Chapter 01
It started with a computer.
Some of my earliest memories are of computers. I remember looking forward to computer lab in preschool more than anything else. I'd come home and go straight to our family computer, spending hours playing educational games on CD-ROMs that my father and I picked out together on weekends.
My father was the one who introduced me to computers. He taught me how to install programs, connect to the internet through dial-up, troubleshoot problems, and figure out what was happening when something stopped working. I was learning how to use Task Manager before I even understood what an operating system was.
He probably had no idea how much those lessons would shape my life. As I got older, playing on computers wasn't enough anymore. I wanted to understand them. I'd take apart computers and gaming consoles, figure out what the components did, and put everything back together. I experimented with software, game modifications, hardware repairs, and just about anything else I could get my hands on.
I discovered Minecraft during its alpha days. Before long, I was running servers for my friends, installing modifications, experimenting with texture packs, and troubleshooting whatever inevitably broke. I even learned to hot-swap my Xbox 360 to modify Call of Duty Zombies when I was around twelve.
Looking back, I realize I wasn't just interested in games.
I was interested in what made them possible.
And when something didn't work, I genuinely enjoyed figuring out why. That curiosity made me the person my friends and family came to whenever something involving technology needed fixing. I loved that role.
Chapter 02
From taking things apart to wanting to build them
Around seventh or eighth grade, my father suggested that I consider learning how to create video games. It made sense. I spent so much time around computers that learning to program seemed like the natural next step. I bought a programming book for beginners. I didn't make it very far through the book, but the idea stuck.
When I moved to Hillsborough, New Jersey, I entered a much larger school system than the one I'd previously known. During my freshman year of high school, I enrolled in a newly offered computer programming class. It changed things for me. I went on to take a second programming course and then AP Computer Science during my sophomore year.
My teacher recognized my resourcefulness, but what I remember just as fondly was the environment. The classes were small, we knew one another, and I enjoyed both the technical challenges and the people around me. In 2015, I was selected for Johnson & Johnson's Technology Awareness Program, one of 21 students chosen from hundreds of applicants.
By then, technology had already become part of how I understood myself. I remember an assignment in social studies where we had to choose a personal hero outside our family and write an essay about them. I chose Bill Gates. Some of my classmates thought it was a strange choice. My teacher even asked whether I was sure.
I was. To me, the people creating the software and operating systems behind our computers were making things possible for millions of others. That was fascinating. I wanted to be part of something like that.
Chapter 03
Rutgers, and a different kind of education
In 2016, I entered Rutgers University to study computer science. I also had an interest in business and economics. At the time, I imagined eventually pursuing an MBA alongside a technical career. But college didn't unfold the way I expected. I enjoyed subjects like computer science, data structures, and economics. What I struggled with was the environment itself.
I had gone from relatively small, personal programming classes to enormous lecture halls. I missed the freedom to experiment, the close relationships with instructors, and the feeling that I was learning by actually doing something. I also made mistakes. I was young, becoming more independent, building a social life, and not always prioritizing the things I should have.
By 2018, I had left Rutgers without completing my degree. For a long time, I looked at that period as losing my path. But I didn't lose my curiosity. I just started applying it somewhere else.
Chapter 04
A plane ticket to Los Angeles
After leaving Rutgers, I spent roughly six months experimenting with e-commerce and building my own online stores. Then an opportunity came through connections I'd developed during high school. A group of entrepreneurs in Los Angeles was pursuing several early-stage business ideas and invited me to join them.
They offered to cover my plane ticket. So I packed a bag and went. I was young, had limited experience, and didn't really know what I was walking into. But the opportunity to be surrounded by ambitious people building businesses was too exciting to pass up. I ended up living and working in what was essentially an entrepreneurial incubator in downtown Los Angeles.
These weren't established companies with polished operations and predefined roles. Most were concepts.
We were trying to turn ideas into actual businesses, starting from almost nothing.
I got involved in wholesale operations, commercial and residential real estate opportunities, business development, and the everyday work of figuring out how to make something viable. We researched markets, developed strategies, contacted potential customers and partners, and explored ways to finance and structure transactions.
On the commercial real estate side, I was making cold calls, learning about off-market deals, speaking with people involved in large transactions, and discovering how developers, brokers, and financing groups worked together. I was also surrounded by entrepreneurs who organized networking events and masterminds. I helped organize and host a penthouse mastermind event that brought together business owners and speakers from different industries.
It was an entirely different education. And I loved it. Not every idea became a successful business. In fact, plenty didn't. But every day I was learning something new.
Chapter 05
I discovered that businesses are systems, too.
This was probably the most important realization of those years. I'd spent my childhood trying to understand computers. Now I was doing the same thing with businesses. How does a company actually make money? What makes one business model work while another fails? Where do customers come from? What happens between a lead, a sale, and a satisfied customer?
How do people, technology, financing, operations, and timing all fit together? I found myself genuinely fascinated by the answers. I'd meet someone running a business in an industry I knew almost nothing about, and within minutes I'd want to understand every detail.
What do you sell? Who buys it? How do you deliver it? What's slowing you down? Why do you do it that way? I didn't realize it at the time, but I was developing a love for consulting.
I enjoyed understanding businesses for the same reason I'd always enjoyed understanding computers: every system has moving parts, dependencies, limitations, and opportunities to make it work better.
Chapter 06
California, New Jersey, Texas, and a lot of lessons
The years that followed were anything but conventional. An opportunity with someone I'd met in Los Angeles took me to Fresno, California, where I helped develop a Forex education business. I built its website, ran digital advertising, and participated in the broader marketing and business strategy.
