2004

TLTR: Ditched German vocational school at 18, hacked networks, never worked for anyone but myself. First business: sold WiFi booster kits for AVM Fritzbox, €20,000 monthly profit until copycats crashed it. Launched Meshnode: built Linux-based outdoor routers 21 years ago, still at it. Goth life: black eyeliner, Sex Pistols, late-night chaos. Long-Version: From School Network Hacks to WiFi Empires: My Rebel Journey Picture me at 18, top right in a blurry photo, passed out behind my laptop. Paper and pens? Not my style. I was too busy hacking the school network, owning the digital chaos. That was me at Berufsschule in Germany, a vocational school with no real U.S. match. Two years of outdated IT lessons, stuck in a time warp a decade behind. Total waste. My parents pushed me to stay until I hit 18. The day I did, I bolted. No degree, no regrets, just a fire to call my own shots. Now at 39, I’ve never had a boss except myself and my customers. Freedom beats any diploma. My first business was pure hustle. In 2004, every German household had an AVM Fritzbox router, but the WiFi was weak. I spotted the gap and built a fix: a kit to double your WiFi range. It was simple. A beefy antenna, a pigtail cable, an adapter, and a clear manual to crack open your router and upgrade it. I tossed in a money-back guarantee for good measure. People loved it. Better WiFi? Instant hit. Peak performance was 20 kits a day. Cost me €3 to make, sold for €39. That’s €720 daily profit, over €20,000 a month. For one golden year, I was untouchable. Then copycats crashed the party, slashing prices to €9 a set. I was done. But that rush, blending high profits with WiFi magic, hooked me for life. I funneled the cash into Meshnode MVP, my first real router venture. I built Linux-based WiFi routers, rugged for outdoor use, using x86 boards with dual mini-PCI sockets. These weren’t just routers. They were beasts, running AccessPoint mode with meshing for uplink. That was 21 years ago, when I was 18, coding through the chaos. Now at 39, I’m still building routers, still chasing that spark. I never stopped, and I never will. On the personal side? Full goth mode. Black eyeliner, ripped sleeves, Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the Banshees on blast. Bauhaus in the background. Computers hummed, but life was a party. Loud music, late nights, and enough anarchy to keep it raw.