John Corcoran: 10:33
Escape.
TJ Pitre: 10:33
For you. I was going to say that was like, that was my escapism. Yeah. And I remember we had like a Sony Walkman, like a and I would put those headphones on the padded headphones, the little wire at the top, and I would zone out to like Radiohead or whatever band I was listening to back then. And that was that to this moment was like the most that was my flow state, I guess.
John Corcoran: 10:59
I was gonna say it was your flow state. Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 11:01
Because I get that now when I like coding things. And so it’s but that was my first introduction to losing yourself in a hobby. And then just like you look up and it’s like, you know, the world is squiggly and it’s like the colors are more vibrant.
John Corcoran: 11:13
Some of these drawings are behind you or your. Did you do those?
TJ Pitre: 11:17
No. These are collectors. Okay. So this is Mr. Rogers, a painting. This is a local artist. My son and I are. Or my whole family are jazz fest freaks. We go to Jazz Fest every year. Haven’t missed a jazz fest in over decades, but we found this in one of the artist booths. These are mine. This is a painting of a pizza. So I’m an amateur. Pizzaiolo. Love making pizzas. We can get to that. And this is the one that my son painted. So it’s just two Margherita pizzas. Oh, cool. This is the cute little craft down here that it’s a painting of, like, a sky. And then a photograph of them blowing bubbles. It’s really cute. He made it in one of his schools.
John Corcoran: 11:57
So I was really into illustration as well. Also had a drafting table, you know, didn’t wasn’t raised in poverty like you did. You know, looking back on it now, although I think there’s some. Mental money mindset things that I’ve had to get past. But yeah. So over here we got a picture here. This is an autographed picture of the genie from Aladdin. Yeah. Signed by Robin Williams. At the bottom it says nice John if you need me to rub.
So my dad was a TV news reporter and he interviewed Robin Williams. All kinds of different celebrities. And then over here, I’m really proud of these. You can’t really see them that well. But the animator who did scar from beauty and the beast and also Gaston. No. Gaston for beauty and the beast. Scar from the Lion King.
TJ Pitre: 12:46
Lion King?
John Corcoran: 12:47
Yeah, he did two drawings for me, but I was really interested in being an animator. This is right before the dawn of the digital animation stage, so I probably would have gotten quickly out of doing it with my hand and doing it differently. But yeah, it’s a great form of creative expression. So you were interested in being a comic book artist, and you actually sent some of your art to Disney and they responded and said, yeah, contact us when you’re older. Yeah, yeah.
TJ Pitre: 13:13
I think she was just trying to give me encouragement. Yeah. And, and I, I don’t know, it’s great because we had it. Maybe you had this too. It’s like so many wonderful people in your life, family members, friends give you words of encouragement.
And it’s like, you know, I don’t think they might be looking at this drawing because I’ve looked at drawings. I still have drawings now from when I was much younger. And you can kind of see the progression of, of, of the skill set. So it’s like how better you’ve gotten. And I can picture my six year old self showing this to my aunt at a Thanksgiving thing. And they’re going, this is great. And I pull it up now and I’m like, this is not great. Are you lying to me? But I.
John Corcoran: 13:55
Think what.
TJ Pitre: 13:56
It is, I think they saw potential and they knew that that was just my thing. And as a kid, like parents and family friends, they just want to, like, try to foster good habits and good hobbies. And I think she had just done that. Just to kind of keep me motivated and keep me doing it.
John Corcoran: 14:11
So at some point, you figured out that you could sell some of your work, some of your, your freelance graphic design work, and you started doing side gigs. How did you figure that out?
TJ Pitre: 14:23
I think it had to do with a lot of just like fostering. I think it ‘s the feedback that you get where it’s like, okay, you try not to get an inflated head, but you’re like, Maybe I’m good at this. This is something that maybe I can turn into a career at some point. Yeah. And I think I had like an aunt that was like, I’ll commission you $5 if you could draw my dog.
And so, like a couple that started to like the gears of entrepreneurial ism, like, started to like, like maybe I can turn a profit with some of this, with these skills. So that lasted a short time. Because I wasn’t out there like hustling, trying to I’m putting flyers up and stuff and I’ll draw your dogs. I think what the transition happened when I really wanted to be a comic book artist. That was like my calling.
I felt, and I put together a nice portfolio and I wanted to work for Image Comics and Anaheim, California, and I wanted to join them to be. I wanted to have my own comic or contribute to an existing comic. Back then, my heroes in the comic book industry were like Todd McFarlane. Rob Liefeld, who created Deadpool. Jim Lee, who created Wildcats.
There they were the original founders of like one, one of what would end up being Marvel’s rival. Like a pretty large because all these people came from Marvel, like in no notable comics within Marvel. But I loved everything they put out. So I sent them. And then I got a rejection letter like it was, it was to find out, it’s a pretty competitive space.
So my, my come to reality moment was like, well, I have these skills. And I was just about to enter college and I was like, this isn’t going to be my career. And I think that was just it hit me, it’s going to be a hobby. I can keep it as a hobby. I shouldn’t turn it into something more stressful than it is.
I don’t want to have to draw. I want to draw. So the college that I went to, Tulane here in New Orleans just opened up a multimedia design. Curriculum a major. So media arts is what they were calling it.
And then the criteria for that was like Photoshop, illustrator, and like back then the Macromedia Suite, which is like freehand and fireworks.
John Corcoran: 16:43
And when you say criteria, did you know how to? Did you have to know how to use those programs coming in, or are you saying.
TJ Pitre: 16:50
That was maybe that criteria like this was the core syllabus, like the I’m sorry curriculum is what I was looking for. The curriculum was like learning these tools and creating. Yeah, creating whether it’s art or creating design for flyers, poster gigs, stationery packages, things like that. So I had 1 or 2 courses that were along those lines every semester or so. And then that’s when I started thinking like, all right, now I’m accumulating all these skills using Photoshop and Illustrator, understanding the differences between bitmaps and vector images.
