George taught himself to code on a phone in 2020, starting with C and C++ through SoloLearn, before he'd ever touched a real development environment.
He earned a Computer Science degree, but chose entrepreneurship from day one after graduating rather than taking a conventional job. That decision was neither immediate nor easy. He quit a low-paying job shortly before graduation because it lacked the learning experience he wanted, then spent two to three months jobless after building his first website, with no real client pipeline. There was a stretch of waking at 4am daily to apply to five or six tech companies, and a promising referral to a CEO that went nowhere after weeks of follow-up. That dead end is what pushed him to commit fully to RatifiedTech and start posting content publicly.
His first paying client was a personal referral, a schoolmate who owned a shop in Nairobi, for a 20,000 KES ecommerce website. From there, he built RatifiedTech through cold outreach from zero clients, closing his first cold client on the ninth attempt. He still closes the large majority of his deals in person.
Started coding on a phone
Taught himself C and C++ through SoloLearn before any formal development environment.
Chose the harder path
Quit a low-paying job before graduating, then spent months building a client pipeline from nothing, including a failed CEO referral that became the turning point.
A schoolmate's shop
Built a 20,000 KES ecommerce website for a referral from Kagumo High School, delivered in about two weeks.
RatifiedTech
Manages 20+ clients largely solo, has been reached out to by international brands, and runs Founder School alongside the agency.