An Entrepreneur’s Hustle, Humor, and Poorly Timed Brilliance
A Memoir of Hustle, Humor, and Poorly Timed Brilliance
Stephen Watkins did not follow a roadmap. He made one. From mowing lawns to stumbling through cabling contracts, Lotus Notes, and union battles, he managed to disrupt Wall Street with a novel security structure and invent TIGRcubs® along the way.
Funny, candid, and full of grit, this memoir rewrites the American Dream. Success is not about avoiding mistakes; it is about surviving them. With Midwest charm and Wall Street savvy, Watkins shows that perseverance and caffeine can make half-baked ideas work.
Perfect for anyone who has bootstrapped through chaos and lived to tell the tale.
Episodes
Sep 9, 2025
Sep 9, 2025
7 min
College internship at Anixter. Enter Frank Mitchell, logistics wizard. Corporate bureaucracy tried to kill his chaos, but a clunky IBM PC and exception management saved the day.
Sep 9, 2025
Sep 9, 2025
13 min
The evolution of Harkins Enterprises: teenage TaskRabbit before apps existed. Fence-staining disasters, billing “adjustments,” and the painful art of apologizing creatively.
Sep 9, 2025
Sep 9, 2025
5 min
High-school trauma, garage-door mishaps, and a teenage lawn-care empire. Outsourcing badly taught me more about business than Algebra ever did.