Now I’m going to just meet people and see if I can sell them stationery packages. So there were multiple people. I would find little local businesses, freelance photographers and things like that. My brother had a little business where he was. It was called Anything digital, where he would take anything analog like videotapes and old wedding VHS, and then transfer them to discs, DVDs and whatever.
So I made his logo and then his stationary package and all that kind of stuff. My wife worked for a local tile company here that specializes in high end tile. Shout out to Stafford tile and Stone. And I said, hey, can you ask because she had no branding or anything. And it was one of those things where there was no consistency with her flyers or anything that you put out there.
So I said, hey, can I make you a logo in a stationary package? You know, I’ll charge you like 200 bucks for it. And she’s like, yeah, go for it. So I made her a logo, a stationary package, an envelope, a letterhead, and a business card. And she loved it. It was great. She made a giant wooden sign outside on Magazine Street. It’s still there today. Oh, so.
John Corcoran: 18:38
It’s the same design.
TJ Pitre: 18:39
Same design? Well, yeah, they are different. It’s a different sign now because the old one got weathered but it’s still the same logo. So that was what my first taste was, like okay I could do this professionally. And then it wasn’t until she asked if I could make a website because this is 2002, I guess the 2000. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 18:59
So pre pre WordPress, then.
TJ Pitre: 19:01
Pre WordPress I think like Drupal might have been around back then, but I think maybe what was the big one like. LiveJournal was probably the closest you can get to something like WordPress. But I didn’t even know what content management systems were back then though. So this is just me going, okay, I have this cracked version of Macromedia Suite, which is Macromedia Suite eventually bought by Adobe, which included Freehand, which is like a vector design software, fireworks, which is almost Figma-like. The tool that we use today was basically a software to create UI like user interfaces is mainly what, what, what, what it’s meant to be used for.
And then Dreamweaver which is the coding, it’s the code editor. So I said, sure, I can make you a website. And I had no idea how to make a website. I just knew I had these tools, and I figured, what better way to learn by, you know, holding myself accountable and charting into the unknown. So I remember going into fireworks and like, building out this, this beautifully designed home page that like, had a, like a carousel thing that that faded in and out all these different interior designs that used all of the all of the various brands, the tile brands that she sold and, and the whole web page, the whole website was like 6 or 7 pages. And I remember coding each page or designing.
John Corcoran: 20:22
I mean, those things must have been a pain to do back then. So much easier now, I imagine.
TJ Pitre: 20:27
Oh, much easier now. Yeah, this was all like very redundant code too, two because I didn’t know what I was doing, so I was designing each page. Whole page, even though they’re like reusable elements in those pages. Just. Again. So anytime I needed to make an update to like a footer, I would make it in each one of those pages.
John Corcoran: 20:43
Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 20:44
So fireworks had this nifty export to Dreamweaver function. So it took my code and it spliced it up and did all these things and sure enough made it into a very gross. If you look at the view source all tables and like weird class names and stuff, but it made it into a website and it worked. I remember that moment going like I just made a website. This is great.
Figuring out how to get it hosted was like a whole nother process, because I didn’t understand anything about DevOps or hosting or DNS or domains, or how that even matches up with the website that I created. Eventually I went with Media Temple. That was the host there. I think GoDaddy bought them recently, but the support staff at Media Temple were the ones that shepherded this along for me. I remember being on the phone with him saying, okay, I got an index file in here where I know, okay, we’ll upload now, upload it, drag it into this window.
John Corcoran: 21:39
And I remember these days it used to be such a pain in the butt doing.
TJ Pitre: 21:43
This FTP process, the transfer protocol. So I’m just like I’m this, I’m dragging things from my computer and it’s going somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was like that concept was just so difficult to understand back then.
But eventually I did it and she loved it and she kept it up for like 15 years. Wow. Like, it was like it got a lot of traction out of it. In fact, I think the one that’s there today is based off of the one that I did because she did well, it worked out well for her.
John Corcoran: 22:10
And then you figured out that this was a career for you. This is something that you could pursue professionally.
TJ Pitre: 22:15
That was when the light bulb started clicking and going like, this feels like the perfect mix of a hobby that I love: design, art, creativity with something that feels like it’s only slated to grow like just the whole industry of digital technology and the internet. And I was like, I got to get into this and like under like really deeply understand all the aspects of web design and development that led me into what I was. I keep talking about the Macromedia suite that led me into flash. Like, are you familiar with flash? You don’t hear about it anymore because it’s gone?
John Corcoran: 22:52
No.
TJ Pitre: 22:52
Yeah, Adobe buried it. But that was when you created code with objects. So like there’s a canvas area where you can actually import images or create vector graphics in there. And you can use a little tweening tool to move a ball from one side of the screen to the other. But then there was also this thing called ActionScript, which is like code where you can actually say target ball, move ball x coordinate to y coordinate, and then watch it happen.
And I’m like, this is when things started really clicking because ActionScript is very similar to JavaScript, which is a front end language. And then that transitioned me into being a front end enthusiast and which is what my company is today. We do primarily front end design and development on much more complex and large scale code stacks, tech stacks. But that was the gateway drug flash in, in just that whole Macromedia suite.
John Corcoran: 23:49
And so you eventually end up working for Emeril for his restaurant group. What was that experience like? He’s, you know, iconic, you know, one of the famous food chefs, celebrity chefs.
TJ Pitre: 24:02
Yeah, that was an incredible experience that kind of came out where. So I just graduated college and we were the graduating class of Katrina. So 2006. So.
John Corcoran: 24:17
So Katrina, what was your experience like with that? That was, by the way, that was the weekend my wife and I got married here in the San Francisco Bay area. It was just tragic watching the news unfold as we’re going through this happy moment in our life, you know?
