Meet the Founder — A 19-Year-Old Martial Artist with a Mission

Before starting Move Like Ninjas™, I worked six days a week, on-call, making minimum wage for a big-name moving company. And even though the work was hard, I fell in love with it — the physical challenge, the discipline, the problem-solving, the satisfaction of helping people.

But I also saw things that didn’t sit right with me.

The moving industry often relies on workers who are underpaid, overworked, and undervalued. Many movers show up every day in the Arizona heat with families to support, yet they’re paid minimum wage while companies charge customers $200–$300 an hour. It creates an environment where crews are stressed, burnt out, and unmotivated — not because they don’t care, but because the system doesn’t care about them.

At the company I worked for, the highest-paid worker — someone who had been there over 20 years — had finally hit the pay cap. They kept him just high enough to stay happy. Meanwhile, newer guys were leaving the industry completely and finding jobs that paid more than what he made after two decades. It opened my eyes.

Every day, my crew partner and I would go out, work brutally hard, generate thousands in revenue, and come back with minimum wage. One day I realized:

If I stay here, nothing will change.
If I leave, I can change everything.

So I quit and started Move Like Ninjas™ — full time, with no safety net.

In the beginning, I was desperate for work. My very first job was helping a woman swap two washing machines between houses 0.6 miles apart. She couldn’t afford a truck, so I offered her the lowest flat-rate labor-only price possible.

That meant running a washing machine on a dolly down the street — twice — in 100° Arizona heat.

A couple in the neighborhood saw me and the man shouted in Spanish, "¿Qué onda?". They realized I spoke English when I then explained what I was doing. They called my customer crazy and tried to warn me I was being taken advantage of. They told me I should demand more money, I laughed and told them the truth:

Nobody forced me to do anything, I was the crazy one, I knew exactly what I signed up for. I gave my word — I would keep it.

I finished the job, drenched in sweat, and she tipped me. I definitely undercharged and overworked — she got the best deal anyone will ever get besides free. But I have no regrets.

Because that day set the standard for Move Like Ninjas™:

We don’t cut corners.
We don’t slow down.
We don’t complain.
We work with discipline, integrity, and heart — the way martial arts taught me.

And that is the level of service we bring to every single move.