Jon Ballard
CEO
Foremost Media
Janesville, WI USA
“Don’t be afraid to try.”
Videos
By Roadtrip NationJon Ballard
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
In high school, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do—I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur but I didn’t have much direction outside of that.
I spent a couple of years in college struggling to focus and figure out what I wanted to do.
I got the opportunity to open up a restaurant with a friend of mine and it actually ended up being pretty successful.
I wanted to build a website for my restaurant but it was expensive to outsource it, so I decided to teach myself how to do it.
Other people started asking me to help them build an online presence for their businesses as well—I would work at the restaurant during the day and then go home at night and build websites.
I eventually sold the restaurant and went back to school for programming.
My business partner and I started Foremost Media back in 2001 and I’ve been leading the company as CEO since!
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Career
CEO
I run a web development and search engine optimization company.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Entrepreneurship
Technology
Working with Others
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for high school students
It all starts with networking. I love when kids contact me to shadow me for the day. Try doing that with someone local to you. Take tours of companies. Go to early releases or other events in the industry. If you're interested in technology, take some of those classes outside of your core classes.
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Society in General:
"You need to move to Silicon Valley or a big city if you want to work in tech."
