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I'd like to introduce myself to the Fastlane community, my name is David Wiles, I'm 33 and reside in Shelburne, Massachusetts. I was born and raised in this same area, my family owned a 400 acre apple orchard, which has now been sold off after my grandfather suffered a stroke in 2006, and the company collapsed with almost $750K in debt thanks to our loving government. The farm was split into two parcels, and a third for my grandparents old house, for which I am currently saving from tax liens from the town.
I was a curious child, when my family got our first computer and a unreliable 56K connection from "Crystal Mountain" internet services, I was 10 years old, and extremely interested in the internet. I came across Ask Jeeves and began to teach myself HTML and CSS from a website called "Dave's Site", ironically. I was in to skateboarding, so I made many websites and completed many tutorials and got to a point where I was bored with just HTML, I wanted more user interactions, with profiles, and photo galleries. I started to learn how to code in PHP and MySQL and ultimately was well versed in the "LAMP" stack, and didn't even know it.
Fast forward to high school, I went to a technical vocational school for Programming, though it was very boring, and seemingly took me 10 steps backwards when my intro courses were for learning BASIC! As Programming was thought to be a dying thing in the early 2000's, each year the course changed, it went from Programming, to Graphic Design, to Game Design, and I don't even know what it is now, I left the board of advisors around 10 years ago. Was pretty cool to be a 23 year old on the board though!
I co-won a scholarship to New England Institute of Technology for Web Design in 2004, and in 2006 after working my entire senior year as a local programmer, I left for Rhode Island in hopes that college would be right for me. It wasn't. I got a job as a full time programmer in a guys basement during the "dotMobi" boom years (it busted). We created the first mobile social network, as Facebook started to figure out it's flip phone (iPhone was just released) woes. After realizing I was being taken advantage of (I was only 18 years old, and thought the money I was making ($1000/week) was more than enough for me to have thoughts of my own), I moved home and started my own web design business, as there were no web design companies in the area.
Being young and successful finally caught up to me, I was partying with the wrong crowd, spending money foolishly, not paying attention to my clients, and ultimately led to the downfall of my own company, and disappointing a lot of local businesses. Word of mouth travels fast in small towns, and I went from having a 100 active clients to 20. I moved back in with my grandparents, and got a job.
To this day, I am still at this job, however I am not an employee. I am an independent IT Consultant for a $80M a year furniture wholesaler with factories and warehouses all over the world. I currently make a plush, low six figure income, but after being here for 11 years now and listening to Unscripted , a spark has reignited and I am feeling like my 10 year old self now with curiosities and I'm redeveloping that drive I once had to 1) not have a boss, 2) not rely on anyone for an income, and 3) be FREE!
Throughout those years, I've had many online businesses (yes, website that sell shit), I have still done many high level side jobs for clients/friends, but most importantly, I've had so many ideas that I have just pushed to the side due to lack of time, interest, funds and ultimate drive.
I don't want to end up being 40 (7 years from now) and looking back saying "20 years ago" I could have been doing so much more. Better late than never, but I feel like I owe it to my 1 year daughter to give her the best version of myself, before ultimately succumbing to the default operation system after I had failed my business.
I am extremely happy to be here, I was a part of many forums from 2000-2009, and made many online relationships that I can still remember like it was yesterday, even made a business partner out of one. I am promising myself to keep the fire ignited and keep pushing forward until I can once again make that residual income a thing of reality. (yes, I know, everyone says this).
Happy to meet you all!
-David
I was a curious child, when my family got our first computer and a unreliable 56K connection from "Crystal Mountain" internet services, I was 10 years old, and extremely interested in the internet. I came across Ask Jeeves and began to teach myself HTML and CSS from a website called "Dave's Site", ironically. I was in to skateboarding, so I made many websites and completed many tutorials and got to a point where I was bored with just HTML, I wanted more user interactions, with profiles, and photo galleries. I started to learn how to code in PHP and MySQL and ultimately was well versed in the "LAMP" stack, and didn't even know it.
Fast forward to high school, I went to a technical vocational school for Programming, though it was very boring, and seemingly took me 10 steps backwards when my intro courses were for learning BASIC! As Programming was thought to be a dying thing in the early 2000's, each year the course changed, it went from Programming, to Graphic Design, to Game Design, and I don't even know what it is now, I left the board of advisors around 10 years ago. Was pretty cool to be a 23 year old on the board though!
I co-won a scholarship to New England Institute of Technology for Web Design in 2004, and in 2006 after working my entire senior year as a local programmer, I left for Rhode Island in hopes that college would be right for me. It wasn't. I got a job as a full time programmer in a guys basement during the "dotMobi" boom years (it busted). We created the first mobile social network, as Facebook started to figure out it's flip phone (iPhone was just released) woes. After realizing I was being taken advantage of (I was only 18 years old, and thought the money I was making ($1000/week) was more than enough for me to have thoughts of my own), I moved home and started my own web design business, as there were no web design companies in the area.
Being young and successful finally caught up to me, I was partying with the wrong crowd, spending money foolishly, not paying attention to my clients, and ultimately led to the downfall of my own company, and disappointing a lot of local businesses. Word of mouth travels fast in small towns, and I went from having a 100 active clients to 20. I moved back in with my grandparents, and got a job.
To this day, I am still at this job, however I am not an employee. I am an independent IT Consultant for a $80M a year furniture wholesaler with factories and warehouses all over the world. I currently make a plush, low six figure income, but after being here for 11 years now and listening to Unscripted , a spark has reignited and I am feeling like my 10 year old self now with curiosities and I'm redeveloping that drive I once had to 1) not have a boss, 2) not rely on anyone for an income, and 3) be FREE!
Throughout those years, I've had many online businesses (yes, website that sell shit), I have still done many high level side jobs for clients/friends, but most importantly, I've had so many ideas that I have just pushed to the side due to lack of time, interest, funds and ultimate drive.
I don't want to end up being 40 (7 years from now) and looking back saying "20 years ago" I could have been doing so much more. Better late than never, but I feel like I owe it to my 1 year daughter to give her the best version of myself, before ultimately succumbing to the default operation system after I had failed my business.
I am extremely happy to be here, I was a part of many forums from 2000-2009, and made many online relationships that I can still remember like it was yesterday, even made a business partner out of one. I am promising myself to keep the fire ignited and keep pushing forward until I can once again make that residual income a thing of reality. (yes, I know, everyone says this).
Happy to meet you all!
-David
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