Carnegie Hall → the sales floor → Times Square → Dubai
I was born in New York City in 1998 to an Armenian family — Armenian at home, New York on the street. Growing up between two cultures teaches you the thing every salesperson eventually learns: different people need to be spoken to differently, and the one who can move between worlds is the one who closes.
My first stage was Carnegie Hall. As an award-winning pianist I performed there more than a dozen times, including a full concerto with orchestra. People hear "piano" and think talent; what it actually is, is discipline — years of showing up daily and then delivering, alone, under the brightest lights in the world. I've been performing under pressure since before I could drive.
After graduating from LaGuardia High School in 2016, I got my real education on the sales floor: valet stand, print shop, the synchronized-service floor at Texas de Brazil (triple shifts, 16-hour days), a deli counter in Scarsdale, and then front sales at Bryn Mawr Dry Cleaners in Yonkers — the person at the counter turning walk-ins into regulars, and later the driver bringing service to their doorstep. Seven-plus years of looking customers in the eye.
Then I bet on myself twice at once. I taught myself AI automation — earning Anthropic Academy certifications and building multi-agent systems that run my whole content operation — and I picked up a microphone. My street-interview brand @apennyathought grew to 10,000+ Instagram followers and roughly five million views in under three months. It became Street Yaps Media, the studio I co-founded with Douglas Wong: I'm the front end — on camera, closing sponsorships (our first paid brand campaign was filmed at Madison Square Garden) — while Doug runs strategy. I also taught Doug his AI stack, which tells you how we work: whatever one of us learns, both of us have.
Why Dubai? Because it's the most international, fastest-moving property market on earth, and everything I have — the languages, the camera, the cold-approach nerve, the automation — compounds there. I'm 28. Doug gave one company 29 years; I intend to give my next career the same loyalty, starting now, at full speed.
Persistence beats probability. You run at the wall until the wall moves — and you do right when no one's watching.