From Homeless to Fame: The Fiona Burke Story 💫

Once, there was a young girl who dreamt in code and coutures, but the world told her she couldn't have both. 🌪️

I was born in a tiny apartment above a laundromat, where the constant humming of washing machines soothed me to sleep. My mother was a single mom, who worked three jobs so she could barely keep the lights on, and my "closet" was a cardboard box filled with clearance hand-me-downs. Kids would laugh at my thrift store outfits, it didn't matter they were hand sewn (they were sewing my ambition, but that wasn't evidently obvious!). ✨

At 16, I learned how to code after pulling a broken laptop out of a dumpster. While my classmates were partying, I would stay up to 3 am smashing algorithms and doodling designs in the margins of my math homework. I sold my first AI chatbot to a local business for $50...and used that to buy fabric for my first handmade dress. 💻👗

Then? The crash. My start-up failed spectacularly at 22 years old. Investors laughed me out of the room ("Sweetheart, stick to Instagram"). I survived on instant ramen noodles and slept on my friend's couch, holding my last twenty dollars like it was a limb. One night I cried my face off into my pillow, until I looked down at the pillow stuffing, which happened to be the Pantone 2023 color of the year. A sign. 🌈

I built everything back. Taught AI to predict fashion trends that hadn't even gone viral yet. Wore metallic bodysuits to tech conferences just to make middle-aged men squirm. Now? My algorithms dress celebrities, and Vogue called me "the programmer who out-styled Paris." But, I will never forget stealing shampoo from hotel lobbies or the blisters from my first five dollar heels. Every scar is a sequin now. 💎

Comment a 🔥 if you have ever been underestimated too.