From Watering Cars to Clicking Keys
Meet Oliver from Keysborough, a pint-sized mogul still biding his time in Year 10 and already racking up a resume that screams, “I’m ready for a corporate takeover!” His initial foray? A car wash business that led him surprisingly not to a life of crime, but to creating his own fashion label, Verve&Edge. Current status? The proud owner of Arise UI, a web design and development enterprise—all while mastering the art of not getting grounded.
“With Berwick Carwash, I’d knock door to door for hours, peddling flyers like I was selling rare Pokémon cards. I did this every day during the gloriously sunburnt summer of 2021, and after queuing up countless cars, I leaped into the online clothing world while still absorbing the joys of Year 6,” Oliver recounts, perhaps with a hint of nostalgia for simpler times—when chaos was just homework and not running a small empire.
“At the start of 2024, after enough time masquerading as a fashionista, I decided to dive into the magical realm of AI. Thus, Arise UI was born last September, sparked by a burning passion for digital design and an existential dread at the sight of many businesses’ atrocious websites. Seriously, some were so bleak they made my Year 6 art project look like the Mona Lisa,” he adds, channeling what I assume is a youthful bravado.
“Arise UI has quickly become my crowning achievement—the business equivalent of winning the academic decathlon. Watching Melbourne businesses trust me with their online identities has been a jolt of caffeine to my entrepreneurial dreams, reminding me just how far I’ve come since pestering neighbors about their dirty windshields,” Oliver marvels.
Thanks to some good old-fashioned word of mouth—aka the original form of social media—Oliver’s business has taken off like a rocket. But don’t let his savvy success fool you; he’s still learning the ropes of business at a delightfully slow pace. Most of his clients are small-to-medium business owners aged 20 to 40 who want affordable web design without looking like they just emerged from a basement after a decade of neglect.
“Being in business has taught me a heap more than I anticipated—beyond just stacking cash like Scrooge McDuck. The biggest takeaway? Resilience. Things rarely go according to plan, and I’ve had to become a fluid artist in the world of ‘adapt and overcome’ when the unpredictability of life, or web design, throws me a curveball,” Oliver reflects, likely pondering his next entrepreneurial escapade with a side-eye at his ever-generous customers.
So here’s to Oliver, the teenage tycoon, who went from scrubbing grime off cars to surfing the waves of web design. He’s a shining example that kids today can do so much more than just perfect their TikTok dances—though let’s be real, they still give adults a run for their money on that front.
