Drag to explore · click a landmark to ride there
THE WESTERN REALMTwenty years of company-building, drawn as a map.

DVD YOUR MEMORIES

SAN DIEGO, CA · 2006 TO 2013
Founded as a side hustle, grown to four stores in two states, sold because it worked without him.
GARRISON 27 at peak STRONGHOLDS 4 in 2 states YEARS 7 EXIT 2013

THE HALL · The founding

It started as a side hustle. DVD burners and analog capture got cheap the same year, and suddenly boxes of forgotten home movies could become DVDs. Chuck started digitizing in San Diego, and seven years later it was a $2.5M company with four stores in two states, built without a dollar of outside capital.

Read the tale

The whole arc became the book: opening Orange County to prove the model traveled, then Los Angeles, then the leap to Denver, hiring and training each store's crew in San Diego before sending them out. Inc. Magazine published the story as Startup to Sold in 2023.

THE BLACKSMITH · Systems built

Growth ran on systemization: written playbooks for every job, training that turned new hires into technicians, and financial controls that held across four locations. Each new store opened with a manager forged in the original one.

THE TAVERN · The crew

At its peak 27 people worked here, and the stores ran on their managers, not the founder. That was the design from early on, and it is the part buyers ended up caring about most.

THE MAGE GUILD · The lesson

The buyer said it plainly: he chose the business because it actually worked without Chuck. That single line became the thesis of the book, and later, the consulting practice that carries its name.

ELECTRIC SCOOTER GUIDE

BERKELEY, CA · 2019 TO 2022
Bought one scooter, could not shut up about it, built the category's authority. Sold in 2022.
REACH ~7M consumers/yr LIVE SHOW 105 episodes CREW 7 at peak EXIT 2022

THE HALL · The founding

Chuck bought an electric scooter and could not stop talking about it, so he started the subreddit to spare his friends. The community became a company: reviews, a sortable specs database, and a weekly live show. By 2021 the brand reached about seven million consumers a year.

THE BLACKSMITH · Systems built

The moat was methodology. A helmet-mounted telemetry rig measured real acceleration, top speed, and braking distance for every scooter, and publishing the curves exposed inflated factory claims.

Read the tale

The data made a case nobody could argue with: above 15 mph, one brake is not enough. Within a couple of years, two brakes became table stakes across the industry, and wheel sizes grew for curb safety. The factories never sent a thank-you note, but the standards moved.

THE TAVERN · The crew

A crew of seven ran it: camera, editing, live production, scripts, and the deepest technical reviewer in the category. People who worked here five years ago would still answer the call today.

THE MAGE GUILD · The lesson

In early 2020 the company came within three weeks of missing payroll. One call to its closest partner brought a $20K advance in three days, and within a month the revenue model was rebuilt around annual brand contracts instead of affiliate commissions.

Read the tale

The pivot turned lumpy, seasonal affiliate income into predictable monthly contracts, and the new run rate came out higher than the old model. The crisis became the most valuable month in the company's run, and the relationship that saved it had been built two years earlier.

HAPPY MOOSE JUICE

SAN FRANCISCO, CA · 2017 TO 2018
The COO chapter: proof the playbook works inside a company he didn't own.
PEET'S 180+ stores REVENUE tripled ERP built from scratch

THE HALL · The arrival

Chuck walked into a juice company doing about $609K a year, with cash-basis books and a just-lost anchor customer, and took over operations as COO.

THE BLACKSMITH · Systems built

He built the company's missing operating system himself: a custom ERP that ran a perishable supply chain, flagged heavy production days before they hit, and linked sales, production, and bookkeeping into one procedure.

THE MAGE GUILD · The deal

The trajectory changed with the Peet's deal: 180-plus California locations, closed by bringing in the founder of Noah's Bagels as a paid advisor to clear final diligence. Revenue tripled.

STARTUP TO SOLD

EAST BAY, CA · ACTIVE
The practice: fractional COO work with AI integration at the core.
EXITS BEHIND IT 2 THE BOOK 2023 BANNER flying

THE HALL · The practice

After two exits, the playbook became a practice: fractional COO work for owner-dependent service businesses, with AI integration as the thing that makes it different. The name comes from the book.

THE BLACKSMITH · Tools forged

The tools are built in-house: a business valuation calculator, a council where four frontier AI models deliberate a strategy question together, and automation systems built for clients. See them at startuptosold.com.

THE MAGE GUILD · The thesis

Most AI projects fail because nobody owns the space between the business and the technology. Chuck's work lives in exactly that space: the operator who can hold both.

DAILYPB

EAST BAY, CA · ACTIVE
A pickleball event platform, built end to end.
PLAYERS ~4,000 VISITS ~25K/month SINCE 2023

THE HALL · The founding

Ten minutes of pickleball was enough. DailyPB grew into the East Bay's pickleball event platform, serving about 4,000 players and the hosts who run their sessions.

THE BLACKSMITH · Systems built

Chuck built the platform end to end: session signups, host tools, payments, and the marketing systems that fill the courts. Find it at dailypb.com.

