Day One: From Layoff to Launch

February 17th wasn't rock bottom. I'd already been there.

That was the day I got laid off from Lorenzo's Dog Training Team. Just another Monday, really—except it was the Monday that forced me to finally confront a question I'd been dodging for months: What the hell am I actually building here?

Let me back up.

The Fall

I'm 44 years old. I've got kids, an ex-wife, a stepdaughter, and a new partner who's watched me claw my way back from a wreckage I created myself. Life has been insane. And I mean insane—not the Instagram version where everything's a "journey" and every setback is a "plot twist." I mean the kind where you wake up some mornings and genuinely don't recognize the wreckage around you. Where you ask yourself how the guy who had it all became the guy who has nothing.

Because I did have it all once.

Custom home builds. Investment properties that actually cash-flowed. Crews that showed up when I called. Money in the bank. Momentum that felt unstoppable. I was scaling my construction company 40% year over year. I knew how to sequence trades, hit brutal deadlines, and deliver builds that families and developers could actually live with. I understood systems. I understood execution.

What I didn't understand was how to manage myself when depression got its hooks in me.

I mismanaged everything. Not because I didn't know better—I absolutely knew better—but because I couldn't get out of my own head long enough to save what I'd built. I watched my company fall apart in slow motion. Opportunities I didn't chase. Phone calls I didn't return. Decisions I didn't make until it was too late to matter.

From everything to nothing. That's not hyperbole—that's math.

The construction industry lost its soul for me, but the truth is I'd lost mine first. And when you're the founder, when you're the one everyone's counting on, your collapse doesn't just affect you. It affects everyone who believed in what you were building.

The Last Job

So I took a job. Lorenzo's Dog Training Team.

This wasn't supposed to be a stepping stone. This was supposed to be it—my last job. The place where I'd finally stop rebuilding and just... work. Use what I knew about operations and systems. Help them scale. Get a steady paycheck and stop white-knuckling my way through life.

They brought me in to spearhead a new division. Something I could actually build. Something that felt like mine, even if it had someone else's name on the door.

That year at Lorenzo's sharpened my sword in ways I didn't expect. It opened my eyes to the corporate world—to CRM architecture, to automation, to how scalable businesses actually operate when they're built on systems instead of sheer force of will. I learned how companies scale past the founder's hustle. How they create infrastructure that runs whether or not the visionary shows up that day.

I learned the difference between working in a business and working on a business.

And for a while, it felt like I'd finally found where I was supposed to land.

The Phone Call

February 17th, 2025. A Monday.

I was getting ready to walk out the door. Coffee made. Shoes on. Keys in hand. Just another morning heading to what was supposed to be my last job.

My phone rang.

The kind of call where you know before you answer that nothing good is about to happen.

"We're gonna have you stay home today."

That's it. That's how they told me.

Not a meeting. Not a conversation. Not even the courtesy of letting me come in to grab my things or say goodbye to people I'd worked with for a year.

Just: "Stay home."

I stood there in my kitchen, still holding my keys, and felt the floor drop out.

The company had gone in a different direction. The division they'd brought me in to spearhead? Scrapped. And with it, my role. My last job. The thing I'd bet on being stable.

Gone.

I sat down at my kitchen table, staring at my phone after they hung up, and felt that familiar freefall. The one where you realize that no matter how hard you work, no matter how much value you bring, someone else's pivot can erase you in a single phone call.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not here. Not at the job that was supposed to be the last job. The one where I'd finally stop scrambling.

I've got kids who need me. An ex-wife. A stepdaughter who's watching how I handle adversity. And a partner who's been there through all of this—who watched me take the "last job" at Lorenzo's, who believed me when I said this time would be different, and who didn't flinch when I got that phone call on February 17th.

She's seen me at my worst. Watched me rebuild from nothing. And when I got told to "stay home today," she didn't panic. She didn't question whether I'd figure it out. She just asked what I needed and gave me space to process it.

I don't say this enough, but that kind of support—the kind that doesn't try to fix you or rush you or tell you everything happens for a reason—that's what makes rebuilding possible. She's been steady when I couldn't be. And that matters more than I know how to articulate.

For about 24 hours, I let myself feel it. The fear. The anger. The shame of being 44 and getting laid off from a job that was supposed to be the last time I had to start over.

And then I remembered something I learned the first time I fell: you don't get destroyed by the hit. You get destroyed by staying down.

The Pivot

The next day—February 18th—I had an interview lined up.

Not because I'm some superhuman who bounces back instantly. Because I'd been preparing for this. I'd felt the writing on the wall at Lorenzo's for weeks, and I'd been quietly putting feelers out. Updating my resume. Taking calls. Doing what you do when you're not willing to be blindsided by life again.

One week later, I was hired.

Better pay. More freedom. A day job at a geosynthetics company where I'd end up building buygeogrid.com and becoming Ohio's Tensar dealer. It's good work. Honest work. The kind of work that keeps the lights on and lets me breathe for the first time in years.

