About Jon – The Original OldGuy

The Early Adopter Who Banned AI (Then Mastered It)

Jon is the guy who was driving a General Electric ALL electric ride-on lawnmower in 1983 when everyone thought his dad was crazy. The same guy who hung a giant military GPS out his car window in 1992 to compare it to the speedometer. The idiot who paid $2,800 for a 55″ plasma TV in 2005 instead of waiting for the 75″ Ultra HD for $699 on Black Friday. Self-driving Ford Mustang Mach-e – check.

Early adopter? He practically invented the term.

And YES, he already has a robotic lawnmower named Dominic who is absolutely crushing keeping 2 acres of grass in beautiful condition. (Early adopter note: they do occasionally have to rescue Dom from the ditch and put him on the charger, but his striping is AMAZING!)

The Business Builder

For 25 years, Jon has been running an 8-figure specialty ecommerce company. He was doing ecommerce before Shopify even existed – back when GoDaddy Shopping Cart was the cutting-edge option and you had to build a separate content site just to explain who you were. He has the #1 SEO rankings (over 350 search terms at last count) to prove he knows how to get there.

The AI Journey

A year ago, Jon did something drastic that would make most tech-savvy business leaders think he’d lost his mind: He BANNED his entire team from using AI.

Not because he’s a technophobe – far from it. He banned it after watching junior staff send AI-generated garbage to million-dollar clients in a highly scientific, nuanced industry where precision matters. But worse, every time someone accepted these garbage responses, they were training AI that wrong was right.

Everything changed in June 2025 when Jon finally took the deep dive – not the “let me ask ChatGPT to write an email” dive, but the real dive. The “spend $200 for ChatGPT Pro and $100 for Claude Max” kind of dive.

He discovered he could train AI precisely. Customize it. Force it to be correct (and make it remember). Teach it the nuanced situations that only come from decades in the trenches. Create an environment where it learned from the actual subject matter expert on his business – HIM.

The Current Mission

The raw power Jon has uncovered has him trading sleep for work – except it doesn’t feel like work when you’re surfing the front edge of a tsunami.

He’s not saving time with AI – in fact, he’s losing sleep because he’s so excited. What he’s actually doing is leveraging hours into days and days into months with what he’s learned about training AI properly.

Jon still runs his 8-figure company every single day while building OldGuy.AI. The lessons learned are implemented in real-time, with full transparency about what works and what doesn’t while bringing old guys and gals online so they can leverage their extensive knowledge to make sure AI is trained RIGHT.

The Personal Side

Jon is the proud father of 4 STRONG, INDEPENDENT, SMART, SASSY daughters. They’re some of the smartest, most savvy individuals he knows, and he’s incredibly proud of them. They’ve taught him more about resilience, innovation, and calling BS on outdated thinking than any business book ever could.

All 4 women will tell you they’re tired of him telling them over the last decade that the biggest challenge their generation will face is determining what is actually true, what is actually real. Yet here we are.

