I'm Jeremy.
I've always made plans. They just never go to plan.
I'm married with three kids—Collin, Theo, and Olivia. Chelsea and I have been together for nine years, which means I've spent about a decade figuring out how to be a partner and a dad at the same time I've been figuring out everything else. You don't get ready for any of it. You just start and figure it out, which, if you keep reading, is kind of my whole thing.
I spent years at Walmart corporate, then jumped into mortgage origination—a completely different world. That same year I met Chelsea. So while I was learning how to talk to people about the biggest financial decision of their lives, I was also figuring out how to be with someone. Both of those started from zero.
When mortgages ran their course, I bought a digital marketing agency. I'd never done SEO—I'd been overseeing a third-party SEO specialist, which is where the interest started, but I'd never actually done it myself. Never written a line of code. Never logged into a website backend. I learned all of it after signing the papers, the same way I've learned everything else: by doing it badly until I stopped doing it badly. We got married in 2020. Theo showed up in 2021. Olivia in 2023. The business was growing while the family was growing and I was figuring out all of it at the same time.
Now I'm training to be a home appraiser while still running the agency, because apparently one thing at a time has never been how I operate.
Outside of work—or maybe alongside it, the lines are blurry—I'm into 3D printing, laser engraving, woodworking, hydroponics, programming, politics, finance, history, and whatever else catches my attention on a given Tuesday. I'm working on a book called Starting From Zero, which is less of a title and more of a lifestyle.
This site is where I write about all of it. The career stuff, the dad stuff, the things I'm building, the things I'm reading, the things I'm figuring out. I make plans—they just never go to plan. I've got curiosity and a decent tolerance for looking stupid.
That's worked out fine so far.
Running Robben Media, a digital marketing agency that builds websites, runs SEO campaigns, and deploys automation systems for small businesses.
Managing a growing fleet of AI agents that handle the operational work so I can focus on strategy and creative direction.
Training for real estate appraising in Missouri. Starting a podcast called Porch Light. Raising three kids who keep me honest about what "busy" actually means.
I'd rather ship something rough and learn from it than spend six months planning something that never exists. Most of what I know came from doing it wrong first.
If I do something twice, I try to script it. Not because I love automation—because I'm lazy in the way that eventually makes you efficient.
Every business decision gets filtered through one question: does this give me more time with my family, or less? Everything else is negotiable.
I don't really believe in plans. I believe in starting, paying attention, and adjusting. The plan is just the thing you abandon once you learn something new.
Starting From Zero is what happens when you realize every meaningful thing you've ever done began with knowing nothing. The book covers the career pivots, the failures, the stuff you don't read about in business books because it's too embarrassing or too ordinary.
It's in progress. Like most things in my life, the timeline is optimistic.