I post about my interests a lot, and lately my new family at Comp. But never about how I actually got here. At 18 I was pushing carts at Walmart for $16/hr. $1,500 a month. And I'd go home after and build Shopify sites for clothing brands, $200 a pop. I didn't know what React was, or Next.js, or even tpot. Around that time I was in a streetwear Discord trying to get my own brand off the ground. I'd post the sites I was building and this one guy would always tell me they were sick. Just that, over and over, for months. He's the reason I stopped running a brand and started only building websites. I was better at websites after all Then one day he told me about this place he worked. I had no idea I was even qualified for that. He pitched to his boss at a cracked marketing agency, and in a few weeks time, I had my first job in tech. They were family. Bootstrapped, impromptu, everything built from the ground up. It was stressful in a way nothing had prepared me for, but I was around family. They're the reason for my first car, and my first apartment. They prepared me for life outside of a small startup. They flew me out to New York for fashion week where I helped host one of the biggest events of the week. An insane week my girlfriend and I will never forget. I walked into a Cane's one day and counted 15 people in there wearing a brand I built the site for. I don't think there's a word for that feeling. Love to my brother @jupcodes, @Laz4O4, Ibra, and the rest of the people I worked alongside who don't have an account on here 🖤