Big dreams, small classrooms: building startups before 18

When I read about 18-year-old Liam Fuller raising $1.4M for QuickFind AI after being suspended from school, it struck a deep chord with me.

My own journey into IT and entrepreneurship didn’t follow the traditional route - my path was defined by curiosity, initiative, and a constant desire to build things, even as a teenager.

At 15, while most of my peers were preoccupied with school routines, I was already searching for ways to turn ideas into action.

That summer, inspired by my friend's adventurous spirit, we transformed a quiet riverside spot into our first informal venture - improvised car wash. But beyond that, I was also diving headfirst into technology.

During those same years, I built my first databases of fax numbers painstakingly collecting, organizing, and refining them. What started as a small project became a real business: I ended up selling those databases many times over in the following years. There were no mentors or manuals, just a willingness to experiment and learn by doing.

Those early hands-on experiences shaped my perspective far more than any textbook ever could:

• Opportunity often hides in everyday problems - whether it’s a need for clean cars or business data.

• Real-world experiments, even the modest ones, build resilience and practical skills that last a lifetime.

• Value comes from action, feedback, and iteration - not from credentials or following a prescribed path.
  
  Liam’s story resonates with me for many reasons:

• He took what many would see as a setback a school suspension and used it as the spark for something meaningful.

• He identified a real friction point in retail and crafted an AI solution that delivers clear results, winning over investors through execution rather than pedigree.

• Like my own beginnings, his journey proves that the best lessons are often learned far from formal classrooms, in the unpredictable territory where curiosity meets opportunity.
  
  Here are three insights that have stayed with me:
  1️⃣ Unconventional beginnings are often the best training ground for resilience and creativity.
  2️⃣ Investors and customers care most about the problems you solve - not where you learned to solve them.
  3️⃣ Even the smallest entrepreneurial experiments can lay the foundation for much bigger things down the road.
  
  For anyone just starting out or feeling out of place on the “standard” path: do not underestimate the power of those scrappy beginnings.
  
  Every database I built and sold, every risk that seemed insignificant at the time, ended up shaping my approach to challenges and opportunities for years to come.
  
  What project or unexpected detour from your early days still shapes the way you build, solve, or create today?