Exploring Life & Business with Austin Jones of Cedar Steel Media

Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Jones.

Hi Austin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
My story starts with a young boy that had a different kind of drive-in him to be successful. I grew up with a single mother and a dad that wasn’t really part of the picture. This made it very hard and forced me to grow up faster than I should have.

When I was 14 years old, I started my first business because I was barely old enough to get a real job. I used my mom’s social security number to sign up for this dog boarding app that would allow me to connect with vacationers looking for a place for their dogs to stay.

I didn’t realize how much signing up for that app was going to teach me about finances, intrapersonal skills, the importance of happy customers, making my own money, and a whole lot more. About a year into it, I had acquired 55, five-star reviews and was one of the top dog sitters in Overland Park. I ended up saving up for my first car which was a 2012 Audi A5 before I turned 16 years old with the money from my dog boarding business.

From there, I was attending Blue Valley West high school starting on the Varsity Football team from my sophomore year on and also attending the CAPS program through the school. Football and CAPS were my two favorite things in high school. The CAPS program was an abbreviation for (Center for Advanced Professional Studies). I was attending the innovation and entrepreneurship program there with one of the best teachers if not the best teacher I’ve ever had.

Shoutout Mr. Farmer! The goal of that program was to come up with a business idea that you would take to compete at the end of the year. This competition was at Kansas State University and the end of the year is approaching as I am finishing up my idea. I found a coordinate plotting software for my drone and decided to try to make a business targeting real estate agents that were selling land. The drone would fly autonomously for me and the land agent would get a video to post for sale.

It was a Win-Win. I ended up winning the competition and that was what led me to continue to pursue a career in Videography. I have worked a few wage-based jobs such as Higdon & Hale CPA Firm, and Top Golf. Waterway Car Wash, & Lifetime Fitness. That is also what led me to want to work for myself full time. In December 2019, I graduated high school a semester early and started attending Johnson County Community College.

I am currently working for myself full time and the name of my production company is Cedar Steel Media. We specialize in bringing value and solutions to our customers through our videos. Things have been going well since I decided to go full time about August of 2021.

I am networking with other creators in this space and building my clientele every month! I am very excited about what the future holds!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, it has not been a smooth road.

Some struggles that I have had are learning to value myself correctly and learning how to offer the next best alternative solutions to my clients when either I mess up or my technology malfunctions. Technology is amazing except when it isn’t.

There are different struggles in different fields of work but I would say, I speak for a lot of creatives when they are just starting out that pricing your work accurately and sticking to it is one of the toughest things to do.

As you shoot more videos, get better, but with more work in you will realize what you are worth.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Cedar Steel Media?
Cedar Steel Media is a hand-forged creative production company that specializes in bringing the visions that our clients have to live. We are known for our creative, scroll-stopping, videos for your social media or website that help promote your brand!

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.cedarsteelmedia.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cedarsteelmedia?utm_medium=copy_link
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCR_7Q82c8edZMTYhxrGh1Qg