Issue 26: The Dystinct Journey of Tucker Findley | Tucker's Treasures

Where school failed him, business lit the spark—Tucker found his flip side.

Tucker Findley doesn't quite fit the mould. At 15, he's already sold over 15,000 items online, runs a 2,500 sq ft resale operation, and manages his business alongside an employee who helps ship hundreds of items a day.

But it's not just the business that sets Tucker apart. It's how he got here —marked by steep learning challenges, a family that refused to give up, and an educator who helped build a school that fit him.

This is Tucker's journey, told by him, his parents, Ryan and Rebecca Findley, and Amy Oswalt, the educator who co-designed a learning model around his strengths.

Tucker's Perspective

"I've been reselling since I was 9," says Tucker. "I love finding value where other people don't. Where others see trash, I see treasure. Every day is a flipping treasure hunt."

Tucker's elevator pitch goes something like this: "Hi, my name is Tucker. I'm the owner and founder of Tucker's Treasures, an online sales business that sells some of the coolest collectibles and treasures on the planet. If you've got too much stuff—talk to me."

His journey began with a simple idea and a bunch of muddy golf balls. He found them by the river, cleaned and sorted them, and then listed them on Facebook. There was a line out the door. That first sale sparked something big. From there, he built Tucker's Treasures—an online business that has now become both his passion and his education.

"What's nice about owning your own business is you get to pick what you do every day and what you want to focus on," he explains. "I have people who help me with things I'm not as good at or just don't want to do, so I can focus on what I really love: finding new inventory and matching it with buyers."

What's nice about owning your own business is you get to pick what you do every day and what you want to focus on.

Most weekends, Tucker's up at 4 a.m., off to the flea market. "I spend the morning buying stuff and networking with other sellers. Then I organise what I bought or hang out with my friends, riding bikes or fishing." On weekdays, he attends school but not in the traditional sense. Tucker is enrolled at Conduit Academy, an online program designed to support students like him for about 1.5 hours a day. He also joins virtual clubs once or twice a week to connect with other learners. The rest of his time? "I'm constantly buying and selling," he says. "It might be listing on eBay, prepping Whatnot auctions, meeting with my dad to track inventory, or talking to Zak, my shipping guy."

I learn best—through things I actually care about.

As for school and business: "My business is my school, and Conduit Academy helps me with my business," he says. "Math is related to profit margins. Writing is product descriptions. Speeches help me sell better. "Take a coin I'm selling, for example. I learn all about the year it was made, the place, and the history behind it. That's how I learn best, through things I actually care about." School used to be a nightmare. "When you have a speech disorder and can't speak well, AND can't read and can't write, you're going to be a failure in public school," he says bluntly. "I used to feel completely lost," he adds. "It felt like I had to pretend to learn just to please people. I couldn't keep up. I never thought I'd feel smart." But that's changed. "Now I'm confident. I know I'm good at something."

The shift in how he learns has made all the difference. "This is learning on demand. It's 100% better. Everyone learns differently, and I learn through experience. A classroom would just waste my time." "Now, I don't even see the point of being in a traditional classroom. It doesn't help me do what I want to do," he says. "I have too many things I want to learn, and real learning comes from real experiences."

And while many kids struggle with public speaking, Tucker has learned to thrive during live-stream auctions on Whatnot, interacting with hundreds of people in real-time. "I've learned to manage my emotions, use my words, and solve problems on the spot," he says. "It's helped my reading, writing, and speaking more than anything else." The coolest part? "Meeting people and learning their stories. I even found my dog, Todd, during a pick."

Asked what he'd say to someone who thinks learning disabilities prevent success, he says, "Five or six years ago, I probably would have agreed with them. Now, I'd laugh. Your opinion and my learning disabilities fuel my success, not prevent it."

Tucker plans to keep growing his business. "What I'm really good at is finding value—so why would I stop? I don't have a master plan, just one step at a time. As long as I'm learning and building relationships, I'll keep moving forward."

