14-Year-Old Boy with Learning Disabilities Becomes Entrepreneur Who Makes Up to $5K an Hour (Exclusive)

At age 9, Tucker Findley began selling golf balls — now it's turned into a lot more

• Virginia teenager Tucker Findley discovered a knack for retailing vintage items and memorabilia — and discovered a different way of learning in the process

• He convinced his parents to help him open the online store and watched his goods sell quickly for huge profits

• “The stuff you don’t think is worth a lot of money is,” he says

Five years ago, Tucker Findley was failing in school, struggling with his severe learning disabilities and a neurological condition. As a result, he couldn't read, write or even count past 10.

Now he's thriving with a six-figure career in selling memorabilia — and more — online.

Tucker's journey all started with a golf ball: When he was 9, he was playing with friends near his Sterling, Va., home, where the water flows downstream from two golf courses.

“I found golf balls everywhere,” Tucker tells PEOPLE. He collected them, cleaned them up and then listed them for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

They sold quickly — 2,000 in three days — and Tucker, now 14, poured his profits into buying more. Then he demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit by hiring friends to find and clean the balls at 5 cents a ball and soon purchased a kayak to assist in the search for more balls.

He also began scouring local yard sales. “I bought a couple thousand at yard sales for $50 or $100,” he says. “I probably sold $5,000 in golf balls.”

Not only was Tucker becoming an entrepreneur, he was learning math by counting golf balls and selling them by weight. (He has, among other conditions, both dyslexia and dyscalculia, which affects the ability to understand numbers.)

A fan of television shows like Antiques Roadshow and American Pickers, he reinvested his profits into antiques and vintage toys with support from his mom, Rebecca, and father, Ryan.

A former COO of a payroll company, Ryan left his job when his son was struggling with traditional learning and needed to be homeschooled. A few months and thousands of golf balls later, Tucker discovered YouTube videos of people selling items they found at garage sales on eBay.

“I said, 'Dad, I want to start an eBay store,' and he said, 'What the hell are you talking about?' ” the teen recalls.

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He convinced his parents to help him open the online store and watched random vintage items sell quickly for huge profits — first an Army jacket, then a brass bell.

“He had things that were sitting at flea markets for like $10,” says Ryan. “He’d put them online for $100 and it would sell in five minutes.”

The budding businessman has a real eye for moving his merchandise: Once, he bought a BMX bike frame missing a wheel and other parts for $6, then sold the individual bike parts for $500 in just 24 hours. He says other impressive sales include netting $1,000 for a Barbie doll and selling 600 sports cards for $20,000.

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His mom, Rebecca, helps with shipping what can be hundreds of items a day — and thousands of pieces of merchandise, including Air Jordans sneakers, movie posters and G.I. Joe toys, are stored in more than 2,500 square feet of floor-to-ceiling packed warehouse space at the Findley home.

In addition to his eBay store, called Tucker’s Vintage Treasures, he sells merchandise on Whatnot, a live online reselling marketplace — and he says it's not unusual to sell more than $5,000 in merchandise in a one-hour livestream auction.

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“I’m honest and fair,” he says. Sometimes, he says, when he buys items at flea markets and resells for huge profit, he returns to the sellers and gives them additional money.

He also partners with junk companies to advise on what is trash and what is treasure.

“The stuff you don’t think is worth a lot of money is,” he says. For example, he once obtained a bag of dozens of Dungeons & Dragons dice from a hoarder’s house. Now he sells them in sets of two for $75.

Tucker's business opportunities are infused in the curriculum from his online school, called Conduit. Through his professional dealings, he has become skilled at math, reading, speaking and negotiating.

“It’s the first time he wanted to learn, when he could count a golf ball or do a spreadsheet,” Rebecca says. “When Tucker got all those dice, his teacher came up with a math lesson using the dice.”

Just like the overlooked and underestimated items he sells, Tucker sees his own value where others didn’t.

“I’m really happy now,” he says. “The most important thing is to find what you’re good at, not focus on what you’re bad at.”