TJ Pitre: 24:29
Yeah. No, it was a traumatic experience for everybody, to say the least. But it was our final semester. It was our final year, senior year in college with my wife and I both graduated.
John Corcoran: 24:41
You were Tulane, actually. You know, the funny thing was my wife then immediately after that was at Cal State East Bay. And they had these two lane scholars. I just remembered this. A big group of Tulane students ended up coming to Cal State East Bay, and probably a bunch of other universities, too, in order to finish up their degree.
TJ Pitre: 25:00
We did too. Not nor Cal State, but we ended up going to the University of Central Florida. Wow. So we transferred. So I’m like four years in Tulane, which is a school that I never thought I would ever be able to get into or, or graduate from.
John Corcoran: 25:16
And by the way, how did you end up going? I think of it as kind of an expensive private college. How did you end up going to an expensive private college after your upbringing?
TJ Pitre: 25:25
I paid my way through it, so I worked. I paid my way through the majority of it. Lots of it were loans. So I forgot Sallie Mae loans. I think they were.
I also got some debt forgiveness type things because of the tax bracket. Like my family was in or so. There were some, some, some incentives to be able to.
John Corcoran: 25:49
Did you figure this all out yourself? Were you your mom or grandma able to help you with that stuff or is that all?
TJ Pitre: 25:55
It was. It was me and my wife. Well, my girlfriend back then.
John Corcoran: 26:01
You met when? In high school.
TJ Pitre: 26:01
In 2001? Yep. No. We met. We met through mutual friends. There were two friends that lived with each other. And one of the roommate’s girlfriends was best friends with. With my wife. And I was friends with the other roommate. So, like, it wasn’t uncommon for both friends and friends to be around each other.
And it was a random Wednesday and I just went to hang out at his house and then met her. We hit it off and it was like, this is great. And then six months later we moved in. Actually, it was like three months later we moved in. While in college, while she was already in college and I was on my way to college, my parents wanted me to get into a trade that was like theirs.
So I ended up going to a community college in Saint Bernard, Chalmette called Nunez Community College because I didn’t know what I wanted to do right away. But it was when my wife and I were looking at doing something more because I didn’t want to do pizza restaurants and trades, because I’m not built for any of that.
John Corcoran: 27:01
Your wife helped you to figure out how to get to Tulane then?
TJ Pitre: 27:05
Yeah, yeah. So we and back then, the internet wasn’t as robust as it is today. So a lot of resources.
John Corcoran: 27:12
Yeah. Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 27:13
Trying to figure it out.
John Corcoran: 27:14
Our physical books.
TJ Pitre: 27:15
Yeah yeah yeah. We had a magazine that had like the curriculum in it for all of the majors that you could choose from, and I remember seeing the media Arts one and going, I’ve got to do this. Like, this is where I need to put all my attention in.
John Corcoran: 27:27
So you. So back to Emeril. So you were so sorry. And hurricane Katrina. So you said that you were, you know, Hurricane Katrina hits. And do you get out in time, or were you there when it hit?
TJ Pitre: 27:41
So Hurricane Katrina came in the way. It’s interesting the way us New Orleanians treat hurricanes. And we do as much as we can to try to watch the news. Back then, the technology wasn’t nearly as advanced as it is today. But we pay attention to things.
But more often than not, the hurricanes that come here fizzle out and there isn’t much damage done. Or it takes a right hook and then ends up somewhere in the Pensacola Panhandle area or left. This was in like in like.
John Corcoran: 28:11
This was a bull’s eye hit. Well.
TJ Pitre: 28:13
So we left about three days before Katrina hit. I remember we went to a Saints game. The Saints play the Giants. We lost. And then we went and hung out at a local bar.
And then and then we went home and my mother in law called and said, hey, we gotta get out of here tonight because this hurricane’s coming. So we’re all like, whatever, let’s, let’s, you know, pack up an overnight bag and then we’ll go to Houston. We call them hurricanes because it’s always like an excuse to go someplace else and experience something new and like a little short two day vacation. So we went to the Saint Regis Hotel in Houston, which took 4 or 5 hours. So, but we thought it was just going to be a two to 2 or 3 day trip.
So we’re like, you know, let’s let’s make it nice. And, I remember being in the hotel room with a robe on, laying in bed and then watching the news. And it wasn’t the hurricane that really did the damage. It was the levees that broke that flooded the cities. Yeah, that flooded the majority.
New Orleans is shaped like a bowl, and like the edges of the bowl are the levee. And then if anything gets over the levee, then the city fills up pretty quickly. Yeah. So that’s what happened. They were like two major levee breaches and from like two opposite ends of the city New Orleans East and Lakeview area.
And then the city, the one that was actually spared the best was the French Quarter, because the French Quarter is on higher ground. And I think that’s why it’s been there for so long. But when that happened, we were like, oh, crap. Like, we’re not going back anytime soon and we can’t afford to stay here for another 3 or 4 weeks. So that’s when we started calling up people who lived in like Baton Rouge and Texas and Orlando and relatives and seeing who we could stay with.
So fast forward, I drive from. I drive my father and my mother in law’s car. Texas to Orlando. Like almost straight through. Like it was like a 16 hour drive or something.
And it was a caravan of us. It was three. It was. It was like the three men in the family. It was like my uncle, my father in law and me all driving three separate cars.
And I had a dog in the back of mine, and, and the ladies were all going to fly to Orlando. We’re going to Orlando because we had a space there. My father in law could continue his work from there because he had a second home base, a second headquarters over there. And then we’re like, all right, we’re in Orlando. We have no idea how long we’re going to be here.
Let’s enroll in the local college because we want to graduate on time. And so we enrolled the people at the University of Central Florida. It was so accommodating. It was amazing. Like they let us in. We took a couple of classes, the public university versus a private university. It was very different to me. Like it’s like.