Parent's Perspective

At five, they pushed again and finally received a diagnosis: a developmental delay in speech. He entered kindergarten with an IEP and repeated the year for extra support. Still, by third grade, he couldn't count past ten, recite the alphabet, or read a stop sign. "We knew something was really wrong," his parents say. "But everyone around us kept saying he was progressing." But deep down, they knew he wasn't.

We knew something was really wrong, but everyone around us kept saying he was progressing. But deep down, we knew he wasn't.

School reports painted a misleading picture, listing him in the 40th percentile for reading, but private evaluations told another story. Tucker was facing a complex, overlapping web of diagnoses: double dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, phonological processing disorder, apraxia, ADHD, DMDD, and extremely low working memory.

"Tucker's working memory was in the bottom one percentile," his parents explain. "He's able to put lots of information into his long-term memory, but accessing it is difficult. His active working memory is incredibly low, meaning it's very hard for him to demonstrate or get out the information that he knows in a logical and concise manner."

It was going to take a team to peel back the layers and find the Tucker we knew was there.

He reversed letters, numbers, and even images. For example, his parents recall showing him two pictures of a truck, one facing left and the other right. To Tucker, they looked the same. He couldn't tell the difference in direction. Phonological memory challenges made decoding nearly impossible. His speech, impacted by apraxia, remained inconsistent. "Where are you?" would come out as "Where you are." Writing his name, using tools, tying his shoes, catching a ball—things other kids mastered easily were daily struggles for him.

His difficulties weren't isolated; they compounded. "Most people and systems can handle one or two challenges," they explain. "But when the hits come from every side, it's like you're underwater and can't find a foothold to push up. That's where Tucker was," they explain. "It was going to take a team to peel back the layers and find the Tucker we knew was there. We used to call it Team Tucker."

Despite years of accommodations and early intervention, Tucker's progress stalled. "We brought in tutors, specialists, advocates, even a neurologist," they explain. "The professionals all said the same thing: in decades of special education, they'd never seen a learning profile this complex." His IQ scores were so low that the school asked if he could feed himself or avoid touching hot stoves. And yet, his parents never believed those numbers told the full story. "We knew our son," they say. "Those scores didn't define him. He was in there. We just had to find a way to reach him."

By the time he was nine, the emotional toll had become unbearable. "Tucker wasn't just behind, he had nothing in his life that made him feel good about himself," his parents say. "There was nothing to hold on to." The pressure boiled over when the school called to say he had made serious self-harm threats. The police had been involved. He couldn't return without a doctor's clearance. "He came home and said, 'If dying means I don't have to go back to school, I'm okay with it.'" What followed was devastating. "He screamed, cried, hit the punching bag for half an hour straight," his mum recalls. "He said he was the dumbest person in the world. He hit himself in the head over and over. I curled up on the floor with him, and we both cried."

We knew our son. Those scores didn't define him. He was in there. We just had to find a way to reach him.

One doctor told them, "Everyone has baggage, but Tucker's was a lifetime's worth of hurt, fear and rage by age nine." His mum remembers thinking, How did it get this bad so fast? What did we miss? What did we do wrong? "This wasn't a scrape on the knee I could kiss and make better," she says. They had exhausted every avenue: specialists, advocates, and private schools. "Even the schools that catered to learning disabilities said he was too far behind," they say. "No one would take him." Every day, he melted down, hitting himself, calling himself stupid, unable to do what other kids did with ease.

This wasn't a scrape on the knee I could kiss and make better.

As terrifying as it was, that day became a turning point. "We decided not to send him back," his parents say. "Not to try to fix him anymore. We stopped forcing school to work and started finding what made him happy." At that point, Tucker was technically under home hospice care, with the hospital on speed dial. Some professionals even recommended institutionalisation, but his parents chose a different path. "We decided to focus on what he could do, not what he couldn't."

It's not about the fall. It's about the getting up.

