Rag to Riches: How I Built a Successful Business from Scratch

E13: I'm taking you on a personal journey of how I moved to the Bay Area 11 years ago with just one suitcase. I had no job and no place to live. So how did I bootstrap my business to where it is today?***TOPICS:First Side Hustle (2:46)My first side hustle was in freelance writing. I wrote for a popular personal finance blog. I was paid $25 per article.One Way Ticket to San Francisco (8:59)I landed in San Francisco with just 1 suitcase. I slept on the floor in my friend's tiny apartment. My back hurt after 2 weeks. I had no choice.Partying with Coolio (10:15)I attended SXSW in Austin, Texas. Coolio was performing at one of the parties hosted by our company and he needed a place to stay so he stayed with us. It was out-of-this-world.Crazy Bootcamp (12:06)For 12 weeks straight, I studied from Mon-Sat, 8am-9pm. At the end of those 12 weeks, I was fluent in Javascript. I was seeing code in my sleep.Working at Ripple (14:56)Ripple hired me as an early employee in early 2014. I worked with some of the smartest people I've ever met. The technology was advanced for its time. I knew I was working on something that could be huge one day.Crypto to Knives (17:01)Blockchain Engineer to Online Knife Seller. My colleagues thought I was crazy. I worked tirelessly day in and day out and launched on October 9th, 2015 to crickets. Not a single sale for the first 3 days.Celebrity French Bulldog (22:20)We took home a French bulldog named Humphrey. His videos went viral. He quickly gained more than 100k followers on Instagram.Launching Dog Boutique (22:56)My wife quit her job and launched Spotted By Humphrey, a dog boutique selling playfully curated dog accessories and apparel with Humphrey as our Chief Marketing Officer.Launching a 3PL (23:56)Our colleagues kept asking us to help with their fulfillment. We started taking on clients. Before we knew it, we had paying clients for a company we hadn't even named.***LINKS:Episode 1Episode 5Spotted Humphrey IGSpotted Humphrey TikTokSpotted By HumphreyJOIN: First Class Founders Premium MembershipDOWNLOAD: Hyper-Visuals For Our Episodes (Free)***FOLLOW / REVIEW:- Follow - Leave 5-star review***CONNECT W/ YONG-SOO:- X- Threads- LinkedIn- Newsletter***First Class Founders is a show for indie hackers, bootstrapped founders, CEOs, solopreneurs, content creators, startup entrepreneurs, and SaaS startups covering topics like build in public, audience growth, product marketing, scaling up, side hustles, holding company, etc. Past guests include Arvid Kahl, Tyler Denk, Noah Kagan, Clint Murphy, Jay Abraham, Andrew Gazdecki, Matt McGarry, Nick Huber, Khe Hy, and more. Episode you might like:Future of Newsletters with Tyler Denk, Founder & CEO at BeehiivFrom Zero to 100K Subscribers: How to Grow Your Newsletter like a Pro with Newsletter Growth Expert Matt McGarry...