John Corcoran: 30:58
Very different people.
TJ Pitre: 31:00
On campus versus like Tulane, which is relatively small. Yeah. And like you kind of know everybody on campus. So we did that for a while. And then and then we got the call that Tulane was actually going to start offering online courses to be able to fulfill the rest of the semester.
So we ended up unenrolling through. University of Central Florida and Re-enrolling in Tulane. And my wife went to Loyola, which is like the sister school to Tulane. And then we both took our courses, and then we were able to graduate on time. And our graduating class was amazing. It was star studded. It was Ellen DeGeneres. It was George W Bush. It was Bill Clinton.
John Corcoran: 31:45
They all came to speak.
TJ Pitre: 31:46
They all came to speak.
John Corcoran: 31:47
Yeah. Oh, cool.
TJ Pitre: 31:48
Yeah. It was star studded and it was amazing. Like, just really good inspirational speeches. And I just remember being like, this is the right move. I’m glad. I’m glad we ended up making it back and then doing it right. And by the.
John Corcoran: 32:02
By the way, you mentioned your father in law having multiple headquarters. It sounds like maybe you married into a family that didn’t have the same level of poverty that you experienced growing up. What was that like for you coming into a family like that, your wife’s family.
TJ Pitre: 32:18
Unexpected and a little bit unnerving because I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know how to conduct myself in the normal things that they do. Such as I’ll tell you a story like.
John Corcoran: 32:36
Dinner manners around the dinner table or what?
TJ Pitre: 32:39
Yeah, yeah. So Ruth’s Chris Steak House was so Ruth’s Chris Steak House started here in New Orleans. And it was another location that they would frequent often. And that was just like a regular steak dinner for them. You know, that could be a weekly event for me.
Like to our family, that would have meant somebody got a giant promotion or a big raise or like, won the lottery or something. Yeah. And I remember her asking me if I would join her mother in law in, with a family friend for dinner over there. And I was like, absolutely. And I went to my brother, two years older than me.
And I was like, I don’t know what to wear. He’s a he. He’s already been in a relationship and, and he’s, he’s actually married to the person that he was with back then. And I was like, I don’t know what to wear. And do you have any clothes I could borrow?
And so he loaned me some khaki pleated dockers. And I mean, it was like some kind of. But I just didn’t have any. I never wore anything nice, so I never needed anything nice. But he did because he actually had a good job.
He ended up working for Entergy. And so he was able to pick himself up, and be like a middle class citizen. Yeah. And so I borrowed the clothes from him. And I made it there and I didn’t know whether I was overdressed or underdressed.
I just know I wasn’t. I looked disheveled because it wasn’t my clothes, and it didn’t fit exactly the way it needed to. But I remember being at that dinner table not knowing, like, where’s my spoon going? What’s a bread plate like? Like, why is this one?
Why is this little plate? What’s a charger like? All these different, like, like scenarios of how. Like a fine dining dinner set up and trying so hard not to embarrass myself, and like, they’re drinking wine and I don’t know how to drink wine. All of these things.
John Corcoran: 34:32
So to mention, like ordering off the menu. A lot of times there’s different words on there that you might not understand. That whole thing.
TJ Pitre: 34:37
Too.
John Corcoran: 34:37
And also like that all even to this day, I’m like, what is this thing? Oh, it’s cheese. Got it. Okay.
TJ Pitre: 34:42
Right, right. It’s a fromage. Yeah, I remember, I remember looking at the prices of the steaks and being, like, really concerned about whether or not I’m ordering something that’s too expensive for this, just in case I had to pay for my meal. Yeah, yeah. And I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to sound stupid, but.
So I was just like, let me go with like, the baby filet or the petite filet or whatever it is, because I’m hungry, but I don’t want to, like, order the $80 steak meal. I want to stick with, like, the $22 steak meal, because this is at least something I could afford if it came down to it. But, yeah, they’re definitely wealthier than my family was. And so it took some getting used to. But it was, it was also something that I think that it incentivized me to want to become an entrepreneur now.
I like that I knew what I didn’t want to do, but I also had a North Star now. Now I had like a I like that I got a taste for like I’ve always said, like like there’s points in your life where it’s like the, there’s the, you know, the basic necessities, the roof over your head, you know, food for you and your family to eat and clothes on your back. Those are like the three things that as long as I have these things, I’m fine. But as you get older, there’s like there’s little there’s more milestones and benchmarks. And I remember the moment when I didn’t have to look at the gas pump when I was pumping my gas to fill the tank.
That was a big moment for me because I was like, it’s almost like there’s little steps to like, I made it. And I just remember just going, I got half a tank right now, I’m just going to fill it up and then fill the gas tank up and not even bother to look at the little deal, because I knew I had enough in my bank account to pay for that. So. And like there’s little moments like that. It’s like sometimes when you go to the grocery store, you treat yourself to things like ice cream or something.
Yeah. And then there’s the Blue Bell ice cream, which is like the affordable one. And then there’s like the Haagen-Dazs, like something that’s a little bit nicer and probably better for you as far as ice cream goes. And then there’s the moment when it’s like, now this has become the norm. Like, this is the default one that we go to.
John Corcoran: 36:48
And your father in law would do what he did and did you, did you learn something from him?
TJ Pitre: 36:55
Absolutely. So he was Emerald’s business partner.
John Corcoran: 36:58
Oh okay.
TJ Pitre: 36:59
Okay. So I got in. So the way that the the way the, the transition of the path went up. Emeril and Tony. Emeril and my father in law worked together for nearly 26 years. And so he did a lot of his finance management and negotiated a lot of the deals.
John Corcoran: 37:21
Behind the scenes.
TJ Pitre: 37:21
Guy behind the scenes. So like, he got him on food. He got the deal with him on Food Network. He got the deals for all of his shows, cooking with Emeril, the Emerald Live essence of Essence of Emerald. He also did all the cookbook deals and worked all that.
