1. Starting a business is scary and take commitment and is hard especially when you don't come from a place of affluence with safety nets.

2. We started our business. We all had regular jobs and worked like animals till 2:00 in the morning every night to get it off the ground. We did tons of work for free to build a portfolio and to sharpen our skills. After about 9 months. We got a really lucky and hit a great service and in the first year we crushed it and almost made seven figures with good margins

3. We didn't diversify and our biggest clients went belly up and we plummeted hard back to nothing.

4. Our next two failed. We pivoted

5. Then we had really good success up to 200 people

6.Bottomed out unbelievably hard back down to the four of us. We literally ended up working out of my partner's house and some of us moved our families together to get by as houses went into foreclosure and we were beyond debt. Try taking that to your young newly married wives with a kid or pregnant.

7. When we had employees prior to that they would go home at 5:00 and we would routinely work 16-hour days 7 days a week I don't think any of us took a single day off with the exception of half days for Christmas or Thanksgiving for the first three and a half years. Literally working through the flu and everything. Missing birthdays and weddings and weekends out and sporting events and parties and just going to dinner and doing anything basically social outside of going to the gym and working and basic at home or family time. We missed out on so many things we made that choice. Devoted the vast majority of our twenties to doing this.

8. In our fourth year things really took off and we learned from those lessons. In year 5 we established ourself well by diversifying in industries and we now have several hundred people people and in a very secure place.

But it was so unbelievably hard to get here. We strained our relationships we drained our 401ks ( the two of us that actually had them) or any savings we had whatsoever. There were times we use our credit cards or deferred auto payments l & to help cover salary so that our employees never felt the burn.

We had plenty of people quit when they were asked to work extra 15 hrs on an occasional week when things were hectic.

we put everything on the line and it worked very fortunately for us.

It took almost 5 years exactly. We pay our employees better than competitive salaries and offer great perks and ownership in the form ofgood stock options.

But there's a several year vesting period. you have to earn it.

In the beginning we were sleeping on mattresses in a tiny rented house. Working on $300 old computers. None of us have a college degree or went to a trade school or anything of that nature.

Everybody we know ridiculed us and told us it was stupid. The sleepless night the stress the negative conversations and comments from family and friends who think you're just crazy.

People that never had any skin in the game when we went all in with everything. None of us had formal education so we all had to teach ourselves online and everybody had to have multiple hats. Reading several books a month. Using audio books when we drove back and forth to work to learn new skills and compress time.

We made lots of sacrifices

We're talking ruined credit scores for a long time and all this other just negative s*** that made life very difficult. We all basically made work the central focus of our lives from ages 23 to 29 depending upon who you talking about.

We work very very hard and obviously also had good fortune but holy s*** man. This generation of kids that wants to go to school or work for 4 or 5 hours a day tops with minimal focus and then just go home and have Netflix and instant gratification with Amazon and Uber they don't know what it's like to work at all. They basically want to spend three or four hours adulting but halfway and then want ownership.

The idea that now we're just going to hand over ownership or purposely put diversity hires as key members of our board is f****** ridiculous and what you get with these people that are entitled and never worked for anything.

Let's see these f****** go out and start something from scratch

1. Starting a business is scary and take commitment and is hard especially when you don't come from a place of affluence with safety nets.

2. We started our business. We all had regular jobs and worked like animals till 2:00 in the morning every night to get it off the ground. We did tons of work for free to build a portfolio and to sharpen our skills. After about 9 months. We got a really lucky and hit a great service and in the first year we crushed it and almost made seven figures with good margins

3. We didn't diversify and our biggest clients went belly up and we plummeted hard back to nothing.

4. Our next two failed. We pivoted

5. Then we had really good success up to 200 people

6.Bottomed out unbelievably hard back down to the four of us. We literally ended up working out of my partner's house and some of us moved our families together to get by as houses went into foreclosure and we were beyond debt. Try taking that to your young newly married wives with a kid or pregnant.

7. When we had employees prior to that they would go home at 5:00 and we would routinely work 16-hour days 7 days a week I don't think any of us took a single day off with the exception of half days for Christmas or Thanksgiving for the first three and a half years. Literally working through the flu and everything. Missing birthdays and weddings and weekends out and sporting events and parties and just going to dinner and doing anything basically social outside of going to the gym and working and basic at home or family time. We missed out on so many things we made that choice. Devoted the vast majority of our twenties to doing this.

