West Egg Living didn’t start as a business idea. It didn’t begin with a marketing plan, a logo, or a domain name. It wasn’t born in a conference room or during a late-night brainstorming session fueled by ambition. It started the way most meaningful things do—slowly, quietly, and out of necessity. There comes a point in life when the scaffolding you thought was permanent begins to wobble. For me, that point came in my late 50’s / early 60’s. Career paths shifted. Relationships changed. Financial assumptions were challenged. Health became something I could no longer take for granted. I found myself asking questions I hadn’t needed to ask before—not because I was failing, but because I was aging. And aging has a way of stripping away illusions while sharpening perspective.

ome of the most important places in our lives never show up on a résumé or a map that outsiders recognize. They don’t announce themselves as formative or life-shaping at the time. They simply exist—quietly, steadily—doing their work in the background. For me, one of those places was a cabin on Bass Lake, near Biwabik, just a short 15 minute drive from Aurora, Minnesota. I was born in Virginia, MN and by the late 50’s / early 60’s my parents were raising five boys (ages ranging from newborn to 10) in a brand-new house in Sunset Acres located in Aurora. But not long after that, my dad did something that, in hindsight, says a lot about who he was: he bought several acres of land on a lake that most people couldn’t even figure out how to reach. Between the main road and the lake sat a swamp—wide, messy, and impassable. It was the kind of land most folks would look at once and walk away from. My dad didn’t.

There are certain chapters in life that you don’t plan for, don’t imagine, and certainly don’t rehearse. You just arrive there—sometimes suddenly, sometimes reluctantly—and do the best you can with what’s in front of you. For me, one of those unexpected chapters was Match.com.

Summer of 1978 wasn’t just a season. It was a feeling.