So he was just a really good business person. He was really, like, very savvy, very intense, but also very caring and loving with his family and very protective. But he was an amazing inspiration and mentor along the way. So when he knew what I was going to college for and he knew that it was technology related and web related. And so Emerald already exists.
Emerald.com was a website that existed out there. But after Katrina happened, a lot of those people fled, like they all had to go to do whatever they needed to do to protect their families and get.
John Corcoran: 38:11
The people that worked for his company fled. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
TJ Pitre: 38:14
Yeah. I mean, like, he lost most restaurants. New Orleans based restaurants. Oh, he took a long time.
John Corcoran: 38:21
Is he from New Orleans originally?
TJ Pitre: 38:22
No, he’s from Fall River. He’s from Fall River, Massachusetts. But he left there. He had beautiful accolades. He went too. He actually was going to go to Carnegie Mellon for drumming like that.
John Corcoran: 38:37
So he but Emeril had restaurants that he lost in New Orleans and he lost people.
TJ Pitre: 38:42
Okay.
John Corcoran: 38:43
Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 38:43
They’re back now. But after months and months and months of renovating them. But he came to New Orleans. He was executive chef for a famous restaurant here called Commander’s Palace. And then it was when he and my father in law got together and said, hey, let’s start a restaurant.
And that’s when they started the flagship restaurant in New Orleans that’s still here. And that operates to this day. Wonderful restaurant. So after Katrina happened, they lost their webmaster. Back then they were called webmasters, webmasters.
And at that point, I had only been interning at a couple of different agencies here locally. And he’s like, you know, websites, can you help us unlock these things? And like, they needed to use the website to communicate with the hospitality staff to be like, hey, you know, banner at the top, we’re, we’re we’re going to reopen Emeril’s Delmonico, you know, in October of 2007. We’d love for you to come back. And then they would make these announcements for.
So I had figured out how to get into the system, and I already knew about, like, how to work with servers. And so I took that job and he they offered me the job to be that person. So I was happy to take it.
John Corcoran: 39:50
Yeah. So that was, that sounds like a big up kind of opportunity for you. And then what point did that move to you end up moving to New York to work.
TJ Pitre: 39:57
For.
John Corcoran: 39:57
Martha Stewart. So how did that come about?
TJ Pitre: 40:00
It was an easy transition. So I worked for Emerald for a couple of years doing the web stuff and it was awesome, I loved it, I got to have so much fun. They had a test kitchen and home base. It was called Home Base, so I gotta go downstairs and like eat the food that they were testing for the cookbooks.
John Corcoran: 40:14
Nice perk.
TJ Pitre: 40:14
Yeah. And my office was right next to the test kitchen. So I would just like, go down the stairs and then pop my head in there and like, what are you doing? You got any cookies today? And sometimes I would video content for the website that we put on the website, because we had a really nice blog section for the website.
And so what had happened was my father in law brokered a deal between Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse for, like, the merchandise and entertainment portion of his business. So basically, like the restaurant portion split off from everything else and all the entertainment pieces, like all the rights to the merchandise and the shows and any other appearances, festivals, all that kind of stuff went to Martha and the restaurant’s created a difference. So it ended up being like Emerald’s restaurant group for the restaurant portion. And my job was within the marketing area. So that was kind of the department that that my role fell into, that went with the purchase of Martha.
So at that point I had two choices. One was either not do it like go work someplace else, find a new job, or move to New York and go work for Emerald through Martha. Okay. And that’s why we had two cats. We were married.
We had a house back then, but we ended up renting it out and we said, let’s do it. So in June of 2008, we packed up and drove to New York and we lived on 52nd and second in Midtown East in Manhattan.
John Corcoran: 42:00
What a change for you, having been in New Orleans your whole life.
TJ Pitre: 42:04
And so it was me, my father in law and family and Emeril that all moved out there together. So I lived on 52nd and second. Emeril lived on 51st and second, and my father in law lived on 50th and second. So we all lived, like, in the same spot in the block. Yeah. So our nights and weekends when we weren’t working consisted of just going around Manhattan and eating at fancy restaurants with Emeril. Wow.
John Corcoran: 42:31
That must have.
TJ Pitre: 42:32
Been going from, like, the. It was amazing. We were, like, living the best version of our lives at that moment. Oh, what we think like, within context. Because I would say right now is probably the best that I’ve ever lived. But like in that moment.
John Corcoran: 42:45
Being able to live it up in New York with a celebrity chef is amazing.
TJ Pitre: 42:51
The most beautiful.
TJ Pitre: 42:51
We have so many stories. We could do version two of this, but there’s so many moments when it’s like when you’re with a celebrity chef like that who’s highly respected. And at this point, he was very popular, like Emeril live was still very popular. So he was very noticeable when he was walking down the street, but he didn’t really have any bodyguards or anything that was he wasn’t that famous, you know. But when we went to eat with him, it was always an event, because when you go to sit at this restaurant, the chefs want to just bring you food. And so, like, you’re getting things that you did not order and it’s like, okay, sure, I’ll try.
John Corcoran: 43:25
And you gotta eat it. You can’t reject it, right? You gotta eat these things, right?
TJ Pitre: 43:28
Yeah, yeah. And there’s been moments when it’s just like, you know, thank you so much. We really appreciate how he has a shtick for how he would say it. It’s like, you know, we’re just here to order this food and get out of here. But we’ve had many moments where we would go in for brunch. Yeah. And then we’re sitting there, we get a brunch menu, and then we’ve been there so long we get a dinner menu.
John Corcoran: 43:49
Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 43:49
She’s like.
TJ Pitre: 43:50
Wow.
TJ Pitre: 43:51
Just because, like, they keep serving food and drinks are flowing then. But yeah, just the dichotomy of like the way I grew up versus.
