Why I Built Torny: Finding What I Love After Dropping Out of Uni

Finding What I Love

I’ve spent my life searching for that special thing I truly love. Number one will always be my son and partner Felicity, but from a career perspective, I can now admit I’ve finally found it - and ironically, it’s the thing I dropped out of university for in 2003: learning the tools to build properly, and the process of building itself.

Here’s the thing most people don’t know about me: I’m a high-functioning OCD type of person who either loves or hates things. There’s rarely an in-between. As a kid, I was always building things - orange guns, air rifles, things that explode. I know it was misdirected, but I just loved the process of seeing something in my head and trying to make it with my hands.

My father, brother, sister, and I all loved computers. We built TCP/IP networks so we could venture into the early world of multiplayer gaming. My first computer was a Commodore 64 that dad bought me in 1993 - I still remember trying to hack games from the command line. Looking back, it was all the same thing - building cool stuff, just with different materials.

In 2003, I went to university on dad's recommendation to study computer science. But I had a problem I didn't understand at the time: I'm a kinaesthetic learner. Learning from textbooks has always been incredibly difficult for me. I fumbled through early school, flying under the radar, just passing tests by cheating or paying people to help with homework. My parents never identified it, and neither did I until much later.

So when university plopped a giant textbook in front of me and said "learn," the code looked like circles and squares. I pulled out after six weeks, convinced I wasn't cut out for it.

Now I’m going through the same process with my son Noah. He’s been diagnosed the same as me - unbelievable memory, yet learns differently. He does what I did, and watching him go through it now, I understand my younger self so much better. But my message to him will be different than what I heard: “Create your job, Noah. Find what works for you.” The education system isn’t built for everyone, and that’s okay. Sometimes you have to build your own path.

For the next several years, I did anything to make a living. I worked behind bars, at bowling clubs, coached bowls, swung sledgehammers with the tie gangs on the railways - even worked as a flaggy, setting small explosives and flagging down high-speed trains to warn them of workers on the lines - drove a front-end loader shoveling rock, and sold houses. I was good at most of these things, and some were a lot of fun - but it was just a living. I didn't love any of them.

Eventually, I stumbled across SEO and digital marketing. Finally, something I liked enough - it was computer related and I liked the idea of learning to outsmart the Google search engine and build a business around it. My partner Felicity and I built Sea Digital together over the next seven years. I handled sales and digital marketing while Flic managed the business operations and marketing strategy.

But the same problem emerged: I didn’t love it. It was a living, sure, but what I really wanted was to write code and watch things come to life on the screen. I’d tried twice before in my younger days - no coding skills, high development costs, and frankly, not enough experience to know what I was doing. But I loved the process of trying.

Here’s what I realized: there’s nothing quite like the feeling of building something with code. It’s the same rush I had as a kid building things with my hands, except now I’m building with my mind and watching it materialize on the screen. Seeing a button work, an animation flow, data transform.

But to build properly, you need the right tools. A builder can’t construct a house with just a hammer - they need the full toolkit. I made a vow to myself: I would learn every skill necessary to build whatever I could imagine. Not just to create successful products, but to become a proper builder with all the tools in my arsenal. If you don’t have the money, you have to learn and do it yourself.

In 2017, I made a decision that changed everything. I was going to teach myself to code properly - to learn the tools a builder needs.

I stopped playing competitive bowls. It was a hard decision, but I wanted to dedicate that time to two things: learning to code, and cherishing every second with Noah while he's growing up. Those evenings and weekends I used to spend at the club? Now they were split between being present for Noah and learning to build properly.

When Noah went to bed, I'd sit down with YouTube videos at first, then any tutorial I could find that wasn't a textbook. Twenty hours a week of coding practice, sometimes more, for two years straight while working full-time. It was exhausting. It was amazing. Every new skill was another tool in the toolkit.

Putting Skills to Work

Eight years into my coding journey, I’ve been able to put these skills into real-world practice. I’m now the database manager at NZNO, New Zealand’s second largest union, where I manage data for a living. I was product owner at SJS, helping build and shape products from the ground up. I’ve done contracting work in cloud infrastructure, analytics, and for the last 18 months, Ai.

