I'm an autodidact, health enthusiast, and technologist with a passion for learning, building, and sharing knowledge. This is my story — raw, unfiltered, and in my own words.
I grew up in South Florida, in a really nice part of town surrounded by trust fund kids and wealthy folks. It was a good setup until 2008 hit. The financial crisis shook things up for my family, and while we weren't in a bad spot, it knocked me out of the "fancy school" crowd. So, I ended up at FSU. School was never my thing—I was a terrible student unless something grabbed me. If I got hooked on a subject, though, I'd dive in deep and get good fast.
Take computers, for example. At 13, I got obsessed and built my first gaming rig—a knockoff Alienware. I messed around with basic scripting and server management using FileZilla, all because I was addicted to Counter-Strike 1.6. I even learned design tools like GIMP to make blocks for a mod called Hide-and-Seek. That's when I started downloading code files, trying to figure out what the hell they did.
Then there was pyrotechnics. I found a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook on The Pirate Bay and went nuts. I learned how to make smoke bombs, extract KNO₃ from stump remover at Home Depot, and pull sulfur and iron oxide using electrolysis with a car battery to make thermite. I made flash powder, built rockets with homemade gunpowder (ball mill included), and grew a YouTube channel called "Parker the Pyro" to 13,000 subscribers by 15. Wild times.
At 15, I heard Avicii and thought, "I can do that." So, I torrented Ableton off The Pirate Bay and spent the next four years obsessed with music production. I produced tracks, DJed at parties, and started throwing my own at my parents' house when they were out of town. Made up to $500 a night in high school—pretty sweet gig. My parents were always at our second home, so I had a lot of freedom back then.
By the end of high school, my grades sucked. I went to FSU for a semester and a half, but every summer, I'd work for my cousin at a creative agency called Humanaut. They've won a ton of awards, and I got to work under Mike, who later founded Liquid Death. Back then, he was just Mike, and we were tasked with naming a water brand. He came up with "Liquid Death"—coolest thing ever. That showed me you could just dream up an idea and make it real.
Halfway through sophomore year, I said screw it to college. My sister's boyfriend was delivering pizzas, so I joined his company, Delivery Dudes. We started small, delivering steaks for fancy restaurants in Delray Beach. I was learning way more there than I ever did as a frat bro, so I stuck with it.
I got into design, flyering, and guerrilla marketing for Delivery Dudes. At 19, I was making strong $2,000 a month—huge for me back then. We kept growing, opening new locations and letting drivers franchise their own spots. As we scaled, we needed tech. I learned user experience design (didn't even know it had a name at first) and built our driver app. The first version was so bad I had to bribe people with gift cards to use it.
Long story short, we went from zero tech to supporting $73 million in annual business in a three-sided marketplace, all while dodging punches from Uber Eats and DoorDash. I handled everything: UX/UI design, graphic design, apparel, car wraps, some front-end dev, hiring engineers (onshore and offshore), sitting on the executive team, leading offsites with EOS, and throwing charity and promo events.
The sale was messy. We pissed off DoorDash after calling them out at a conference—dumb move. They hit back, and our revenue dropped from $73 million to $47 million. COVID kept us alive, but after selling, I became the product leader at Waitr (the company that bought us). It was chaos. I convinced them to give me a $2.3 million budget for engineers, built a team, then bailed.
I'd pitched Y Combinator a few times—once flew out to pitch Paul Buchheit (Gmail's founder), but the idea was illegal. Then I made a course, Product Management for Beginners, to teach others and make some cash. I had a YouTube channel documenting my product manager life—daily videos during COVID from a dope office. Launched the course in Italy and pulled in nearly $20,000 in five days.
I worked with engineers from around the world on some products, but they flopped. Here's the graveyard:
After a year and a half, I was burning savings in Austin, so I moved back and got serious about coding. I'd tried at 15, 18, 21, and 25, but at 28, it stuck. Learned TypeScript and Next.js and built some stuff—nothing big commercially, just used AI as a tutor to learn.
After the startup acquisition, I immersed myself in coding and AI development. The same curiosity that drove me to build rockets now drives me to build technology. I've created a diverse portfolio of tech businesses:
I believe technology should empower people, not overwhelm them. My approach combines deep technical understanding with practical applications, breaking down complex concepts into accessible pieces, continuous experimentation and learning, and building products that genuinely help people achieve their goals.
Through all this, I've learned there are three big risks when starting a company:
Every chapter taught me something about those, and I'm using it now. That's my story—31 years of chaos, from gaming rigs and smoke bombs to SaaS and AI.
These days, I'm channeling my energy into:
I'm always open to conversations, collaborations, and new ideas. Reach out through: