👋 Hey! I'm Noah
Learn a bit about me and... whatever this is
*This page was last updated July 23, 2025*
Hey! If we haven’t met before; I’m Noah, a 17 y/o obsessed with learning and “figuring it out”. I don’t have my life mapped out. I know what I like, and what I don’t like, and I’m very biased towards action for things I like.
What I love, is entrepreneurship -- and right now, I’m exploring everything there is to it -- head first.
In blatant honesty, I’m unsure what this Substack experiment is right now -- it started as a monthly newsletter in November 2024, however, I now enjoy writing and want to begin making essays and putting my ideas out there (what have I become…)
Before I go any further, I want to kick off with one of my biggest ideas:
I believe that nobody in entrepreneurship / startups knows what they’re doing -- and everybody’s figuring it out on the way.
kind of like these headless chickens…
I can hear what your thinking:
“This kid probably still asks his mom to cut the crusts off his sandwiches.”
Let me explain: entrepreneurship is like exploring uncharted territory. Where every startup (except for those GPT wrappers) are tackling problems nobody has ever solved before. You can’t possibly know what tomorrow will bring -- all you do know is that there will be a whole lot of problems you’ve never seen that are unique and shaped to yourself.
Nothing great stays the same. Remaining stagnant isn’t staying still, it’s choosing to move towards failure. This isn’t a new concept -- it’s how most startups go under. Because of this, everybody in entrepreneurship is constantly navigating unknown terrain, which is why the most critical skill isn't having experience -- it's being amazing at figuring things out.
No matter the problem, circumstances, or situation -- you HAVE to figure it out, or you’re going to lose.
I don’t know a lot of things, but I know that; and it’s something I live by.
Whatever this “experiment” turns out to be, it’s main purpose is to serve as a way for me to build in public, so that people can see what I’m working on, and what I believe. Through this, I’m going to be able to share my journey from 0 to 0.1, (and incase your wondering.. yes it’s a play on Zero to One by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters haha).
Overtime I hope that you’ll see I’m relentless about learning through action, jumping at every opportunity, and creating my own when none exist (this one happens way more).
You can learn more about me and some of the cool work I’ve done at my website: noahbarbaros.com
Some cool stuff I’m currently up to:
Helping businesses rank for both search engines and AI alike at Antifragility Labs -- an SEO / GEO agency. My plan for this is not to remain an agency, I’m building internal software -- once accurate enough I will flip it inside out and turn to a startup! Current clients include: Product Market Fit podcast, Mistral Venture Partners, and north&nova.
Intern @ Armilla AI; working on SEO / GEO. Armilla AI is a Y Combinator-backed, AI insurance startup that has raised $5M+.
Some cool stuff I’ve done in the past:
Launched CoVenture -- the first-ever network for ambitious, entrepreneurial teens to connect and build cool stuff. Hustled my way to 100+ users. Came close to partnering with folks at Clemson and Waterloo to expand as campus-only, but ended up shutting it down. Didn’t see long-term potential and had better things to chase. Still, the experience was great.
Interned @ Built for Impact. BFI is a startup with support from U of T Rotman & Western Ivey. When I first joined I scaled outreach from 0 users to 10,000+ users in less than 2 weeks. Worked on product and marketing for a bit afterwards.
Wanted to find random ways to make money in high school so I did marketing for SMEs and eventually made decent money for a high-schooler. One of my favourite projects was coding a software that pulled info from social media (like Instagram) that then leveraged AI to assist with targeted ads.
When I was in grade 7 (2019) it felt like everyone around me was getting cancer, and I had felt worthless. It felt demoralizing to sit in the hospital and just witness everything. So I launched a mini charity, “MovItiative” by myself in 2019 to support cancer research. I still run this every year in November -- I grew it from a solo project to a team of 20+, scaling fundraising 10x, and now spreading across entire school boards in Ontario.
I’ve also done some other really neat things like projects for Samsung and IKEA! Also more hackathons + pitch competitions than I could count; and some pretty cool side projects mainly relating to AI, feel free to check out my GitHub, and my Medium if you want to learn more.
What I want to learn:
Coding :: I’m obsessed with it -- I want more projects for it too. Something not on here yet is that I’m an incoming intern @ Wealthsimple -- I’ll work with their SWE team which I’m super excited for.
Writing :: duh, in case you couldn’t tell. What do you think this is for.
Guitar :: I’ve been on and off with guitar over the past couple years -- I really need to get more consistent.
Things I do outside of work:
Soccer :: I’ve played competitive soccer in one of Ontario’s highest leagues since middle school. Ultimately had to quit in my final year of high school but I love the sport.
Running :: When I quit soccer in grade 12 I lost my “outlet”. Ever since I was in grade 7, I’d train 3-4 times a week, with a game on the weekend. That’s 4-5 times playing soccer a week! When I quit I honestly started losing it. My brain was scrambled, I was stressed out of my mind, I felt like apart of me was collapsing everyday -- that’s where I found running, the worst thing possible. So uncomfortable, and unenjoyable your mind doesn’t have the capacity to think about anything else except screaming at you for starting that run. I’ve ran 5ks, 10ks, and half marathons, and will be running my first official marathon this upcoming fall 2025. My goal is to do an ironman.
5 Things that I live by as a 17 y/o in the pursuit of greatness:
Figuring things out is the most important trait for having a good life (if you couldn’t already tell)
Done > perfect
Experiences make up success (not job experiences… I’m talking about life experiences)
By choosing not to do something, your choosing to do something
Treat work like a sport -- and yourself like an athlete
My dream life - besides the wife, kids, and dog (the boring stuff):
I want to be financially free at a young age -- once I can control my time, I can begin working on crazy ambitious things. Until then it’s hustle until the moneys in.
I want to become a founder working on a startup that makes real change in the world. There’s many unicorn startups out there -- yet only a handful make a tangible difference in this world -- I want to found one of them.
I'm excited to share the lessons, failures, and tiny wins as I navigate my way toward those goals. This isn't going to be another "how I made my first million" story -- it's the messy, real-time documentation of someone who's still figuring it out, just like everyone else in this game.
Whether you're 17 or 47, if you're building something that matters, we're probably dealing with similar problems: How do you know if you're working on the right thing? How do you build momentum when everything feels uncertain? How do you keep going when you have no idea what you're doing?
Let's dive in and figure it out together -- from 0 to 0.1.
I love chatting with likeminded people I don’t know -- If you ever want to chat about any of this (especially entrepreneurship), you can find me at noah@barbaros.ca, or send me a message on LinkedIn.