I graduated from Mizzou in 1999 with a degree in elementary education and student taught in the second grade, which was a blast. Since then I have been having fun running a few businesses with my brother and we keep things interesting by continually looking to get into new things.
In 1997, we started a ticket brokerage, ShowMe Tickets, while attending Mizzou. With that company, we developed a new site called buyselltix.com that allowed individuals to buy and sell tickets easily online. This innovation received a variety of press coverage including a write-up in the Wall Street Journal. The company received the Inc 500 Award for being one of the fastest growing private companies in the US. That same year we sold the company (2005) to TicketsNow, which was later acquired by TicketMaster.
While running ShowMe Tickets, we decided to start another company. So in 2002 we started a mortgage company and we continue to grow that company with a great team of people (it has grown at a rate even faster than that of ShowMe Tickets). We received the Inc 500 award for the second time with this company, achieving the rank of 96th fastest growing private company in the US which made us one of the few people to have ever received the award for two different companies.
In 2005, we started a vacation rental company which included a few sites such as LakeRentals.com and CoastRentals.com. That company grew by about 50% each quarter until it was acquired by The Weather Channel in 2007.
All of the companies generate business primarily from online marketing, which I have specialized in since 1999 (when Google was barely a company). I have been getting more into Angel Investing while still focusing my efforts on online marketing. One of our investments is Soccer Pro. We invested in the company, assumed partial ownership, have assisted with their online marketing, and by working with their great team the site has increased sales by over 300% in one year.
To add a personal touch, I posted 10 Things most people do not know about me.
