At 23 years old, I was the Branding Coordinator at Starwood Hotels while Westin was going through a full rebrand. It was one of the best experiences of my life — getting to work hands-on with such a bold shift for a brand that was a bit boring (not like the W hotel — wow I loved the W). I downloaded the entire brand manual, which was hundreds of pages, and would read it all the time.
After that, I worked for the British Columbia Human Resources Management Association, where I coordinated their online community and professional development program. Then boom — 2 years later I moved to Paris and became a digital nomad. A super broke one at first. Then a couple of speakers that I worked with at BCHRMA (a lawyer that specialises in succeeding in challenging conversations and dealing with difficult personalities, and an entrepreneur that works with organisations on integrating Gen Y, Z, etc. into the workplace) hired me to manage their professional development programs remotely!
Then my best friend — (we always wanted to start a business together) — flew over. He had just built an affiliate program that took a doctor's $2,000 government grant and turned it into over $1 million in sales in one year. They were expanding to the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, and he had me run the affiliate program for the emerging markets. So I did. We launched our online presence company called Builder Buds — we killed it. He was INSANELY talented in so many things, especially the affiliate space. We went to the affiliate summit in Vegas and were surrounded by thousands of people — some trying to make money online and lots that make HUGE money in all aspects of everything digital.
After a few years, I moved to Hawaii to renew my French visa and ended up somehow managing one of the creators of the Windows operating system's properties and his best friend who owns his Capital Management firm. He bought the last waterfront property in Kehi, Maui, and I moved to the property (which they do not live at) and managed a $3 million renovation. I would go to their other houses in Bellevue, Washington and Idaho. I could only stay a year there, then I moved to London and once again became a digital nomad. I started a voucher website, which was not a one-person job, and ended up meeting someone that was about to open an insanely beautiful and amazing restaurant. They asked me if I could give the staff some training, and after the first day, they asked me to come one day a week. I was hesitant, trying to focus on my voucher site, but negotiated an amazing rate so I said okay. Well, that one day per week never happened — it was six days a week from the start. Two years later I opened my own restaurant, a taco and tequila bar — which I had dreamed of doing forever. My parents have lived in Mexico for 20 years, and I've spent so much time there. I get it. I understand the food and the industry. I flew to Mexico City, took a bunch of cooking experiences, created a menu, made every recipe, trained my chefs and all my front of house staff — and it was amazing.
Fast forward to now — I moved to New Zealand 9 years ago (my best friend of 20 years lives here) — and I now own a creative space in Auckland called JaceSpace. I love it. Come experience it, I would love to show you (it's 5 mins from SkyCity). The space runs more efficiently now, which gives me time to work on other projects I'm passionate about.
I have just built an app to make myself easier to do business with and eliminate anything annoying. It's for creators, agencies, and production companies — and it gives them direct access to the space through the app with no back and forth, and makes it super easy for them to pay me.
In the background, I am working on a few side projects (semrush.review is my affiliate site about to launch — I just need to replace and add images, and do my user experience test etc., so it's not complete but check it out). I'm constantly taking screen-captures of random websites for brands I love — who they are and what they do — throwing them into Photoshop, moving things around, and sending it to them. I just love walking through user experience. Small things like broken links, overlapping text, layout bugs, or realllllllyyyyy Loooooooooooong links (wink wink) — these things always happen in business, and I'm always grateful when someone messages me about mine too.
I've been going to SkyCity for years — not so often now with my space, but I love it. About seven months ago, I was looking at something in SkyCity's digital flow and some things just didn't make sense. Darwin, MGM acquisition, the offload, and then fragmentation.
To be very clear — I built this private visual presentation to create a unified online portfolio for SkyCity. No SEO has been harmed in the creation. These website pages are password-protected and every single page includes a non-crawl meta tag, so these pages are not indexed by search engines. SkyCity's SEO will not be impacted in any way.
This site may look live — and technically it is — but it's invisible to the internet.
I believe SkyCity will find real value in this. It's strategic, it's scalable, and it addresses a clear issue: a fragmented online ecosystem across your digital properties.
Do you love it? If so, let's talk.
Whether this turns into a full acquisition, a one-off, or nothing at all — all of that is totally fine. Just know that no matter what happens, I won't disappear after a handover unless you want me to. I don't care if it's next month, next year, or some random Tuesday — if you ever need anything, I'm a phone call away.
I built this to be complete. To add proper strategic value to your brand. And if you want to meet, ask questions, or explore other ideas around consolidating your brand's digital presence, then I am keen for the ride.
I appreciate you, and I place a high value on your time. And mine. So thanks for reading this, and I look forward to hearing from you.
— Jace