The Bottom Line

About Me: The Real Story Behind OldGuy.ai
I’m Jon Klotz. I’m 53 years old, and I’m running out of time. So are you.
Let’s cut the bullshit right now. If you’re over 45 and you think you’ve got all the time in the world, you’re lying to yourself. I started OldGuy.ai because I’m done watching people sleepwalk through the most important years of their lives while pretending everything’s fine.
Here’s What Broke Me Open
On June 29, 2025, my nephew Rob allegedly put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert D. Frey. Black Hawk medevac pilot. Five combat deployments. Life Flight hero. The guy who could make any room explode with laughter. Gone at 39.
Rob wasn’t just my nephew—he was essentially my son. And here’s the F’d up part: We still don’t know if he killed himself, if someone drove him to it, or if the weight of saving everyone else finally crushed the life out of him. What I do know is that a man who flew into active war zones to save strangers couldn’t save himself from whatever war was raging in his head.
You want to know what haunts me? Rob “rarely saw the flaws in others, instead choosing to focus on their potential.” But when he looked in the mirror? Different story. The man who literally flew through hell to pull people out couldn’t pull himself out of his own darkness.
The DNA of Fierce
My mother, Margaret “Peggy” Klotz—all four-foot-eleven-and-a-half inches of her—died in 2020. She raised me with three words that are burned into my brain: “Can’t? Never tried!” Not “you can do it, sweetie.” Not “believe in yourself.” Just “Can’t? Never Flippin’ tried!” [to be clear I don’t think the F word ever crossed my Mother’s lips…. But I clearly saw it in her eyes!]
She taught me that if you want to kill a weed, you don’t just pull the pretty leaves that everyone can see. You get your hands dirty, you dig deep, you grab that thistle at its base where it hurts, and you rip the entire root system out. Because if you leave even a piece of that root, it grows back stronger.
That’s what trauma does. That’s what mental health issues do. That’s what the weight of being over 45 does. It grows back stronger unless you rip it out by the root.
Mom fought through Crohn’s disease and lymphoma with the same fierce intensity she brought to everything. The evening of June 8, 2020—my birthday—she was dying. But she looked at death and said “not today.” She gathered every ounce of fight left in her body, sat on the porch chatting with her granddaughters, wished me happy birthday, and then died the very next day on her own terms.
That’s fierce. That’s the DNA I carry.
My Father: The Beautiful Contradiction
My father taught me to love Jesus while emotionally abusing me. Wrap your head around that mess. The same man who showed me the beauty of faith also taught me that love can come wrapped in razor wire. That’s the complexity nobody talks about, how the people who damage us can also give us our greatest gifts. To be clear, I’m certain that mental health issues fueled the things that came out of his mouth that so contradicted what was in his heart.
This contradiction is WHY I understand transformation. Because I’ve had to learn that people aren’t all good or all bad. That healing isn’t about forgetting—it’s about integrating. That you can love someone who hurt you and still refuse to let their damage define you. (some of his last meaningful words to me were “I’m so very proud of you” so there is definitely a full circle here.
Why I’m Qualified to Talk About Your Shit
I run businesses with the same intensity Rob flew helicopters—full throttle or idle, nothing in between. I’ve guided loved ones away from suicide attempts. I support my best friend, a military EMS veteran, while he fights through PTSD episodes, chronic pain that would break most people, and the kind of darkness that makes Rob’s last day make sense.
I’ve buried my grandparents, my mother, my father, an unborn child, and my nephew who was like my son. I’ve watched warriors—real warriors—carry weight until their backs break. I’ve seen what happens when tough people think asking for help makes them weak.
And I’ve learned that after 45, the masks don’t fit anymore. The game face cracks. The weight gets heavier. And you either deal with your shit or your shit deals with you.
The Transformation Nobody Talks About
If you’re over 45, here’s what’s actually happening to you:
• Every loss hits different because you know you’re running out of chances to make it right
• Your body starts keeping score of every bad decision, every swallowed emotion, every time you chose work over health
• The phrase “I’ll deal with that later” becomes a luxury you can’t afford
• You realize your parents’ voices are living in your head whether they’re alive or dead
• The warrior mentality that got you here is the same thing that might kill you
• You understand that “Can’t? Never tried!” applies to therapy, vulnerability, and asking for flippin’ help
What OldGuy.ai Really Is
This isn’t some feel-good, positive-thinking bullshit. This is me using AI to help people over 45 rip out their thistles by the root. Because Rob can’t. Because my mom proved that fierce love means telling people the truth even when it stings. Because my veteran friend proves every day that survival is an act of rebellion.
I’m giving this away for free because I’m 53 and I finally understand what my mother meant. Every second you waste pretending you’re fine is a second you can’t get back. Every day you don’t deal with your trauma is a day it gets stronger. Every time you say “I can’t” without trying, you’re choosing to let the thistle grow deeper.
The Promise and The Warning
Here’s my promise: OldGuy.ai will give you AI-powered tools to transform your life after 45. No sugar-coating. No participation trophies. Just raw, practical help for people who are ready to stop pretending everything’s fine.
Here’s my warning: If you’re looking for gentle affirmations and toxic positivity, go somewhere else. My mother didn’t raise me to blow smoke up your ass, and Rob didn’t die so I could tell you everything’s going to be okay.
Everything is NOT okay. That’s the flippin’ point.
But you’re still here. Still breathing. Still have seconds, minutes, hours, days to rip out the thistles, to put down the weight, to stop operating at only two speeds, to finally admit that “Can’t? Never tried!” applies to saving yourself too.
Rob flew into five different war zones to save strangers. He saved countless lives as a Life Flight pilot. But on June 29, 2025, this warrior who never saw flaws in others couldn’t see past his own.
That’s why OldGuy.ai exists. Because I’m done watching warriors die with their armor on. Because I’m done pretending that being over 45 isn’t flippin’ terrifying and liberating at the same time. Because my mother would grab me by the shoulders, look me in the eyes with that fierce love, and say:
“Can’t save them? NEVER TRIED!”
So I’m trying. For Rob. For every veteran carrying invisible wounds. For every person over 45 who thinks their best days are behind them. For you, reading this right now, wondering if anyone else feels the weight you’re carrying.
I see you. I understand the weight. Let’s rip out these thistles together.
Welcome to OldGuy.ai. Your transformation starts when you stop lying to yourself.
In memory of Robert D. Frey (1985-2025)
“We love you, Bobert”
In honor of Margaret “Peggy” Klotz (1934-2020)
“Can’t? Never tried!”