New Adventures Await

From Mischief to Mastery

My first venture? Selling vegetables stolen from my dad’s garden as a kid.

From there, I moved on to crafting and selling popular wood carvings on necklaces in middle school. As a teenager, I explored various business opportunities, from hockey cards and POGS to cutting grass, installing car audio equipment, and even running a “professional” document shredding service.

These early experiences taught me the value of creativity, problem-solving, and seizing opportunities – skills that would prove invaluable in my future endeavours.

Funny thing… never did sell lemonade.

The Birth of A Better Lemonade Stand

In 2012, I slipped and fell head-first into ecommerce after reading “The 4 Hour Work Week.”

For the next six months, I consumed everything I could, first from online resources and then from hands-on experience as I launched my first ecommerce business.

I learned the ins and outs of building a storefront, creating a brand identity, researching and identifying potential products, negotiating with manufacturers in China, importing, managing inventory, marketing, driving traffic to the store, analyzing data, optimizing for growth, packaging, fulfillment, customer service, and fostering customer loyalty.

A year after starting my first ecommerce venture, I launched A Better Lemonade Stand as a personal project to share my thoughts and learnings about the industry.

Little did I know, this would be the beginning of an incredible journey that would define the next decade for me.

Making a Dent

It wasn’t too long before my content caught the attention of Shopify and was headhunted to join their Growth team in 2013.

During my time there, I helped expand the company’s blog reach from 200k to 2 million monthly readers.

I was part of Shopify’s journey as the company went public in 2015, and I even wrote a book on starting an ecommerce business, which was published and distributed to entrepreneurs worldwide.

My experiences at Shopify were incredibly impactful and fulfilling, but something was calling me back to my roots of entrepreneurship and A Better Lemonade Stand.

Making a Bigger Dent

I took a leap of faith, leaving Shopify just a month before my wedding. Thankfully, I had the unwavering support of my then-fiancée, despite lacking a clear plan or immediate revenue stream.

It was go time.

I dedicated the next few years to growing A Better Lemonade Stand from a modest 10k to an formidable 250,000 visitors per month.

Along the way, I achieved several exciting milestones:
✅ Growing my email list to over 50,000 subscribers
✅ Generating 15 million+ pageviews on the blog
✅ Surpassing $1+ million in online revenue
✅ Earning $100k+ in passive affiliate income from multiple blog posts
✅ Generating $80k in just one week from a digital product launch

These achievements were a testament to the hard work and dedication I put into A Better Lemonade Stand in the early years.

The journey was not without its challenges, but the satisfaction of building something from the ground up and helping countless entrepreneurs along the way made it all worthwhile.

The Wealth of Disillusionment

In 2019, I found myself at the peak of my entrepreneurial journey.

The portfolio of online businesses I had poured my heart and soul into was thriving, automated to near perfection, and generating wealth beyond what I ever expected.

I was living the laptop lifestyle, working just a few hours a day and indulging in hobbies, adventures, and travel.

I even spent a few months living out my dream of living and working in Italy. From the outside looking in, I had it all figured out.

From the inside looking out, I thought I had it all figured out.

I had achieved “The 4 Hour Work Week”, but something was deeply wrong.

All That Glitters is Not Gold

By the end of 2019, I was feeling pretty disconnected from my businesses.

I realize now, with hindsight, that somewhere along the way, in my relentless pursuit of optimization and efficiency, I had lost touch with the very things that made my work meaningful.

The long hours, the creative problem-solving, working with like-minded people, the sense of fulfillment – all gradually replaced by the cold, mechanical hum of automation.

I had outsourced my passion, and it left me feeling disconnected and unfulfilled.

Furthermore, a decade of ecommerce during its most formative years had taken its toll, and I found myself increasingly disconnected from the industry and community I once loved.

And then, life dealt me a series of devastating blows.

In 2020, the Covid pandemic hit, bringing with it isolation and a continued decrease in interest in my businesses.

Soon after, I experienced the heartbreaking and unexpected loss of my mother.

