My 20 year startup journey - from online communities to ed-tech exit to AI

Been building things online since the early 2000s. Started with gaming and football communities that scaled to tens of thousands of users - learned the hard way how to build engagement and retain people.

Jumped into Facebook gaming when that wave hit. Built social games (Metropolis, Mafia Cities) that peaked at hundreds of thousands of DAUs. Learned about virality, retention loops, and how fast platforms can change the rules on you.

Then spent years on Chessable - applied spaced repetition science to chess learning. We "Flintstoned" everything at the start - manually importing courses line by line because we couldn't afford to build proper tooling yet. Brutal, but it taught us exactly what users needed. Grew it to market leader in chess education, exited to the World Chess Champion's company in 2019.

Post-exit, started angel investing and advising early-stage founders. Now I'm back in the trenches as CEO of Seozilla.ai (AI content tools) and advising a gaming startup.

What I'd tell my younger self:

• Do things that don't scale early - you'll learn more than any analytics dashboard will tell you

• Your competition isn't just your niche - it's everything fighting for your user's attention

• Exits are nice but the real value is the network and lessons

AMA about bootstrapping, exits, or getting back into building after selling.