LEJ Creative

LEJCreative is a full service Business Applications Development Firm specializing in the development of web based and part time internet applications. We offer print, collateral, identity and video production as well for our clients but base our business around the expanding need for consolidated, robust, and intuitive business application that enable companies of any size to stay focused on their primary goals.

What you sell / services you offer (brief description of your company):

Although this may be a bit redundant, our firm delivers high-end flash based rich internet applications either via the web, PDA, or as part time internet desktop applications. We, more than anything, offer our clients a relationship, a true vested interest in this companies well being. We like to, whenever possible, be selective about which clients we enter into a relationship with, we make sure our interests lie in the same direction, this way we feel as concerned about their company as they do.

Have you always wanted to run your own business?

No, not at all... in fact it was the farthest thing from my mind. I was just sick of seeing bad decisions being made in some of the companies I worked for. In one company there was a 7:1 ration for manager to developers, so every meeting we would have it would turn into a job security competition where no matter if the idea was good or bad, people would argue their ideas to the death just so they could have a leg up on the next person. Going over budget and over time because of managerial bureaucracy is not my idea of fun, and web development of any kind... should be fun, its creative work and challenges your mind.

What were some of your previous jobs / companies?

Wow… you could write a book on this topic alone. I’ve worked a lot of odd jobs in my day, I believe my first job was in a print shop, collating papers and stuffing envelopes basically a grunt but I was very young so the role was fitting. In order, from that job onwards, I have worked at a bagel store as a sandwich maker, frame and art store as a framer, balloon animator (I was that guy that approached everyone in restaurants asking if they wanted balloons for their kids) this job was surprisingly lucrative, basically every family that took their kids out for a Friday night dinner looked forward to a few minutes of peace and quiet while their children look mesmerized at the balloon animal or sword etc… My next job was a few years later while I was in college; I went to Saint Louis University in Madrid Spain. I took a work study job with the schools magazine to earn a few bucks that I could use for the weekend debauchery. About a year later I moved to the main campus in St. Louis, MO and interned with a company called Trilinear Corporation. They made GPS tracking systems for trucking fleets. I worked there as their in house designer for their website and pamphlets and some collateral. My next job after that was where the real work began. I hooked up with Aquent, a talent / head hunter agency, took their little tests and scored rather well if I do say so myself.

My first job as a consultant was with a company in Homdel, NJ called IMC. There I worked as a flash, multimedia developer, I was still very green and luckily the community was thriving and my bosses were cool enough to encourage us all to learn. After that they placed me in Datascope a medical engineering corporation to handle most of their multimedia development. At this point I was only 21 and felt I wanted to move back to St. Louis and well… be 21… and hang out with my friends while I worked a bit. When I moved back to Saint Louis I continued to freelance for a while under my freelance company EXIT152. Shortly after moving back I got set up with Modis IT another talent agency. They placed me over at a company called Maritz where I developed E-Learning modules and courses in a small team. Once the gig ended I called a friend of mine and started working with a multimedia/communications firm, Kupper Parker. Somehow the job ended up feeling like a complete demotion and like I just traveled back in time about 4 years to my position at IMC. KPC had me doing a lot of grunt work, I was handling content edits and email blasts after having developed high-end business applications for the last 3 years. Needless to say it grew old, fast. Not utilizing your employees true potential is stiffening and will eventually force them to leave, and that’s exactly what happened, I left, moved back to Montclair, NJ my home town and started LEJCreative.

Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself academically?

There is a quote by Mark twain I live by, “I never let my schooling interfere with my education”. My qualifications and academia I consider two separate entities. Most of my qualifications, most of the things I have learned were not taught to me in school. Don’t get me wrong, school is an amazing thing, it is a powerful and inspiring institution, but it’s not for everyone and I was definitely not for me. I went to school for Engineering, Mechanical to be specific.

To me the analytics and logical processes of engineers and programmers, problem solvers as a whole, fascinated me, and the “problem – solution” process comes fairly easily to me. I met a friend, Goran Jasipovic, from Serbia while at Madrid; he was a true computer geek. He knew code and programming backwards and forwards. He is the person I would say pushed me into doing websites and developing code. I started separating myself farther and farther from my schooling, going out more, learning more code and really putting in the long nights on my new Pentium 75. After a while the only real courses I took were calc, chem, and c everything else was in my mind a waste of time. Once I moved back to the main campus I found myself with a un quenchable thirst to develop code and absolutely no desire to go back to school and study English or philosophy just to meet the gen ed requirements.

How / when did the idea of your website / company come about?

I used to freelance under the company name EXIT152, which if anyone knows NJ, on the garden state parkway there are 176 miles, but only 175 exits. Exit152 is the only exit not on the parkway, ironically that would be the exit for Montclair. Exit 152 became a pretty well known company, but the switch to a formal entity, for me, I wanted to have something a little bit identifiable, call it vanity or whatever I wanted to see my name in the company. so Ken Lejnieks (exit152) became LEJCreative.

If you could give readers of this book one piece of advice when starting up a business, what would it be?

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