My startup journey: from bartender to 7-figure founder

Yo! 

Ben Buaron here, Israeli Founder 🇮🇱 of Windmill Growth.

Today I’ve got a more intimate style newsletter for you… I just recently hit a goal that I’ve been working towards since I was a kid.

So I wanted to take the chance to tell you how we got here. 

But first, take a moment to look at the picture below…

That’s me four years ago, I was mixing drinks behind a bar, wondering if dropping out of law school was the biggest mistake of my life.

I had lost thousands of dollars in tuition, disappointed my parents who dreamed of having a lawyer son, and felt like a complete failure every morning I woke up.

But I was drawn to becoming an entrepreneur…

After a year, I launched my first startup - a fintech app that I thought was the “perfect” product.

The result?

No users, no traction, nothing. 

I built a product assuming it was something people wanted.

Those nights behind the bar after that, mixing drinks while my mind raced with failures - that was rock bottom. 

But I didn’t stop there.

I kept working on myself…

Met high-value people through events…

And eventually understood the differences between successful and unsuccessful startups.

With all my learnings I started Windmill Growth…

Fast forward to today – we just crossed $1M ARR in 9 months!

Zero funding. Completely bootstrapped. With now 17 world-class team members.

The journey from bartender to 7-figure founder taught me something crucial: 

Success comes when you solve real problems that people actually care about.

And that's exactly what we did with Windmill. We saw founders struggling to build their personal brands on LinkedIn, and we created a solution that actually works.

Plus, we built something we are passionate about.

Bartending drained my soul… running Windmill gives me life. Now I'm excited to wake up every day and hit the ground running.

Also, this new approach of solving real problems and creating genuine value? 

We've now applied it to a new challenge.

After helping 100+ founders build their LinkedIn presence…

We noticed that even successful founders struggle with optimizing their profiles.
They're unclear, unfocused, and fail to convert visitors into connections and clients.

So we did what entrepreneurs should do—we built a solution.

Introducing our LinkedIn AI Profile Optimizer—a free tool that analyzes your profile and tells you exactly what to change to start generating real business opportunities.

We built it because we've seen firsthand how transformational an optimized LinkedIn profile can be. And trust me we're not making assumptions… (I learned that the hard way with my first startup) we're providing a solution to a problem we know exists.

After 24 hours of launching, the response has been immediate:

• We hit our daily capacity of 100 reports

• Founders are already implementing changes

• The feedback has been incredible

"Just ran it and got a 91%! Excited to dig into the results -- thanks for sharing!"

"This report was eye-opening. The suggestions in my headline, about section, and profile picture were especially useful."

"Already working on making all the recommended changes 😊"

The best part? It takes just 30 seconds to run and gives you actionable advice you can implement immediately.

Try it here: LinkedIn Profile Optimizer

After you get your score, reply to this email with a screenshot! I'd love to see your results.

If you’ve already tried the Profile Optimizer, share it with your founder friends (just make sure you use it first before we hit our daily limit 😉).

Chao!

BB

P.S. When you're ready, here are two more ways I can help you:

1. Want more behind-the-scenes stuff like this? Our WhatsApp community has over 50+ founders working together to build their personal brand. Tap here to join.

2. Want us to build your entire LinkedIn presence for you? Let's talk.