I (Preska Thomas) Spent More Than 100 Hours Building DebitMydata—and It Changed The Way I See The Internet

There’s something about hitting that 3 a.m. wall when you’re building a company from scratch. The world is quiet, your friends are asleep, and you’re staring at your laptop screen wondering if this is all just a crazy idea. That’s where I found myself in the early days of DebitMyData.

What started as a simple thought—“why can’t people earn from their own data?”—quickly spiraled into a mission that consumed me. I had no roadmap, no guarantee of success. All I had was my conviction that people deserve to control, protect, and profit from the most valuable resource of our time: their information. And with that belief, I gave myself to the process. A hundred hours. Nonstop. Relentless. Heart on the line.

Those hundred hours weren’t glamorous. I wasn’t in a glass-walled office with a team of developers on standby. I was on my own, surrounded by coffee cups, scribbled notes, and an endless loop of trial and error. Every technical hurdle, and every rejection email from someone who didn’t understand the vision only fueled me more. If anything, each “no” whispered back to me: keep going.

But here’s the thing no one tells you about building something that doesn’t exist yet: the emotional weight is heavier than the technical challenge. I wasn’t just writing lines of strategy—I was wrestling with self-doubt. What if people didn’t care about their data? What if this idea was too ahead of its time? What if I failed and had nothing to show for it?

And then, in the middle of those doubts, I had one of the most profound realizations of my life. DebitMyData wasn’t just about technology. It wasn’t even just about money. It was about dignity. About rewriting the rules of an internet that too often takes from us without giving back. Every selfie, every click, every piece of digital presence we put out into the world—it’s ours. And it deserves value.

The moment I understood that, the hours didn’t feel so long anymore. I wasn’t just working. I was building a movement. A future where your digital footprint isn’t exploited by faceless corporations but turned into empowerment you can actually use—whether that’s money in your pocket, opportunities unlocked, or the freedom to say no when your information is mishandled.

When I finally stepped back after that long-hour sprint, I saw the internet differently. I saw people differently. I saw myself differently. Because DebitMyData wasn’t just a startup anymore. It was proof that ordinary people could reclaim extraordinary power.

Even now, every time someone asks me, “Was it worth it?” I smile. Because how do you put a price on building something that shifts the balance of power back into the hands of everyday people? How do you measure the value of dignity, freedom, and choice? For me, it was worth every sleepless night, every anxious heartbeat, and every one of those hundred hours.

DebitMyData is bigger than me now. It belongs to the people who use it, the creators who monetize their content in ways they never thought possible, and the everyday users who discover they don’t have to give their digital lives away for free. But I’ll always remember where it started: with one idea, one laptop, and sleepless hours that changed everything.