Let me take you on a little journey. It’s about where I’ve come from to arrive where I am today.
I always had somewhat of an odd habit as a kid of wanting to touch everything. My mom would always comment that whenever I would walk through a store with her I wanted to touch all the different textures and fabrics. I was fascinated by the different materials and the different uses they each had. It wasn’t until much later I came to appreciate this about myself. I came to realize that my curiosity wasn’t some sort of defect, but rather, a core competency.
I started my very first product company in High School. I can vividly remember taking some stencils and spray paint I had in my car and spray-painting the logo of the company I was starting on a t-shirt. The company was FIRST BLOOD SURVIVAL GEAR. My friends and I made a handful of those t-shirts and wore them with pride as often as we could. Then, more and more of our friends wanted them. We soon moved into screen printing and eventually wholesaling the clothes to a few skateboard shops around Southern California, where I grew up.
I loved the process of creation. I loved how the product made me feel and how it spoke to who I was, a skateboarding, punk rock kid. I Ioved doing it with people I liked being around. The collaboration, the alchemy of it all…I’ve been hooked ever since.
(Courtney and I Circa 2001. I wore my First Blood T-shirts until they were full of holes.)
In my Senior year of college, I knew I didn’t want to work a corporate job and Courtney’s Uncle was starting an import product company. I jumped on board. I was able to learn the nuances and challenges of working with overseas factories. I learned about the beautiful cultures of China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and how to create and develop deep relationships with the owners of the factories. I traveled the country and the world over 10 years developing and selling high end products.
I loved every minute of it.
In 2015, I had the pleasure of joining Cents of Style as the COO. This gave me a whole new set of things to learn. I had always been in charge of Cents of Style’s technology platforms, but to run the operations was a new challenge. I learned the intricacies of shipping, labor, fulfillment and created new metrics and processes to help us ship faster, with more accuracy and for less money.
As time went on, I knew that I wanted to find a way to share this unique mix of Product, Technology and Operations knowledge with a bigger audience. This is where the idea for Be Fulfilled came from.
I’m passionate about product. I’m passionate about people, and I’m passionate about e-commerce…I also have the experience and unique skills to add value and help other brands grow. And that’s what I want to do- Every. Day. It gets me excited and makes me very grateful for where I’ve come from and where Be Fulfilled is going.
-John
