The whole time I was in the industry, I was moonlighting a career in the music industry. After a long work day, I would go home and teach myself music production and the inner workings of the music industry. Over time, I placed my production work with various TV shows on different networks from MTV, VH1, ABC, etc. and with various music artists.

This is where I opened myself up to the world of marketing and brand development. At the time, my best friend and music artist couldn’t afford to hire agencies. So, I sat down and figured out how to do EVERYTHING. When I say everything, I mean everything from web design, web development, graphic design, photography, video production, and anything else needed to grow our careers.

I experimented with tactics that we now see as influencer marketing during the height of the social media platform, Vine. I made a big impact there and continued to build on those ideas moving into different social platforms.

We had a great run in the music industry and it’s the reason why I got into marketing. Record labels and music artists wanted to know how I built out my best friend’s community and helped him build a career in the music industry.

For the longest time, I was a busy freelancer. In December of 2019, I decided to actually build a business and stop being a freelancer. Out popped CRE8R.

I always followed what I wanted to do. I followed where my heart was. I followed what made me happy and where my interest went. I took all of that knowledge of business and creativity and poured it into figuring out ways to help build and develop brands.  

I never went to college to learn marketing. I never went to college. But, I never let the lack of schooling affect my education. I learned everything I needed to learn to move things forward and took the risks to build and experiment.

I do this because there’s an amazing feeling I get when I can take what I do to make other people happy. I believe in people. I believe in connections. I believe that we all have the opportunity to create something amazing, but sometimes you need help. I want to be that guy that helps.

Hello!

My name is Mike and I started CRE8R. I’ve been a creative my entire life. My entire thought process from business to creative has been influenced from so many things. I’m a classically trained pianist since the age of 4, picked up the guitar when I was 9 playing Nirvana, Green Day, and Smashing Pumpkins, got into the Hip Hop Culture at 13 as a dancer in the styles of Popping, Locking, and B-boying.

Dance took over the majority of my life at that point. I traveled everywhere to compete and at 19 I found myself in Los Angeles making the top 50 for Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance Season 1.

All throughout my schooling I was groomed to go to a University to be some type of engineer. But, I could never see myself in that role. So, I broke my parent’s hearts and told them that I wanted to go to Wyoming Technical Institute to study cars. Right out of high school I trained and studied at WyoTech in Automotive Technology and 9 months later I started working full time in the Automotive Industry.

I spent almost 10 years total in the industry and worked my way up different ladders becoming General Manager for Bridgestone Firestone Retail Operations and later an Estimator on the body and collision side.