John Corcoran: 44:00
From what you grew up like, not, as you mentioned earlier, about going out to a steakhouse for the first time to experiencing that that must have been just mind blowing for you.
TJ Pitre: 44:07
It was truly like a rags to riches story. Not me being rich or anything like, like things progressively got better for me financially. I mean, but it is New York, so the cost of living is always a factor.
John Corcoran: 44:19
Expensive. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And what did you learn from working indirectly from Martha? Were you around her much? Did you observe her? You know, behind the scenes.
TJ Pitre: 44:29
She was around? Yeah. So we worked in a building called the Starrett-Lehigh Building on the Chelsea West Side Highway area in New York. And she was very much a part of the day to day when she wasn’t, like, filming because she still had her shows that she was filming at a studio that wasn’t too far from where the main headquarters was. But she was very much around in the business.
And she was very. My job transitioned from just a standard front end developer managing Emeralds and Martha properties to director front end development, managing all of the front end areas for all of the various digital products that Martha supported. She was very into the website. And since I was responsible for the things you see the user sees on the website, there were many encounters. If there was a bug that she would be finding on her phone when she was driving, when she was getting driven into work. So there were lots of conversations that I had to get pulled into, where it’s like.
John Corcoran: 45:30
To fix.
TJ Pitre: 45:30
Something or fix or just like, describe what she’s seeing. If it’s not really a bug or an error, it’s just like, that’s the way it was designed.
John Corcoran: 45:39
So yeah.
TJ Pitre: 45:40
Yeah. So there were a lot of false bugs. But one of my favorite stories is that she lived in a ranch that was like in upstate New York, but she would still get driven into work pretty often. And she had. It’s a farm with farm animals and chickens and, you know, the cows. And I don’t know if they had cows, but she definitely had a lot of chickens.
John Corcoran: 46:01
And actually, you know what? My brother works in reality TV and he’s been there for one of his one of her shows. She did a show there. Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 46:08
I think it’s called Skylands or. Yeah, something like that. But she would probably on a monthly basis or so, she would come in with a giant tub of farm fresh eggs, and she would send out a mass email to everybody in the, in the, in the office, come get some eggs, limit three per person. And then you would see people with their little six, the little six cartons, like half a dozen eggs lined up right by your assistant’s desk, just waiting to pick out their little eggs. And they were always present. It was so cool. It was all glass bowls, like glass. We call them fishbowls. All the offices, all the. It’s a very open floor plan, the way it was set up.
But her office is right next to the Admiral’s office. And I just remember it was on the way to the bathroom, so it’s like I’m just on the way to the bathroom going, There’s Emeril and there’s Martha. Yeah, yeah. And that was just the coolest moment. Like, I’ll never.
John Corcoran: 47:04
It’s kind of an odd pairing. Like, it’s kind of an odd pairing. The two of them are kind of two celebrities in their own right and then working behind the scenes, you know, with their offices next to one another. Did it work out okay?
TJ Pitre: 47:17
It worked out great. Yeah. Like it was. They did a lot of the Hallmark Channel was just starting to come out. So they created a series of shows on the Hallmark Channel.
So he kind of pioneered a lot of that stuff on that channel. It was right when a lot of web media was coming out. So YouTube was really big and they had a lot of content that was shifting from blog based article things to more long form type content that had rich media embedded in it. So there would be a lot of like recipes where We’re now showing clips on how to julienne the, you know, the carrots for the.
John Corcoran: 47:56
So you were.
TJ Pitre: 47:57
Involved.
John Corcoran: 47:57
If you were involved in creating that content or, or someone else who created it and you were involved in displaying it.
TJ Pitre: 48:03
We were developing the templates for it. So we were building the interfaces that housed all the different media that we put on the various websites.
John Corcoran: 48:13
Yeah. Okay. By the way, you okay on time right now? Have we kept on going a little longer? Okay. All right. So you spend about it looking at least about whether it was a number of years working for Martha and you’re living it up in New York City and all kinds of stuff. And eventually you, I guess, maybe get the itch to start your own thing. Southleft starts right after working at Martha. So how did that come about?
I mean, you know, in some ways, like once you punch your ticket working for an iconic celebrity or a couple of iconic celebrities like that, that gives you great cachet in the marketplace. So how did that transition happen?
TJ Pitre: 48:52
Yeah. So if you’ve ever lived in New York then especially if you’re a, like a transient New Yorker or somebody who didn’t grow up or understand how to live in New York and especially Manhattan, there’s like a honeymoon period. And that’s kind of what I was describing earlier. It’s like you’re going out to dinners, you’re going out to bars, and you’re just really experiencing and immersing yourself. And then and.
John Corcoran: 49:17
Then.
TJ Pitre: 49:17
Winter lifestyle. Winter was brutal. Yeah. Yeah. I would hate it when I would watch the morning news and we’d just check to see what the weather’s going to be like, and then they would go.
Today’s going to be a wintry mix. And that basically just meant snow, sleet, hail, cold weather, wind, all this stuff. And I just knew that’s when I just. Yeah, everybody in New York wears black. You just put on your black trench coat, put on your hood, put on your face mask and everything.
And I just remember whipping around you, turning around one of those corners, and then the wind just hits you because you’re like, New York’s just a big grid. But the honeymoon period was about to be over, and now we’re just like, we live here. My wife and I would ask ourselves, like, is this worth it? Like, is this because we live in a very busy area. We thought about moving to places like Long Island or Queens or Brooklyn or some place that wasn’t nearly as foot traffic as the area that we lived in.
But it always felt like every morning when I stepped out of the apartment complex, that it’s like you’re on, it’s like showtime. And I remember that. It’s like I can equate it to like merging into a busy interstate. When you get on the sidewalk right out of my apartment door or my apartment complex door, and then it’s it. And I understand the New York mindset.
