Josh Bauer, born in 2003, grew up in Waterloo, New York, a small town in the Finger Lakes. He attended Finger Lakes Christian School for most of high school, where he developed a keen interest in geometry and other math. It was during this time that Josh also developed an interest in aviation (namely helicopters), technology, business, and politics.
In 9th grade of high school, at the age of 15, Josh and his friend co-developed a plan to fund a senior field trip for his small class by buying and reselling boxes of pizza to other students during lunch period on Fridays. Josh was primarily responsible for handling the finances, marketing, and inventory predictions for this effort. For older grades (6-12), he would market and sell pizza directly to the students. For younger grades, he created a "pizza card" system, a way for parents to pay for 20 slices of pizza in advance, and for students to use them up afterward, with notifications sent to the parents once the balance was running low. By the time Josh left in 11th grade, and with profit margins of almost 100%, the fundraiser had accrued more than $1,500 in profit.
It was also during this time that Josh became acclimated to using Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides (not only for presentations, but also as an effective graphic design software, which he still uses today for creating logos, business cards, and marketing material). He bought his first web domain (swigglergaming.com) at the age of 16, and worked tirelessly to get it connected to his Google Sites website he made advertising the Risk-adjacent board game he began to invent in 8th grade. As he began to succeed with connecting the domain to the site, Josh developed fluency in a number of areas related to web hosting, SEO, analytics, and other areas of technology at a very young age.
In 10th grade of high school, Josh ran unopposed as the Student Council Treasurer. Instead of merely inhabiting the traditional role of managing the budget, he decided to make himself responsible for revenue generation of the student council, which up to that point had been funded only by grants from the administration. In addition to his existing pizza sales, he worked with administrators to learn how to make popcorn using a popcorn machine, and sold many bags of popcorn for $1 each during lunch period on Tuesdays. This allowed a diversified income source that was not solely reliant on administrative grants from the private school itself. During this role, Josh also began strategizing the purchase of vending machines for the cafeteria, which could bring in additional revenue. Unfortunately, this goal was not reached before his departure next year. In additional to the requirement of generating a budget report as Treasurer at the end of the year, Josh spent multiple hours generating a separate pdf version of the report for every teacher and student in the school, with their names on it, understanding it would add a personal touch which would increase the likelihood of a successful bid for the presidency in 12th grade.
During high school, Josh also played starting center defense in soccer and briefly started playing volleyball until incurring a sprained ankle. While playing soccer, his team made it to the playoffs during all 3 years and was one point from winning the championship game during his last year. He was also hired as a digital scorekeeper for home basketball games, and ran the sound booth for multiple school plays, a task involving a great deal of attention and accuracy. He also founded and headed a chess club with 12 active members, and spent hours of his own time creating round robin schedule brackets and algorithms from scratch, using Google Sheets functions, to use in tournaments. It was also during this time that Josh gained a significant interest in conservative politics and financial literacy, as a result of listening to Dave Ramsey, Ken Coleman, Ben Shapiro, and Mark Levin on the radio and in podcasts.
In 11th grade, Josh moved farther south to South Seneca High School, a public school he later graduated from as the only student in his class to receive an advanced Regents diploma with honors in both math and science, a feat he obtained by scoring 98, 95, 94, 91, and 90 on the five NYS regents exams he took. At South Seneca, Josh was handpicked by the principal and director of IT as one of two potential candidates to serve in an IT internship, a position Josh did not even apply for. He spent his time until graduation in that internship, and was offered a job there after graduation, which he declined due to an anticipated relocation.