At the time, there were only three things Tucker genuinely enjoyed: riding bikes, fishing, and antiques. While other kids played video games or joined team sports, Tucker was drawn to the quiet thrill of discovering old treasures, spending hours absorbing shows like Antique Roadshow, American Pickers, Pawn Stars, and Storage Wars. He had an eye for detail and a gut instinct for value. What began as simple family outings to antique shops and auctions soon became something more. "We weren't thinking about a business back then," his parents say. "We were just following his joy. But we started noticing that he could spot quality. He remembered what things were worth and where they came from. And he wanted to learn more." That was the beginning of helping him unlock his superpower.

For his ninth birthday, he didn't ask for toys or a party. He asked to go to an auction and bid on something cool. "That was the first time in years we saw a real sparkle in his eye," they say. Seeing him light up like that gave them hope. He was engaging again, curious about the world and drawn to things that brought him joy.

But even with that hope, the fear didn't disappear. "As a parent, you wonder, will he be okay in the teenage years? Will he ever live independently? Read a contract? Buy a house?" But their fears began to ease when they saw his drive take shape. One day, during a bike ride, Tucker flew downhill without brakes, screaming that he couldn't stop. "He hit a chain at the end of the road, flipped over the handlebars, and landed headfirst in a pile of broken bottles," his dad recalls. "I thought his neck was broken." But by the time he reached him, Tucker was already standing up, bloodied and scraped but ready to get back on his bike. "That was the moment I knew he was going to be okay. Because he knows how to get up." That mindset of falling and rising was something they had instilled early. "When our kids fell, we didn't rush to scoop them up. We waited. Then we celebrated when they stood up," his dad explains. "It's not about the fall. It's about the getting up."

As they continued to follow Tucker's interests, they began to see something extraordinary emerge. "He had a hidden gift," they say. "The ability to recognise, assess, and create value where other people didn't see it." That gift first revealed itself on the banks of the Potomac River, where Tucker started collecting muddy golf balls for fun. Eventually, he began counting them, cleaning them, and asking questions. A friend suggested golfers might want them. So, Tucker did some speech-to-text research and learned there was a whole market for second-hand golf balls.

It was never about money, it was about learning.

He began selling them on Facebook Marketplace using his dad's account. Demand was instant. He hired neighbourhood kids to help collect and clean balls. By the end of that summer, he'd sold thousands. "It started as a counting exercise," his parents explain, "but by the end, he was doing multiplication and division. It was never about money, it was about learning."

That mindset carried over when a chance stop at a neighbour's yard sale led him to more golf balls and then to vintage items. He started picking antiques and collectibles based on gut instinct. They'd return home, research the items, and time after time, discover Tucker had a real eye - everything he picked was worth more than he'd paid. It wasn't a fluke. He could see potential where others saw junk. As the business grew, so did his confidence. "This was the moment we stopped focusing on deficits and started building around his strengths," his parents say.

Soon, his room was overflowing. They had to sell the items. Ryan helped him get a booth at a local antique market. The first weekend, Tucker made $1,000. He could date a glass insulator, explain the function of a vintage toaster, or place a piece of ephemera in a historical context. "For the first time, he was learning, and he felt smart. "People would ask, ‘Is he in the gifted program?’ ‘What's his IQ?’" his parents recall. "We'd just smile. If they only knew." He wasn't just keeping up, he was outselling adults who’d been in the business for decades. Antiquing became a passion and a process. He woke up early on Saturdays to go picking. He scrolled through Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist every night. And his parents set three clear rules for reselling:

• He had to use his own money—thankfully, he had plenty from selling golf balls.
• He had to have a plan: what he was buying, where he'd sell it, and for how much.
• He couldn't buy anything that needed fixing.

Everything he bought was entered into a spreadsheet with cost, projected sale price, and profit margins. "That became its own kind of math class," his parents say.

