Introduction

First, thank you for agreeing to this 1-hour interview! At Plot Twisters, we're curating a collection of "Role Model Reports" of diverse industry professionals and career lifestyles for the K-12 audience. We're so excited to include your voice.
Today we'll be interviewing you for an hour about your life, with the goal of capturing your life and career journey holistically. We care about starting from the beginning, learning about your growth, and all of the stories and plot twists in between the milestones on your resume. First half, we'll ask you about your journey. Second half, we'll ask you about your reflections on your journey.
- Gifts = personal values, personal qualities
- Hats = roles, relationship dynamics
- Fields = areas of expertise, subject matter
- Recipes = preferences when it comes to work
- Lemons = difficult circumstances, challenges
After this interview, our studio team will compile a Content Mockup of your Role Model Report, synthesizing your interview into an accessible, fun format for students. We will send this to you for you to review.
We won't include details of places or other people in your story.
We intend to share Role Model Reports with the small group of students we work with, but eventually see this collection being a publicly accessible website where any student can go to discover their role models.

Jake's Journey

Tell me about your education and career journey. What are the biggest milestones you remember?

When I was really little, I was really into legos. I used to build with them all the time. THat was my first— I guess I started playing with them when I was really young. Early pruning and neural pathways, legos played a big role. I developed a lot of creativity and that part of my brain. Probably 3/4 years old. I just built things non-stop. I also started drawing at a really early age. Unlike other kids who maybe played games or sports, I was more into making art and building things. That's just kinda how I play. My play story (if you will): building things from an early age.

What was first thing you wanted to be when you grew up?

Probably painter, then architect. For my 10th birthday, I wrote a screenplay and shot a movie with my friends. Once I did that, that opened up a whole word. I started shooting and editing movies on imovie and I spent all elementary school making movies with friends. Started taking photos and doing editing on 'printshop'. Started getting into graphic design, and got pretty active with both video and design in middle school. Met friend Leo who is professional musician and dancer. Finally met someone who could act in movies and rap in music videos. Was doing music videos, brand dev, etc. Went to somewhat of an art-y high school. A lot of his friends were like that too. Was connected to Logic at age 14/15. He hadn't released any music yet. Logic sent him a few songs over Facebook or something. I desgined his logo and mixtape covers and brand direction. He started getting traction; the videos were getting millions of views. I met my first business partner, Orlando, through Logic. I was still in high school, not focused on my school work, travelling around the country and directing music videos. Started working with John Bellion (?) and started doing his music videos. The artists both got to a higher level and moved out to LA. So Orlando and I went with them. That was his senior year of high school.

Where'd you grow up?

Washington DC.

In 10th grade and 11th grade, I could see. I was learning so much outside of school from an early age about film and design and business. Wasn't seeing value in classes. I'm really into constructionist learning and project based learning. I think that's how humans evolved to learn and how they learn best. Once I was getting my videos on MTV, it was really hard to focus on schoolwork. I just knew that I did not need a traditional structured high school. But my parents weren't really comfortable with that (haha). But I did graduate. I was able to convince some of my teachers to let me pass at the time (haha). Was living out in LA with Logic and John. Not going to get too into it, but with business partner had a bad falling out with the artists. Parted ways and did a semester at Emerson college. When we stopped working with them, Orlando wanted to do more streetwear stuff and I wanted to do more film and business. I had deferred from Emerson, and I thought I might as well go. I knew going into college that I wasn't going to graduate. I went to prove to my parents that it wasn't for me. I did a semester there and I'm so happy I did that. One of my roommates is one of my business partners now. Another is a sales rep. Anothers does digital stuff with media for my current business. While I was there, I was working on developing a VR camera. I was busy filing provisional patent applications for that. Was not going to class. When I started testing out and proving the method and filing for my IP, I knew again that school wasn't for me and decided that I needed to drop out. So I moved back home and had a bunch of other app ideas and business ventures, in addition to to the VR cameras, to pursue. Used his college fund to fund a business venture. Used as seed money to build current business. Garden House brands.

I'm starting to realize now, how much my lives and my friends lives are based on high school and college. How old were you when you dropped out and went back home.

I was 18/19. I think a lot of this was luck. I met Logic early on and that launched me into this crazy professional career early on. That really opened my eyes, travelling around the country, directing big music videos.

So then I dropped out and I was back home working on the cameras. Did a coding boot camp with General Assembly in their second ever cohort. It was so eye opening. It was like going to Hogwarts. A really incredible couple of months. What would've been another semester at Emerson, I did the GA thing. While I was there, my cofounder Dom, also dropped out of college. He was developing protoype of the Dom Pen, our first product. I was working for a hip hop and electronic festival called Electro. We reconnected there. He showed me the prototype there. His parents weren't comfortable with him mixing in his basement, but he knew my parents were comfortable. He came to my house with the supplies and we started mixing and doing some R&D together.