I was 17, he was 19. We were the two youngest there - stocking shelves, hauling pallets, getting paid by the hour, watching the clock until our shift ended.

We talked a lot during those shifts. About school, about what we actually wanted to do with our lives, about the fact that neither of us could picture ourselves doing this - or anything like this - for the next forty years. We didn’t have a plan. We didn’t have money. We didn’t have any of the things you’re supposed to have before you start something. But we had this feeling that wouldn’t go away: that if we didn’t try to build something ourselves, we’d spend the rest of our lives wondering what would have happened if we had.

So we started this company on the side - while we were both still in school. The first year was rough. We were figuring out cold email from scratch, running campaigns late at night, taking client calls between classes, getting things wrong, fixing them, getting them wrong again. We made almost nothing and reinvested almost all of it. There were plenty of moments where the easier thing would have been to quit and get a normal job like everyone else our age.

We didn’t. We kept going, mostly because we had each other to keep going with. One of us would have a bad week and the other would pick it up. Then it would flip the other way the week after. Slowly things started working. Then they started working consistently. Then clients started referring other clients, and we couldn’t keep up alone, so we hired our first teammate. Then another. Then another.

Two years later, we’ve both graduated. We’ve worked with 180+ clients across the US and Europe, generated thousands of qualified leads and booked meetings, and grown the team to 20 people. This is what we do full-time now - and honestly, we’re just getting started.