Will Ray
About · Will Ray

Hey, I'm Will Ray.

My name's William Ray, but everybody calls me Will. I sold drugs for most of my life and did 18 months in prison. I've been clean since September 11, 2017. Now I'm a self-taught web developer and a stay-at-home single dad to two teenage boys.

Most people know me from my YouTube channel, Hey Will Ray. Here's the long version.

Will Ray, smiling, gray-streaked beard, black t-shirt

Out on my own at 14.

I grew up without a mom. Home was a lot of fighting and broken stuff, and I was a bad kid on top of it. I moved out around 14 and started selling weed.

I worked labor jobs under somebody else's name because I wasn't old enough for a real one. I did a short stint in the Army in 2007. Technically I'm a veteran. I don't really feel like one, since I was selling weed before I went in and after I got out.

Then jail, a few times. Then 18 months in prison, 2015 to 2016, for selling marijuana.

Prison was the first time I ever felt free. I read a lot, worked out and stayed away from the gangs. I also sold tobacco in there. The hustle didn't take the day off.

Getting out made it worse.

Nobody picked me up on release day. No money, no phone numbers, nowhere to go. I had a child support warrant, so the bus took me straight to another jail. When that one let me go, I didn't even get my gate pay.

I stayed straight for a little while. Then I started hanging out at the bars, and it turned into the worst addiction I'd ever had. Prison didn't fix me. I got out and got worse.

My rock bottom was a goofy movie.

In 2017 I hit up an old friend I used to use with. I said I wanted to hang out. I wanted to get high. He told me to meet him at a church.

I walked down there figuring he was going to pray it out of me. It was an NA meeting. I waited outside while he kept texting me to go in. I went in, didn't see him, didn't know anybody, and walked right back out.

He was never coming. He was using, and he wouldn't let me be around it. He said that room was exactly where I needed to be, and to ask somebody for a ride to Candlelight.

When the meeting let out, I walked up to the first group of people I saw and asked, "Anybody got a ride to Candlelight?" I had no idea what Candlelight was.

One guy said, you ride with me. He took me to my first real meeting, took me out to eat and let me stay at his place for about a week. He's been my sponsor ever since.

A friend who was using that night still pointed me at the door that saved my life. That was God working in my favor.

Clean since September 11, 2017.

I went to treatment in Hamilton, Ohio, then a sober living house in Cincinnati. What kept me clean was people. Guys who'd been where I was.

I managed a restaurant. Then I worked in behavioral health, where my past finally counted for something. I tried to get hired as a software engineer and couldn't. The jobs I had connections to were government jobs, and they don't hire felons.

So I had to figure out how to make money on my own.

I got my boys back.

I got custody of Billy in 2019. Anthony came right after. I have full custody of both now.

I'm still learning how to be a dad to teenagers I didn't raise full-time. Some days I'm good at it.

$250 and a lot of YouTube.

In 2023 I taught myself to code. YouTube, FreeCodeCamp and a Java bootcamp. Felony, no degree, starting from nothing. I wanted a developer job.

Along the way a friend paid me $250 for a website, and that's when it clicked. The first stranger was a plumber I cold-called. I paced before I dialed.

Now AI builds the sites and I send the message. That's my $15,000 month. The part I care about more: I don't clock in. I work from a computer in my bedroom. I'm a stay-at-home single dad, which is still crazy to me.

Why I tell all of it.

I'm a regular guy with no team and no money behind me, and this still worked. I chased every guru's shiny object before it did. If you're scared to start, so was I.

Everything I have now was on the other side of something that scared me, from walking into that church to calling that plumber.

Where to find me

Featured on

Other people's shows that had me on. Yes, two of them are about skincare.

Start here

The message I send is in the playbook.

One trade, one town, ten names, two messages. Free, and it opens in your browser.

Get the Playbook, Free See Build First, $27