The Six Builders: A True Story Of Friendship, Betrayal And building CYPHTECH

In December 2022, Gary Martin and his closest friend resigned. Neither had savings. Neither had an investor, an office, a client, or a contract. Four people turned them down before a man named Osama sat across a glass-topped desk, asked the one question they could not answer, and put twenty thousand dollars into their hands on the strength of a feeling.

In February 2023, they opened CyphTech on the third floor of a building with no lift. Within a month, they had paid every dollar back. Within a year, the phone would not stop. Then a third partner arrived and asked the question nobody had thought to ask. Who owns what, and what is actually written down? The answer was a handshake and nothing else.

What follows is a partnership that broke, an office that closed, and three men who came home from a trip to find the room they had built standing empty. Then the harder part: buying chairs again.

The Six Builders is a memoir about work, money, and the people you choose. It is honest about the mistakes: the agreements never signed, the records kept badly, the trust extended where paperwork belonged. It is not a success story told backwards.

For anyone who has started something with a friend, or is thinking about it, and wants to know what the second year actually costs.