I’ve never had a real job. Here’s how I’m running a company anyway

The cofounder and CEO of Shapes, a platform for group AI conversations, started running a company at age 21 without prior traditional employment. The CEO, who began building websites at age ten and selling apps on the App Store from age 14, has been shipping products daily for twelve years. This entrepreneurial journey began near Delhi, India, where early web development projects for friends and family evolved into freelance work on platforms like Upwork. By age 11, the CEO was earning money through online gigs, and by 14, after acquiring an iPhone, shifted focus to native iOS app development. Experimentation with app pricing, ranging from $0.99 to $100, resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue. A significant early project was the sleep-tracking app Sleepisle, developed at age 17, which was among the first for the Apple Watch and earned the CEO an Apple WWDC scholarship. This period also marked the first in-person meetings with close friends made through the developer community. The CEO emphasizes that practical experience gained through these early ventures provided essential skills for entrepreneurship, including negotiation, professional communication, project management, prioritization, and marketing, effectively learning the 'job by doing the job'.