Becoming a Founder in My Late 40s: A Journey I Never Expected
Meet Travis Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Nearville. Discover his path to becoming a founder later in life, the decision that inspired Nearville, and the lessons he’s learned throughout his first year of building from the ground up.
I have always been late in life. I started studying hard later than most people. I caught up with work later. I did my MBA in my mid-30s. And I became a founder in my late 40s. Nothing about my timeline has ever been fast or early, yet each “late” step ended up shaping me in ways I only understand now.
I never imagined I would become a founder at this stage of life. For more than twenty years, I lived inside structured environments, from my time at Amazon to leadership roles at scaled startups. My path felt predictable and safe. I thought that stability was simply who I was.
Then, a year ago, I stepped away from all of it. I chose to start Nearville, guided by Jeff Bezos’s regret-minimization rule. The idea is simple: when you look back near the end of your life, choose the path you would regret not taking. It was not a bold leap so much as a quiet, honest decision that felt impossible to ignore.
The past year has taught me more than the previous decade combined. Building something from zero exposes every gap, every fear, every limitation. It forces you into uncomfortable places. You explain your idea to people who have never heard of it. You try to motivate a team with almost no compensation. You make decisions with incomplete information. You hold deep conviction while also trying to stay flexible enough to change direction when reality demands it. It stretches you in ways structured environments never ask you to stretch.
The emotional range is unlike anything I had known. There are days of extreme excitement followed by days of deep doubt. There are moments of clarity and moments where nothing makes sense. But strangely, all of it feels alive. All of it wakes you up. Growth happens in the middle of those swings, not outside them. I now understand, a little more, why some people choose to do this over and over again.
Becoming someone I never imagined has been humbling and often uncomfortable, but also incredibly energizing. I feel myself changing in ways that would never have happened if I had stayed where I was. And I know this journey is still just beginning.
I am grateful for the chance to keep going, to keep learning, and to keep building toward a mission that feels meaningful to me: making sharing easy and helping create a more sustainable way of living through community.