Hi all,

Welcome to my “ABOUT ME”. If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate your curiosity and/or web-stalking and hope that it is everything you dreamed it would be. Seriously though, thanks for stopping by.

Why “Johnny Wednesday”?

Usual pose, minus food

It’s true, my real name is JC Holmes and Johnny Wednesday is a name that is purely manufactured by me. Why though? I am a d-bag and decided that even though my God-given name of John C Holmes defined the peak and was the true epitome of douchebagery, that I could achieve something greater.

Oh wait…… Although that may or may not be true, the real reason was born out of necessity. As stated before, my God given name is John C Holmes and all it will take is a quick Google™ search to realize why my name and all variations thereof have been registered by the great perv/cyber-squat hoards of the interwebs.

About Me-Second Try

Hi everyone, my name is JC Holmes and you have reached the about me section of my site. Below is going be a bit of an overview of my former, current and possible future business and entrepreneurial endeavors with a touch of info that is about me. I want to say thanks for coming and I hope you all have a wonderful life.

In the beginning:

I grew up on a small farm in Alton, MO. I have an amazing family and thank God every day for the fact that I was born into the family that I was. My parents instilled in me an innumerable amount of lessons that I carry with me each day, but there are a few sayings my parents continuously repeated that I try to live by:  “There is nothing hard if you know what you’re doing.”,  “Don’t let anyone or anything limit you from achieving what you want.”,  and “If you have something to give someone, give it to them while they are alive. Don’t throw flowers on their grave when they die because they won’t need help or support then, they need it now.”

I have one sibling, Travis. Travis is 9 years older than me which made for an odd relationship growing up. However, now that we’re both “grown” (in the eyes of the law), we have really become close. No one else appreciate shoveling feed in a grain-bin or watering hogs other than he and I. Travis works for the railroad in St. Louis and lives in one of the greatest apartments in that city. He is a great guy and I promise I’m not just saying that because he pays my phone bill (but he does and I thank him for it).

After I graduated from good ole’ Alton R-IV High, I left home and went to school at the University of Missouri where I ended up graduating with a degree in Agribusiness Management with an emphasis in Finance…..exciting! I learned a lot of great things and met a lot of great people at Mizzou™, but the most important thing I took away was that you should never get caught up in the “sheep” mentality. Going to school, getting a job, staying in that job until you die and/or can “retire” on your crappy pension is the saddest story I can hear and I hear it every single day. I was blessed to become surrounded by people that had escaped from the sheep mentality and had either set themselves or were in the process of setting themselves up an equity/wealth base that transcended crappy pensions everywhere. I strive for that every day.

Mizzou™ is also where I met Alison. Alison and I have been dating for almost 4 years and after some of our recent talks, it looks like we might tie this thing up before long. You won’t know until it happens, but I might let you know then (or soon thereafter).

Currently:

I am currently working as a loan officer for the VAMortgageCenter.com™ Yes, it’s true, I am working for someone else. Why? I’ll tell you. I love what I do. I’m 23 years old and I get to come conduct business with people twice my age. I have been blessed to have been allowed the opportunity to prove myself in one of the most challenging and stressful business environments in the world; The mortgage industry. That atmosphere and responsibility is only a part of it though. We almost exclusively deal with veterans and let me say that I have come to better understand the sacrifice and struggle that our veterans face each day through this position. It is amazing and a shame that we seem to have such a lack of respect for the people that fight for us each day.

This is a very unique position and more importantly, a unique organization to be a part of. Brant and Brock Bukowsky are the co-founders and owners of this and several other businesses, a couple of which have graced the Inc 500 list multiple times. These guys have a great deal of talents, but the strongest seems to be surrounding themselves with the absolute best and brightest people from whatever industry, skill set, or variable they need.

One of the organizations that they now have in their portfolio is Plus1 Marketing.Plus1 was originally founded by Nathaniel Broughton who still serves as the CEO. Nathaniel and the crew have created one of the strongest search marketing teams in the world. If you haven’t heard of them, turn on your computer and spend about 8 minutes surfing the net, you will inevitably find something they manage, control, promote, fund, or have otherwise created either directly or indirectly.

