Why RunOps, why now?

I didn’t start RunOps to build software. I started it because I watched a store full of passion drown in spreadsheets, and I refused to stand by and let it happen again. Not to that store. Not to yours.

The back room

In 2024, I took a job in the back of house at an outdoor specialty store. I expected boxes and inventory counts. What I found was a business slowly losing itself.

Our manager got into retail because he was a rock climber. He loved the outdoors. But he spent nearly every day in the back room, placing orders and building schedules, while the store struggled around him.

The numbers told the story. Payroll was too high. Sales were too low. And when I came out to the floor to help customers, the few people who walked in often couldn’t find what they came for. The ordering was simply wrong.

Passion buried in spreadsheets

This was a store that existed for the environment and for its people. Its whole purpose was to inspire others to get outside. I watched that purpose get swallowed by payroll dollars, purchase orders, and spreadsheets.

It hurt to see. I come from athletics, where being fully present in your environment is everything. That store’s team should have been on the floor, sharing what they loved. Instead, they were stuck in the back, fighting the numbers.

Why I couldn’t let it go

I was born into an entrepreneurial family. Problem-solving, grit, and hustle have always been part of who I am, though that story is for another day.

I had tried building businesses before, and they failed. Looking back, the reason is clear: I had never lived the problem myself. This time, I was living it every shift.

Every night I went to bed with the same question burning in my head: how do I fix this? I couldn’t shut it off. I had deep experience in tech, and I could see what AI was about to become. Then the answer hit me. AI plus retail. A moonshot, some might say. To me, it was a calling.

Nineteen, and hearing no

This was early 2025, when most people still thought of AI as a tool for writing emails and making grocery lists. I saw where it was heading.

I pitched the idea many times before I wrote a line of code. Honestly, I was afraid to start. I was 19. Why would anyone listen to me?

Then I flipped the question: why wouldn’t they? This is a new generation. We are hungry, we are building, and we have nothing to lose. I felt a passion I had never felt before.

Store owner after store owner told me no. Not because of me, but because AI was still a mystery to them. That’s when I realized this wasn’t only a chance to build. It was a chance to educate.

The question that changed everything

While I was researching and teaching myself everything I could, something unexpected happened. A store owner looking for better technology walked up to my father in a store and asked him, completely out of the blue: why hasn’t AI solved this yet?

I call it a gift from God. Someone had finally said out loud what I’d been saying all along. My father introduced us, and it clicked.

The switch flipped, and I never looked back. I built 14 to 16 hours a day, every day. Not because anyone asked me to, but because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Back to the people

I still wake up every single morning fired up about what’s ahead. I’m grateful to be the one building this, and I’m just getting started.

So if you own or run a specialty store, this part is for you. I’m here for you. I’m young, I’m hungry, and I’ve stood in your back room. I know what the ordering, the scheduling, and the spreadsheets take out of you. I’ve felt it. And I’m not going anywhere until it’s fixed.

When you call, I’ll pick up. When something breaks, I’ll be there. When you have an idea, I want to hear it. RunOps isn’t a vendor relationship. It’s a partnership, and I’m all in.

RunOps exists to put the people back at the center of this industry. Let AI carry the operations, so you can get back to the floor, your customers, your community, and the reason you opened your doors in the first place. AI should do the work. People should do the art.

I’m going to change this industry. Then I’m going to keep going.