"I didn't grow up wanting to be a founder."
The video began with Lucas sitting in a dimly lit room, not a spotlight—just the natural sunlight cutting across his face through half-open blinds.
"I grew up wanting to disappear. To not be the burden. To not be the broken kid who lost more than he could handle."
There was no background music at first. Just silence. Just him.
"But then I realized… disappearing was easy. It was survival. What was hard was stepping up. Speaking out. Building something when no one believed you could."
Clips flashed on the screen—Lucas walking alone in the Olympus High corridors, coding through the night, arguing with Raj, sketching wireframes on a tablet at 2 a.m.
"Microvest isn't about money. It's about access. It's about creating a system where kids like me—quiet, hurting, underestimated—can become something."
Then came the beat drop.
A montage exploded—mockups of the Microvest app interface, animations of teenagers funding small businesses, and kids in Tier 1 uniforms giving high-fives to outer-tier students in crowded cafeterias.
"I don't want to be the richest founder. I want to be the reason someone else believes they can start."
Final words, as the music softened again.
"I'm Lucas Grant. And I'm not building for Olympus. I'm building from it."
Upload complete.
The video hit OlympusNet like wildfire. Within hours, it had over 50,000 internal views—impressive for a Tier 1 student, unheard of for someone still provisional.
And then the system notification popped.
Assignment Graded: Tier 1 Narrative Class—Founder PitchGrade: ATier Points Earned: +5Instructor Comment: "Authentic. Emotional. Marketable. Excellent narrative awareness."
But that wasn't all.
A second notification followed:
Olympus PR Board Sponsorship Recommendation ApprovedPerformance Bonus: $10,000
Raj almost choked on his energy drink when Lucas showed him.
"BRO. TEN. THOUSAND. REAL CREDITS?!"
Lucas didn't flinch. He just stared at the screen, quietly processing what it meant.
+5 Tier Points.+$10,000 in usable Olympus startup credits.
His current stats now read:
Lucas GrantTier Rank: Tier 1 (35 Points)Olympus Wallet: $36650 Olympus startup credits Sponsorship Tier: Seed Tier—Content Influence
$36,650 in Olympus credits means millions of dollars in real money.
For a Provisional Tier 1, he was now operating on a power player's budget.
No more scraping by. No more borrowing Raj's old gear. Lucas now had enough capital to start building Microvest for real.
And so, he got to work.
Step One: Prototype Expansion
The MVP he'd built alone was functional—but barely. He'd designed the UI himself and hacked together an investment simulator using Olympus's student dev tools. But now? Now he could afford a real team.
He logged onto Olympus Freelance Exchange—a platform for hiring Tiered talent across the academy. Most students used it for part-time gigs and microtasks.
Lucas posted a premium listing:
Job: AI Suggestion Engine Developer—MicrovestPay: $2,500Tier Requirement: 1Scope: Build a scalable AI engine that matches teenage micro-investors with verified student-led startups. Includes behavioral prediction and mentorship match tracking.
Within an hour, he had 12 applicants.
He selected two—one coder from Tier 2 with an impressive record in machine learning competitions and one Tier 1 data analyst who specialized in building lightweight AI prototypes for gamified apps.
Step Two: Legal Shell & Permissions
He used Olympus's internal Startup Foundry tools to file a virtual shell company for Microvest. The school's innovation board allowed students to register digital entities that operated inside OlympusNet—this would allow Lucas to simulate real transactions, test incentive systems, and build a reward ecosystem using Olympus tokens.
Cost: $1,000Result: Microvest.tech v0.1—OlympusNet Certified
Step Three: Test Users & Traction
Lucas contacted students he met during Pitch Week and personally invited them to test his alpha version—five student founders, three of whom already ran small student-led services or food stalls within campus grounds.
He offered each early adopter
Free listing on Microvest
Access to beta investors (which Lucas himself would simulate until the platform launched)
Priority mentorship tokens once the system went live
Step Four: Marketing Through Story
Lucas scheduled a follow-up video series."The Build Diaries."Short 60-second behind-the-scenes clips posted on OlympusNet and student-run media channels showing how Microvest was built, day by day.
Not just the wins—but the pain, the bugs, the moments of burnout.
And it worked.
Within 48 hours of launch, 92 OlympusNet users signed up for early access. 8 student founders requested to list their ideas for mock investment. And 3 student media outlets asked to cover "the first social finance platform built by a Tier 1 outsider."
That night, Lucas stood on the rooftop of Dorm C.
The wind was cool. The stars above Olympus shimmered like old promises.
He breathed.
Not because he was done.
But because he had finally started.
He thought of his father. Of the old Lucas. Of everything they'd lost. Everything he still carried.
And then he whispered it, not as a pitch—but as a vow:
"Microvest isn't just mine anymore. It belongs to every kid who's ever been locked out."
He didn't care if he was still just a Tier 1.
His story wasn't going viral anymore.
It was becoming true.