From a Bethesda bedroom to a campus network
The origin (2018–2019)
At fifteen I was taking apart how limited sneaker releases actually work. At sixteen that became Boosted Notify, a consulting service that helped more than 80 clients a month purchase high-end and rare sneakers. In 2019 the business was acquired by the COOKLAB Group. It was a teenager’s company with a P&L, and it taught me the lesson that still runs my career: distribution beats hype. The people making money in sneakers were not the ones camping outside stores. They were the ones who understood the machine behind the drop. The full Boosted Notify story →
Mission: Mentor (2021–2022)
In 2021, while running MarkitAds, I co-founded Mission: Mentor, a nonprofit edtech building a free virtual college counselor. I grew a volunteer team past thirty people, and the platform reached over 10,000 students working through applications, scholarships and financial aid. Most of them could not afford what private counselors charge. In September 2022, the company was acquired by Crimson. What I took from it was not the exit. It was watching how information actually spreads on a campus, club by club, group chat by group chat, RA by RA. What 10,000 students taught him →
MarkitAds (2020–today)
I started MarkitAds at sixteen as a PR and lead-generation agency. Today it is a team of roughly twelve, including CTO Troy Smith, running two lines: earned media and reputation work (client placements have included USA Today, The Washington Post and Fox 5; live links pending), and the campus activation network: trained student operators delivering verified student acquisitions for consumer brands. Case studies: UNC Chapel Hill, Kylie Cosmetics, URBN Market, KORR Value, Community Musician.
Education & community
I studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, inside the 1789 / Innovate Carolina and Launch Chapel Hill entrepreneurship ecosystems, with a 2023 semester at Waseda University in Tokyo. Before that: Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, president of the Montgomery County Model UN team, and a policy internship at The Borgen Project. I am mentored by Dennis Yu (BlitzMetrics), who published a verified positive-mentions tracker about my brand, built on the rule that nothing unverifiable goes in.
Timeline
- 2018: Started Boosted Notify at 16 (sneaker consulting, 80+ clients/month)
- 2019: Boosted Notify acquired by COOKLAB Group
- 2020: Started MarkitAds; president, Montgomery County Model UN (through 2022); Borgen Project internship
- 2021: Co-founded Mission: Mentor
- 2022: Mission: Mentor acquired by Crimson (September); 10,000+ students served
- 2023: Semester at Waseda University, Tokyo
- 2025: MarkitAds campus activation network scales to a trained multi-campus operator force; MarkitU is conceived as a self-serve campus campaign platform
- 2026: MarkitU launches
A note on claims: the exits are my own account, sourced to my LinkedIn profile. Acquirer confirmations are in progress and this page will link them the day they are in writing.