THE TAVERN · The community

The real product is the community of hosts. The platform just makes their sessions easier to fill, and keeps the games going every day of the week.

UC BERKELEY EXTENSION

BERKELEY, CA · 2022 TO 2023
The teaching chapter.

THE HALL · The post

Chuck taught go-to-market strategy and product management to working professionals, turning two companies' worth of scar tissue into coursework.

THE BOOK

INC. MAGAZINE IMPRINTS · 2023
Startup to Sold: How I Built My Side Hustle into a Multimillion-Dollar Business.

THE HALL · The story written down

The DVD Your Memories arc, in full: how a side hustle became a company that sold specifically because it ran without its founder. Published by Inc. Magazine Imprints in 2023.

THE MAGE GUILD · Why it matters

The book is the playbook behind everything on this map: build the systems, build the team, make yourself unnecessary, and the exit takes care of itself.

Read on Amazon

UC DAVIS

DAVIS, CA · 2014 TO 2016
The MBA chapter, and a first-place trophy.
MBA 2016 BIG BANG! 1st place PLUS People's Choice

THE HALL · The degree

An MBA from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, focused on entrepreneurship and venture strategy, earned in the years between the first exit and the next build.

THE ARENA · The trophy

First place and People's Choice at the Big Bang! Business Competition in 2016, UC Davis's startup contest, won with the co-founder he'd later build Electric Scooter Guide with.

SAN DIEGO STATE

SAN DIEGO, CA · 2000 TO 2006
Where the map starts.
B.S. Psychology MINOR Religious Studies HONORS Cum Laude

THE HALL · The foundation

A bachelor's in psychology with a minor in religious studies, cum laude. People and meaning, before business ever entered the picture. The first company started in a San Diego office corner the same year he graduated.

THE MOUNTAIN SHRINE

IN THE HIGH PASSES · SINCE AGE 16
The oldest practice on the map.

THE SANCTUM · The practice

Chuck started meditating at sixteen, long before it went mainstream. Decades later it is still the daily practice underneath everything else on this map: the quiet that lets a new thing be seen for what it actually is, before the brain starts comparing it to old things.

Read the tale

Every venture here began the same way: encounter something new, resist the urge to file it under something familiar, and let it make its own impression. That habit was trained at this shrine. The companies are what happened downstream of it.

THE THIRTY KINGDOMS

THE WESTERN SEA
Thirty-some countries, one island to hold them.

THE HARBOR · The voyages

Thirty-plus countries' worth of stamps in the passport: temples, ruins, street food, and wrong turns on most of the continents. Travel runs on the same skill as the rest of this map: show up knowing nothing, and let the place tell you what it is.

CHUCK TEMPLE

EAST BAY, CALIFORNIA
Two companies built and sold. A book. A practice. Still in the arena.
Painted fantasy-style portrait of Chuck Temple

My gift is a beginner's mind. I'm good at losing what I already know and coming at a new thing from zero. When something new shows up, a DVD burner, an electric scooter, a pickleball game, an AI tool, I try not to reach for the nearest comparison. Comparing flattens the new thing into an old shape, and you stop feeling what's actually there. If you can sit with it without analyzing too early, your body gets a turn. The brain analyzes. The body feels. And when the body says yes, there isn't really a choice anymore.

That's how every landmark on this map started. Each one began as something I couldn't stop talking about.

Off the map: an MBA from UC Davis, a psychology degree from San Diego State, a yoga certification, and thirty-some countries' worth of passport stamps.

Email Chuck

Chuck Temple

Two-time founder with two seven-figure exits, author of Startup to Sold (Inc. Magazine Imprints, 2023), now running a fractional COO practice with AI integration at the core. East Bay, California. Reach him at chuckyte@gmail.com or on LinkedIn.

Startup to Sold (active)

Fractional COO practice for owner-dependent service businesses, AI integration as the differentiator. startuptosold.com

DailyPB (active, 2023 to now)

Pickleball event platform in the East Bay serving about 4,000 players, built end to end. dailypb.com

Electric Scooter Guide (2019 to 2022)

Co-founded the category's authority site: scientific testing methodology, about seven million consumers reached a year, a 105-episode live show. Its published braking data helped shift global scooter safety standards. Sold in 2022.

Happy Moose Juice (COO, 2017 to 2018)

Built a custom ERP for a perishable supply chain and closed a 180-plus-location Peet's Coffee deal. Revenue tripled.

UC Berkeley Extension (2022 to 2023)

Taught go-to-market strategy and product management.

DVD Your Memories (2006 to 2013)

Founded a media digitization company and grew it to $2.5M in revenue, 27 employees, and four stores in two states, bootstrapped. Sold in 2013 because, in the buyer's words, the business actually worked without him.

Also on the map

An MBA from UC Davis with a first-place Big Bang! Business Competition win (2016). A psychology degree with a religious studies minor from San Diego State (cum laude, 2006). A mountain shrine for a meditation practice running since age 16. An island in the western sea for thirty-plus countries traveled.