We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful James Warnken. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with James below.

James, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

As I entered college, I knew I wanted to work in the marketing field, but didn’t know much beyond that point. I shadowed various roles at a local marketing firm and explored different sides of the field including video, photo, writing, SEO, and design. SEO caught my experience the most and so I decided to dive in and learn and explore it. Soon after, I found myself building my first website for my clothing company which was helping cover the cost of college. With this new website, I began to try different things including SEO, SEM, and social media, and through trial and error, I began to find different combinations that worked.

As the clothing company grew, some of my friends and family began to ask for my help with their websites, social media, and paid campaigns. I was working and doing exactly what I wanted to do! I slowly quit the clothing business and focused on helping others with their online marketing. As college was coming to an end for me, I knew I needed to scale and take things to the next level.

So, as any entrepreneur would do, I gave myself a challenge. The challenge was to scale my own business to a certain point by the end of the summer or find a “real job”. While this was a short timeframe, I knew I had a shot. During the summer, I began to sell my services in digital marketing and it was not what you would expect. My sales strategy was to go to local events, farmer’s markets, craft shows, and similar events. At those events, I would network with vendors as a consumer and learn about their business. I would see if it was just a hobby, or if they wanted it to be a full-time thing. My secret trick was to grab a business card and check for a website. If they didn’t have a website and seemed like they were in it for the long-term game, I would offer to help them get online and grow! For me, this worked, and it worked well as I wanted experience, I wanted to build a portfolio, and they received a great deal on a new website being built! In most cases, I was building websites for somewhere between $150 and $300.

By the end of the summer, I had built dozens of websites and scaled to a good place. The not-so-happy ending was that it was below my goal. So I started applying for jobs and I now had a great resume and portfolio to show! I soon after joined a local startup called Apex Communications Network which at the time was focusing on podcasting, social media, and content production. Their creative skills and my technical skills were the perfect match, especially since this was the same year the pandemic shut everything down and everyone was forced to move online. I have now been with Apex Communications Network for three and a half years and am a member of the executive team helping to expand our capabilities and grow to fulfill any digital needs an individual, business, or organization might have. The most notable portion that we have added and fully embraced is the ability to ensure digital accessibility and compliance with regulations. As a professional with a visual disability, I have grown a passion for making sure we provide accessible experiences for our clients, and their customers, from start to finish!

James, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is James Warnken. I am 25 years old and live with a visual disability called Stargardt disease. I started my career in the world of digital marketing working on projects in web development and design, graphics design, search engine optimization, social media marketing, paid campaigns, and various other small projects. I worked to become as well-rounded in the tech and digital space as I could. After 4 or so years, I stumbled into a conversation on the topic of digital accessibility. I was hooked immediately! I spent more than a year researching, networking, and exploring the space before earning my CPACC certification in accessibility. Today, I am a lead partner with Apex Communications Network, an A11y consultant with the Blind Institute of Technology. board member with several organizations in the education, web3, and mental health sectors, and partial owner in several other businesses.

My mission is to make the online space more accessible, equitable, and inclusive for everyone, regardless of abilities.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Focus more on building relationships and less on selling and making a bunch of money.

I have always been a firm believer that money will come as long as you are a good person and do great work. I pride myself on being in the moment,m fully transparent, and available when others need me. That is what has led to my wide network and continued professional growth over the last 6+ years.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

While I am not a founder at Apex Communications Network, I do think it is a rather cool story of how we came together to work.

As I was growing my business, Jan was growing Apex and since we were both in the same local area, it was only a matter of time before our paths crossed. During one of my routine client visits, I was handed a packet from another local company wanting to do some social media and marketing work. I was managing this client’s website and helping them with their SEO at the time. After looking over the document, it sounded solid, so I asked who it was from. My client said that it was from Apex and that’s when the light bulb went off.

Before this point, I had been following Jan and Apex on social media to see what they were up to and this was our first “competitive encounter”. We ended up on the phone discussing this client and what they planned to do. A long story short, we ended up meeting afterward to talk about business and what our goals were for our businesses. 3 and a half years later, I am still a member of the Apex team and we have proven that our decision to join forces was the right decision.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jameswarnken.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theapexchaser/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswarnken/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jameswarnken