2010

Love, Big Wins, MIL-Grade Grit - and a Costly Lesson TLTR: Met Mona, life-changer. Landed €1M German armed forces order. Built 72 MIL-grade mesh units, shockproof, field-ready. Downside: ignored sales for project focus. Huge mistake. Love and grit won. Long-Version: In 2010, at 24, life took a sharp turn. Early that year, I met Mona. She flipped my world in the best way. A personal milestone that grounded me, gave me focus, and changed everything. Then, on November 3rd, we landed our biggest deal yet. Seventy-two mesh units for the German armed forces. Over €1 million in volume. A massive leap for MeshNode. We built those devices to MIL-grade specs. Shockproof. Vibration-resistant. Ready for the toughest field conditions. It wasn’t just technical work. It was a high point, raw and real. For the first time, the vision felt solid. We weren’t just tinkering with routers anymore. We were delivering secure, battle-ready tech to one of the world’s most demanding clients. The pressure was intense, but the thrill was bigger. That spark from my punk days, once fueled by chaos, now powered precision and purpose. But there was a downside. We zeroed in on this project alone. Sales took a backseat. Nobody pushed leads or chased new deals. Big mistake. Very big. We poured everything into perfecting those units, blind to the pipeline drying up. Bootstrapping meant balance, but we tipped too far into execution. Lesson learned the hard way: tech wins battles, but sales wins wars. Mona and that deal defined 2010. Love and grit, hand in hand. Want to hear more about the armed forces project, the sales slip-up, or how Mona shaped the journey?