While at home during his last year of high school, he became interested in the podcasting industry after identifying a gap... the fact that non-copyrighted instrumental music was only available to listen to through platforms with intrusive ads such as YouTube and Spotify. In 2020 at 17 years old, Josh started a podcast called the NCS Songs Podcast, a repurposement of non copyrighted music into a podcast with zero ads, which ended up racking up over 25,000 Spotify subscribers and millions of downloads within a period of 3 months. He then went on to create Orange Feed Network, an entity behind an effort he led to compare every podcast host (Libsyn, Podbean, Anchor, etc) on the internet in a giant spreadsheet. During this time in high school, Josh spent multiple hours filling in data in the spreadsheet and communicating with CEOs, marketing directors, public relations directors, and other executives from the podcast companies he was analyzing. Josh, during this time, was contacted and offered a job by Mike Kadin, the CEO of Red Circle, a podcast startup based in San Francisco. Since Josh was in high school at the time and was unable to relocate, he declined. However, Josh did end up becoming a moderator of the Podcast Movement Community Facebook group, the largest podcast community in the world, headed by Jared Easley. This opportunity was a result of Josh's multiple hours spent helping other users in Facebook group and the social credibility he had gained.
Also during this time, Josh spent time helping other users in a Google Sites Facebook group, with various technical difficulties that he had learned to overcome during his time of making Google sites to that point. This resulted in the owner of their group giving it to Josh when he retired. Josh has grown this group from 300 members to over 12,000 during the time he's owned it, and has sought out and brought in exceptional talent to be able to aid in answering questions, such as Stephen Hind, the Founder of Steegle. Josh was also a moderator of and frequent contributor to the Google Sites Subreddit during this time, and also became a Google-endorsed Bronze - then Silver - then Gold Product Expert in the Google Sites Help Community, where he became one of the top 4 most active posters, and helped hundreds of users solve the problems they were incurring with Google Sites, for free.
After graduating high school, Josh briefly moved to Sevierville, Tennessee during the summer before his admission to Finger Lakes Community College in the fall of 2021. While in Tennessee, he purchased his first drone, a DJI Mini 2, and first electric unicycle, an InMotion V11. Josh spent days practicing and learning these devices, and has since obtained his commercial Part 107 drone certificate from the FAA, with the intent of starting an aerial photography business Skylinko, an idea which still sits on the backburner. In 2021, Josh was flying his drone legally over an unoccupied waterpark in Canandaigua, New York during the off-season, when it crash landed on the property. When the water park refused to return the drone, Josh filed his first lawsuit, self-represented, for conversion, at the age of 18. While he did not win the lawsuit, this event gained the attention of multiple industry experts, and Josh was invited onto Ken Heron's YouTube channel to discuss the event with lawyers and aviation enthusiasts. This interview had 62,000 views and funded the replacement for his lost drone. The lawsuit also gave Josh an early fluency with the legal process, something that has since proven useful in multilpe separate incidents.
Josh was told by his college acadmic advisor that he was the only student she'd ever seen have their 4-semester course schedule mapped out prior to a meeting. During college, aside from maintaining a 3.9 GPA, becoming an on-campus resident assistant (for which he was voted MVP by his 8 coworkers), and securing a part-time job in academic advising, Josh bought his first 3d printer off eBay, where he began 3D printing game pieces for the board game he had been inventing since middle school, Military Vs Economy. Somewhere during this process, Josh decided to print himself a chess set, which later became the beginning of Corner Tactics, a luxury chess set brand with unique designs and high quality translucent resin material. Josh revived a deceased Chess Club at FLCC and became the president. He led a marketing effort with flyers and tv ads to get it off the ground, bought multiple new chess boards for the club, and organized public tournaments during his time as president. He also spent time creating his own personal chess league, the COMS Chess League. However, Josh still has not led any tournaments in this league due to low interest. Josh also started his first legal company during this time, Exispace LLC, which he used to start an Amazon FBA wholesaling business which sold office supplies directly through Amazon. Josh also bought his first sport-bike while in college, which has turned into a lasting hobby. If Josh turns out to be unsuccessful in his future business ventures, he'll blame it on skipping a class in Small Business Management to attend his first group ride, around Canandaigua Lake.