Each role taught me something new. Each project added another tool to my arsenal. But more importantly, each one taught me how to build properly - how to structure databases, how to design systems, how to make code maintainable. Learning these tools brings me joy because they let me build better things. The builder gets better with every project.

Here’s what I’ve learnt through all of this: don’t stop learning because it’s hard. Keep going. You can solve the “make a living versus love the work” thing - just don’t give up on learning the craft. I dropped out of uni thinking I wasn’t cut out for this. I worked jobs I didn’t love. But I kept learning, kept collecting tools, and now I’m doing exactly what I want to do.

Being OCD means I can’t stop at things once I’m in. It was the same with lawn bowls - how do I take this to the absolute limit? How far can I push? It’s the same with learning to code now. I’m obsessed with mastering the tools, understanding the craft deeply, seeing how far I can push my skills. That obsessive nature that made traditional education hell for me? It’s my superpower when I’m learning to build properly.

And here’s the other thing I’ve realised: I don’t care about money or material possessions. I never have. Learning to build properly brings me the most joy. Whether it was learning to build billy carts and things with engines as a kid, learning to garden with Noah now, trying to start a new business with Felicity, or learning to build with code - it’s always been about mastering the craft. All I want is to spend the rest of my life learning and building. That moment when you finally understand a concept, when you learn the right tool for the job, when you grasp how to structure something properly - that’s everything. Whether what I build succeeds or not doesn’t matter - the joy is in learning how to build it properly.

And if I ever build something that becomes successful? I’d probably just invest all of it into learning more tools and building the next project, or helping homeless people. Material things don’t drive me - learning the craft and building does.

The Intersection of Two Passions

Since 1997, lawn bowls has been the other constant in my life. I’ve competed at the highest levels - Australian and New Zealand championships, representing Victoria. I’ve coached countless players and built what’s now the world’s largest YouTube channel for lawn bowls coaching.

Throughout all of this, I had an idea: what if I could build a tool that gives structure to training? What if I could combine Ai with lawn bowls coaching? But more importantly - could I learn how to build something this complex properly?

Then it hit me. I’ve spent years learning the tools to build. I’m passionate about lawn bowls. I finally have the opportunity to apply everything I’ve learned to something I deeply care about.

But here's the best part: I'm not building this alone. My 6-year-old son Noah is my head creative. Those helicopter and spaceship animations you see in Torny? Those were his ideas. He sits with me and throws out concepts, and I figure out how to code them. We're a team - he brings the imagination, I bring the technical skills to make it real.

I love to think that one day, when he learns to code, we'll be a super team building things together. But in the meantime, we're just having fun with it. He gets excited seeing his ideas come to life on the screen, and I get to show him that building things is something you can do together, that creativity and code can combine into something special.

That’s Torny. We’re not trying to build some mega product owned by a large heartless corporation - we’re a small family having fun with it. It’s about applying everything I’ve learned while building something alongside my son. Using the right database structure. Implementing Ai properly. Building clean, maintainable code. And most importantly, showing Noah that you can take an idea - whether it’s a helicopter animation or a training app - and bring it to life through code.

The Problem with Traditional Training

Here’s the thing about traditional practice: it often lacks structure and objective feedback. You might know you’re “not playing well,” but without data, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint exactly what needs work. Is it your draw shot? Your ditch weight? Your consistency at certain distances?

Coaches face the same challenge. They can observe patterns during sessions, but without detailed tracking, providing concrete, data-driven guidance between sessions becomes guesswork rather than science.

How Torny Actually Works

The concept is straightforward: you track your training sessions - every draw shot, yard on, ditch weight, and drive. Record accuracy, distance from jack, session intensity, add notes about conditions or technique. Build a complete picture of your training over time.

Then the magic happens. In the background, Torny’s AI and data lake work together to analyse everything. It identifies patterns and weaknesses you’d never spot on your own. It compares your performance across different conditions and sessions. It learns from your training history.

This is where the Training Loop comes in. The Training Loop has a search engine full of automatically guided training programs. Based on your performance data, the AI recommends the right program for you. As you complete each program, the AI continuously analyses how you're performing and guides you to the next program that addresses your evolving needs. No more guessing what to practice. No more wasting time on things you're already good at. Just focused, effective training that keeps you moving forward - one guided program at a time.

