27.

Today I turned 27.

I’ll admit, it feels a bit strange.

If I wasn’t over the hump of my twenties at 26, this year I surely am.

It’s funny how over the years you stop to care as much about your birthday.

People tend to say happy birthday less the older you get. I don’t mind.

I was never a big birthday guy anyways.

But what I will say is this: each birthday is a day to reflect.

It’s easy to set goals and aspire and think about the future.

Most of us are uncomfortable looking back at our past analytically.

So I will take this uncomfy opportunity to remind myself of what I did at 26:

1. first full year of marriage to my wife Taylor (awesome)

2. second full year as a full-time entrepreneur (crazy)

3. raised my last venture capital for a total of $600K (hopefully)

4. fully launched Uptrends, more than 20,000 people signed up

5. made our first $10K in revenue, I’m proud of that

6. spent 80% of our investor money

7. realized B2C wasn’t a super sustainable business, pivoted

8. fired my first full-time employee

9. hired and fired about 5 different contractors

10. started and stopped paying myself a salary

11. started a thriving founder community in Minnesota

12. moved to Chicago

13. spun up first B2B pilot products (WIP)

14. tried my hand at doing lead-gen contractor work

15. bank account went under $100 for first time since I was 13

16. took a side job as an instructor for an entrepreneurship class (lol)

17. started making tiktoks

18. used my tiktoks to get into a few alt-data and AI conferences

19. traveled to NYC for the first-time (business trip)

20. trialing selling data to hedge funds (WIP)

21. went to the Kentucky Derby (lost more money)

22. worked more than 2500 hours

23. took up cooking for awhile (The 4 Hour Chef)

24. started going for runs

25. met a few new friends

26. made it the full year without vaping

Overall it’s been one helluva a year. So many memories.

They say age is just perception, based on how you fill the time.

The more memories you make, the slower you age.

So even though I’m 27 I feel more like 26 still.

If I had one word for at all, to summarize what 26 is like.

I guess all I’d say is:

Grateful.