Rather than bore you with my professional accolades, I think I’d rather tell you a quick life story. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting or entertaining. Or at least you’ll know something about me.
I was born in Prescott, Arizona to a pretty typical American family, middle child of three kids, skipped around the country with my family a bit and ended up in Bluffton, Indiana, where I went to high school.
At age 14 I started working what was an atypical job among my peers answering phones for a local internet service provider. They sold dial-up internet connections, among little else. Invaluable lessons about customer service emerged, and I was a happy little punk, not having to flip burgers for pocket change through high school.
Upon graduation, I moved to Indianapolis and went through college at UIndy, a relatively small private school. I worked a few odd jobs, most of them trending away from customer service and towards technology and marketing, and finally got a business degree.. In 2006, I helped a few friends kick-start a small web design shop called Riakt Studios, and went to work full-time there upon graduating in 2008.
My two business-partners (Josh Mitchell and Brian Conradt of Rella Group), being quite the entrepreneurs, had already grown tired of doing great work for other companies, and decided they wanted to refocus their efforts on other projects. Being the fresh and stubborn graduate, I decided I wasn’t ready to give up on web design, so we restructured the company to make me the majority stakeholder. Less than a year out of school, I found myself carrying the title of “business owner” – one I had not previously envisioned for myself.
This happened in August 2008, and I quickly found that I had little to no practical knowledge of business ownership, but being quick to realize this, I enrolled in a 12-week training course to cut to the chase of exactly what I needed to know to help me not drown in the common failings of small business. It helped tremendously, and I was able to resurrect Riakt Studios from a few thousand dollars of debt and kick out a few neat projects in the meantime.
My quick stint of business ownership taught me that my Spock-like approach to a creative business required me to surround myself with creatives and problem solvers to balance me out. Thankfully, some relentless networking had put me in touch with just such a soul – Aaron Douglas. We were both the victim of our own poorly constructed service model businesses, and were in the mood for a fresh start. The product was Deep Ripples, a SEO and conversion optimization company which still operates successfully in Indianapolis.
Which brings me to current day (April, 2010) – where Deep Ripples continues largely without me, and I’ve relocated from Indianapolis to Boulder, Colorado to pursue other startup possibilities. I’m very much looking forward to staring some mountains in the face for a while, and I encourage you to get in touch with me if you think my experience can help you accomplish your goals.
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