The story so far
Each line is one part of my life. Tap a block to read what happened.
Companies
Architecture and construction
Finance
Photo and video
Music
Travel
Software
School
Dylan Lindeberg
I grew a tea company from $180k to $1.2M a year and sold it, sold $138.5M of custom architectural products for buildings like EDGE at Hudson Yards, and started an aerial film studio. I also play cello, shoot photos and video, and build software tools.
This is the whole record, kept up to date: what I did, how I did it, what got in the way and what I learned.
Results
- $138.5Mof custom architectural products sold, for developments up to $20B
- 6.7×revenue growth at Open Door Tea, from $180k to $1.2M a year
- SoldOpen Door Tea in 2025, returning capital to every investor and partner
- $1M+in online sales at a 60% gross margin
- $950k+in sales at UP Ceilings, a product company I cofounded
- 10,000+ SFof custom metal systems for EDGE at Hudson Yards
Everything, in detail
What it achieved
- LiveShipped on 2 October 2026.
- 1,400+Automated checks pass before each release, plus an independent review before it goes live.
What I did
- Designed it for people on a job site: one column, big text and buttons, automatic dark mode, and a Spanish option.
- Every verdict comes from arithmetic on the user's own measurements or from a stored rule with its citation and source link. If a rule isn't verified, the tool says so instead of guessing.
How
- Built in small steps: every change is tested and independently reviewed before it goes live.
- On-device speech-to-text, so measurements can be spoken without sending audio anywhere.
What got in the way
- Rules differ town by town across Connecticut and Westchester. The tool shows only rules that were checked against official sources and says "not loaded" for the rest.
What I learned
More on this soon.
What I did
- Writing and producing songs in Ableton Live. Six are in progress on this site.
What I learned
What I learned
What it achieved
- 41Places on the travel map so far: 37 countries and 4 territories.
What it achieved
- Firsthand knowledge of the upstream end of a supply chain that most operators only see on paper.
What I did
- Visited origin suppliers with a local guide and translator.
- Interviewed each key supplier on capacity, lead times and constraints.
What I learned
What it achieved
- 6.7×Annual revenue from $180k to $1.2M.
- $1M+Online sales, at a 60% gross margin.
- 7,000+Etsy sales in the first year.
- $500k+Revenue from the corporate services unit.
- SoldIn 2025, returning capital to every investor and partner. I then trained the new owners through an 8-week handover.
What I did
- Brought the business online in 2020 with a Shopify store, and rebuilt it in 2023 to a 90+ PageSpeed score.
- Opened an Etsy storefront in 2022 that became a category leader in its first year.
- Designed the Tea Tube, a new kind of packaging for loose-leaf tea.
- Started a corporate unit selling virtual services to companies in tech, healthcare, law and non-profits.
- Raised investment and built a 2,500 SF restaurant and a fulfillment center.
How
- Ran rolling demand forecasts against inventory and supplier lead times, to keep perishable stock available without waste.
- Built 5-year forecasts and annual budgets, and rolled out LEAN methods and written procedures.
- Ran the marketing myself: Google, Meta and TikTok ads, photography, video and social.
What got in the way
- Kept supply running through a move to a new facility with no disruption.
- Negotiated the sale on my own, with returns for every investor and partner.
What I learned
What it achieved
- $950k+In sales.
- Projects included an illuminated ceiling map for the EDGE security room, stretch-fabric window treatments for the High Museum of Art, and molded GFR details for 730 Fifth Avenue.
What I did
- Ran multi-year construction timelines and 6-month manufacturing schedules.
- Sourced vendors and settled conflicts between stakeholders.
- Hired two people to launch the e-commerce site and sales channels.
How
- Invested in marketing automation, which made the sales effort far more efficient.
What got in the way
- Hard negotiations both upstream with manufacturers and downstream with clients.
What I learned
What it achieved
- $138.5MOf custom architectural products sold.
- $3.85MOf revenue I generated as the salesperson, in commissions and overage.
- 10,000+ SFOf custom metal ceiling and wall systems for EDGE, the observation deck at Hudson Yards, over three years.
- Other projects: Apple Fifth Avenue and Apple Flatbush, Hudson Yards, the High Museum of Art, the Fairmont Toronto, 730 Fifth Avenue and the Ella T. Grasso auditorium.
What I did
- Owned the whole cycle: prospecting, design consulting, proposals and bids, value engineering, negotiation, delivery and on-site service.
- Led 12 to 36 month delivery cycles, through formal stage-gate reviews.
- Built the company's website and digital marketing.
How
- Detailed cross-team reviews to keep every system code-compliant and on budget.
- Just-in-time logistics for high-precision acoustical systems.
- Ads geofenced to architectural specifiers and contractors.
What I learned
What I learned
What it achieved
- Graduated cum laude.
What I learned
What I did
- Analyzed monthly vendor expense reports for the comptroller and flagged anything abnormal.
- Tracked down and resolved fixed-income yield discrepancies using Bloomberg terminals.
What I learned
Skills, and where they came from
Pick a skill to see where I learned it.
Photo and video
I've been a photographer and videographer for many years: aerial film, travel and wedding videos. Years of travel are still unposted. The best of it is being sorted for a map of the places I've been.
Music
I started with classical guitar as a child and took basic piano lessons, but it was in fourth grade that I chose cello, playing through high school with private lessons. In college, I took classical guitar and played in a church worship band. My path shifted recently when I learned piano and keyboard in 2025, followed by synthesizers in 2026. This progression led me to start composing, and my current work is being developed in Ableton. These songs are in progress.
- Let It Slipmelodic house, 134 BPM, E modal
- StormFuture bass, 122 BPM, E minor
- EtherealFuture bass, 128 BPM, E minor
- Talk to MeSpace bass, 103.125 BPM, A minor
- What a BlurMelodic house, 128 BPM, C minor
- Clarinet CallClassical crossover, 124 BPM, A minor
- Funk Shaker (Working title)Melodic EDM, 102 BPM, E minor
- Green TeaUK garage house, 174 BPM, G minor
- Your Time to Partysoul house, 125 BPM, D minor
Tools I've built
- Field Check2026A phone tool for pool builders: enter the measurements from a job site, and it checks them against the plan and the town and state rules, with the source for each rule.
- Song maps2026An interactive map of each song's arrangement, built from its Ableton project, with a 90-second preview that plays along.
- Project Hub2026A demo dashboard for keeping a project's work in one place, shown with sample data.
I build these with AI coding agents I set up and run myself. Every change is tested and reviewed before it goes live.
Updates
- October 2026Three more songs on Music, with videos.
- October 2026Field Check is live.