Realizing his business was a $1M ARR trap

Torben Anderson left a 20-year corporate career and built a $1M+ ARR service business, Rewired.one. Then, he realized that it was no different than the corporate world: He had put the golden handcuffs back on.

Now, he's building products again in an attempt to take them back off.

Here's Torben on how he got here. 👇

Leaving behind $6 billion projects

I started coding at 8 when my dad brought home a computer in 1986 and said, "Figure this out." My mom would bring tea that went cold while I got lost building software. That was me, a pure builder.

Then the corporate world derailed me for 20 years. I had all the tech skills, all the knowledge, but I became trapped on the treadmill managing other people's visions. I led global banking projects, $6 billion in value, teams of 60. But it was someone else's version of success.

So, in 2018, after 20 years in the corporate hamster wheel, with a small amount of savings, I plunged out of the "cushy" work world.

Starting out, I built rewired.one, a blockchain consulting practice. By 2022, it hit $1M ARR.

Starting a $1M+ ARR business

The story of rewired.one started with a school friend who was building blockchain infrastructure.

When his product launched, his customers needed help building software on the platform. He introduced me to my cofounder and we hit it off immediately. We started rewired.one and gave my school friend 20% of the company for perpetual referrals. This single decision unlocked a continuous pipeline.

But it wasn't an immediate success. We made 50 calls before our first sale. Most people would quit. We didn't.

Once we got traction, we just executed: solving real problems, hiring right, scaling. At one stage, we had a team of ten.

The wild part: My cofounder is in Australia. We've still never met in person. We built a million-dollar business across continents on Zoom. Here, my corporate life came back in spades. Years of executive project management, running agile teams, and working with offshore teams in banking meant I had the playbook. Solid systems. Async first.

That applied to our enterprise sales — we sold deals remotely. Some, as high as $500k.

Realizing the business was a trap

Leaving corporate broke my brain. I was wired to optimize for someone else's metrics. Rewiring to care about revenue and impact took time.

And building rewired.one to $1M ARR was a trap. I'd just recreated the banking world: trading time for money. Services are golden handcuffs.

If I started over, I'd build products from day one, not services. Services funded me but distracted me.

I think the reason I didn't do that was that Corporate taught me to be risk-averse. Unlearning that fear and shipping faster was the breakthrough.

Becoming a builder again

In 2023, I went back to my roots. I started coding again, using React Native and Flutter, and working hands-on with founders.

Over the years, I built all my own tools and systems to support my businesses. I realized some of them were worth spinning out.

That's how Slack started, right? Internal tool becomes the product. So now, I'm a builder again.

I'm focused on two things:

• Icebox, a secure digital vault that keeps your passwords and access safe from everyone, even Google. You'd never hand your house keys to a stranger, so why give away your digital keys? It's password-free access. It's currently pre-revenue.

• And fractional CTO services at rewired.co, where I help founders turn ideas into revenue machines by providing technical leadership and hands-on development without the $300K+ full-time cost. It's currently bringing in $5k+ MRR.

Fractional CTO work pays the bills and I genuinely love problem solving. But ultimately, I'm moving away from services to product. Icebox is my first real bet. Services don't scale as products do.

Solving security

I started working on the tech for Icebox when an employee left with all my passwords. He wasn't malicious, but I lost three weeks, putting my client's work at risk. That's when I knew password managers weren't enough.

Password breaches cost billions. The internet is broken, security-wise. I'm passionate about solving that problem and I'm not the only one. When you have a team that believes in the mission, you move faster.

Six years of R&D at Rewired Labs already solved the tech. The challenge with Icebox was stripping it down and making it simple enough for people to actually use instead of going back to passwords.

To do that, I followed Elon's algorithm: dumber, delete, optimize. Question every feature. Why does it exist? Is it solving a real problem or just complexity?

Delete ruthlessly. If a feature doesn't directly support password-free access, I remove it. The idea is one tap, you're in. No mental overhead, no settings to fiddle with, no false sense of security. Security that's so simple you forget you're using it.

The best stack is the fastest stack

The best stack is whatever gets user value fastest. I'd rather ship and iterate than wait for the perfect tech choice.

For Icebox, I use Rust for the backend because security is critical. Flutter for cross-platform mobile, deployed via Xcode and Google Play. Shuttle for Rust deployments.

For blockchain work, most dev is frontend; most people don't know this. I use React or Flutter, depending on the project. And all my websites are built on Next.js.

Learning and vibe coding

AI coding changed everything. English is the new programming language.

I use Cursor. AI teaches me the actual syntax of the language I'm using as I build the product. Sounds weird, but I'm learning the language as I ship features. Two birds, one stone.

The real trick is a /learn folder where AI generates a live course that morphs to my understanding and learning style. AI iterates on every word and syntax I don't understand, sometimes splitting lessons to create a complete flow.

The bonus: I don't learn against a Hello World app. It teaches me against the actual app I'm building. This is a superpower on steroids. That course then becomes part of my prompt template, so AI always knows what I'm trying to do.

In corporate life, we never had time or budget for testing suites, refactoring code, writing docs, or squashing bugs. Project managers wouldn't carve out time for it. If you know how to use AI, I believe code quality is back.

Growth via client fountains

I've attracted users via word of mouth. Find people who believe in what you're building and let them tell others. The secret is finding "client fountains." These are people who constantly get referrals, and have networks to refer you.

That's how I grew Rewired.one. And it's how I'm growing my current businesses.

Don't get stuck on one big account

As far as business models, flat rate recurring always wins. Not hourly, not project-based. Recurring revenue is the only revenue that matters because it compounds.

The trap in services is easy to fall into. You get one big client paying you a ton for multi-month work. Feels great. But it hogs your time and you can't scale.

Coming from the corporate world, I learned the opposite works better: Keep recurring rates lower, push more clients, and more volume. Less chance of getting stuck on one account.

With recurring, you know what's coming in. You can plan. You can invest in building instead of constantly hunting the next deal.

A hack most people don't know about

Here's the hack most people don't think about: Ask someone to mentor you while you help serve their clients.

A lot of people are close to retiring — or just tired. They're very willing to hand off excess work. You get the leads, they get relief. And they also love to mentor, so you learn the business from someone who's done it for years.

It's a win-win-win.

What's next?

I want to build a mega brand under "Rewired" with a portfolio of products. The $1B single founder is real now with AI.

I want to get better at marketing, so I'll code it, as this is the best way to learn a new domain. My rule: If I can't code it, then I won't do it. This keeps me focused and stops shiny object syndrome.

Other than that, freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

You can follow along on X, LinkedIn, and my personal website.