Today we’d like to introduce you to Joey Flores.
Joey, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I moved to Los Angeles when I was 20 years old and got my first job at a startup shortly after that. It wasn’t until my 3rd startup job that I finally landed at a company that would be successful. We were acquired by Experian, the global credit bureau. Having been employee number two for that company and seeing that people similar to me could build a successful company gave me the confidence to start my own company in 2010. We were fortunate enough to get into Y Combinator, which is the world’s best accelerator program for startups, and eventually we were acquired.
Being a part of the YC alumni community has changed my life many times over. Recently, one of the companies that is in the current W25 batch of YC startups contacted me about joining them as their sales and marketing leader. Pinch (www.startpinch.com), as we would come to brand it, has a crazy ambitious goal to provide split-second language translation in video calls, and the long term vision is even more audacious. I am excited that I get to work at the forefront of numerous industries and learn from incredible entrepreneurs and visionaries.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been anything BUT a smooth road. The first two startups I worked for went out of business. My own startup was in the process of shutting down due to lack of funding when we received our acquisition offer. I had to resign one of my jobs mid-pandemic because I found out about some dishonest business practices that I refused to be a part of. Over the past four years, I co-founded and built an art investment startup, which also had a tumultuous ride. This is the life of a startup entrepreneur.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I do just about everything for tech companies outside of building the actual technology, and even there I provide product strategy and optimization tactics that impact the future of the product. At Pinch (www.startpinch.com), I am in charge of taking our video call with translation technology to market, figuring out who our customers are goiing to be, what they need, and how to find them and communicate with them. Once we gain a certain amount of traction, I will be building out the sales and marketing teams, and helping scale the startup to millions of users.
I think what sets me apart from many other professionals is my level of creativity and broad skill set. In one moment, I can be very tactical, relying on data to make important decisions about optimizing and refining marketing, product, sales funnels, etc., and in the next, I can be very creative, making ads and commercials, creating content, and dreaming up marketing campaigns that exist outside the box and often drive big results with minimal investment of capital.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.startpinch.com
- Instagram: instagram.cm/startpinch
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/startpinch
- Twitter: https://x.com/startpinch
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@startpinch
