Hi. I'm Jeffrey. I'm new-ish here!

Hello everyone! I'm Jeffrey. Most folks just call me Jeffy. I am a self-described "idea oven" and there are like, 200+ ideas that spill out of my brain. I love helping folks hone their own ideas or even sharing some of mine with the folks that might actually be able to execute on some of them.

By day, I am the Director of Programs & Strategic Partnerships at an innovation hub called Distillery Labs. DSTL is part of the Illinois Innovation Network - and what sets us apart is we are the only one of 15+ in the State of Illinois that isn't 'on-campus' at a university. So we are constantly pushing the boundaries and testing new ideas that can then scale to the other innovation hubs to build more public engagement. In this role, I wear several hats: I help founders and would-be founders get connected to resources that can help them with their businesses, I design programming to help folks that have the 'itch' find out if founder life is right for them as well as programming to help educate and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs in our region, I seek out programming that already exists that we can become a facilitator of, and I seek out partnerships with organizations for sponsorship, funding, knowledge-sharing, and resource-sharing. This role is a killer starting point for being a founder, myself, as I am in the right spot to be 'in the know' of programming that can help take my startups to the next level.

Next, I am working full-time on a bootstrapped and angel-supported endeavor called enterN. enterN is finally a hiring platform that is built for jobseekers first and that is giving a big finger to AI having decision-making abilities in the hiring process. Nothing impacts a person's lives and livelihood more than having access to steady, reliable, family-sustaining wages... Why on earth would we want some algorithm to determine our futures in this area? So, I - with ~20 years of talent acquisition experience plus a stint at Indeed.com, along Alyssa - our CTO with 20+ years of engineering experience and a stint at Indeed.com, Amanda - our CMO with 20+ years of marketing, front-end development, and UI/UX design experience and a stint at Indeed.com, Charlie - our data guru who spent 20+ years as a Google engineer, and Kelsey - who built one of the worlds' first preference-based algorithm architecture that drove a website to be one of the highest-traffic web properties on the globe - are building enterN after being in the trenches as someone behind the scenes and as jobseekers. Everyone knows the hiring process is broken. So, we have developed a bias-resistant, resume-free approach to hiring in the early-talent, entry-level, and front-line worker space; aiming to connect this talent with traditionally overlooked SMB employers to create new pathways to employment based on 60+ preference-based dimensions that produce the enterN professional DNA summary.

Finally, I had a hair-brained idea that started out as a joke but has evolved and has been refined and is getting more attention and traction than enterN (begrudgingly) but I am embracing it and devoting the necessary time along with another small team to build out this (slightly less engineering-intensive) platform called LooRevu. LooRevu is a community-driven platform with the aim of mapping all publicly available restrooms across the globe and then using that data to provide B2B customers with insights and opportunities to market on the platform.

I love to meet new people, I love to chat - and especially to have late-night philosophical deep-dives over extraordinarily silly topics. I am the first to admit that my ADHD-Augmented brain often provides obstacles to me providing timely responses... :)

If you like the same or want to chat about any of the following, just say hi!
- Founder Life
- Building Startup Ecosystems
- Founder Resources that are Missing
- Cats
- The Hiring Process
- Talent Acquisition
- Living Life on ~4 hours of sleep daily
- Deep Philosophical Discussions over Extraordinarily Silly Topics
- Public Bathrooms
- The Pitch Process
- Intros to VCs or Accelerators
- Marketing + Promotion
- Entering New Markets