That venture eventually ran its course. I returned to New Jersey, then took another opportunity to work with some of the same people in Los Angeles, this time with a stronger focus on trading. I was living in a small apartment in LA when COVID-19 arrived. I still remember watching a city that had seemed almost impossibly busy become eerily quiet.
Like so many other people and businesses, we tried to adapt. Eventually, I returned home again. Along the way, I also spent time doing door-to-door sales for Momentum Solar in New Jersey. If you've ever done door-to-door sales, you know how quickly it teaches you about rejection, communication, and persistence.
Later, another business connection brought me to Yorba Linda, California, where I lived and worked alongside a group focused on trading, sales, and entrepreneurial opportunities. From there, I followed a mentor and several close associates to Houston, Texas. We pursued multiple ventures, and some of the opportunities in Houston gained more traction than anything we'd done previously.
But the hardest lessons weren't always about markets or business models. They were about people. I learned how difficult partnerships can become when responsibilities, ownership, incentives, and expectations aren't aligned. I learned that a promising business can still unravel because of internal disagreements.
And I experienced how painful it can be when people you've spent years building alongside, people you consider close friends, find themselves on opposite sides of a business relationship. Some of those experiences hit me harder than the financial setbacks. I'd invested years not just in ventures, but in people and relationships.
Not everything ended the way I'd hoped. For a while, I questioned whether all that time and effort had brought me any closer to where I wanted to be. But I had learned more about entrepreneurship, operations, sales, human relationships, and business models than I ever could have imagined when I first boarded that plane.
And I hadn't lost the willingness to try.
Chapter 07
Coming home and building a professional foundation
Eventually, I returned to New Jersey and decided to take a more conventional professional path. I joined NJ Advance Media in an account management role, working with businesses across different industries, understanding their goals, and helping them navigate marketing and digital solutions.
Later, at Marketing Edge Group, I worked with more complex client relationships involving technical teams, business stakeholders, and larger operational needs. The experiences were valuable, but not simply because they taught me how to sell. They taught me how to listen.
I became more comfortable speaking with business owners, executives, technical teams, and people who didn't necessarily speak the same professional language. I learned that what a customer asks for isn't always what they actually need. Sometimes a business owner says they need a new website when the real problem is that nobody follows up with incoming leads.
Sometimes a team asks for another software tool when their existing tools simply don't communicate. And sometimes the hardest part of solving a technical problem is understanding the people and processes around it. My years in entrepreneurship had taught me how businesses are built.
My years working with clients taught me how to help businesses improve. But something was still missing.
Chapter 08
Finding my way back to technology
The rise of modern AI changed the possibilities in front of me. For years, I'd loved technology but had pursued careers where my day-to-day work was more focused on sales, marketing, and client management. AI-assisted development offered a new way to bring those worlds together.
I began working more deeply with software systems, APIs, automation, and AI agents. Instead of limiting myself to advising clients about technology, I could help design and deliver the systems they actually needed. One of the clearest examples came through my work with AIT USA Institute.
The organization had years of historical records, disconnected tools, and workflows that relied on spreadsheets and manual follow-up. What started as a need for better organization evolved into a much larger software project. We developed a CRM around the way the organization actually operated, connecting lead information, student records, enrollments, classes, and business processes.
That work brought me back to something I'd been learning my entire life. Technology isn't useful just because it works technically.
It has to understand the real world it's supposed to serve.
Today, AI agents perform most of the code-writing work, including application code, database changes, tests, and deployment changes. I direct, review, and validate that work. My contribution is understanding requirements, identifying faulty assumptions, reproducing problems, resolving workflow ambiguities, and testing whether the result actually meets the need. I retain responsibility for acceptance and production decisions.
The tools have changed dramatically since the days of dial-up internet and CD-ROMs. The curiosity hasn't.
Chapter 09
Why I started DenegriWorks
DenegriWorks is the culmination of those experiences. The childhood fascination with technology. The years spent taking things apart and figuring out how to put them back together. The entrepreneurial ventures that taught me how businesses are created. The setbacks that taught me about risk, responsibility, and relationships.
The client-facing work that taught me how to listen, communicate, and understand what organizations actually need. And the return to software engineering through AI, automation, and modern development tools. I've come to believe that many businesses don't necessarily need more software.
They need someone who understands their business well enough to recognize what's wrong, explain what's possible, and help make the right improvements. Someone who isn't afraid to investigate the details. Someone who will tell them when an idea doesn't make sense.
Someone who understands that good technology should make people's work easier, not more complicated. And someone who stays involved after the initial solution is delivered. That's the kind of partner I want to be.
Chapter 10
Still figuring things out
I don't want this story to sound like everything has gone according to plan. It hasn't. I've made mistakes. I've pursued opportunities that didn't work out, seen partnerships come apart, taken risks that didn't pay off, and spent years wondering whether I'd somehow drifted away from the future I imagined for myself.
I'm still building. Still learning. Still taking chances. But I understand myself better now. I love meeting people and learning how their businesses operate. I love a difficult technical problem. I love discovering a more efficient way to do something. And I love the moment when something complicated finally makes sense.
At heart, I'm still the kid who couldn't wait to get home and use the computer. The kid who wanted to know what was inside the console. The kid who believed that technology could change the world. Only now, I understand a little more about the people and organizations it needs to serve.
And I get to spend my days bringing those two worlds together.
That's why I built DenegriWorks.
And in many ways, I feel like I'm just getting started.