I felt like I was at rock bottom.

Turned out, rock bottom had a basement.

Just a few months later, my best friend (dog) of 13 years passed away.

I was going through the motions, but the spark that had once fuelled my entrepreneurial journey was completely gone.

A Difficult Decision

In January 2022, after apathetically watching A Better Lemonade Stand dwindle for over a year, I made the difficult decision to sunset the business.

I dismissed my team, halted all updates, and shut down the newsletter.

Having no clear plan, no direction forward, I retreated into isolation, focusing solely on making it through each day.

I found myself at a crossroads, questioning the very foundations of my entrepreneurial journey and the choices that had led me to this point.

It was a time of deep introspection and soul-searching.

I knew that I needed to rediscover my passion and purpose, to reconnect with the things that truly mattered to me.

But the path forward was unclear, and the prospect of starting anew was daunting.

The Road to Rediscovery

In the months that followed, I set out on a journey to rediscover my passion. With a comfortable nest egg and passive income streams, I had the freedom to explore new interests and hobbies.

I considered various paths, from opening a niche private investigation agency to diving into real estate.

But it wasn’t until my wife and I bought a new house that I found the creative outlet I had been craving.

I threw myself into renovations, designing my dream home office, transforming the bathrooms, redoing the kitchen, and turning our home into a smart home that would make Tony Stark jealous.

The challenges and tangible results were a refreshing change of pace, and I felt my passion for creating slowly rekindling.

The Digital Renaissance: AI, No-Code, and Automation

As the final nail was hammered and the last coat of paint dried, I thought my year-long home renovation project was coming to an end. Little did I know, a new chapter was just beginning. It was around this time that ChatGPT was released.

It didn’t take long to realize the potential of AI to democratize creativity and productivity. AI fundamentally was an incredibly powerful new tool that could be used for an incalculable number of tasks.

With my curiosity piqued, and a passion for entrepreneurship starting to kindle again, I couldn’t help but go all-in into the world of generative tech.

New developments emerged every week:

• New AI models
• New apps incorporating AI
• Old favorites started incorporating AI
• New modalities like generative voice introduced a whole new set of possibilities
• AI image generation
• AI video generation

Seemingly every month, AI capabilities expanded, getting smarter and remembering more. I was watching the world, creativity, business, communication, employment – everything change.

On Reddit and X, I found myself following other people’s entrepreneurial journeys again, learning how these tools were empowering entrepreneurs and creators to bring ideas to life in previously unimaginable ways.

As a non-technical entrepreneur, I had always relied on no-code tools like Zapier and Airtable. Now, the digital landscape was shifting, with no-code platforms becoming more capable than ever, allowing almost anyone to build apps, tools, products, or automations without writing a single line of code.

The widespread adoption of generative AI has already changed so much about the way we express our creativity, how we communicate, and how we build online businesses, and this was just the beginning.

AI is empowering creators, entrepreneurs, and marketers to streamline operations, enhance creativity, and personalize experiences. It is fundamentally reshaping capabilities and possibilities.

The landscape of digital products stands at a crossroads where no-code possibilities merge with AI and automation capabilities, presenting a treasure trove of opportunities for entrepreneurs and creators.

Inspired by this new frontier, I felt compelled to relaunch A Better Lemonade Stand’s newsletter in mid-2023.

A renewed sense of purpose and excitement propelled me forward, ready to share my insights and experiences in this rapidly evolving landscape.

Present Day

Based in downtown Toronto with my wife, newborn baby daughter, and our dog, I’m settled in my immaculately renovated home.

Today, my focus is on helping entrepreneurs, creators, and digital explorers thrive in the digital renaissance.

When I’m not nerding out about business, AI, and no-code, you can find me exploring my other passions: fitness, physics, science fiction, true crime, and design.

As I settle into this new chapter, at the intersection of technology, creativity, and business, I’m ready to embrace the digital renaissance and all the opportunities it brings and share it all with you.

While my home renovations may be complete, the real building for me has just begun.