About Will and Mikki Stenner
This is a story about perseverance.
On July 2, 2017, Will proposed to Mikki at the Wedge in Newport Beach, California. On October 16, 2017, they got married. And in March 2018, they lost everything.
Through circumstances they wouldn't wish on anyone, they ended up homeless in the Mojave Desert — living in a tent at first, then in an abandoned RV with a piece of plywood for a door. No running water. Will rigged a makeshift shower out of a 5-gallon Sparkletts bottle and heated water over an open fire so they could bathe. That's what perseverance looks like when nobody's watching.
In August, Mikki traveled to Colorado for what was supposed to be a two-week family emergency visit. While she was there, she told Will there was opportunity in Colorado. At 2 AM one morning, sitting in the desert, Will sent out two resumes to dealerships. The next morning at 7 AM, a manager named Ike called and offered him a job.
Will took it. He made it to Colorado. And he started building his life back — one shift, one risk, one day at a time.
Because through all of it, the passion never died. Discover YOU RADIO — the new station name from others of the past that Will had been building since internet radio began — kept growing in the background. Night after night, after ten-hour shifts at the dealership, Will kept buying artists' music, kept listening, kept building. The business grew. And grew. Until the demand outgrew the day job and he couldn't keep up anymore.
On October 4, 2026 — exactly eight years to the day from when Ike hired him — Will walked out of the dealership for the last time. Full circle. It was a tearful exit, because he owed that place his gratitude: it gave him the foothold that lifted him off the desert floor. But the decision was made. The hobby became the career. Discover YOU RADIO went full-time.
Taking risks is what got them out. And they're still taking them — together.
About Will
I'm Will Stenner. I started in sales in 1996, running a Schwan's route until a work injury in 1998 put me behind the service desk — and I never left. I wrote service at Saturn from 1999 to 2001, then came to Honda in 2001. I left in 2009, came back in 2018, and my last day was October 2, 2026. Almost thirty years of telling people their cabin filter was dirty teaches you a lot about honesty.
I left a six-figure income to do this. People call that a risk — they're right, it is one. But Discover YOU RADIO isn't some impulse. I've been doing internet radio since internet radio began, back when it was a hobby nobody took seriously. On October 4, 2026, the hobby became the career.
This station exists because the music industry is rigged against the little guy, and I got tired of watching it. Everybody else charges artists for the privilege of being heard — pay to play. I flipped it. I buy your music off iTunes with my own money, listen to the whole thing like a human being, and if it's radio-ready, it goes on the air. Pay to Play Reversed. The radio station that buys your music. (Yes, really. I know — nobody does that. That's the point.)
"Did you seriously just buy my music?"
There were nights I didn't have enough money to buy artists' music for my TikTok lives. So after a ten-hour shift at Honda, I'd go drive Uber Eats for a couple of hours — just so I'd have enough to buy their songs. I'd think, strategize, plan it out — whatever it took — so I could make an artist's day better by letting them watch someone on a live TikTok actually buy their music and put it on the radio. It was hard. But it was so very worth it. Especially when an artist would say, "Did you seriously just buy my music?" — and then tell me, "I've never been on the radio before. This is my first time." What makes that moment special isn't only that I'm buying their music and putting it on a licensed streaming station. It's sharing that moment with them. Those are the experiences that mean so much to me.
Most agencies will give a song about 15 to 20 seconds before they accept it or reject it and move on to the next one. I personally feel that's a disrespectful corporate business move with no care for the artist. So out of respect, I listen to the whole track. Songs have breaks, hooks, build-ups and build-downs, vocal arrangements with answers, bridges, choruses — so much beautifully woven music that can be missed in the first 20 seconds. I have the common courtesy and decency to give the track my full undivided attention from start to finish, and sometimes I'll listen to it a few times in a row just to make sure I didn't miss anything.
For over 30 years, I've wanted to beat the "too good to be true" saying. I want people to know how far we go above and beyond — that we're not greedy or money-hungry, and that we treat every artist as the individual they are. Every person isn't the same, and that's how we operate. Not every encounter is the same. We do things accordingly.
I'm a bit rebellious, a little sarcastic, and I don't let anyone walk all over me — and I don't let this industry walk all over independent artists either. But don't mistake that for being hard. I'm a generous man. I don't do cheap, I don't cut corners, and I don't see artists as transactions. If your name's on my wall, it's because I believe in what you made.
I wasn't supposed to make it. People who knew me back then didn't think I'd live past 30. In 2017, my wife Mikki and I were homeless. We built our way out, one risk at a time — taking risks is what got us out. I've been a thrash metal guitarist, a retail worker, a service advisor. Every version of me taught me something, and all of it ended up in this station.
Discover YOU RADIO is an art museum for music. Every song on these walls was hand-picked, purchased, and hung with care by a real human. No algorithms — a computer has never once given me goosebumps. No filler. The sky is big enough — there's a perch for you here.
That's Prism, our bald eagle — the embodiment of everything this station stands for. He spots what's hidden in overlooked artists and refuses to look away. When he says "I see you," he means it.
If you've got music in you, I want to hear it. And I'll buy it before I play it — because that's what you deserve.
Real humans. Real plays. Real fans.
— Will
About Mikki
They call her Mrs. Discover YOU RADIO — and she earned it.
Mikki has been there for every version of this story: the proposal at the Wedge, the wedding, the desert, the rebuild, and the 2 AM resumes. When the station goes live on TikTok, she's the one keeping the room safe and the show running — moderating the lives, watching the chat, holding the line so Will can focus on the artists.
She believed in this station before it was a business, back when it was just her husband's stubborn hobby and a stack of iTunes receipts. She never asked him to quit. She just stood next to him while he built it.
Will says he couldn't do this without her. He's right.
— Mrs. Discover YOU RADIO