About Troy

I experienced incarceration, homelessness, and addiction firsthand. I spent a decade after that helping justice-impacted individuals rebuild their careers. I started at a halfway house as an alum, then worked through sober living homes, treatment centers, jails, and prisons across Wisconsin. I saw what happens when people get out and try to build something, and the system makes it nearly impossible. They have the skills. They have the work ethic. They scrape together capital or get a grant. But they're invisible online. Nobody searches for them. AI doesn't know they exist. The marketing industry either ignores them or prices them out. This is my way of fixing that.

That practice became Steel Man Resumes. A decade of career rebuilding for justice-impacted individuals. I watched people transform their lives with the right tools. But a resume gets you a job. It doesn't build a business. The Midnight Garden is the business-building side of the same work.

I discovered that the technology behind getting found online, what the industry calls AEO, is not actually expensive to deliver. The agencies charge $5,000 to $15,000 because they can, not because they have to. Modern AI tools collapsed the delivery cost. I use those tools to deliver the same quality at prices real people can afford.

I'm not the consultant who shows up with a framework and leaves you with a PDF. I've been the guy loading the truck at 6am and the guy running the shift meeting at midnight. Both teach you things. Neither lets you hide behind jargon.

If you want polished, I'm not your guy. If you want real, let's talk.