It’s headphones in, head down, fast paced, walk, veer in and out of people. You get upset when people are walking slowly in front of you, or if someone’s keeping the same pace as you and you’re side by side, all these little idiosyncrasies. And then the.
John Corcoran: 50:46
I live in Northern California, so I don’t understand this. Very different. Very different.
TJ Pitre: 50:50
I just remember the flight of stairs because the escalator was always broke at 53rd and Lex for the subway, it was like if you chained together six flights of stairs and just the just it was brutal in the summer because like, if you were in a college shirt and you got your bag on you, you just got the sweat.
John Corcoran: 51:05
Sweat right here.
TJ Pitre: 51:06
Awful. Anyway, all of that added up. And then eventually my wife was like, I’m. I’m gone, I had enough, I’m leaving. She liked her job.
She worked for this great company called I’m not going to name drop them, but it was a psychological consulting firm in New York, where she managed operations and did a lot of their accounting. She has an accounting background. This is going to help.
John Corcoran: 51:29
So she was done. She wanted to leave.
TJ Pitre: 51:30
She was like, I’m good with New York. I want to go back home. And her calling has always been teaching. Like she wanted to be an elementary school teacher. So she ended up enrolling in Uno University in New Orleans here and then getting her master’s degree in education.
And then and then ended up serving as an elementary middle school teacher for a couple of years out here. I was still finishing out my tenure. Like, I knew.
John Corcoran: 51:56
You stayed behind. Sheila went back home. That’s hard. That’s hard.
TJ Pitre: 52:00
For about a year and a half, we flew back and forth every weekend. We became JetBlue’s buddies. We know everything. And the T5, JFK terminal, we were mosaic members. We had the JetBlue credit cards and everything still does.
And we still fly JetBlue all the time because we go to New York pretty often, but accumulated those points really quickly. Then after a while, I could feel myself starting to get that same feeling that my wife had. And then I let my mentor and boss back then, IRA Tao. He’s one of the reasons I am where I am. I let him know I’m going to give you a six month, six month notice.
I understand the director level might take a while to find. I have a team that I’m responsible for. Let’s, you know, let’s start interviewing people, and I’ll do the interviewing. I’ll write the job description. So he was like, you know, really sad to see me leave.
And then one day he calls me in his office and he says, so what are you? What are you doing? And I was like, I’m going back home. I want to go back home, and I want to start my own thing. At that time, responsive web design was really taking off. And this notion of mobile first movement, like focusing on accessibility and performance and best practices in web.
And then I pride myself on being the person that spearheaded Marthastewart.com to be responsive, one of the first lifestyle brand publications that went responsive. And I was doing things on the side anyway just to keep myself busy. Because when you work for a product company and you work in one code base, you tend to vibrate a little. Yeah, probably.
John Corcoran: 53:33
Little boring after a while, right? I mean, you probably did everything you needed to do, right?
TJ Pitre: 53:36
Exactly. Unless it’s like a migration or some new tech that you’re going to be involved in, which is very rare. But so at night, to keep my senses sharp, I would just dabble in new tech and then I was just thinking, I want to do this. Like, this is what I do, this is the part that I get into that elusive flow state that I remember having as a kid. And I want to do that.
I want to do more of this, and I want to do more for other people. Like, I want to meet different walks of life. I want to work in different industries. And so I told him that and I said, I’m moving back home and starting my own thing. And he was like, he said, give me a second, I’m gonna go talk to Martha.
And then a couple of days go by and, and he comes, asks me, brings me to his office again, and he says, can you get me? This is coming full circle. Can you make me a letterhead stationery package? Can you make me a stationery package, a business card, envelope, letterhead with your logo on it? And so the Southleft.
I had just made that name up. There’s a whole story behind it. It’s on, it’s on, it’s on our website. But he was like, I just need these things to be legal to approve this transition because we’d like to be your first client. And I was like, what?
Because I was expecting I already had a couple of clients that I think would make ends meet if I moved into a lower income area in New Orleans until things start picking up. And if it didn’t, then I would just go try to find a job with an agency or a product company. But she said, I want them for 40 hours a week for an entire year at $100 an hour. And I was like that.
John Corcoran: 55:07
I’ll get you started.
TJ Pitre: 55:08
Is wild. So. So I had the 40 hours a week that I was working for her for an entire year, plus the 3 or 4 other clients and accumulating clients. So an average work week for me was somewhere between 70 and 80 80 hours a week. And then my wife, she was getting really disinterested in the school board with, with the schools that she, that she worked in.
So she said, I’m quitting school and I’m going to be your accountant because she had all this accounting and bookkeeping background. So it was a no brainer. It was like, I don’t know anything about invoicing and accounts receivable and accounts payable or anything financial related. But she did. She didn’t know anything about coding or design or the web, but I did.
So we just made the perfect match. And it just made sense. And we were both really confident in each other to be able to like, push this forward.
John Corcoran: 55:53
Now, how were you able to make a transition from doing that, that full 40 hours for Martha? Or, you know, sometimes that’s a tough adjustment. Like they expect you, right? So it’s hard for you with an existing client to bring in someone else so that you can work on the business or that you can bring in other clients or other things you need to do.
TJ Pitre: 56:13
So fast forward the next year, they wanted to renew the agreement. And then that was a crossroads. It was like, do I take the easy money and keep doing the same thing and working on the same code base while working these ridiculously long hours, trying to fulfill the other clients that I had that weren’t Martha? Or do I negotiate and try to keep this around, but then also throw out a lifeline and like try to figure out, like whether I can accumulate a A much larger client base that isn’t Martha related. So we negotiated six months, 20 hours a week.
So basically half, half and half. Yeah. And the most wonderful thing happened at that point because after a year of doing that, all my colleagues that worked within that organization all kind of like left and went to do their own things. And in the lifestyle digital publication industry back then, everything was kind of incestuous, like people who went to Martha came from Condé Nast, people who went to Condé Nast came from Hearst. And so, like all the time, Inc, you know, like, so they all kind of went around.
