Jason Yelowitz
- Mostly Retired Online Business M&A Advisor, Serial Entrepreneur
School Information
School: University of California, Santa Barbara
College Major: Business
Years at College Works: 1993 to 1996
Career Information
Working For:
Title: Mostly Retired Online Business M&A Advisor, Serial Entrepreneur
Industry: Internet
Brief Description of Duties / Responsibilities:
I’ve decided to mostly retire. I love Quiet Light Brokerage and was honored to spend nearly 13 years working with amazing people. I’ll finish the projects with existing clients, and am always happy to help other online business owners find the best business broker to help them sell their business. But most of my time going forward will be spent enjoying life, hanging with my kids, exercising, learning, volunteering and chasing after my lifelong goal of getting a good night’s sleep.
What Has Been Your Proudest Accomplishment Post-CWP?Starting several multi-million dollar businesses. (That’s for the business end…proudest probably has to do with family and kids.)
College Works Career Impact
In one sentence, what has CW meant to you?
College Works Painting gave me the courage to be an entrepreneur and get over my natural risk-aversion. It was a safe way to try out sales, management, etc. without risking much.
How did your CW experience impact your career? Immediately after graduation? Now?
I met some really good people in College Works Painting and around the time of the first dotcom boom they got into starting web companies. The rest is history.
What do you want to tell your clients about what it meant to work with them and how it has helped you get to where you are today?
I want to apologize to a few clients. Back in my day, the training at SWP (not yet College Works Painting) was more focused on business than how to paint. We messed up a few jobs. I think there’s been a shift to recognize that great quality paint jobs help the business, but in my day the priorities were a little different.
What was the greatest lesson you learned from your CW experience?
How to open doors, sell and handle rejection.
How have the friendships and networks you built during CW affected you?
I’ve stayed in touch with a handful of people and many of us have continued to be friends and do business together for 20 years.
If you had to come up with a one line slogan for CW, what would it be?
Training Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs.
Advice
What advice do you have for potential CW participants? Current CW participants?
Don’t quit. It will be extremely tempting to quit many times, but at least make it through one summer.
What’s your best advice for someone interested in entering your career field?
Do them both. You have four to five summers during college and real life work experience is more valuable than just about anything else you can do for your career.
What’s your favorite memory from CW?
Dating my painter.
Last words of wisdom?
This is better training for entrepreneurship than selling knives or books, because it incorporates management, cost control, quality control and larger ticket sales than those other opportunities.