In the hushed, exclusive environment of San Vicente, the West Village sanctuary owned by Jeff Klein, the typical guest list is strictly for adults. Yet, an exception was made for John Kessler, the 17-year-old chief technology officer of Aaru, who joined his co-founders for a Friday lunch that felt less like a business meeting and more like a study in generational contrast.
The trio represents a new breed of teen-founded startup leadership, blending raw intellectual horsepower with a precocious sense of commercial aggression. Whereas most of their peers are navigating the anxieties of high school or the first semester of college, Koh, Cam Fink, and Kessler are managing a rapidly scaling operation and preparing to move their headquarters to a SoHo artist’s loft to accommodate a workforce they expect to more than double this year.
The dynamics between the three are as distinct as their roles. Koh, the 21-year-old president, is the engine of the group—brash, outspoken, and viewing the business world through a lens of high-stakes competition. He describes the act of building a company as gladiatorial combat, possessing a level of confidence that borders on the absolute. In a moment of characteristic intensity, Koh claimed that if his mother’s life depended on it, he could force his way onto an NBA All-Star team within a year.
In contrast, 20-year-old Cam Fink provides the intellectual ballast. Having lived in 17 different cities during his childhood, Fink possesses a nomadic accent and a scholarly disposition. He is the group’s resident polymath, a man who once read 100 books a year and can pivot seamlessly from discussing the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre to analyzing historical hedge fund collapses.
A History of Childhood Hustles
While Aaru is their primary venture, the founders’ entrepreneurial instincts were present long before they entered the tech world. Their early years were marked by a series of opportunistic “hustles” that foreshadowed their current trajectory.
Kessler’s introduction to arbitrage happened at age eight; when his father offered him $5 per hour to clean the yard, Kessler simply hired another child to do the work for $3, pocketing the difference. Fink’s early ventures were more subversive, involving the counterfeiting and sale of “Darcy Dollars”—a classroom currency created by his teacher, Mr. Darcy, for extra credit. Koh, meanwhile, found a way to monetize the playground by purchasing a high-quality basketball and charging other children for the privilege of using it.
| Founder | Role | Distinguishing Background |
|---|---|---|
| Koh | President | Harvard dropout; describes business as “gladiatorial combat” |
| Cam Fink | Co-founder | Dartmouth dropout; polymath and philosopher |
| John Kessler | CTO | 17-year-old savant; recruited via Zoom |
From Hacking Projects to Venture Capital
The partnership between Fink and Koh began in their freshman year of high school, forged through a shared boredom with traditional academics and a mutual interest in hacking projects. Their path to Aaru was not linear; it occurred during a brief, ill-fated foray into the Ivy League. Koh spent two weeks at Harvard and Fink spent a single night at Dartmouth before both dropped out to pursue their vision.
The gamble paid off quickly. The duo developed the concept for Aaru and successfully raised $7.5 million in initial funding. To complete the leadership team, they sought out Kessler, whom they met via Zoom. Both Fink and Koh describe Kessler as the smartest person they have ever encountered, a sentiment echoed by the teenager’s ability to interject a conversation with precise data points on the population of China or the specifics of the Nestlé acquisition of Blue Bottle Coffee.
Despite his technical brilliance, Kessler remains firmly a teenager. In the midst of discussing global birth rates and corporate acquisitions, he is just as likely to reminisce about a week where he ate nothing but chicken wings.
Scaling the Operation in New York
Aaru currently operates out of a six-story former architect’s office in Tribeca, housing 27 employees. The office is a physical manifestation of the founders’ eclectic tastes, featuring a towering Cubist mural and a collection of ancient artifacts. Though, the sophisticated decor is juxtaposed with the chaos of a high-growth tech hub: the space is littered with Celsius energy drink cans—mostly Kessler’s—and snacks from Meadow Lane.
The company is currently in a state of transition. The team is in the process of selecting designs for a new artist’s loft in SoHo, where they will relocate next month. This move is a strategic necessity, as the founders aim to significantly expand their staff to keep pace with the company’s growth.
As they move from the inner sanctum of private clubs to the expansive lofts of SoHo, the founders of this teen-founded startup are shifting their focus from mere survival and funding to the broader goal of shaping the future of their industry.
The next major milestone for the company will be the completion of their SoHo relocation and the subsequent onboarding of new staff, which is expected to double their headcount by the finish of the year.
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