From volleyball courts to Kagoshima tea fields.
I grew up in Rochester, NY — youngest of five boys, all athletes. I played collegiate volleyball at UCLA and studied History, but dropped out half a semester before graduating to build something I believed in.
In 2016, I Googled "what is the healthiest form of energy?" and landed on matcha. My co-founder Robbie and I tried it, felt the difference immediately — calm, sustained, no crash — and decided to build a brand around it. That became Tenzo Tea. We sourced directly from a 12th-generation tea master in Kagoshima, Japan, got USDA Organic certified, and built a subscription flywheel that now serves hundreds of thousands of customers. Forbes named us 30 Under 30. Pret A Manger put us on their US menu.
More recently I joined as COO of Breath Death — a dentist-formulated breath brand backed by Logan Paul, Adin Ross, Odell Beckham Jr., and MGK. We partnered with WWE for SummerSlam and launched on Amazon and TikTok Shop. Different world from matcha, same operating principles: clean formula, sharp brand, relentless distribution.
The throughline across everything: I look for categories where the incumbent product is low-quality or dishonest, find a cleaner answer, and build a brand people are proud to be part of.