Mount Diablo Advisors

The problem. A friend and roommate had just started at a private-equity firm. The firm passed on deals all the time, and we thought those deals deserved a second look: we could take them and shop them to other PE firms.

What I built. The company, formed through LegalZoom, my first time starting one. Over one summer we built the website and started an outreach and networking plan.

What happened. My roommate took another job and moved, and we had to stop. I took responsibility for closing the company down and filing its taxes, and I kept the domain. Since then I've been building a personal finance tool behind it: account aggregation, net worth, and a review of my options positions with an AI that works from a structured knowledge library. It has most of its backend; the live brokerage connection and its security work come next.

What I learned. How to start a company, and how to close one down properly when it doesn't work out.