Gray Stecher

His parents ran a jewelry business, and he and his brother sold products of their own alongside it. He had a bank account before he was seven, and learned early that you earn what you want.

His parents homeschooled him in a small Colorado town while they ran the business. Being the homeschool kid meant he got picked on.

He chose public school to prove he could excel anywhere, and earned straight A’s at Mancos High School, in a graduating class of 33. The school had no advanced courses, so his parents made it clear he would leave unless it made room for him.

He started at Pueblo Community College while still in high school, earned 48 college credits, and walked a college stage before his high school one. He also earned a HOBY leadership award, graduated with honors at eighteen, and won more than $140,000 in scholarships and grants, including the Daniels Fund scholarship, founded by an entrepreneur for entrepreneurs.

He moved to Honolulu to study entrepreneurship at the University of Hawaii, in a freshman class bigger than his home town. ChatGPT arrived in his first semester, and he saw the largest business opportunity of his lifetime.

He took the AI and software courses, then learned the rest straight from the people building the models. He started by building tools for his own life, for nutrition, fitness and a car-flipping side business, then moved on to real automation systems as the coding models made them possible.

He received mentorship and funding through the PACE Entrepreneurs Program at Shidler, which awarded him its Certificate of Outstanding Achievement in July 2026. He landed his first clients while still enrolled, from startups to established businesses, including law firms.

He graduated in 2026 and went all in on Tesray Technologies. He is also building a consumer app with AI at its core and an AI-native physical products brand with two other teams, so he only recommends what he would run in his own ventures.