8. In our fourth year things really took off and we learned from those lessons. In year 5 we established ourself well by diversifying in industries and we now have several hundred people people and in a very secure place.

But it was so unbelievably hard to get here. We strained our relationships we drained our 401ks ( the two of us that actually had them) or any savings we had whatsoever. There were times we use our credit cards or deferred auto payments l & to help cover salary so that our employees never felt the burn.

We had plenty of people quit when they were asked to work extra 15 hrs on an occasional week when things were hectic.

we put everything on the line and it worked very fortunately for us.

It took almost 5 years exactly. We pay our employees better than competitive salaries and offer great perks and ownership in the form ofgood stock options.

But there's a several year vesting period. you have to earn it.

In the beginning we were sleeping on mattresses in a tiny rented house. Working on $300 old computers.

Everybody we know ridiculed us and told us it was stupid. The sleepless night the stress the negative conversations and comments from family and friends who think you're just crazy.

People that never had any skin in the game when we went all in with everything. None of us had formal education so we all had to teach ourselves online and everybody had to have multiple hats. Reading several books a month. Using audio books when we drove back and forth to work to learn new skills and compress time.

We made lots of sacrifices

We're talking ruined credit scores for a long time and all this other just negative s*** that made life very difficult. We all basically made work the central focus of our lives from ages 23 to 29 depending upon who you talking about.

We work very very hard and obviously also had good fortune but holy s*** man. This generation of kids that wants to go to school or work for 4 or 5 hours a day tops with minimal focus and then just go home and have Netflix and instant gratification with Amazon and Uber they don't know what it's like to work at all. They basically want to spend three or four hours adulting but halfway and then want ownership.

The idea that now we're just going to hand over ownership or purposely put diversity hires as key members of our board is f****** ridiculous and what you get with these people that are entitled and never worked for anything.

Let's see these f****** go out and start something from scratch

1. Starting a business is scary and take commitment and is hard especially when you don't come from a place of affluence with safety nets.

2. We started our business. We all had regular jobs and worked like animals till 2:00 in the morning every night to get it off the ground. We did tons of work for free to build a portfolio and to sharpen our skills. After about 9 months. We got a really lucky and hit a great service and in the first year we crushed it and almost made seven figures with good margins

3. We didn't diversify and our biggest clients went belly up and we plummeted hard back to nothing.

4. Our next two failed. We pivoted

5. Then we had really good success up to 200 people

6.Bottomed out unbelievably hard back down to the four of us. We literally ended up working out of my partner's house and some of us moved our families together to get by as houses went into foreclosure and we were beyond debt. Try taking that to your young newly married wives with a kid or pregnant.

7. When we had employees prior to that they would go home at 5:00 and we would routinely work 16-hour days 7 days a week I don't think any of us took a single day off with the exception of half days for Christmas or Thanksgiving for the first three and a half years. Literally working through the flu and everything

8. In our fourth year things really took off and we learned from those lessons. In year 5 we established ourself well by diversifying in industries and we now have several hundred people people and in a very secure place.

But it was so unbelievably hard to get here. We strained our relationships we drained our 401ks ( the two of us that actually had them) or any savings we had whatsoever. There were times we use our credit cards or deferred auto payments l & to help cover salary so that our employees never felt the burn.

We had plenty of people quit when they were asked to work extra 15 hrs on an occasional week when things were hectic.

we put everything on the line and it worked very fortunately for us.

It took almost 5 years exactly. We pay our employees better than competitive salaries and offer great perks and ownership in the form ofgood stock options.

But there's a several year vesting period. you have to earn it.

In the beginning we were sleeping on mattresses in a tiny rented house. Working on $300 old computers.

Everybody we know ridiculed us and told us it was stupid. The sleepless night the stress the negative conversations and comments from family and friends who think you're just crazy.

People that never had any skin in the game when we went all in with everything.

We're talking ruined credit scores for a long time and all this other just negative s*** that made life very difficult. We all basically made work the central focus of our lives from ages 23 to 29 depending upon who you talking about.

We work very hard and obviously also had good fortune but holy s*** man. This generation of kids that wants to go to school or work for 4 or 5 hours a day tops with minimal focus and then just go home and have Netflix and instant gratification with Amazon and Uber they don't know what it's like to work at all. They basically want to spend three or four hours adulting but halfway and then want ownership.

The idea that now we're just going to hand over ownership or purposely put diversity hires as key members of our board is f****** ridiculous and what you get with these people that are entitled and never worked for anything.

Let's see these f****** go out and start something from scratch