Former Endeavors:

I will preface what follows with this: I now have two businesses under my belt, neither of which have created an opportunity for scale but neither of which failed.

Also, what follows is 100% true……..sad, but true.

Vintage Prime LLC

Vintage Prime was my least masculine venture although it was truly the one I am most proud of. VP was born in a classroom during my sophomore year of college as I stared at my computer pretending to listen to the lecture.  While looking at cars on Ebay, I came across a Luis Vuitton® handbag that had been listed in two categories, one of which being cars. This bag had 81 bids, 6 questions, and although used, was selling for over $400. I thought, “That is a lot of demand for a product like this.” After some research, I found two things. First, there was a huge demand for high-end designer merchandise; And secondly, there was an unbelievable fear of buying counterfeit merchandise on the internet. My thought was that if I could create a company and brand this organization as one that sold only authentic merchandise, I could garner a premium through the increase in confidence from my customers.

The following months brought me knowledge of many subjects, but two would have the biggest impact. First, I built my first site, vintageprime.com. It was an exciting and eye opening experience that made me fall in love with the web and web-design. Secondly, I learned more about designer handbags then any human should ever know. Don’t even try to bring a fake Louis®, Dior®, Fendi®, Prada®, or Gucci® within a 1000 feet of me, because I will call you on it. As sad as that is, that is what I had to do to make Vintage Prime work.

In October of 2007 I started buying my first things from the web. Yes I made a few mistakes and bought fakes that I ended up burning, but I got very good. I would literally buy a bag on a Monday have is express mailed by Wednesday and have it listed again on Friday. One of the greatest things that I started to pick up from this experience was marketing. I created auction templates, tweaked my search marketing techniques, and really learned a lot about appealing to by customer base.

The main point is that it worked. From October 07’ to February 08’,  I averaged a 400% return on every piece of merchandise I bought and sold. The farm boy from the Ozarks was killing it selling purses. Then things changed. I got an email from Ebay® explaining that they would be limiting the amount of items I sold in certain categories to only a few items each month. After some research, I found that the reason this came about was because Ebay® had been sued by many of the major designers who claimed that after their own research, had found that only 5% of the merchandise being sold through their site was authentic. I appealed and appealed with some luck, but ultimately realized that it was time to call it quits.

Shutting down Vintage Prime ended up being a great relief and a blessing for me in the long run. The blessing came from the lessons that I learned.

  1. The business was not scalable and would therefore always cap my future earnings/equity potential.
  2. Never underestimate the importance of proper bookkeeping.
  3. Financing is there if you look and ask.
  4. Knowing your product and knowing your customer are opposite ends of the spectrum, but are both equally important to the success of a business.
  5. There are times when attorney’s are high-paid faces and voices for situations that should be handled by you.
  6. Taxes are an eternal constant.

Domunu LLC:

Domunu was and seems to continue to be an entity that does nothing more than provide me motivation and inspiration to continue to learn about business on the web. I started Domunu with the help of my roommate Gary who helped me create the site, some tools, and really help coach me with some basic programming and web design issues. How this company came about, I honestly can’t remember. Looking back, I honestly think that I was sitting talking with Gary, decided that the place to be was on the interwebs, and started building a site/registering an entity that night. This was in Oct 08’. By December, we had two clients, but really had little motivation for expansion, mostly because we were both about to graduate and were scared. That said, Domunu should still be held in the “Currently” section of this page because some of the things I am working on are held within this entity. I have learned a great deal of lessons from Domunu as well though.

  1. Never underestimate the power of search marketing.
  2. Motivation for a topic and motivation for an entity are two separate things.
  3. Links = Good
  4. Keep your eyes open for opportunities at every corner. It may be knocking, but not always at door your standing by.
  5. Taxes are an eternal constant.

Future Endeavors:

I’m always working on something. More to follow.