We were lucky to catch up with Edward Thornton recently and have shared our conversation below.
Edward, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
After growing tired of the lack of Black representation in the technology field, and in his hometown of St. Louis, Thornton founded Street Genius Inovations a Digital Products Studio which has its sights set at the top. Also He decided to create Black TECH STL a networking space for Black IT professionals with a goal to learn best industry practices and to help advance their careers. To that end, the Tech and Chill networking events were established to turn St. Louis into the next big tech hub by connecting some of the most talented and innovative people in the city.
Edward, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
EDWARD THORNTON IS PRESIDENT AND CEO OF STREET GENIUS A COMPANY HE FOUNDED IN 2015, THAT HAS GROWN FROM AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING COMPANY INTO A THRIVING INNOVATIONS FIRM. WITH EDWARD AT ITS HELM, STREET GENIUS IS NOW ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED AND
HIGHEST PERFORMING FIRMS IN THE MIDWEST REGION. STREET GENIUS HAS SUCCESSFULLY OUTPACED ITS
COMPETITION And will continue FIELD BY UNDERSTANDING THEIR CLIENTS’ DIVERSE NEEDS AND STRIVING TO PROVIDE
THE BEST RESULTS IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING MARKETPLACE.
We started as a classic software company. We were a team of software engineers writing great code to deliver features our customers requested. From this perspective, we were successful. We delivered high-quality service, and our
customers were satisfied with the work of our developers. However, our team felt inefficient. Sleepless nights, customer
service issues and technology changes in the software industry helped us to change our business model. Now, we are
particularly focused on building own products. We encourage our team to generate, validate, and implement ideas
for successful new products. From this went went to primarily producing our own products. We started off like most tech companies by selling physical products. We launched our “Gliese Smart Glasses that sold over
10,000 units, but even then we knew that the problems associated with selling physical products was not something we wanted to keep going long term. We Decided to focus on primarily digital products. And before long we had several digital products selling in Walmart along with other huge corporations. This culture of innovation has paid off, and we are
now preparing the launch of our tenth paid product. And that’s to say nothing of the dozen or so concepts that are still in their early stages.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
WE USE SEVERAL DIFFERENT PLATFORMS To sell, but outside of our primary website “www.streetgenius.net” We have partnered with Amazon and thru this partnership we have sold several of our digital products. We have several best selling books on amazon along with A machine learning voice Application for Amazon Alexa , which teaches people how to “freestyle rap” and rhyme words together better than ever before. Not to mention we have out first Street Genius Film we are distributing thru Amazon which debuts on Amazon prime video on March 14th 2023
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Street Genius As with Edward Thornton at its helm & Edward being a person that was raised in the projects surrounded by crime and poverty mindsets and also having a handicap mother. Edward also attended a school with over a 50% high school drop out rate and was able to not only graduate but also attend UMSL college and maintain a 3.0 grade point average. All of this is said not to dredge up the past, but to emphasize the great determination of the companies’ leader.
Edward has expressed in numerous interviews that he has never failed at anything in life. He sets goals and he accomplishes them. And right now his mind is set on creating a successful digital products company and not even the greatest adversity would be able to stop that. His determination is magnetic, which means he inspires everyone around him which leads to a motivated teams, which leads to success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://streetgenius.net
- Instagram: streetgenius_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Streetgenius.net
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/streetgenius/
- Twitter: @streetgenius_
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/streetgenius
Image Credits
Street Genius Innovations