Achievements

Business Plan Competitions

• Winner of 2007 UCF Joust Business Plan Competition ($5,000)
• Finalist in the 2007 Sunshine State Venture Challenge in Cocoa Beach
• Finalist in the 2008 National Nacent Business Plan Competition in Indiana
• Winner of UCF 2008 Joust Business Plan Competition ($12,000)

Noteworthy Speaking Engagements & Appearances

• Featured young entrepreneur on Orlando’s Fox 35 News (2007)



• Social Media Panel discussion participant on Orlando’s Local 6 news program FlashPoint (2008)



• Interviewed on Indianapolis’s Fox59 at the Nascent500 Business Plan Competition (2008)



• Entrepreneurship Speaker at the University of Central Florida (March, 2009)

• Featured in one of the nation’s top selling entrepreneurship textbooks “Successfully Launching New Ventures”
  
• Interviewed on CBS News Radio Orlando, April 2009

Business Accomplishments & Experience

• CO-founder/Former CEO/Current Board of Director of GroupTable (2008-Present)

GroupTable is a collaborative software tailored for student group projects and study groups that was launched in February 2008. GroupTable currently has thousands of students utilizing their software all across the world.



• Founder and CEO of Brand Advance (2009-Present)

Brand Advance is a web-design/development and marketing company that I started in 2009.  Brand Advance is based in Orlando, Fl and also offers consulting services, business plan development and more.



• Online Marketing Strategist for the Grow Fl program (Current)

  Working with the Edward Lowe Foundation, a nationally recognized entrepreneurship development organization, GrowFL will apply lessons learned from the proven art of “economic gardening,” pioneered more than a decade ago in Colorado and now being applied nationwide to help second-stage companies grow. GrowFL will draw on the strength of a unique partnership that includes the Florida Economic Development Council, Enterprise Florida, Workforce Florida, the Florida High Tech Corridor Council and others working to identify and cultivate hundreds of growth companies.

  My role in the program is to work with the second stage companies ($1 million+ in revenue and 10 or more employees) and advise them on how to grow their business through the use of social media, SEO and other online marketing strategies.

• Co-founder of Rent to Own Magazine (2007)

  

  Rent to Own magazine was started in March, 2007 while I was a Junior at UCF.  The first week we started generating revenue from advertisers.  Instead of continuing to run the publication while in school we merged our advertisers into a larger Florida home publication and worked out a profit sharing arrangement.

• Marketing/Director of Premium Blogger Relations at IZEA (2008-2009)

IZEA is one of the top Social Media Marketing companies in the country. My role while there in addition to marketing, was to identify and build relationships with the top influencers in the blogosphere and connect them to IZEA’s clients- (Advertisers like MTV, Sears, Microsoft, SeaWorld, and many more) for various Social Media & Internet Marketing campaigns. Though many of the campaigns were focussed around Sponsored conversations and blog marketing I also helped run campaigns for affiliate marketing, twitter marketing, facebook marketing, CPC (Cost per click advertising) and more. I helped start the premium blogger network in SocialSpark and worked with thought leaders/A-List Bloggers like Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, Julia Allision, Wendy Piersall, Chris Pirillo and more. I stepped away in May 2009 to focus on my own endeavors full time.

• VP of Marketing for Flirt Clothing

Flirt clothing was founded by James Betterson, my long time friend and roommate at the time in 2005. I worked with Flirt from the beginning negotiating costs of production, setting up distribution channels and working on the overall marketing of the brand.



• Charity

Helped raise over $5,000 in donations for “A Gift for Teaching” (2007)