Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Anthony.
Hi Robert, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started in my room on a school laptop I didn’t even own.
I was 17 and had just gotten into a wreck. Lost my truck. And with it, my lawn care business. Summer was ending anyway and I didn’t have a way to haul equipment anymore. I remember sitting there thinking, alright, what now?
I’d been the entrepreneur type since I was 13. Always had some side hustle going. Through all of that, I’d taught myself how to build websites. Made them for my own ventures, helped out friends. It was never the main thing, just something I picked up because I needed it.
But sitting there without a truck and without a business, I realized I actually had a skill that businesses would pay for. Most companies had websites that didn’t really do anything. They just existed. I thought maybe I could help with that.
So I spent about 30 minutes scripting out a phone call, then started calling restaurants around me. I sounded as nervous as you’d expect. When I got the owner of this place down the street on the phone, I told him I was young, I was learning, but I thought I could help. He was skeptical but interested enough to meet in person.
I showed up to that meeting completely naive. I’d watched maybe a 2-hour YouTube crash course the night before. I had no idea how to price anything. So when he asked what I’d charge, I just wrote a random number on a piece of paper and slid it across the table.
He said no.
Looking back, the number was way too low. But I was also a 17-year-old kid with a school laptop that wasn’t even mine.
I didn’t give up though. I started calling businesses and basically begging them to let me do free work just to prove myself and build a portfolio. Most people were willing to give me a shot as long as I’d give them a testimonial when I was done.
My first paid project came after that. I was obsessed with making it perfect. Started on a Thursday and worked the entire weekend. I mean the entire weekend. Just to deliver it by Monday. When the client saw it, he said he was beyond surprised.
That first dollar felt like relief. Like proof I could actually do this.
I got featured in a local magazine early on, posted about it on Facebook, and it blew up. 30 leads in 12 hours. My mom was a big help then. She introduced me to people she knew, encouraged me when things got hard, and even told me to quit my warehouse job because it didn’t make sense to work for quick cash when I could be building something real.
I remember buying my first laptop right before I graduated high school. I’d made enough money from that school laptop to finally justify getting my own. That felt like something.
Now I’m 20 and running Visidex. Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just building websites anymore. The clients who kept coming back weren’t looking for pretty designs. They were people running operations who needed systems that actually worked.
So that’s what my company does now. Custom websites, applications, pricing calculators, client portals, automation for the manual processes eating up their time. I have one employee and a couple part-time people who help me still on the technical side, but it’s still lean. We’re working on projects I never thought I’d touch when I was 17.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not even close.
One of my first clients screwed me out of a couple thousand dollars of work. Another ghosted me for months in the middle of a project, then came back demanding free changes. Some people took advantage of my age and lack of experience then.
The age thing has been tough. I’m always the youngest person in the room. When I started, a lot of people didn’t take me seriously. Even now, some people question whether I can deliver. You see it in their face when you walk into a meeting. But more people have supported me than doubted me, and I’m grateful for that.
The scariest moment financially was when I nearly drained everything. My tax reserve, checking account, all of it. Waiting on client payments while expenses kept piling up. I was months behind on taxes and didn’t know how I was going to make it work. But the next month ended up being my best month ever. Two big projects came through and everything turned around.
I’ve lost projects that hurt too. Especially with bigger companies where I prepared for weeks, did all the research, built mock-ups, and still didn’t land them. That stings every time.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Visidex builds custom operational tools for manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors.
We’re not a traditional web design agency. We build the specific tools that operations-heavy businesses need but can’t find anywhere else, then we make sure people actually find them.
There are two types of things we build:
First, customer-facing tools like calculators and configurators. These capture buyers from opportunities your competitors don’t even know exist. We start with keyword research to find gaps in the market, build tools that answer those complex questions, then drive visibility through organic marketing so the right people actually find it. The result is qualified leads who’ve already figured out what they need before they ever talk to your sales team.
Second, internal platforms that remove operational bottlenecks. Pricing engines for businesses with thousands of SKUs and complex logic. Quoting systems that turn days of work into minutes. Platforms that capture the knowledge living in spreadsheets or people’s heads and make it permanent.
What sets us apart is that we handle the full picture. We don’t just build a tool and walk away. We make sure it gets seen, gets used, and actually solves the problem. We start with research to find what’s actually broken, build the exact tool that fixes it, then drive traffic to it. No templates. No generic software.
I’m proud that we’ve proven this works. We’ve built systems managing 1000s of SKUs that cut quote times. We’ve built calculators capturing market opportunities that competitors completely ignored, then drove traffic to them.
If you’re a manufacturer, distributor, or contractor who’s outgrown spreadsheets but doesn’t need a half-million-dollar enterprise system, we probably build exactly what you need.
How do you think about happiness?
Honestly? Surprising people with results they didn’t expect.
When a client sees what we built and they’re genuinely shocked by how well it works or how much thought went into it. That’s what I’m after. Not just meeting expectations but blowing past them.
When I’m deep in a project, figuring out how all the pieces fit together, making something work that didn’t exist before. That’s when I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
It hasn’t been easy. But when you see the results and know you delivered something that actually made a difference, that makes it worth it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.visidex.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visidexagency/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/visidexagency/