His big breakthrough came at a local Antiques Roadshow-style event. Tucker brought along a few rare items and sat in the crowd with a hundred adults. When the appraiser asked questions, Tucker kept raising his hand and kept getting the answers right. Eventually, the appraiser invited him up to co-appraise the items. Tucker spoke confidently, even explaining why certain items couldn't legally be sold. "Everything he said was spot on," the appraiser declared. "I've never seen anything like this." His parents still remember the look on Tucker's face. "It was like all the pain of feeling dumb was washed away—if only for a moment."

That moment sparked something even deeper. Tucker began watching resellers on YouTube and asking to start an eBay store. "At first, we said yes just to humour him," his parents admit. "But his first listings sold instantly." A lantern that sat in his booth for months at $15 sold on eBay for over $100 in five minutes. He was hooked.

By the time he was 10, he was buying storage units and store clear-outs, building relationships with suppliers, and flipping thousands of dollars worth of inventory from curbside pickups and trash piles. "He'd say, 'I want to see how big I can make this.'" That was when Ryan decided to shut down his furniture business and go all-in, working full-time for Tucker.

School had never worked for Tucker. But now, for the first time, learning actually made sense. Still, despite his business success, his progress in reading and writing remained painfully slow. That began to shift when they discovered an online program designed for kids with language-based learning disabilities. "It was the first time he got real, targeted help and from a team that actually understood him," his parents say.

The program didn't try to pull Tucker away from his business. Instead, it leaned into it. His assignments were woven into the fabric of his day-to-day work. Writing meant describing products or telling stories about vintage finds. Math involved calculating profit margins, analysing spreadsheets, and tracking expenses. History came alive through ephemera and old coins. Even music lessons evolved into discussions about vinyl records and the evolution of audio technology. "Every item became a lesson," they say. "Instead of pulling information from a book, Tucker was pulling it from the real world."

As his confidence grew, so did his curiosity. When he began buying and selling precious metals and gemstones, he had to learn how to test purity and authenticity, so chemistry and geology became part of his toolbox. "It was slow," his parents admit. "But for the first time, we weren't chasing grade levels. His goals were practical: reading menus, road signs, and invoices. The basics of independence."

Instead of pulling information from a book, Tucker was pulling it from the real world.

Still, one concern kept surfacing: socialisation. Experts and psychologists urged them to create more in-person peer connections. So they tried Boy Scouts, sports, and social skills groups, but none of them clicked. "He wasn't interested," his parents explain. "He didn't relate to kids his age, and they didn't understand him. He just wanted to talk about reselling and collectibles." He'd always been more drawn to older people, curious about history, asking deep questions. "He's always been an old soul," they say.

That social piece finally came together when his parents posted in a local Facebook group asking if there were other kids with businesses. The response was overwhelming. Within two months, they helped organise a kid-run business fair with nearly 50 young vendors. Suddenly, Tucker was part of a community. "Not just with kids, but with adults, too. Junk removal companies, realtors, declutter services—people started reaching out with supplies. He realised his real business wasn't just reselling, it was building relationships." And that changed everything.

Suddenly, Tucker was part of a community. Not just with kids, but with adults, too.

Tucker began networking, attending local business meetups, helping other kid entrepreneurs, and eventually travelling across the country to connect with adult resellers and YouTubers. "I was hesitant at first," Ryan says. "But these were his people. They got him in a way other kids never did. I'll always be grateful for how the reselling community welcomed him as one of their own."

At one such event, Tucker was invited to sell on Whatnot—a live auction platform. His parents were nervous. "This was a kid with speech and emotional regulation issues," they say. "Live auctions require confidence, fast reactions, and calm under pressure. But Tucker wanted to try. So we let him."

Within weeks, his reading, writing, and speaking improved more than they had in years.

What happened next was unexpected—and remarkable. Within weeks, his reading, writing, and speaking improved more than they had in years. "He had to read chat messages, describe items, solve tech issues, and manage trolls, all in real-time," his parents say. "It was like the ultimate crash course in communication and emotional regulation."

