We recently connected with Jason Heien and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I have seen plenty chatbots on websites. They all are pretty much the same; too pushy or blocked information until you provided personal information such as name, email, phone number.

I had the idea of creating an intelligent AI chatbot for WordPress, that is just the opposite. Casually asking for your name to personalize, but you don’t have to. It isn’t even required to provide your email or phone number.

I have it set up so that it provided intelligent, focused answers that come directly from your site, while logging the questions and answers. and afterwards, prompts the visitor to fill out a form or just provide their first name, and email or phone number if they have unanswered questions.

Selling without selling. No one like the pushy furniture salesperson. No one like the pushy used car salesman. Keep it casually professional.

Jason, 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?

My name is Jason Heien, and I am owner of MindChip Industries. We provide WordPress engineering, development, hosting, SEO Services, optimization, and security for WordPress sites. All our developed sites are easily maintained by the client which ends up saving them money. Each site is unique and custom built to the clients needs so there isn’t extra bloat, code, or fluff on the site to slow it down.

As a Veteran Owned Business, we offer reasonably priced web solutions, and only provide hosting on servers that are located in the United States.

I was recently named:
2026 Top 10 Best Detroit Web Developers
2025 Top 6 Best Detroit WordPress Designers
2025 3rd Place World Champion styled mustache with natural beard under 15cm
2023 1st Place National Champion for Styled Mustache Natural Beard
2018 Wahl Grooming Man of the Year, Best Facial Hair in America
2017 Wahl Man of Detroit, Best Facial Hair in Detroit

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

It was 2010. I was an elite Flash Developer. I was strictly Flash development.
April 29th of that same year, I remember it distinctly because it was the day Steve Jobs announced Flash would not be supported on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It was the day that I had to make a decision and quick.

I had several options, HTML, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress. I quickly tried them all. I found WordPress to be the easiest for my to do what I wanted to do, so I started learning. FAST. First it was store bought themes and testing environments. Picking the themes apart to learn how to do things, learn PHP and start coding.

Fast forward to today, there isn’t anything that I can’t do in WordPress. There hasn’t been a single request that hasn’t been possible.

From creating custom themes, plugins, functionality that is specific to the clients needs.
I have created custom membership sites with custom workflows to match how the client operates. Data Visualization to help clients get the information they need faster. I have build a custom quoting system for a roofing business with specific notifications to teams members when it is accepted, which then start an entirely new workflow for ordering materials, scheduling and accepting payment when the job is complete. I have built a sports recruiting platform to help high school students with scholarships. All in WordPress

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Since I left the US Navy, well, even while I was enlisted, I have had a side hustle. On the ship it was cutting hair. I ended making so much money, that when we pulled into port, I would be spending the money I made from cutting hair, and not touch my paycheck.

Since I left the US Navy, I a career laid out for me, from the type of work I did in the Navy. I was in the electronics and engineering field for more than a decade, all while designing print media, and websites for the local bands that I liked. I ended up getting several clients, from my portfolio, which helped my portfolio grow even more.

Right around the same time that Flash was dying, I was working in the automotive test and engineering industry. I ended up being a casualty of the auto industry, but I had two resumes; a “professional” one and a “creative” portfolio.

I figured I would have 50% more chances of finding another position with them both, so I decided that whichever one hits first would be the one that I am going to stick with. Luckily my portfolio won, and my career in the creative engineering industry started!

15 year later, I had started my business, but it was still a side hustle. I was basically making 2 salaries and keeping my professional life separate from my freelance business, (even though I was doing the exact same things). I was working for the Automotive adjacent industry developing sites for OEM dealerships.

Then the tariffs were imposed, and the company I was working for had a reduction in force. Me, my boss, and half our team were let go. Being that so many people had already lost their jobs a few months earlier, I knew trying to get a new position would difficult. Luckily, I had been positioning my business to scale up, so that is exactly what I did. I invested in some new new tools to develop faster, created my industry leading AI Chatbot, and haven’t looked back. The great thing about my business is that I can scale it up or down as I need to, so while I am still looking, it is full steam ahead, and when I land something else, it goes back to being a side-hustle.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mindchip.net
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/mindchip
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Michigan.SEO.Services
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seomichigan/

Image Credits

Mark Byrnes
Eric Perry