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

Jesse, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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

The idea was not mine. It belonged to a friend, Senea Crystal. She was the first to suggest I start a blog about Savannah, Georgia’s food scene. We met days later to discuss what it was look like. She told me I would need a logo, a url, branding and a website. At that point, we began calling in favors from friends. It took months, 5-7 months to put all of the elements in place before we launch what was our original website on February 3 2010.

Jesse, 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 background was that of a news anchor. I spent 20 years working in television news before I made the switch to TV Food Show host. The disciplines are similar, but different in so much as the topic of conversation are very different. The digital era and social media has certainly brought on some competition, but we believe we have no true peer in our market. We are the leader in the market in food journalism and we are very proud of that.

Eat It and Like It is the voice of food in Savannah and Hilton Head Island. Of that, there is no doubt.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We had to convince the market that we were a food-related brand. What we do didn’t exist when we started. It was a foreign concept that we grew client by client, check by check. Blog by blog. Over the course of many years before Savannah really had a food scene to speak of.

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

My side hustle is now my full time career, yes. We were lucky in that Savannah’s food scene began to grow very quickly 3 years after we started our website. The amount of content available was significant. That was a major turning point for us. It gave me the confidence to leave my day job and make it a full time career.

Contact Info:

• Website: eatitandlikeit.com
• Instagram: @eatitandlikeit
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EatItandLikeIt
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-blanco-9a335297/
• Twitter: @eatitandlikeit

Image Credits
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