Building a Team from Zero

Founder Grit | From Cold Starts to Solid Crews

From phone calls and printouts to scaling with data, hustle, and heart.

Starting out, I didn’t have a playbook — just grit, late nights, and a vision. From finding the right dispatchers to building trust with my first techs, this post is about laying a strong foundation in new markets when you’re doing it all yourself.

I started with a phone, a few contacts, and no team. Just long days, early mornings, and a belief that showing up with discipline would attract the right people. I didn’t hire by résumé — I hired by hunger. This is the story of how I built trust, scaled leadership, and found people who would run with me when the tank was low and the stakes were high.

I didn’t start with funding. I didn’t start with a full team. I started with a list, a couple of names, and a belief that if I stayed consistent, something would break open.

The goal was simple: grow the fleet business. Get more business pumping into our locations. Not just cars through the door, but repeat, scalable, operational business. I did what I knew best — sales by proximity. I built a list of every logistics company, rental agency, and small fleet within a 10-mile radius. If I could just get a handful of them to commit, we’d have enough traction to prove the model.

Lunch Breaks in Best Buy, Nights with Code, Mornings with Grit

Most people used their lunch break to relax — I used mine to grind.

Back then, I was bouncing between Staples and Best Buy, jumping on free Wi-Fi and free laptop use, logging into whatever free coding course I could get my hands on. I didn’t have a traditional background in software yet and hadn’t attended a code camp — but I knew if I learned how to write it, I could shape the systems we needed.

I remember getting obsessed with books like:
📖 Lucky or Smart? by Bo Peabody — taught me that execution beats ideas.
📖 Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston — reminded me even the greats started ugly.

These books rewired me. They reminded me it was OK to feel like an underdog — just not OK to stay there.

The AWS Loft & Meeting Builders in the Wild

Once a month, I’d block out a full week and head to the AWS Loft on Market Street in San Francisco. If you’ve never been — it’s like startup summer camp for technical founders. I met developers, designers, and solo operators who were at the exact same stage I was: scrappy, unsure, and ridiculously driven.

Talking to them, something clicked. These weren’t VC-funded rockstars. These were people building with what they had. That was me.

Data Was the Language — I Just Needed to Learn It

The turning point came when I started learning how to use AWS tools to produce real-time reports for the fleet. I wasn’t just tracking vehicles — I was tracking opportunity. I’d build dashboards to show which customers were growing, which services we performed most, and where the bottlenecks were.

But it wasn’t enough to generate the data — I had to learn how to read it. Interpret it. Speak it. And then sell it to the team and the ownership group. Once they saw the patterns, they believed. And when they believed — we scaled.

Building With No Blueprint

There were no friends around. No one calling to check in. It was just me, Google Sheets, late nights, and this unshakeable belief that if I stayed consistent and prepared, I’d be ready when the wave came.

So I held my cross. Every mistake, every hire, every long day where nothing worked — I owned it. Because that’s what leaders do.

The Result? Scale. Real Scale.

The needle moved.
The customers came.
The hires followed.
And I had built a real team — not just people who worked for me, but people who trusted the mission, understood the numbers, and grew the business like it was theirs.

And it all started with a list and a lunch break.