In this session, Jordan will share his experience in leveraging industry knowledge from his contract Motion Design business into building a solution for some of his industries most common challenges. From identifying market opportunities to developing a viable product, we’ll delve into both the unique advantages and potential pitfalls that arise in making the leap into entrepreneurship.
Date + Time: Thursday @ 9:45a – 10:30a
Venue: Geonetric Building – DeltaV Room
With nearly 20 years of experience in various sectors of the video production industry, Jordan has acquired a wealth of knowledge on what it means to be a successful commercial artist and entrepreneur. Now solely focused on Motion Design and Animation, he has worked with the world’s largest brands, such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft. Along with a successful commercial career, he’s also been able to establish himself within the entertainment industry working on major documentary films, streaming tv shows and broadcast graphics packages for HBO, ESPN, Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, Paramount and more.
With his first professional freelance opportunity coming at 16, Jordan discovered the foundational qualities required to run a small business by doing EVERYTHING wrong within those first 7 years. While reflecting on those early days is quite painful to the ego, they were essential in getting him to the position he’s in today as an artist and business owner.
As his freelance animation career was taking off on the commercial side, he began hearing a repeating theme from several clients. After a meeting with one of Uber’s creative leads, he decided to assemble a team of developers to build a product that would address these recurring pains. This resulted in the founding of Simplate.io, an online platform that allows anyone to create and automate variations of professionally created video, no matter their expertise. While this journey has had a sputtering start, Jordan has dedicated himself to fulfilling his team’s goals of building a successful SaaS business and seeing it through acquisition. Every one of those lessons learned from his younger years have come into play while building and expanding his bootstrap business.