Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jerome Edwards. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jerome, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

What’s funny is that I’ve been thinking about this question since I was about 13 years old. I spent a lot of time volunteering in nursing homes and would always talk to the residents. What I remember most from those conversations is how almost all of them wished they would have taken more risks in their lives. Some of them always wanted to visit another country or would have liked to climb mountains. I’d hear stories of people wishing they would have pursued this career or gone skydiving. Anytime I asked why, I’d get some variation of, “I’m not sure, I guess I was afraid.” and that sentiment terrified me. When I think about my legacy and what people would remember me for, I’ve always wanted it to be known that I lived life. I want people to know that I had a curiosity about something and I went for it without hesitation.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So I originally studied biochemistry at the University of Texas of Austin. I was halfway through my junior year when all of a sudden I realized I wasn’t doing something that I wanted to do. So I dropped out and moved back to Houston. My mom was not happy lol. After about a year, I got into a corporate marketing job, which eventually led me to open my marketing agency a few years later.

That first year as a business owner was a struggle. My son had just entered the world and I was working 14-hour days learning new skills and finding new clients. But it was also the year that I learned that with enough effort and creativity, you really can make anything happen. That was in 2017.

Fast forward to COVID, and all business stopped. I was just in the middle of launching a CBD brand, alongside running my marketing agency, and the world shut down. It was wild because I randomly found myself as a contestant on season 10 of MasterChef (story for another time) right before the shutdown. When I got back from having no contact with the outside world for 2 weeks, the world had stopped. Overnight businesses were shutting down and I lost a lot of clients. That was rough.

During that shutdown, I decided that I needed to prepare for the event if something like that ever happened again, so I enrolled in a fintech program at Rice University in Houston. That kind of changed the course of things for me a bit. I got introduced to a whole new side of technology that I only had surface-level knowledge of. I started working with AI, developing software and building out algorithms. It was intense. And then I sat on that information for about a year. The world reopened and I was having clients reach back out, so things got a little busy.

That’s also when I met one of my current business partners. A buddy of mine introduced me and said we might be able to help each other. He was in the process of developing a new dating app and wanted someone who understood marketing. So we sat down and discussed his idea. Originally he was looking for someone to hire, but we ended up walking away as partners. in January 2022, we launched Wingr, our dating app that is currently available on Apple and Android devices.

As of 2024, we’ve been able to grow Wingr in 3 major cities: Houston, LA, and NY, and we’re still growing. I think what I am most proud of about that is that we have done this without any outside investors. We’ve built our team of developers, grown our branding and PR from scratch, and have seen continued growth month-over-month. I think it hit me that we were making waves once we got picked up for interviews by different news outlets. I think last year we did 3 diffrent shows to discuss Wingr.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

If I had to recommend a specific book, it would be The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. I just reread it a few days ago actually. The thing that I like about this book is the message behind following your personal legend. following a vision or dream that no one else can see, or even fully understand, is very daunting, and this book does a great job at illustrating that while not being too heady with advising on what challenges you’ll face following through.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One major lesson that I had to unlearn was the belief that to do something great, I had to do it on my own. Looking back, I don’t even know where I got that thought. But it’s something that I’ve learned will limit you and break you. When I first became an entrepreneur, my goal was to learn everything and to do everything. When you first start and have no experience or capital, it makes sense that you will have to wear a lot of hats. But I fell into a pattern of making money, providing for clients, and feeling burned out constantly. It wasn’t until Covid hit, and I was forced to slow down and rethink things, that I realized that to go far you need a team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://edwardsmediasolutions.com/
• Instagram: @howard_jerome
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@wingrdating instagram for wingr: @wingrdating