Read Time: 9 minutes

Adam Terhaerdt, Founder and CEO of StarterByte, is a young entrepreneur who transformed his passion for problem-solving into a thriving business. His journey began with simple side hustles, from pressure washing driveways to navigating the complexities of e-commerce, eventually leading him to develop a mobile app for his favorite local coffee shop. Through trial, error, and relentless determination, he learned firsthand how to pivot, build a team, and take on challenges head-on. In this interview, Adam shares his entrepreneurial journey, the lessons he learned from early ventures, and how he built a strong team culture while balancing business and college life. His story is a testament to the power of taking action, embracing failure, and figuring things out along the way.

Thanks for joining us, Adam—your journey is truly inspiring. To kick things off, I’d love to hear more about what sparked your entrepreneurial path. Can you share your entrepreneurial journey and what inspired you to start your business?

What inspired me to start my business was a local coffee shop just a block away from where I used to live in West Philadelphia. At the time, I was on my second co-op experience at Drexel University, working remotely for Oracle. Since the job was remote, I would frequently visit this coffee shop to work, and over time, I slowly built a community there. I became friends with the baristas, stayed late to continue working while sipping on a coffee, and often met friends at this shop. You know that feeling when the barista behind the counter already knows your order when you walk in? It’s a great feeling. Over time, this became my spot—I loved going there.

As a frequent customer, I started noticing some gaps in the digital customer experience compared to what bigger brands like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts were offering. For example, at these larger businesses, you could order online, earn rewards for free coffee, and conveniently reorder your favorite items with just one click. I realized how seamless and convenient the ordering experience was at these brands, but that wasn’t the case for smaller businesses. This insight led me to pivot how I was spending my free time and explore ways to provide a similar experience for the coffee shop I loved.

I discovered that mobile apps were a key tool in delivering this seamless digital experience for larger brands. At the time, I had no experience building an app, let alone convincing a coffee shop to let me create one for them. Despite that, I was determined to help. Over the course of the next year, I taught myself how to build a mobile app entirely on my own—and I did it for free for this coffee shop. After finally launching the app, I saw how successful it became, and that experience led me to build my company, StarterByte.

That’s an incredible journey, Adam. Building on that, how have your background and early experiences shaped your approach to entrepreneurship?

I’ve had the entrepreneurial spirit running through my veins ever since I was young. In early high school, I started my first venture: pressure washing. I would walk around my neighborhood, handing out pamphlets to my neighbors and asking if they needed their driveways cleaned. During this time, I not only saw an opportunity to help maintain my neighbors’ driveways, but I also took the chance to learn the fundamentals of building a business.

Over time, my entrepreneurial journey evolved into e-commerce, where I experimented with Amazon FBA. My first attempt was selling LED signs with quotes like “Dreamer” and “Hustler.” However, I quickly discovered that electronics was a difficult category to break into due to the number of moving parts involved. Managing refunds for defective products became overwhelming, so I decided to pivot to something simpler—wooden hexagonal shelves. Unlike electronics, these had no fragile components that could break unexpectedly, and they were much lighter than LED signs, making shipping more cost-effective.

After spending weeks conducting market research, I was ready to go all in. I ordered 150 shelves in three different color variants—mahogany, rustic white, and black—50 of each. At the time, I thought these names sounded fancier than just calling them brown, white, and black. I invested a few thousand dollars to ship the products from China to my parents’ home in Chicago, which, at the time, was a huge financial commitment for me.

I was away at college when the shelves arrived, so once I came home for winter break, I spent the entire break repackaging and relabeling each product to meet Amazon’s specifications. I also made a trip to the local hardware store to pick up pallets and plastic wrap to load the products onto a semi-truck, which I had arranged to pick them up from my house. At first, this seemed like a good idea—until I realized just how massive a semi-truck actually was.

I remember waking up early the morning it was scheduled to arrive and watching as the truck slowly rolled down our narrow residential street. That’s when I knew I had made a mistake. The truck was enormous, completely blocking the street. Realizing I had to act fast, I quickly woke up my entire family to help load the pallets onto the truck. Then I faced another problem—the driver didn’t have a pallet jack. I had no idea what to do. Scrambling for a solution, my dad suggested that we unwrap the pallets, load the shelves onto the truck one by one, and then rewrap them inside the truck. So that’s exactly what we did.

By 6:30 a.m., my entire family was outside, unwrapping and rewrapping shelves in the back of a semi-truck. It wasn’t the smoothest process—there was plenty of yelling, frustration, and even some laughing at how ridiculous the situation had become. We also had to stop traffic behind the truck as it slowly backed out of the street. After we finally finished, my dad slipped the truck driver a twenty.

After all of that, I learned one very important lesson: never order a massive semi-truck to a residential street again. That was way too crazy.

These early ventures helped shape my mindset: How will you ever learn if you never try? That’s the motto I want to stick to whenever I approach anything. You just have to dive in and figure things out along the way. You could spend forever thinking about all the ways a business might fail and never take action, or you can accept that you’ll never know everything from the start—and trust that you’ll figure it out as you go.

What qualities do you look for when building your team, and how do you foster a positive company culture?

I am a young entrepreneur, but I’ve had the opportunity to lead a talented team of ten for my business. Though overwhelming at times, I find it incredibly rewarding. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be in the position I am today without these people.

I’ve been fortunate to be part of Drexel University’s incubator, which has granted me access to a dedicated office space. This space has been instrumental for my business, allowing team members to come and go as needed. Whenever I’m in town, I spend nearly all my time at the office, and I strongly encourage my team to join me as much as possible. I believe that in-person collaboration not only fosters productivity but also makes the process of building our product more enjoyable.

Selecting people who are not only hard-working but also have personalities that mesh well with the team is crucial. When we’re in the office, we end up having discussions on various topics that likely wouldn’t have come up in an online meeting.

When choosing people to help me develop my product, I started by selecting friends who would sit with me in the library to study for exams and consistently complete their homework on time. Actions speak louder than words for me—if I see someone demonstrating strong discipline and work ethic in school, I know those qualities will carry over into my startup as well.

Adam, thank you for sharing your incredible journey and insights with us. Your story is a testament to the power of perseverance, adaptability, and taking action. This is just the beginning—stay tuned for Part 2, releasing next week, where we’ll dive deeper into how Adam balances entrepreneurship with college, builds a strong team culture, and navigates new opportunities in the startup world!

Marc J. Bernstein JD, ChFC®, CLU®, CAP®

Financial Planner and Consultant, Bestselling Author, and Creator of the Forward Focus Forums

Marc helps high performing entrepreneurs and business owners create a vision for the future, accomplish their business and personal goals, financial and otherwise, and assists them in following through on their intentions.  Marc recently co-founded March, a forward-looking company with a unique approach to wealth management.  He captured his philosophy in his #1 Amazon Bestseller, The Fiscal Therapy Solution 1.0.  Marc is also the founder of the Forward Focus Forum, a suite of resources tailored specifically to educate and connect high performing entrepreneurs, and to help them realize their vision of true financial independence. The forum includes;

• the Founders’ Forward Focus Forum: a series of articles focused on entrepreneurship
• the Founders’ Forum Radio Show and Podcast: featuring interviews with some of the area’s top founders and their experiences in business
• the Manufacturers’ Forward Focus Forum: a specialized resource group for owners/founders of manufacturing companies, including a private Facebook group; a private discussion group for high performing leaders of manufacturing companies to share resources, news, network with each other, and collaborate