Sales manager
Early Media was an Austin startup that turned indie films into viral clips and paid influencers to spread them.
At 16 I was its sales manager and ran every client relationship.
The company was acquired for millions, and I turned down an $80K role to stay at Alpha.
John Alznauer started Early Media at 19 and brought me on at 16, paid on commission. It was my first time working inside a real company, and on a team that small I learned fast. John taught me business, sales and negotiation. He was my soundboard and my toughest critic, and he took my interest in entrepreneurship from a spark to a roaring fire.
An indie filmmaker's hardest problem is getting people to see the film. Early Media solved it with clips. We cut the most viral moments from a film and sent them to a network of about 2,000 micro-influencers: movie pages with 5,000 to 100,000 followers on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts, matched by genre. Horror clips went to horror pages, comedy to comedy.
Filmmakers paid $5 for every 1,000 views, the influencers earned $1, and Early Media kept the difference. No views, no bill.
I owned every client relationship, from the first hello to the last invoice. I met filmmakers at events, got them on a call, ran the call, onboarded them, sent the invoices and managed the account from there.
John sent me to film events with one job: meet as many filmmakers as possible. I rode a Greyhound alone to an indie-film event in Waco, booked calls with the filmmakers I met there, and was invited to one's home in Dallas. My first deal came in at about $3,000.
Filmmakers get pitched all the time. I asked about their films instead: what they'd made, who it was for and what was standing in the way. By the time we got to Early Media, I knew which clips and which pages would work for them.
My approach was never to pitch. It was to start a genuine conversation and be curious.
In March 2025 I worked SXSW Film & TV, the film week of South by Southwest, Austin's film, music and tech festival. That week I landed my biggest deal, about $15,000, with Kurt Ravenwood, a producer of Hundreds of Beavers. The film was made for $150,000 and grossed about $1.6 million in theaters, built on a self-distribution run of more than 200 screenings that Kurt led. He was in Austin to speak on a SXSW panel about producing films outside New York and LA.
That spring, John sold Early Media for millions. I'm under a nondisclosure agreement, so I can't share the details. As he built his team under the new owner, John offered me an $80K role. I was 16.
Taking it meant leaving Alpha, where my full scholarship covered about $40,000 a year, and if the job didn't work out, I couldn't crawl back. Two more years in that environment were worth more to me than the salary, so I said no. John is still a friend and one of my recommenders, and he still brings up hiring me.
Founder, Early MediaMy first boss, mentor and friend