription, and vector search. Found paying customers but missed the pivot opportunity.
Generaite Labs
Building AI-assisted development tools. CodeMySpec orchestrates requirements, architecture, BDD specs, and code generation for Elixir/Phoenix apps — used it to ship Fuellytics in 5 days.
What I Actually Learned
Entrepreneurship saved my life not because I became successful at it, but because it forced me to develop systematic approaches to learning and problem-solving. When you're desperate enough to try anything and stubborn enough to keep trying despite repeated failures, you develop a kind of competence that's hard to replicate.
The philosophy that I can learn to do anything - developed through necessity during those early startup days - has become my most valuable professional asset. It's not about having great ideas or being naturally gifted. It's about being willing to spend hundreds of hours learning whatever needs learning.
Technical Growth
From Django to LLMs, learning whatever the problem demands
Business Reality
Revenue and execution matter more than technical elegance
Personal Evolution
From escape route to systematic competence builder
Key Learnings
Success often comes from unexpected directions
Technical excellence alone doesn't guarantee market success
The ability to learn quickly is more valuable than initial expertise
Real revenue beats elegant architecture every time