ABOUT ME

My journey into entrepreneurship and technology began in the mid-90s, before startups were cool, before social media, and long before I ever thought I’d build the businesses I run today. Like many first-generation dreamers, my story started with a name tag at 16 years old, working the chicken nugget line at McDonald’s in the Staten Island Mall.

It may have seemed like just a part-time gig to others, but to me, it was everything. That job taught me discipline, hustle, and customer service under pressure. It taught me business 101 and tools I still use to this day. I looked at Richard and Maurice McDonald and thought, If they could build a billion-dollar empire just from flipping burgers, why not me?

But the entrepreneurial fire wasn’t mine alone, it ran in the family. My father had us, me my brothers and I, all of us, pitching in with his cosmetics business. We weren’t just lifting boxes; we were learning marketing, branding, customer engagement, basic bookkeeping, deliveries, and how to hustle a product in the real world. That business became my first informal MBA, and to this day, I credit those lessons as foundational. (Thanks, Dad.)

I wasn’t drawn to the traditional college path, though. While many of my peers were planning out majors and dorm life, I was dreaming of designing cars for General Motors. I could draw, I knew cars inside and out, and I had a lifelong love of horsepower. My plan was to attend the ArtCenter College of Design, one of the top schools for auto design or design in general. But first, I enrolled at the College of Staten Island to knock out general education courses—math, reading, writing, while I built my portfolio and prepped for transfer.

Reality hit fast: ArtCenter wasn’t just highly selective, it was incredibly expensive. So I pivoted and enrolled at New York City College of Technology. My excitement was real, I was finally studying something aligned with my passion. I was on track to get into the GM design pipeline.

Then everything changed.

Two years into the program, New York State made sweeping budget cuts to higher education under Governor Mario Cuomo Sr., and the program I was in, one that had direct ties to GM, was shut down. Just like that, the dream I’d built my plan around was gone. I was frustrated, angry, and completely thrown off course.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about entrepreneurship, it’s this: you adapt, or you stall. So I adapted. I went back to what I knew, working with my dad, helping run the family business, and launching my own hustle on the side. That was the real start of my entrepreneurial path. I didn’t need a degree to build something meaningful. I needed drive, insight, and a willingness to take risks.

And I’ve been building my life and career ever since.