As a teenager, Zach Klempf made a gutsy decision to forgo his senior year at Atlanta International School—opting instead to get his GED and enroll as a freshman at Georgia Perimeter College.

He remembers his counselors calling it a bad move, while his parents trusted his instincts and the research he put behind choosing to jump start college. Klempf blazed through GPC, testing out of a number of classes, while also taking full advantage of online courses.

“It was a good use of my time to do that,” Klempf says.

Klempf, who is now 23, transferred in 2011 to Emory University where he majored in film and media management, graduating in 1 ½ years and earlier than his classmates enrolled there.

Last summer, not even a year after leaving Emory, Klempf made another bold move and headed to Silicon Valley. Earlier in 2013, he and Joseph Dixson—a childhood friend and fellow GPC student—launched A1 Software Group, which created Selly, a mobile app primarily used by automotive professionals to track vehicle sells.

“If you want to do finance, you go to New York; if you want to be an actor you go to Hollywood; if you want to get into tech, being in Silicon Valley is a really good experience,” Klempf says of the journey west.

Not long after settling in at Silicon Valley, Klempf and Dixson got the call to visit Hawaii for a four-month business accelerator program sponsored by video game pioneer Henk Rogers, the tech genius behind mass distributing via console the Tetris video game. 

Rogers’ Blue Startups company has invested $20,000 in startup funds for A1 Software. In exchange, the company will receive 6 percent equity.

“They are aggressive and assertive in the right ways and had already shown traction in the impressive number of downloads of their mobile CRM application,” Meli James, Blue Startups program manager, says of A1’s selection for the program.

Dixson calls it a dream of a lifetime.

“If you had told us, even when we were in high school, that we would be living in Hawaii building up our company, I don’t think either one of would have believed it,” he says. “But now we’re doing it and it’s very exciting.”

Dixson, who transferred after two years at GPC to Georgia State, had planned to earn both marketing and graphic design degrees from GSU next year. With current business responsibilities, he figures it’ll be 2016 before he can graduate. Dixson currently is taking an online macro economics class through Georgia Perimeter to keep earning credits.

Meantime, although in Hawaii, Klempf and Dixson say they’re short on downtime, something they don’t mind at all. Their days are filled with business activities, starting with early morning calls to the East Coast.

“Then we do development on the app, making sure it’s headed in the right direction and ensuring the interface looks good and the functionality is there,” Dixson says.

There also are workshops focused on topics such as marketing strategies and financials, as well as mentor meetings and impromptu conversations with the nine other cohorts in the business incubator.

“It’s not quite the Google life, but it’s along those lines of being in a creative environment that fosters growth,” Dixson remarks. 

Klempf and Dixson will head back to Silicon Valley in early 2015. Until then, they say they’ll continue putting in 16-hour days in the pursuit of growth, development and long-term success.

“A lot of people say they want to be in something, but you really have to put in the work,” Klempf says.