Dragonborn

Before I was a founder, I was a kid obsessed with dragons.

I wasn’t just into them — I was convinced they were real.
The Dragonology series by Dugald Steer was my bible. That book didn’t just spark my imagination — it ignited it. I spent weekends rummaging through rocky fields like a mini Indiana Jones, convinced I’d find a scale, a fang, a fossilized claw. I once told my parents, very seriously, that I wanted to visit the Drakensberg Mountains — not for the hiking, but because “Drakensberg” literally translates to Dragon’s Mountain in Afrikaans.

They laughed.
Told me, “You won’t find any dragons up there.”
I replied, “One day I’ll find proof.”

Spoiler: I didn’t.But I never stopped looking for magic.

In high school, reality tried to bite back. One day my dad hit me with some tough love:

“You’re living in fantasy. The chances you’ll get a job you enjoy are slim. You’re lazy. At this rate, you’ll be a failure.”

That one stuck. I love my dad — and to be fair, I probably was an insufferable little dreamer at the time — but that sentence lodged itself deep. And maybe out of pure spite (with a side of delusion), I decided I was going to prove him wrong.

So I did.

I never stopped chasing that dream. I didn’t become a dragonologist (tragic, really), but I did build something out of nothing. I created a company that lets me live in the clouds and still land things with precision. And now I spend my days writing, designing, leading — and telling stories.

Because that’s all this is.
Founding a company is fantasy turned real.
It’s high-stakes adventure with no map, no checkpoints, and definitely no pause button.

And funny enough — I get the same high from writing these blog entries as I did back then, scribbling down tales about dragons in school notebooks.
Except now, the dragons are metaphorical.
The treasure is meaningful work.
And the cave I’m spelunking in? Usually a Slack channel.

People say you grow out of childhood dreams.
But maybe the real secret is learning how to build them into reality.

So yeah — I never found dragon bones in that field.
But I did build something fire-breathing.
And now, I wake up every day living my fantasy.
Against the odds. Against expectations.

Look at me now, Dad.
Living in fantasy — and getting paid for it.