Senior year I locked one thing in. I was going to graduate college with a business already running.

Not a student org. Not a class project that gets liquidated in April. A company that still exists after I walk the stage.

That made the school search pretty specific. There are two undergraduate entrepreneurship programs people actually fight over.

April 2026, University of Houston. May 2026, Babson.

It was supposed to be a hard decision. Then I sat through Babson's pitch and realized the whole thing was a costume.

I wrote the full breakdown here: You don't own the business you start at Babson.

After that visit, Houston was the move.

the easy choice

I even met the Wolff Center executives on the April trip. That part sold me.

The city itself barely introduced itself. I spent a few days on campus with no car and nothing on me worth stealing, walked around thinking Houston seemed pretty cool, and flew home.

Nothing happened.

That is the most dangerous kind of tour. The neighborhood does not do a Q&A during admitted-student weekend.

I moved in August 2026.

day two

Day two, I left my backpack in a rental car.

Broad daylight. Neighborhood I did not yet know was the hood.

Smash and grab. They smashed the window and took the bag. MacBook included.

The part that really sucked is I had not backed up a bunch of it. Years of files, just evaporated, because I treated a parked car like a locker.

I bought a new machine the same day and speedran the setup like I was restoring production off a napkin.

That is when my roommates, who have lived in Houston their whole lives, gave me the real orientation.

Third Ward is not a cute nickname. It is where the school sits. It is also a place with real crime, the kind that does not care that you are young and trying to build something.

Campus itself is more or less fine. Step off it and you are in a different city.

They walked me through the stuff that can actually go down here, so I put a camera on the dorm entryway that week.

It took about a second to land.

I had just moved to the hood.

stay

This is where I am going to be for the next few years.

I could be a chicken and run back to California. First-class seat, suburban zip code, the whole rerun.

Or I could stay, pick up some street smarts, and actually handle Houston.

In chaos lies opportunity. I was already here. Running would have been the expensive part.

I am not out here pretending I am from this. I just decided I was not going to flinch.

The thing that still makes me laugh is these kids I'd see in high school. California, nice areas, $2M houses, guys throwing red and blue like they are in a music video.

I know those kids. They would not last a day here.

I am not even talking about a bad night in Houston. I am talking about a Tuesday.

The average person walking around Third Ward has more real in them, just by living a normal life, than the entire gangster cosplay at a Bay Area high school. Those kids have never seen what a regular day looks like in this city.

In Texas, shit actually happens.

Anyway. This is the most opportunistic city I have ever stood in. Houston is on the rise. You can feel a place getting bigger while you are standing in it.

I get to watch that happen, and I want whatever I build here to put something back into it. If I do this right, it shows up in Houston's GDP, not just on a resume.