We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jon-Michael Narvaez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jon-Michael below.

Jon-Michael, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you’re open to it, can you talk to us about the best (or worst) investment you’ve made. What’s the backstory and the relevant context behind why you made the investment?

As a business owner and freelance creative, the best investment I’ve made was learning to code. Programming has made me a stronger problem solver and now I can create the digital tools my business needs to allow us to grow online and in-person.

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

My name is Jon-Michael Narvaez; I am a freelance menswear stylist and full-stack developer. My journey began nine years ago while working for a small business center located on the north side of San Antonio, Texas.

As an operations director, I worked closely with other entrepreneurs and began to pick up on cues from the very successful and those who were still building. One day, in passing, a client was looking for someone to style a menswear shoot. I put together a small mood board and gave my pitch to land the opportunity. That gig would snowball into me becoming published a few times and growing my book of private style for clients.

Several years later, the evolution of business would lead me to offer my own products (suits and dress shoes) and services to clients who were interested in having their own personal stylist. In 2018, I took on partners to grow the business on the retail front.

In the process of growing, we had some road bumps with vendors that would slow down our projected launch date and by this time it was winter of 2019 and COVID was about to change everything.

In short, during the lockdown, I taught myself to code and applied my new knowledge to my now re-branded businesses. We launched the SBJM Footwear Application on Android and iOS in 2021 and this year (2022) we plan to launch our web application for The Royal Guard which will offer made-to-order suits, and suit separates.

I would say I am most proud of the outcome that came from me investing my time into myself. Learning to code has not only helped me grow professionally but opened doors in other spaces that I would have never imagined being involved in.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I let my work speak for itself. I have always either come from high recommendations or someone has seen something I was a part of and made the time to connect with me for work.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

Yes, we actively sell online at stylebyjm.com and directly on the mobile app. We chose Shopify as the platform for our business because of the analytics and I as a developer know how to connect the API directly to a mobile device.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jonmichaelnarvaez.com
• Instagram: @jonmichaelnarvaez
• Other: www.bboycreative.com www.stylebyjm.com www.theroyalguard.club

Image Credits
@jonmichaelnarvaez, @joshhuskin