As a former IT employee in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer of D.C. and founder of a popular music blog, Winston Ford can’t see himself doing anything other than working with startups nowadays. He says he thrives on being surrounded by other creative entrepreneurs and vows to never work in a cubicle ever again.
We sat down with him for this edition of Do What You Love – a series that showcases entrepreneurs behind startups and small businesses. Here’s what he shared:
I grew up in Tuskegee, Ala., a really small town with around 9,000 people. There’s more than one stoplight there, but it’s definitely not New York City. A week before I graduated from Elon University in North Carolina, I moved to Washington D.C. and worked in the city’s IT department for nine years.
I started a music blog called The Couch Sessions in 2004 after a visit in London. I loved British music, and I was bored at work most of the time, so I started to write about music in my office cubicle. It eventually became popular among the industry crowd – Lindsay Lohan, Questlove, Diplo, and other artists were fans, which was incredible. I was able to meet a lot of my musical idols through Couch Sessions. Artists like Wiz Khalifa would bump into me and say that they loved my writing. It was crazy and a bit of a whirlwind for me because I was a computer programmer who was least likely to be involved with the music industry.
After meeting a bunch of industry people at parties, I realized that I needed that to move to New York because many assumed I already lived here. It was basically an avalanche of things in 2011 that made me quit my job, move to New York, and work on the blog full-time. The Couch Sessions is still around, producing monthly New York events centering around food, music, and fashion.
It’s great to be part of a company where I feel like I’m building the brand. In addition to Couch Sessions, I’m currently focused on my role as the Director of Digital at Tasty, doing everything from working with developers to creating digital strategies for our clients. It’s a startup that’s been around for a while, but we’re a small team. I don’t feel like I just come into work to get a paycheck.
Tasty is a boutique marketing, branding, and development agency. We do everything from creative mobile design to deploying apps. I would say our strengths are user experience and design. We work with a lot of different brand, and we also work with startup founders to take what they ‘put on a napkin’ and bring it to life.
It’s the creative energy in this city that gets me up every day. I love being surrounded by so many entrepreneurs in New York City who have amazing ideas to change the world.
I plan on making 2014 the year of finding balance for myself. As an over-eager entrepreneur, I’ve spent many years doing too much at once and getting burnt out. This is the year I’m going to try to narrow my focus and bring a little more stability to my life.
