Two weeks later, I stepped into Craft Logic’s new headquarters in the West Bay District Business Complex, right in the heart of Clearwater.
The office was on the ninth floor of a glass building overlooking the ocean, flooded with natural light across dark walnut floors.
There, I reunited with three key team members from Portland: Jared, Rachel, and Dominic, who had volunteered to relocate and help launch the new office.
“We’re resetting everything, right?” Rachel asked during our first meeting.
“That’s right. No more anonymity, no more double life. This is the freest chapter for the company and for me.”
Craft Logic didn’t just survive this transition, it thrived.
We secured three new Florida-based clients in the first quarter, and an investment fund out of Boston had just proposed a new valuation: $59.7 million, not including the AI products we were preparing to release.
I no longer wore cheap jeans just to stay humble.
No longer hid my expensive smartwatch under long sleeves.
I didn’t have to pretend to fail just to be temporarily forgiven for being different.
I was the CEO, the founder.
I was Ruby Lawson in every sense.
I started becoming active in the local business community.
One Friday evening at a Florida Women in Tech networking event, I met Caleb Meyer, a digital transformation consultant for nonprofit organizations.
He had a warm smile and the kind of natural handshake that felt like you’d known him forever.
We talked about using tech to connect young founders in rural areas and then about steam grouper from a nearby Thai place.
Three weeks later, we had dinner for the third time.
That time, there was no more work talk.
We walked barefoot on the beach at night, sharing a pair of earbuds, playing our favorite teenage songs.
I didn’t have to explain what my company did.
I didn’t have to dodge financial questions.
“You’re the only person I know who built an entire company and managed to keep it secret from the world,” Caleb said as we sat on the porch, listening to the soft waves.
I laughed.
“Maybe because I used to think if they knew, they’d try to turn me into someone else. And now—now if someone can’t accept who I really am, they don’t get to be part of my life.”
We clinkedked our mint pineapple cocktails together softly, like an unspoken promise without strings attached.
I still remember that last dinner at my parents’ house.
Every biting remark, every dismissive glance.
But instead of letting those things eat away at me, I now use them to measure myself.
Every day I live honestly is a day I’ve already won.
I started thinking more about people like me.
Young individuals without fancy degrees but filled with big ideas.
Not everyone can spend years grinding in the dark the way I did.
And not everyone gets the chance to meet someone like Marsha Bennett at exactly the right moment.
So I decided to start the Ruby Foundation with its first program called the Forge Forward Grant, a financial aid and mentorship fund for young founders without college degrees, but with promising business plans.
We didn’t ask where they studied.
We only cared about what they wanted to build and why.
The fund’s announcement took place in a small auditorium at the Clearwater TechHub under the warm April sun and the scent of fresh roasted coffee from the corner stand.
I stepped onto the stage with no papers, no teleprompter, just me.
“Here are people who can craft the perfect wooden chair at 16. Others who develop content filtering algorithms without taking a single hour of computer science. If we deny them a chance just because they don’t have the right diploma, then we’re the ones lacking.”
We received nearly 500 applications in just the first 6 weeks.
Alicia Monroe, 22 years old, living in El Paso, Texas, was the first to receive a $20,000 grant to develop a scheduling platform for local clinics.
She cried during our first video call.