Day 1

Day 1 – The Journey Begins

A 13-year-old negotiates a boat flip and launches Flip-N-Ricky. A mission to turn profit into $1M in 365 days. Follow the transparent journey from Day 1.

Flip-n-Ricky

26 Oct 2025 — 4 min read

The Story Behind "Flip-n-Ricky"

Hi, my name is Ricky. Yes, I'm a real human. Yes, I'm only 13 years old. No, this has nothing to do about the money.

The backstory is simple. I'm in school and play sports and had no plans to start a business 7 days ago. But, a few things happened over the last week…

Last weekend at a travel event for my sister, I really wanted this sweatshirt and my parents wouldn't get it for me. So, I went and asked the vendor if we could barter (aka work out a trade). I challenged him to a goofy game and if I won, he'd give me the sweatshirt. If I lost, I'd pay him full price for it. He said, "I can't do that, but I have an option for you". Here is a discounted version. A version nearly half the price. Come to find out, he gave me a 45% discount.

He then said, "you're a great negotiator".

A seed was planted.

Yesterday, was my Grandpa's birthday. Just before we left his party, he pulled me aside and said "I want to sell my boat. How do I do it?".

I asked how much he wanted for it. He gave me a price and I asked if I could sell it for him for more, could I keep the extra money. He said, "absolutely".

Later, I was telling this to my Teacher and another seed was planted. My Teacher said, "why don't you see if you can turn this into a million dollar business by the time your grandpa turns 73?".

I asked how do I do that and that was the birth of an experiment, hopefully a new business.

For context, my grandpa doesn't need or probably even want a million dollars. I have no idea what to even do with a million dollars.

But, this is the journey of me trying something new that scares me.

Each day, I'll keep a journal and post on the progress. I'll give 100% transparency into every dollar spent and every attempt, failure, and lesson.

The general idea is that if we can sell my Grandpa's boat for more than he want's, I'll use the profit to buy something else and flip that product for more profit. The goal is to get to one million dollars in profit before this time next year.

Making It Official

My Teacher suggested a few things to make this official:

Name the experiment (hopefully future business)
Decide on who owns the business
Document everything so others can learn

We decided on Flip-n-Ricky as the name and we bought the website domain, www.flipnricky.com.

To buy the domain, we went to www.godaddy.com.
I used my Teacher's account and it costs us $24.18.

Then, we went to www.lovable.dev and built a website. This is an AI Agent site that my Teacher told me about. Here is the prompt we used:

"I'm a 13 year old boy and I want to make my grandpa a millionaire before his 73rd birthday. Today he turned 72. He needs help selling his boat. He said that he want's a certain price for it, but if I could get more then I could keep the profit. I want to use the profit to start a business in honor of my grandpa called Flip-N-Ricky. My purpose is simple. Make my grandpa a millionaire in 1 year. Right now, I am the only Person. This website is to tell the story of starting a business as a teenage entrepeneur. The format of my site is blog posts."

We're still working on the website content so stay tuned.

Ownership

Next, we had to think about the ownership.

My teacher let me decide and after some negotiation, I decided on the following:

Me: 50%
Teacher: 25% (for the instruction and help)
Grandpa: 25% (he doesn't know about this yet, or even about this business just yet).

Finally, I have to keep a daily journal and this is it.

Welcome.

I'm excited about starting my first business with my grandpa and Teacher. I'm also excited about having fun in the business.

I'm really nervous what happens if the business doesn't work out or I don't have fun doing this.

I'm really questioning whether this business will work and if I can be successful at it.

If it doesn't work, I'm going to feel sad, but I'm committed to finding something else and trying again.

Let the journey begin, I guess.

Oh, by the way, each day, I'll also share what my Teacher told me so it can help you, called Teacher Notes. Refer back to yesterday's post for the origin story from the Teacher.

Teacher's Notes

Why set a goal? So, we train our brains to make bigger decisions. With no goal, there is no focus. With a big goal, there is focus, urgency, and the need to think bigger.

Why name it and treat it like a company? So it's evergreen, meaning it's about a Purpose, a mission, a big ole WHY. Experiments don't always work, but we want to set out like it will.

Why worry with a website? So you can tell the story and build a brand. A brand that makes people feel your passion, your why, and something that others can get behind to support you. Because, in entrepreneurship, you can't do this alone.

Why one million dollars? It's not about the money. It's about much more and we'll uncover that through this journey.