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 technicians, this chapter of my journey was about laying a strong foundation in new markets while still doing much of the heavy lifting myself.

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 eventually attract the right people. I didn’t hire only by résumé — I hired by hunger. I looked for people who had enough drive to 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 repeatable, 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 get even a handful of them to commit, we would 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, and I hadn’t attended a coding bootcamp — 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 and Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston. One taught me that execution beats ideas. The other reminded me that even the greats started ugly.

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

The AWS Loft and meeting builders in the wild.

Once a month, I would block out a full week and head to the AWS Loft on Market Street in San Francisco. If you’ve never been, it was 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 all 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 business. I wasn’t just tracking vehicles — I was tracking opportunity.

I built 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 unshakable belief that if I stayed consistent and prepared, I would 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.