About Jay
My Story
Ever since I was young, I knew that I had to work for myself. I have always been a hard worker and put my heart and soul into the things I do. My dad used to tell me that if you are going to work as hard as you do, then make sure you are reaping the rewards, instead of your employer.
Well to this day I have tried multiple times at becoming an entrepreneur…to no avail.
Instead I got myself a trade, right out of High School, and then educated myself with multiple post secondary educations, and all it got me was straight into the proverbial rat race.
Until now…
But let’s go back in time a bit.
Nahh, Post Secondary is just not for me!
1989 and my mullet was just friggin awesome! High School is finally done, and I am a free man. No more school.
Grades were okay, could have got into U of S or SIAST, the post secondary schools in Saskatoon, but I just couldn’t see myself sitting in a classroom again. Although I think the University party life would have just suited me fine. So while my friends all applied and got accepted into post secondary, I decided to go the trade route and make money.
My dad happened to own a successful Heat and Frost company. Sounded like a good gig for me. Heat and Frost sounded like a pretty cool trade, however it was just a glorified way of saying you are an Insulator. You either worked in extreme heat, and made things cooler, or you worked in extreme cold, and made things hotter, for the quickest summary of Heat and Frost trade there could be.
But working in union industrial construction back in the 90’s paid incredibly well. Almost stupid well, for a kid that really has zero post secondary education and really didn’t put any pride into it.
Was almost too easy.
I hated every minute I was at work. But I was already stuck in the rat race. Didn’t have any debt really, but was in my early 20’s in the 90’s…yeah things were pretty blurry to say the least. I hated every Monday, and loved every Friday. I wanted to start my own thing, but was afraid of losing that weekly pay check that used to pay all my debt off each week.
I stayed miserable for 8 whole years, in that circle. I was able to bank a bit of cash.
My partner at the time was doing the university thing, and she just graduated, and it was time to spread our wings.
Packed up the vehicle and headed West!
1998 and we made our way to Calgary. My love of the mountains drove me this way, and at the time it was almost surreal. A prairie boy moving west to be closer to the mountains and things that I loved the most; mountain biking, snowboarding, hiking, and camping.
It was a dream come true.
I got out of that awful trade that I hated so much. I didn’t realize how depressed I was, and how miserable I was, and luckily for me my partner at the time, was very patient, and, honestly, I think she just knew that I was acting the way I was because of my work situation.
She just graduated from University with a BS in Psych, and getting into the workforce. And after all those years of me talking and saying I was going to be an entrepreneur…it finally happened. I started up my own little landscape company, mostly focused on yard maintenance, with the strategy to go commercial.
The first year was just a party, cause I had money from my REAL job. Not realizing how hard business was, and doing the work was one thing, acquisition was very much another.
I buckled down a bit in my second year and got a couple of commercial clients. Wow, maybe this would work.
The downturn…
Being pretty fit, and in very good shape. If anyone knows how hard the landscaping industry is, they can attest to how fit you have to be.
I started to get some hamstring pain, or so I thought it was hamstring. Weird, cause I couldn’t really pinpoint what I did. but carried on, as I wasn’t going to let a little pain in the back of my leg drag me down. And I was a pretty tough dude, so certainly wasn’t telling anyone that it was nagging me.
I continued to work, lifting extremely heavy equipment, working very long hours, just grinding away. The pain in my hamstring didn’t seem to go away. In fact, the weird thing about it, it started to slowly creep down my leg further towards my foot.
As the summer went on, I deteriorated drastically, and this crazy hamstring issue that I had, had now started to make my foot go numb.
Something was wrong…
I eventually swallowed my pride, and decided it was time to actually get this thing checked out. The nothing can hurt me mentality caught up to me, and while I thought that my injury was just a simple leg issue, turned out to be a serious spinal injury. That required surgery.
L4/L5 S1
Well snap, I done F’d up!
The time for landscaping and doing all the things I loved, in fact was addicted to, like mountain biking, snowboarding, climbing mountains, and probably the biggest thing, my business, was basically put on hold while I mended for the next half a year.
That was basically the end of my first kick at entrepreneurship. Was fun while it lasted. I learned a bunch, but was by no means as successful as I had been in the trade, that I had hated so much.
Alright, guess I do need post secondary education!
2000 and I was accepted into the Chemical Technology program at SAIT. I was actually quite proud of myself, that I was finally going to get my piece of paper and be just like all my buds. But because of my age, I really wasn’t interested in doing 4 years of school, which is why I opted for the 2.5 year diploma program.
Well, I was an old guy at this time, so I didn’t go to any parties, or really hang out with any of the kids. They kind of treated me almost like dad. Which to be honest, I didn’t mind.
