Every entrepreneur has an origin story. Mine begins with a pencil, writing on a dusty slab of drywall.

The year was 2005 in Kitimat, British Columbia, Canada. My dad Kris and I were renovating one of his properties, and between hanging sheets and mudding seams, he grabbed a scrap piece of drywall.

“Let’s sketch it out” he said, as we discussed starting a website together.

My dad was eager to build something with me. I’d already been doing freelance work on the web with some success. He saw the potential.

On that dusty surface, we started sketching. Boxes became navigation. Rectangles transformed into content areas. Arrows indicated user flow. We were wireframing what would eventually become BuyRIC—four years before it launched.

I was sixteen, still two years away from graduating Terry Fox Secondary School in Port Coquitlam. But, on a warm summer afternoon, we were already building the future beyond that construction site.

The Media Room Years: 2003-2013

That drywall sketch was just the beginning. The real laboratory was back home in Port Coquitlam—the upstairs media room that became my command centre for a full decade.

We’d moved to a bigger house in 2003, with a media room that became my world. While my friends had bedrooms, I had a headquarters. My parents didn’t just tolerate the late-night coding sessions—they enabled them. No complaints about the keyboard clicking at 3 AM. No pressure to “get a real job.” No timeline on when I needed to make money, because building a career of my own was more important.

Even when I did get “real jobs”—Blockbuster in 2005, Sears and Costco in 2007, The Home Depot in 2009—my parents knew where my real work happened. Those jobs were temporary. The media room was where the compounding effects of my future was being developed.

Those ten years were foundational with:

• Perfecting my craft as a coder
• Working for TNA Wrestling’s website from 2004 to 2007
• Starting BCIT in 2008 (before dropping out to focus on BuyRIC)
• Launching BuyRIC in 2009
• Starting BCIT again in 2010 (before dropping out to focus on The Pinnacle List)
• Launching The Pinnacle List in 2011
• Starting UBC in 2011 (before, you guessed it, dropping out to focus on my online endeavours)

Code until sunrise? Part of the process.

Post-secondary education? I can enrol anytime in the future if I need to, so that can wait.

Failed project after failed project? Keep going and trust the process.

The Basement Suite Years: 2013-2021

In 2013, I moved to one of my parents’ basement suites in Maple Ridge—a space my dad and I renovated together. I moved not because they asked me to leave. I moved because it was time to expand in every area of my life.

Another eight years. Another rent-free laboratory. Another level of building.

The basement suite era brought:

• The creation of TRAVOH in 2016
• The incorporation of Solespire Media in 2017
• Meeting my future wife on VK in 2017
• Multiplex theme development through 2019
• Relaunching The Pinnacle List with the Multiplex theme in 2020
• The creation of ReelLuxe in 2020

The entire foundation of what would become a multi-million-reach media endeavour, was built on the patience of parents who understood something profound: Great businesses aren’t built in spare moments. They’re built when you can afford to be patient.

The Luxury of Time

Think about what this really meant. Most young entrepreneurs face a ticking clock. Graduate. Get a job. Pay rent. Contribute. The pressure to generate immediate income kills long-term vision.

My parents removed that clock entirely.

They afforded me time without pressure. Space to fail. Room to iterate. The freedom to build something substantial, instead of scrambling for quick wins.

This wasn’t coddling. This was strategic. My parents—entrepreneurs themselves—understood that the highest ROI investment isn’t in ideas. It’s in creating space for ideas to develop.

The Partner Who Saw Tomorrow

Kris wasn’t just my dad providing shelter. He became my future co-founder, seeing potential where others saw a teenager with big dreams.

On that Kitimat construction site, covered in renovation dust, he treated my ideas as seriously as any business plan. When I talked about building online platforms, he didn’t say “be realistic.” He grabbed drywall and said “let’s sketch it out.”

Through every year—media room or basement suite—he was there. Not hovering. Not directing. Just believing. Ready to brainstorm and collaborate. And willing to invest when appropriate.

Today, we are still working together.

A Debt I Can Never Repay

Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this: Thank you.

You didn’t just provide shelter. You provided time.

You didn’t just offer support. You offered belief.

You didn’t just give me space. You gave me permission to fail until I succeeded.

Eighteen years of patient investment. Zero pressure. Infinite possibility.

Every platform we’ve built online, all those roads travelled for content creation, flights taken to further build our brands on-location, kitchen table meetings to strategise growth—every person met and every opportunity created, it all traces back to your willingness to see potential where others saw my aspirations as just a dream.

You taught me that the best investments require patience.

Thank you for being my first investors. My most patient believers. My foundation. I love you both.

The Compound Effect of Patience

Those years compounded into everything:

• Multiple successful web platforms
• Millions of visitors on our websites
• Millions of viewers on our YouTube channels
• Sustainable business models
• The ability to travel or live anywhere

Not every project survived, though.

BuyRIC—that original idea sketched on drywall—took a backseat to The Pinnacle List when it became our sole focus in 2012. And by 2019, BuyRIC went offline.

But, here’s the thing about patient capital: it allows for resurrection.

This year in 2025, BuyRIC is coming back, reimagined for a new era, but rooted in that original vision from 2005.

Every milestone between 2003 and 2021 was built on the foundation of patient parents who understood that entrepreneurship isn’t a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s a practice that takes as long as it takes.

The Wireframe Lives On

That drywall sketch from Kitimat? I don’t know where it is. My dad has a habit of saving things—important things, sentimental things, random things that might matter someday—so maybe he knows where it is.

I need to investigate, because finding that piece of drywall would be like finding the first draft of everything we’ve built since.

Whether the physical sketch survived or not, its DNA lives in every line of code I write, every platform we launch, and every decision that prioritises long-term compound interest over short-term cash flow.

My parents taught me that the best investment isn’t always the one that pays today. Sometimes it’s eighteen years of patient belief in someone’s potential.

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Who believes in your potential enough to give you time to develop it? And more importantly—how will you honour their patience?