fig. 10 · the person you'd be trusting
hi, i'm theo, the whole company.
When you hire BuiltWithTheo you're hiring one person. This page exists so you can decide whether that person is worth trusting with your operations.
the short version · every number checkable
I grew up in Brookfield, Missouri, population five thousand. In 2016, between community college classes, I started Practical Psychology ↗ because I wanted a business that paid me to read books. Animated summaries, two videos a week, systems for everything. It grew to 2.3M subscribers and 100M+ views, plus a blog earning five figures a month. Eight months in it had its first $10k month, so I stopped going to class. In 2024 I sold it, at a 42× profit multiple, when 30 to 35× was the going rate.
Along the way I built WhiteboardCrypto ↗ past a million subscribers and into a seven-figure education business. The lesson under both: I don't scale by working more hours, I scale by building systems that run without me: first for my own businesses, now for other people's.
The switch to client work started by accident. Caleb from High Flow Drainage fixed my flooding basement and spent an hour teaching me how French drains work. Best experience, best price. His business was just hard to find online. I emailed him fifteen free marketing ideas; he called back and said “I don't have time, can I just pay you to do it?” His revenue doubled the next year.
fig. 10.1 · the thread so far
2015
One semester of nuclear engineering
Enrolled at Missouri S&T, toured the campus reactor hoping it would talk me into staying, and realized the day-to-day looked boring. Dropped out and switched to community college.
2016
Practical Psychology
Started making animated book summaries to get paid to read. First $10k month about eight months in, so I quit community college. Grew to 2.3M+ subscribers, 100M+ views, and a blog with 500k monthly readers.
2021
WhiteboardCrypto
Ran the same playbook in a new market: a second channel, now past 1M subscribers, at the center of a seven-figure education business. Never told anyone what coin to buy: education only.
2024
Sold Practical Psychology
A buyer paid a 42× profit multiple; the going rate was 30 to 35×. The premium was the brand and the systems: by the end it ran without me, which is what made it sellable.
2024
High Flow Drainage Solutions
Mid-2024, the company that fixed my basement became my first hands-on client. Revenue doubled the first year and passed the million-dollar mark; leads up 4×; 7 of every 10 jobs now leave a review.
2026
BuiltWithTheo
Doing the same for Kansas City's small businesses, one hand-built automation at a time.
portrait pending
the photographer is busy building someone's automations. a real photo lands here soon; it will never be stock or AI
theo, probably holding coffee
filed under
- base
- Kansas City, MO
- raised in
- Brookfield, MO · pop. ~5,000
- shop size
- one person, on purpose
- family
- wife (a nurse) & kids
- subscribers grown
- 3.3M+ across two channels
- businesses built & sold
- one (Practical Psychology, 2024)
- replies within
- one business day
fig. 10.2 · asked & answered
The questions clients actually ask
Why Kansas City?
I grew up in Brookfield, Missouri, a town of about five thousand people. We moved to Kansas City a couple of years ago: my wife's a nurse and there are more opportunities here for her and for our kids than in the town we grew up in.
A lot of cool people here, too.
Why small businesses, not startups?
I've run a local small business, so I know the problems these owners deal with firsthand, and a lot of my friends run local businesses, so they were my first audience. I like solving exactly these problems.
Big companies mean red tape and requirements. They can't move as fast as I like to build.
What are you honestly bad at?
Art. Always have been. I can look at a design and tell you what's working and what to move where, but put me in Illustrator or hand me a pen and it falls apart.
Every brand I've built looks good because I hired amazing artists and got out of their way. Credit where credit's due.
A client calls with a fire at 7pm. What happens?
It gets put out. Most of my work is remote and happens whenever it needs to, often after the kids are asleep. Since I get my family time when everyone else is at the office, an evening fire is easy to justify.
Honestly though, fires are rare. I'm proactive and I test everything heavily before it ever reaches a client.