I had the life experience that they didn’t have yet, and was always happy to give guidance, or just have a shoulder to cry on for them when they all needed one.
I didn’t mind my 2 and a half years there.
Graduation and time to get a job!
Went to school for those few years, went into student debt, and then got a job at one of the biggest Oil and Gas companies, in the world.
Only to make $13 an hour…like seriously!
The money was not great in chemistry, and even more than that, there is no way I could see myself being a lab rat for the rest of my working life.
So, the thing I fought so hard against when I first graduated high school…post secondary education…I jumped right back into it, and enrolled in another diploma program for Web Development.
But this time I had a strategy, and I was working towards another business opportunity, that I knew was making people extremely rich in the early 2000’s.
2009 my second post secondary education. I had good intentions to get my second diploma, in Web Development, as fast as I possible could. The reality was that working my lab job, full time, and then going to school after was not an easy task. I was starting to burn out a bit, and it ended up taking me a lot longer than I would have liked.
So once again, I worked a job I absolutely hated for nearly 6 years while getting my Web Development. Once I got it though, I was done with being a lab rat.
Me and a couple other dudes from school went out on our own, and I was back in the entrepreneur world, as a small web dev agency.
We were three awesome front end web developers, that could basically cut and slice any design and practically make it look like print. At a time when the browser wars were happening. So styling was not a fun task.
And having a few clients were awesome, but then that word came up again, acquisition.
I was learning again, that it doesn’t really matter how good you are at something, if you don’t have clients to sell your awesome self to.
We played around for not even a year, then mortgage, bills, and life screamed at me that it was time to go back to the grind, and get a REAL job…again!
Well snap!!
Taking my Web Development career seriously!
2009 and I got my first real Web Development job at a startup that I thought had serious potential for an entrance/exit strategy. I figured if I couldn’t do this on my own, I would watch and learn how this whole business thing is supposed to work.
Well I started as a junior and left a senior. I worked on some of the coolest companies, in the world. Like seriously. I worked on projects for KPMG, Lego, American Airlines, WWF, my resume was getting stacked.
And the allure of the exit was keeping at an extremely low paying position, working 80+ hour weeks, in hopes of that big payday.
Guess what happened…
The CEO, founder of the company tried so hard to get the BIG ONE, the big client that was going to take us over the edge. She promised the world to this company, claimed we did this, and had these features. And in reality, we had none of it.
But she sold them, and we got the contract.
And then the downward spiral started!
She got ousted as CEO by the board. They pulled a Steve Jobs on her, and the founder got her ass kicked out of the company. People started leaving, the funding dried up, and, well, the likelihood of an exit was basically nill.
2015 and off I went, done working these stupid long hours, and wearing way too many hats, to jumping into the enterprise software world, and getting hired by one of the biggest telecom companies in Canada.
And guess where I am right now? Yep, still there as a technical lead. Worked on almost all of the customer facing applications. I have worked with some great people, some not so great. Have made good friends, and honestly, have a pretty good crew that is called the leadership group, that I can proudly say I am a part of.
Digital Marketing...seriously!?
2022 and it is our first ever trip out to Whistler to mountain bike as a family. Yeah some people go to the Caribbean, some people go to Europe, and I go on mountain bike vacations. As I mentioned earlier, I am an addict, can’t help it. I can think of way worse things to be addicted to than downhill mountain biking.
We went for a full 2 weeks. Now that is the first time ever that I have taken a vacation that was longer than one week.
I was kinda weird. It felt awesome at first, but then as we got into the second week, it didn’t feel good anymore. In fact, I started to get anxious, knowing that I was going back to work in less than a week. This dream vacation was starting to become stressful.
I started going online late at night, in the Whistler condo, while everyone went to bed, to see if there is something that I can do to make a change in my life.
All these years in software development had kind of put the entrepreneur bug in the back burner. The thing bit me in the ass, and was seriously on fire.
Every night I was going online and seeing what kind of side hustle could I get going? Crazy think is it was me not trying to find an online side hustle, but scrolling on TikTok that I think I saw something that would fit for my situation, and allow me to build that online business on the side while I still kept my development job.
This one seemed like a win – win.
I took the chance on it, and really all the garbage you see out there on how you can start making 5-figures with working 1-2 hours per day, is just bogus…at least for a beginner. It was more like 6-8 hours after my regular full time job learning everything I needed to know to make an actual realistic shot at succeeding.
I can tell you that the concept of Freelance Digital Marketing is simple, but it is not easy!
However, I am now able to see some of the benefits of this business model, and have been growing the business organically. I understand it takes time, but this time I am ready for that journey.
I hope you will come along with me!