Educated in philosophy and English literature. Taught English at a public high school. Lost that career to the Wall St. crash in '08. Taught myself graphic design. Worked my way from a Jr. Designer to a Creative Director. Started a tech company focused on live events. Launched the week COVID hit. Ouch. Pivoted. Got tired. Closed the company after 4 years of fighting the good fight. Moving on to new adventures.
In 2018, I left agency life and started Threshold (threshold.co)– a digital marketplace to help DIY Artists of all kinds–musicians, podcasters, authors, and anyone else with a global audience– find their fans all over the world and set up live events in their fans' home or business.
These live events are commonly called 'house shows' and look a bit like this.
Our mission? To create a regenerative business that helped nourish and support the profound relationship between performing artists and their fans in a healthy, sustainable way.
We received offers from three separate investors but, for several reasons, my wife and I chose to build the company using our savings instead. Minus a $100K grant from Google Ventures, we were 100% bootstrapped.
Organizationally, Threshold was structured as a Public Benefit Corporation in the state of Delaware and received trademarks under three separate classes in over 65 countries.
I spent the first couple months developing a business model hypothesis and brand identity, doing customer research, and designing a prototype. You can play around with an early version of the prototype here. Note, it’s been a few years since I last worked on it so some things, like the map, might be deprecated.
After 50+ interviews, I hired a small, remote dev team and spent the remaining year building out the MVP– a cross browser progressive web app that worked across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
Architecturally, Threshold was built on a FERN stack (with the exception of using Preact to achieve a smaller footprint + faster load times). In addition, we used GraphQL, Redux, GCP, and a host of APIs.
When I wasn't designing the prototype, I was busy developing a basic design system, creating marketing materials, acquiring new customers, building out a sales funnel, coding marketing/transactional emails, attending conferences, creating a podcast, and the infinite other invisible 'tasks' that go with building a startup as a solopreneur.
We launched private beta in March 2020– the same week COVID hit Seattle. Not good timing for a company built around live events.
We adapted, integrating live streaming into the platform. But after a few months it became clear that we couldn’t compete with all the well-funded options on the market. So I was forced to lay off my team. That was a tough week.
Despite the setbacks, my wife and I weren’t ready to give up on the company. Looking for potential opportunities to pivot, I dove deep into the live entertainment industry.
In the process, I conducted interviews with some of the most respected independent agents in the industry (representing artists like Billie Eilish, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, and Sturgill Simpson), indie venue managers across North America & the UK, and a wide assortment of ticket buyers.
Over time, I zeroed in on core, long-standing problems on each side of the market (ticket buyers, performers, and venues) and developed novel solutions for each. These solutions required an entirely new business model, market strategy, and additional capital– capital my wife and I no longer had.
So I assembled decks (covering the research, business model, go to market strategies, competition, ideal customer profiles, runway et at), created my targeted investor lists, and started pitching.
Unfortunately, years of nonstop company-building had taken a toll on me– physically, mentally, spiritually. Sleepless nights. Panic attacks. Endless mental chatter. Something had to give.
In April of 2022– almost 4 years to the day we started our journey– we closed down the company. While Threshold certainly didn’t end as we had hoped, it has been among other things, an incredible teacher.
2004-2006
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BA English, ASU, Summa Cum Laude
1997-2000
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BA Philosophy, NW University, Magna Cum Laude
Figma, Webflow, Zeplin, Affinity Suite (Designer, Photo, Publisher), Miro, Slack, Dovetail, Clickup, Data Studio, Google Search Console (Analytics, Tag Manger, Optimize, Trends, Lighthouse, etc), Adobe Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Lightroom, Premiere), Keynote, Office Suite, Mailchimp, Hubspot, Hotjar, Gitlab/Github, working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JS
Client list includes HBO Max, Netflix, Disney, Deloitte Digital, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, AT&T, Box, Intel, Seattle Sounders, EMC, DocuSign, VMware, AMD, Booking, fiserv, McAfee, Inphi, The Seattle Foundation, Seattle Pacific University among many others
In my former, pre-dad, life I was a touring musician and had the good fortune to open for bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Damien Jurado, Bright Eyes, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Pedro the Lion.
I'm a frequent guest lecturer at Gonzaga University– typically speak around product design, brand dev, and entrepreneurship.
In 2017, my wife and I quit are jobs, sold our house and most of our belongings, purchased a 31' Airstream and traveled North America for 6 months to re-connect as a family and find a new place to call home.
