Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lorde Astor West. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Lorde Astor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My company was in the tenth year of business revenue was up, we had our pick of projects, referrals were flowing in, and our software products had reached a level of maturity that allowed us to increase our margins exponentially.

And, I was a newlywed, happily married to the man of my dreams who was not only a life partner but my new business partner as well.

From the outside, things couldn’t have been better, right?

But something was missing.

Over the years I had honed my business to a science, building and delivering custom software products that not only made my clients’ lives and businesses better but had become such second nature it felt no different than breathing. Client success after client success had lost its luster. The same problems, the same solutions, the same results, on loop, rinse and repeat.

Even with the successful launch and exit of several innovative products I still felt as though I was becoming obsolete. That there was much, much more that I had yet to explore and that my efforts and skills to build and contribute more value were being wasted.

The vision that I had conjured from inception and that I had steadily worked towards was beginning to look like it could become a reality.

The speed at which the world was connecting, the innovations that were beginning to appear, and the velocity of users adopting socially driven technologies was laying the way for a fully digitized, connected, and aware world.

I wanted in, at all costs, no matter what it took, I wanted in.

I knew what I wanted to build, and the recent advancements in technology frameworks and cloud computing were starting to show real promise.

I started to form a plan.

Tech origin stories with business ideas written on the backs of coffee shop napkins were all the rage and while my plan was not as primitive as those being sketched across the neighborhood coffee shops of Silicon Valley, it had all the hallmarks of a document that I would later refer back to time and again when asked where the idea got its start.

The plan, like most good plans, was simple. In fact, in total, it was only six pages, a few hundred words, and mostly graphics, but it did the job. It was what it was and if successful would be the future of cloud platform deployments.

For the first two years, we worked on the framework in tandem with our clients. Bootstrapping the project, building it out one layer at a time.

I was becoming anxious with the speed at which we were progressing and my availability to move the project forward was becoming a bottleneck.

If I was going to get this thing off the ground. I was going to have to do something drastic and what many would say was foolish.

I would have to choose.
I would have to choose between the thriving business that I had built from the ground up and what I knew in my heart was my future.

I was about to make a decision, that at the time seemed so simple and within reach, but that would take me to the end of my personal resolve, take from me my peace, my security, my lifestyle, and bring me to the brink of obsession.

May 18th 2018

That’s the date that I said goodbye to my last client, handed over the keys to the kingdom, picked up my last big check, and would never look back.

From here, the road before me was unknown. And I was running on a steady diet of anxiety, fear, and extreme desire.

But I was free. Free to build, free to experience the journey, free to cast my lot and hope for the best.
A new marriage, a new company, no income, a new team, and a savings account.

What could possibly go wrong.

Everything and it did.

Had I known how the next few years would unfold I may not have made the decision I did, but now being on the other side I wouldn’t change anything for the world.

It’s an interesting dichotomy that only one who has walked through hell and survived can appreciate.

As I have come to realize the vision, I look back at the risk and ask myself. “Would I do that again” and I am not sure that I can say that I would.

It is difficult to determine if the extreme highs and lows were worth it, the age that it put on me, the stress it put on my soul, but what I can say is that I would rather have the option to say “I’ll never to that again” than not to have the option at all.

I think that it is better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all.

If you are on the edge of making a life-altering decision.
If you are trying to decide if it is worth it, and if
you are afraid to fail
you only have one question to ask
If I do not take this leap, at the end of my life, will I have truly lived life at all?

I am a better person for the decision.
I know exactly what I am made of now.
I know my limits and how far I can push past them.
I have conquered myself, burned myself to the ground, and I have risen from the ashes.

I accomplished the big goal and as I step into the next half of my life, I feel accomplished, vindicated, strong, and wise.

Had I not taken the risk, I do not know who I would be or if I would have grown into the person that I have become.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am the owner of a portfolio of virtual properties and rapid deployment frameworks.

I got my start in software development in the early 2000s when I talked my way into a startup and was forced to come up with innovative solutions to maximize my capabilities.

I found that I could multiply my efforts and automate manual tasks by developing software. Through this experience, I fell in love with building custom software and solving operational problems through digital automation which has become a lifelong obsession.

When the startup failed, I had a choice, either strike out on my own or look to find a company similar to what I wished to achieve and work there.

Not having much capital, I went to work for a company that I believed to be closely aligned with the direction I wanted to take in life but after a short time I found that it did not give me the same level of satisfaction that building software did, and I resigned.

At first, I worked odd jobs just to pay the bills while I built up a portfolio. After about six months I had signed my first client and was in the business of building custom software.

My first large-scale project was an eCommerce shop for a custom home plans architect who would be not only my first big client but who would run the software that we built until 2022 when the owner retired.

I would bootstrap the company from the ground up, growing on our profits, and achieving a 100% referral-based business within two short years from inception.

Becoming an entrepreneur would give me the freedom and ability to earn what I needed as a single parent to raise a young child as well as be present in his life.

In many ways entrepreneurship saved me.

Today I have built over 500 apps and have worked with over 100 companies with several notable exits.

In 2018 I made the full transition to product development exiting my custom dev shop and bootstrapping what would become a rapid venture builder that would make possible the autonomous deployment of SaaS startups using our technologies.

To date, we have developed a rapid development framework and deployable cloud OS that once automated will allow us to automatically deploy new startups and embark on an extraordinary mission to launch 1 Million Moonshots, Solopreneurs, and Equity owners across 100 legacy and new vertical markets by 2030.

We will accomplish this extraordinary mission by deploying what we call the “Autonomous Startup Ecosystem” which in reality is a vertically integrated software product that automates the startup process from idea to exit.

Once fully deployed, the system will reduce the time to launch, from our current rate of 90 days to 90 minutes and will bring visibility to early-stage investment helping founders get their projects funded faster, and create access to exceptional talent while removing the friction and uncertainty typical of building out a startup team with AI-powered matching algorithms and popular “swiping” to match technology.

When we are successful we will help to reduce the nearly 92% startup failure rate and help save nearly $1.4 trillion in capital lost to startup failures while unlocking a tremendous amount of innovation and opportunity that vanishes along with founders after they fail.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2020 we were at the height of our first investment raise and the build of our second platform when the pandemic hit and our biggest investor pulled out at the last minute, then our fundraiser jumped ship.

Without the funds to board and build I was forced to make the risky decision to build and hope to get the product right.

With limited funds, we didn’t have room for error, and keeping the project on track was a lesson in extreme resolve.

To solve the problem I incubated our solutions with a few clients using our first platform, testing it incrementally in small deployments until we were able to get to a point where the product was stable enough for a true beta.

From there we continued to gain ground building piece by piece until we were satisfied that we had accomplished a solution that was marketable, desirable, and useful. With a great product, we were able to attract our first large-scale customers.

While the outcome seems to have snapped together the process was emotionally taxing and fraught with uncertainty not only due to having a drastically decreased runway but also the extreme uncertainty of the pandemic with the added stress and responsibility of protecting our investors’ investments.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Relationships. Build relationships with your clients and you’ll never wish for business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://23d.io/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/23d-io