Within six months, he was competing in Whatnot's top-seller competitions, alongside full-time adult auctioneers. He once sold $8,300 worth of items in under an hour. "It was wild," they say. "And it was real learning."

By age 15, Tucker had sold over 15,000 items. He managed 2,500 square feet of inventory, had an employee to handle shipping, and gained nearly 10,000 followers on Whatnot. He'd been featured in People Magazine, ABC World News, Fox Five News, and NOVA magazine. But most importantly, he had found purpose.

"We started by trying to find the right supports for Tucker," his parents reflect. "But what actually worked was following his joy." They often say Tucker was born privileged, not because of his zip code or skin colour, but because he had a real problem to solve early in life. "That's the true privilege," they say. "To struggle young. To learn how to get back up. And to turn that into purpose."

Educator Perspective

"We had to ask ourselves—did Tucker really need to go back to a traditional classroom?" Amy recalls. "Or could we build something around how he actually learns?" That question sparked the creation of Conduit Academy—a program born from Tucker's needs and shaped entirely around his strengths. It wasn't a theoretical model imposed on a student. It grew organically from supporting Tucker's entrepreneurial journey and became the foundation for something bigger: a learning environment that prioritised relevance, flexibility, and joy.

What sets this program apart from other education models is its authentic integration of academics with real-world entrepreneurship.

Tucker's specific learning needs directly shaped Conduit's structure. Rather than forcing him to conform to a standardised curriculum delivered in predetermined ways, Amy built an educational framework around his natural interests and strengths. Academic content was integrated into meaningful business activities, making learning contextual and immediately applicable. His need for hands-on, purpose-driven learning guided the entire approach.

What sets this program apart from other education models is its authentic integration of academics with real-world entrepreneurship. Unlike models focused on remediation within traditional frameworks, Conduit uses Tucker's actual business as the learning context. It's not a simulation—his venture involves real customers, real products, and real outcomes.

For example, when Tucker needed to decide whether to expand his product line, his learning sequence included:

• Market research (social studies/economics)
• Customer surveys (data analysis)
• Production costs and profit projections (math)
• Writing product descriptions (language arts)
• Mockup design (art)
• Presenting his proposal (communication)

These were real business decisions, not hypothetical exercises and that made all the difference. Through this approach, Tucker has developed:

• Real-world problem-solving skills
• Entrepreneurial thinking and initiative
• Professional communication abilities
• Time management and project planning
• Self-advocacy and confidence
• Technological fluency
• Financial literacy
• Adaptability and resilience

Importantly, he's developed these while being valued for his contributions, not measured against standards that ignore how he learns.

Amy says Conduit didn't change her philosophy on education; it gave her the blank canvas to bring it to life. It's the manifestation of her understanding that many students labelled with "special needs" are actually smart, capable learners who simply require a different approach to education.

Rather than trying to fit these students into existing frameworks that don't serve them well, Conduit allows the team to build entirely new educational pathways designed around their strengths, interests, and natural learning styles. This blank canvas approach is powerful because it starts with the student rather than with predetermined curricula or methodologies.

And Tucker's story isn't unique. Amy has already expanded the model to include more students this year and hopes to continue to grow. Whether it's STEM, business, art, tech, or something else, the core structure adapts. The key is starting with a student's passions, giving them a target to aim for and building around that. Being virtual allows Conduit to access the very best minds and most highly skilled instructors to teach, guide, and mentor our students.

Amy emphasises that success depends on keeping learning tied to real work. "This isn't about simulations," she explains. "It's about building something meaningful that creates value and integrating the education around that." She adds, "Forcing students into environments where they feel inadequate doesn't build resilience, it breaks them. But when we place them where they can thrive, we see them grow in every way."

Forcing students into environments where they feel inadequate doesn't build resilience, it breaks them.

Extracts from Dystinct Magazine