Hi, I’m Wes.

TL;DR

I'm an optimist, technologist, remote work native, writer, experimenter, no-code and low-code developer, data nerd, Hoosier, and family man.

I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, thinking (and writing) about entrepreneurship, economics, Mexico City, Indianapolis, the democratization of software, urbanism, and coffee.

I'm a proud Hoosier who gets excited around my favorite holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Indianapolis 500—and weekends with close friends and family filled with Indiana University, Notre Dame, and Colts football.

Work

Current

I’m growing Rarely Decaf, a software development studio that partners with remote businesses to design and develop custom web applications in a fraction of the time as traditional development approaches.

Past

Stacker

Previously, I led Business Operations at Stacker, a software platform that makes it easy for anyone to build software to empower their teammates, partners, or customers.

During my tenure, I jumpstarted the company’s people, legal, and finance functions.

Stacker is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and Initialized Capital.

Pactero

Before Rarely Decaf, I founded a "Stripe for Income Share Agreements" called Pactero.

Pactero was backed by the On Deck Runway Fund and Village Global, an early stage venture capital firm backed by Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Abby Johnson, Magic Johnson, Anne Wojcicki & more. After working on the problem for 10 months, I shut down the startup and returned the remaining capital to investors. You can read more about my journey here and here.

Microverse

Before Pactero, I led growth at Microverse (YC S19), where I joined as the first marketing and growth employee and balanced high-level strategy with scrappy execution to lead the growth our new enrollments 22% MoM (on average) for 13 months (December 2018 – January 2020)

To get there, I spearheaded several marketing and growth initiatives. I managed paid ads, allocated our marketing and growth budget, hacked together our referral program, wrote website copy, configured drip campaigns, created inbound and success story content, hired and managed freelancers, agencies, and new team members, launched cold outreach campaigns, created analytics dashboards, coordinated in-person meetups, launched on Product Hunt, and tested dozens of 3rd party tools and APIs

I was also able to foster and shape Microverse’s remote culture and communication as the full-time team grew from 2 to 20+ people

Other

Before Microverse, I learned a lot through freelance and part-time work, dipping my toes into launching my own projects, and growing communities.

Here are the highlights:

  • I worked semi-remotely to create content, build community, and manage analytics for a Midwest-based B2B SaaS startup called Cheddar.
  • I founded Intask, a platform to connect students and businesses through intern-like tasks. I had some traction, won 3rd in a student pre-accelerator program, learned a lot about being scrappy, and eventually decided to shut it down to explore my curiosities about the changing relationship between last-mile education and work.
  • I cofounded StartupIU, a cross-campus organization at Indiana University that supported student entrepreneurs, changemakers, and innovators. I took charge of creating and co-manging our StartupIU newsletter, which grew from a 400 person list-serv to a newsletter with over 1500 subscribers.
  • I had a brief stint as a marketing intern at Hyde Park Venture Partners, a Midwest-focused venture capital fund.
  • I maintained a blog, writing on topics at the intersection of entrepreneurship and education before deciding to switch over to Medium.
  • I’ve written a variety of freelance content on education and entrepreneurship in Latin America that’s been featured in publications like the USA Today CollegeCuba Journal, and the Startup Frontier.
  • I helped a friend’s Barcelona-based startup market to an English audience by organizing a cool promotional video.

Projects & Links

I spend time thinking (and writing) about entrepreneurship, small businesses, technology, Mexico City, Indianapolis and Carmel (Indiana), the "no-code" movement, AI, urbanism, and coffee.‍

I also frequently tinker around with my own projects that use low-code tools and AI APIs.

When I publish my thoughts or projects, they mostly go on Twitter. Periodically, I'll sum up some of those thoughts on my personal newsletter.‍

Other past writing lives on Medium.

In the past, I've given talks on growth.

Talk to me

You can find me in-person splitting my time between Indianapolis and Mexico City, or online during a caffeine-fueled tweet spree.

You can also email me. My personal email is my Twitter username at gmail dot com.