Now, I need to be clear about something: Torny isn’t here to replace coaches. That’s not the goal. Coaches are essential for technique refinement, tactical guidance, and the human element of improvement. What Torny does is give coaches better data to work with and help players train smarter between coaching sessions. Think of it as a training assistant that makes everyone more effective.

An Invitation to Join Early

I’m launching Torny with something special for the first 1000 people who join. If you’re one of them, you get lifetime access to everything - completely free. No catches, no future charges. You’ll also get early access to new features as we develop them, direct input into what we build next, and priority support whenever you need it.

Why am I doing this? Because I want founding members who’ll help shape what Torny becomes. Your feedback, your ideas, your real-world usage - that’s what will make Torny better for everyone. And in return, you get full access without ever paying a cent.

Why AI Matters

The AI in Torny isn’t marketing fluff - it’s fundamental to what makes the Training Loop work. Traditional analytics show you numbers. The Torny AI analyses those numbers, identifies what you need to work on, and guides you through the exact training programs that will help you improve.

Here’s how the AI and Training Loop work together:

Analyses your data to spot patterns and weaknesses you’d never notice on your own
Recommends the right training program from the searchable library of guided programs
Monitors your progress as you complete each program
Adapts to your improvement and guides you to the next program that addresses your evolving needs
Learns from your training history to give increasingly personalised recommendations

This is what makes the difference between just tracking data and actually improving your game. The AI doesn’t just tell you what’s wrong - it guides you through the Training Loop, one program at a time, continuously moving you forward as a player.

Why I’m Really Doing This

That vow I made 20 years ago? I’ve fulfilled it. Working behind bars taught me how to read people. Selling houses taught me sales and negotiation. Sea Digital gave me digital marketing, SEO, and analytics. Then came the technical deep dive: JavaScript, Python, Swift, Vue, databases, AWS, Azure, serverless infrastructure. I’ve even set up a HPE Proliant Gen10 server at home - this very website runs on it.

I've failed many times. Projects that didn't work out. Ideas that went nowhere. But here's what I've learned: every failure teaches you how to build better. When Noah and I plant tomatoes together, not every seed makes it. Some grow strong, some wither. But we learn - this spot gets too much sun, that soil needs more nutrients. We become better gardeners. It's the same with building anything.

Along the way, I've let people down. People who believed in me, who supported my ideas, who invested their time and trust. Maturity comes with experience and time - I didn't understand that at the time and had big dreams without the firepower to achieve it. I can't change that, but I vow to make it up to them in time - by learning from those failures, by building better, by showing them their belief wasn't misplaced, just early.

At the end of the day, I love my family more than anything in this world. And I want to do what I love so I can show my little fella that he can do the same, even when things fail. That’s the lesson I want Noah to learn - not from what I tell him, but from what I do.

The education system wasn’t built for me, and it’s not built for him either. But that doesn’t mean we can’t succeed. It just means we have to build our own path. I’m building Torny not because I know it will succeed, but because every line of code teaches me something new. Success isn’t measured in money or possessions. It’s measured in whether you love what you do.

Torny is just the first. There will be more. Because that’s what brings me joy - building cool stuff and watching the screen come to life, one project at a time.

You’re Welcome to Try What I’ve Built

Lawn bowls has been my passion for nearly three decades. Now I’ve combined that passion with everything I’ve learned to build something - a training assistant that helps you focus practice time where it truly matters.

Whether you’re a beginner building fundamentals, a competitive player fine-tuning your game, or a coach guiding students, Torny gives you the insights you need to improve.

The first 1000 founding members get lifetime access, completely free. I built this because I love building with code and watching screens come to life. If it helps you too, that’s wonderful.

Join the Pre-Launch Programme →

Nev Rodda is the founder of Torny and runs a YouTube channel for lawn bowls coaching, where he’s shared techniques like “The Shooter Stance.” As database manager at NZNO, New Zealand’s second largest union, he manages data for a living. Previously product owner at SJS and partner at Sea Digital (built over 10 years focusing on digital marketing, web development, data analytics and social campaigns), Nev is a software engineer by trade and passionate bowler since 1997, having competed at the highest levels including Australian and New Zealand championships.