Within his full-time summer job between semesters, manufacturing board games, Josh was able to listen to a number of podcasts during his work. Besides Dave Ramsey, this also included Choose FI, Ramit Sethi, Grant Cardone, Bigger Pockets, and more. This laid a foundation for Josh's knowledge and interest in wealth, freedom, and the multiple avenues to achieve them, but primarily real estate. Josh could have graduated college in 3 semesters due to transferring credits from high school, or could have spread a 3 semester workload over 4 semesters to make his time there easier. Instead, he stayed for a 4th semester and packed in additional courses not required for graduation, including an advanced accounting course, a finance course, a geographical mapping course, and a social psychology course. In late 2023, as a result of his friend being unjustifiably tackled off his motorcycle by a park range in Erie, PA, Josh handwrote a 22-page legal brief serving as federal discrimination lawsuit against a state official alleging excessive use of force, unreasonable search & seizure, negligence, racial discrimination, and other charges. Josh assisted the friend with all tasks related to filing, discovery, answering motions to dismiss, and eventually, facilitating a settlement in which the DCNR, a Pennsylvania state agency, agreed to a settlement payout for the entire amount sought in the lawsuit.
After graduating college, Josh moved to Buffalo, New York where he immediately started a position as the corporate sales representative for Boar's Head brand products in the six participating Tops stores of the northern Buffalo area. While at this job, in a Tops store, Josh encountered a tractor trailer driver in the back of the store and had a lengthy conversation with him. This discussion sparked Josh's understanding of the job stability offered by driving trucks. After feeling he reached a knowledge ceiling in this job, and having gained an interest in someday owning rental properties, Josh mailed an introductory letter to the president of Buffalo Management Group, a private company with over 1,000 rental units in Buffalo, and became an Assistant Property Manager on weekdays, and a box truck driver on weekends, working 7 days a week for almost 2 months in an attempt to stockpile money. When fired from Buffalo Management Group over a personality mismatch that could not be reconciled, Josh temporarily went full-time driving box trucks, and also began training to get his CDL at BTTI in the summer of 2024. Due to a displeasure with the amount of time he was having to spend in the warehouse instead of on the road, Josh transitioned away from his job driving box trucks and into a role at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport (KBUF), where he was quickly promoted from a ramp agent to a loadmaster, responsible for the complete turnaround of A320 and A321 passenger planes for Frontier Airlines. This included pre arrival communication with the pilot, marshalling them into the gate, aiding with deboarding passengers, refueling, baggage loading, pre flight load and balance paperwork including weight distribution, and pushing the plane out from the gate using a pushback tug.
When Josh finally obtained his CDL in February of 2025, he waited a few months due to an immense enjoyment of his then-current job at Frontier Airlines. But in April, he obtained a job offer driving car haulers for Cassens Transport Company, and offered for Frontier to match their salary offer, which they declined to do, resulting in Josh obtaining his first job driving tractor trailers, which he has been doing for full-time employment ever since.
Josh has also started a few other ventures, including Price Clicker, an SaaS company making pricing transparency possible for service based businesses that use variable factors in pricing. He also has started GreenLight Empire, a business he intends to use to market vacant land for sale after buying it. In the end of 2025, he has grown Corner Tactics, the chess set brand, to include sets with pieces modeled after building in downtown Buffalo and Seattle, just in time for the Seahawk's super bowl win in 2026 (his favorite team since age 10). Josh started his own podcast, "It Doesn't Exist", in late 2024 where he discusses his career and business journey as it transpires. Also in late 2024, Josh began working on creating and publishing his first mobile app, called the "Josh Bauer App", a combination of all the social media profiles he has stopped posting on. The app is expected to be publicly released in March of 2026. He has also taken an interest in networking, and helping other entrepreneurs meet and learn from each other. Throughout 2025, Josh paid for LinkedIn Premium and grew from 350 connections to 2,307 (with 948 of them since getting blocked for unresponsiveness), leaving a total of 1,359 high quality relationships remaining that he hopes to strengthen over the coming years. Josh has also been seeking out highly-motivated individuals who are willing to contribute to the success of his businesses, and has started the "Josh Bauer Team" as a separate entity hiring both local and overseas contractors and employees to further along the progress of Josh's multiple endeavors.
Josh intends to one-day concurrently own homes in Buffalo, Seattle, and Miami, as well as multiple rental properties. In the short term, he is planning to move to Seattle in the summer of 2026 in order to start flight training to become a helicopter pilot, at Classic Heli in Auburn, Washington.