It's also the kind of work that gave me space to think about what I actually wanted to build.

Because here's what I realized sitting at my kitchen table on February 17th: I wasn't upset about losing the job at Lorenzo's. I was upset that I'd spent another year building someone else's vision instead of my own.

The Decision

That same week I got hired, I made a decision that changed everything.

I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life working for someone else's dream. Not again. Not after everything I'd survived. Not after clawing my way back from nothing once already.

Gideon Codeworks had been an idea—something I'd been tinkering with for months. Late nights teaching myself web development. Weekends building practice sites. Hours watching tutorials and reading documentation, trying to translate my builder's instincts into code.

But it was still just an idea. A "someday" project. A safety blanket I told myself I'd pursue once conditions were perfect.

February 17th killed "someday."

That layoff turned Gideon Codeworks from a nice idea into something non-negotiable. Not because I had some epiphany or moment of clarity—but because I finally got angry enough at myself to stop waiting for permission.

Permission to start. Permission to fail. Permission to build something that might not work.

I'd already failed spectacularly once. What was I protecting at this point?

The Build

I still work the day job. Let me be crystal clear about that.

I'm not out here romanticizing the "quit everything and chase your dream" narrative. I'm not selling you the fantasy of passive income and laptop lifestyle and freedom from the 9-to-5. That's not my story. That's not most people's story. And anyone telling you otherwise is either lying or selling you something.

I've got responsibilities. Kids who need stability. A partner who deserves a functioning adult, not a dreamer who can't pay rent. Bills that arrive every month whether or not my entrepreneurial ambitions are panning out.

So I work my day job at the geosynthetics company. I show up. I do good work. I build their web infrastructure and sell their products and earn my paycheck.

And then I work on mine.

Every morning before work—coffee at 5 AM, code by 5:30. Every evening after work—dinner with the family, then back to the desk. Every weekend—Saturdays are for building, Sundays are for catching up on everything I didn't finish Saturday.

That's Gideon Codeworks. Websites built to convert. SaaS platforms engineered for scale. Automation systems that give founders their time back. Digital infrastructure for people who need execution, not excuses.

This isn't a side hustle. It's not a hobby. It's the thing I'm building while holding down stability, because that's what real looks like when you're 44 with responsibilities and you've already blown up your life once.

The Lesson

This isn't a comeback story. It's a build story.

There's a difference.

Comeback stories are about returning to where you were. About reclaiming what you lost. About proving to everyone who doubted you that you still had it all along.

Build stories are about using what you learned in the fall to construct something better than what you had before.

I've been to the top. I know what that looks like. Custom builds, flush bank accounts, the respect that comes with running a successful company. I also know what it looks like to lose it all because you couldn't manage yourself through the dark seasons.

And here's what falling taught me that success never did:

How to build with intention instead of momentum. My first company grew fast because I could sell and execute. It collapsed because I never built systems that could survive my absence—or my depression. This time, I'm building infrastructure that works whether or not I'm having a good day.

How to create opportunity beyond myself. I'm not just building Gideon Codeworks to replace my income. I'm building it to create paths for others—Account Executives who can build recurring revenue without the risk of starting from zero. People who bring relationships and close deals while we handle delivery. That's scalable. That's sustainable. That's bigger than just me.

How to survive the gaps between success. There's no straight line from layoff to launch. There's the day job that pays bills. There's the late nights that build dreams. There's the tension of living in both worlds simultaneously and not letting either one suffer. I'm learning to be okay in the gap.

How to measure success differently. This time, success isn't about how fast I can scale or how impressive the revenue numbers look on paper. It's about building something that doesn't collapse when life gets hard. It's about creating value for clients, opportunity for partners, and stability for my family. Everything else is just metrics.

The Truth

February 17th tried to be an ending.

February 18th became the launchpad.

I'm not where I was. The construction company is gone. The money's gone. The version of me who thought success meant never failing—he's gone too.

But I'm not done building.

I spent a year at Lorenzo's learning systems I didn't know I needed. I spent months teaching myself to code because I was tired of paying other people to build my visions. I spent years learning what it feels like to lose everything and deciding that losing once doesn't mean you stop building.

Now I'm building something that proves you can go from everything to nothing and still construct something that matters. Something that scales. Something that creates opportunity for more than just yourself.

Gideon Codeworks isn't a redemption arc. It's not a revenge play. It's not me trying to prove something to everyone who watched me fall.

It's me building in public, with a day job and responsibilities and a history of spectacular failure—because that's the only way I know how to do this anymore.

Honestly. Intentionally. With the scars still visible.

And this time, I know exactly what I'm doing.

Not because I have it all figured out. But because I've already survived not having it figured out, and I'm still here.

Still building.
Still showing up.
Still working a day job and coding until midnight.

February 17th was just another Monday.

February 18th was day one.

And I'm just getting started.