“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” — Steve Jobs
That quote got me to drop out of university. It sounds dramatic, and it was. But every decision I’ve made since has proven it right. Here’s the story of how drawing battles on Ikea paper at age 7 led to building software that’s handled over £100m in R&D claims and £50m in estate value.
The early years
When I was 7, I was obsessed with drawing. Huge rolls of paper from Ikea covered in battles, starships, warships, you name it. I was obsessed with telling stories through my drawings. Looking back, that was where being a creative started.
By my early teens, skateboarding took over. My dream was to go pro, and to get there I started filming myself skating and posting the videos on this new site called YouTube. That introduced me to video and photo editing. The beginning of my digital design story. I taught myself through tutorials. I’d get back from school at 4pm, skate until dark, edit the footage, and upload it. Every single day.
Then I discovered the first generation of famous YouTubers. The Syndicate Project, Ali-A, KYR SP33DY. The dream shifted from Professional Skateboarder to YouTuber. I started making weekly videos, a show called “Topic Tuesday”, gaming content, the lot. The problem was it didn’t leave much time for anything else, and GCSEs were around the corner.
Taking it seriously
Year 11 got serious. Everyone was talking about university, A-levels, and career paths. I started to take my peers more seriously and eased off the YouTube ambition in favour of University Graduate London Banker. To get there I needed grades, which wasn’t easy being badly dyslexic.
My solution was brute force. Up at 5:30am to study before school, working late into the evenings. It worked. A* in Graphics at both GCSE and A-level. I secured a place at Loughborough University to study International Business. More importantly, it showed me that if I set my mind fully to a goal, with a sustainable plan, I could get there.
The gap year that changed everything
I deferred my place for a gap year. Probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
I went back to making YouTube videos. Three a week, on a strict schedule. Then in October I got a message from my friend Josh. His dad wanted to chat about a social media role at a startup called SAMSystems. They needed help with content, social media, and their website. Everything I’d been doing for myself, except now someone would pay me for it.
At 18, I became their Social Media & Website Manager. Their existing web designers wanted £2,000 for a redesign the startup couldn’t afford. I offered to do it for £8 an hour. That was my first paid design work. It felt amazing. The directors recommended me to friends, and I started freelancing under Jacob Sargent Media.
During this time I met a few people who changed my perspective. Alex, a freelancer in his late 20s who’d been Head of Department at a London design agency and given it all up because he wasn’t happy. And the Holt Twins, who’d left corporate London to become Instagram influencers. Both had achieved exactly what I was aiming for, and both had walked away from it. That stuck with me.
University & dropping out
I went to Loughborough anyway. I felt I owed it to the version of myself who’d worked so hard for those grades. But sitting in lectures watching poorly designed PowerPoints load, I kept thinking: “Is this really my life for the next four years? £50,000 in debt for a piece of paper?”
I asked myself two questions. If I dropped out and started a business, where would I be? If I finished the degree in four years, what would I do? The answer to both was the same: start a business. So why wait?
The final push came from a Gary Vaynerchuk video. His argument was simple: your twenties are the time to take risks, not play it safe. Most people spend their twenties building someone else’s dream when they should be building their own. You have no mortgage, no kids, no real obligations, and yet most people act like they’re 45 with everything to lose. That hit me hard. I was 19, sitting in a lecture hall, waiting to be 23 so I could do the thing I could already do now. It didn’t make sense anymore.
I dropped out and started Beue Media, affordable subscription-based website design and hosting. I’m not saying university isn’t worth it. It is, for the right people. I’m still glad I went, if only for the people I met. But I knew it wasn’t the right path for me to stay on.
Learning to code
Running Beue Media taught me that I didn’t just want to design things. I wanted to build them. I started teaching myself to code. It was one of the best investments I’ve ever made. Suddenly the gap between having an idea and shipping it collapsed.
Building real things
As I picked up more Beue Media customers, one in particular stood out — a tax consultancy that needed help with their website. I built it for them, and the relationship grew. They asked me to join full time to help build custom client portals and CRM software. I said yes.
I spent four years there leading engineering, building the tools behind over £100m in R&D tax claims. I learned what it meant to build software that actually mattered. Software that people relied on every day, that moved real money.
Now I’m the founding engineer at Trustestate, building probate software that’s handled over £50m in estate value. I also founded Interlu, a tool that saves hours when searching for UK company information.
The dots connected
Drawing battles on Ikea paper taught me to tell stories visually. Skateboarding videos taught me to edit and create content. YouTube taught me consistency and shipping. Freelancing taught me that my skills had value. Dropping out taught me to trust my instincts. Building Beue Media taught me I wanted to code. And coding gave me everything that followed.
None of it made sense at the time. A dyslexic kid drawing on paper rolls, filming kickflips, making gaming videos — none of that looks like a career path to building software. But every single dot connected in the end.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
— Steve Jobs