So they end up moving to all these or starting their own things. One of my best friends started his own agency. We still work together to this day. Most of those people I still stay in contact with. So we ended up doing business with Time Inc.
We ended up doing business with Conde Nast. We ended up doing business with Scripps.
John Corcoran: 57:30
Oh you’re new, you’re Southleft your new company. Okay, so you go. So you moved to New Orleans and you’re getting all these New York clients Yeah. Yeah.
TJ Pitre: 57:37
That’s great. So I lived in New Orleans a lot back. Back then we would do kick offs in person, so we would take a project off. I’d fly in. So there’s JetBlue.
Points really came in handy back then. So I was doing that going back and forth, meeting with clients and just doing it right. The old school kind of Mad Men way, just making sure that I’m taking them out to dinner and being hospitable. Very New Orleans. Yeah, sure.
Chivalry is not dead. Like I’m going to do this the old school way. And that resonated with a lot of people. And I ended up getting Southleftt. Ended up getting like, kind of name synonymously with lifestyle brand digital publications.
So we ended up working mainly in the digital publication industry, working with a lot of amazing people along the way. Eventually we needed to kind of shed that a little bit. We still work with a lot of lifestyle brands and love, love all of them dearly. But we needed as we grew and as the team grew, and as our skill sets got deeper and more, more vast, we wanted to sink our teeth into, like other front end things. Back then, frameworks were coming out like React was coming out and it was getting a lot of wind behind it in angular.
And so we wanted to start taking on some of these more software as a service type products development. And that progressed. And that’s kind of where we are today. Like my the biggest gratitude that I have is for my father in law Tony. My mentor and boss back then. IRA. And Martha, like those are the people who paved the way to get me where I am today.
John Corcoran: 59:10
Well, this has been really great, TJ. And that’s a perfect transition to what was going to be my last question. What is my last question? You know, I’m a big fan of gratitude. And you want to go a little bit more in depth on that. And and you know, you can feel free to mention any others that you want as well, people that you’re grateful to.
TJ Pitre: 59:26
Sure. Yeah. If I could look at a visual timeline of how my life went and I would say my father in law, Tony. He was the first person to give me a shot like he was. He was somebody who said, ” I’m taking a risk on this kid.
This is obviously, you know, this celebrity shaft is at its height right now. I’m going to trust him with our digital experience. And I’m going to let him run with it and see what happens with it. And it was a bet that I hope he thinks he won. That is a risk that I think was a safe bet that only benefited him going forward. The IRA is another one who just believed in me from the start like I wasn’t.
I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind almost to the detriment of my career. So if I was very passionate about accessibility and performance and the users and I still am, like Southleft, I always say it exists within the space between design and development because I spent my whole career trying to narrow that gap. And I had a lot of, like, what we call birds of a feather talks, where I would just, like, ask if I could borrow a meeting room in the, in the, the, the, the, the headquarters, in the offices. And then I would just do presentations and ask. And he was the one who would attend them and he would say, like, this is a good idea, I think we should do it.
And then he would go talk to some of the CEOs and other stakeholders to say we should prioritize this, this, this, this piece of development or whatever it is that I was trying to get to move forward. And then and then also for him believing in me in this business. And I ended up working with him after he left Martha on other projects too. And because he just worked really well together. And then last but not least, Martha, like, like Martha was the one who I had.
I gotta imagine that had to have been some legal stuff that had, like, when you’re ten years old, when you’re a full time employee of an organization, and then you leave that organization, then you become a 1099, right?
John Corcoran: 1:01:37
It can be a little complicated.
TJ Pitre: 1:01:39
It seems like there might be some conflict of interest or something going on there, but she was able to navigate all that. Yeah. And all she needed.
John Corcoran: 1:01:44
Well, if Martha wants it done.
TJ Pitre: 1:01:45
A package.
John Corcoran: 1:01:45
I imagine if Martha wants it done, they get it done.
TJ Pitre: 1:01:48
She probably just, like, brought that stationery package and slapped it on the leg.
John Corcoran: 1:01:51
Make it.
TJ Pitre: 1:01:52
The desk said, yeah, yeah, hire this kid.
John Corcoran: 1:01:54
Yeah. Thinking back on it, I didn’t ask you this earlier, but any other things you learned from her as a business leader? You know that you can take away from it.
TJ Pitre: 1:02:05
Yeah. She was. She was kind of similar to Tony. Like, she was just a really good, savvy business person. And she had all these, like, techniques where where, like, she would talk and she would stay quiet, and she would have long pauses where you can tell that there was, like, something going on.
And then she would just, like, spout out this knowledge like something that was just like, where did that come from? She was always very thoughtful. When it came to providing feedback for things. But she was also not afraid to, like, be angry. She was not afraid of friction.
Like she was. She was like, I don’t want to say a tyrant in a boardroom. But she would question everything. Like there were those moments when it’s like, why would you choose that color? Like what?
Like, I don’t understand what you’re doing here. And she had. No she had, there was nothing fluffy about the way that she liked. And she was very direct and business minded. And she was always about the bottom line.
It’s like how, how is this going to generate revenue for the or is this just something fun you’re doing? Because I don’t understand how this is actually going to make us any money. But she was smart. Besides the whole stock thing, the the her going to jail for a little bit. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 1:03:21
Which is before you got to working for her.
TJ Pitre: 1:03:23
It was right before she had just got out. Yeah. Okay. Because she. But she actually couldn’t have a lot of involvement legally with the company at that time.
John Corcoran: 1:03:31
Oh, I remember.
TJ Pitre: 1:03:32
She was like on the board, but she couldn’t manage the company. But then I was there when that transition happened. So after her probation was up, she ended up joining the company again. But yeah, just watching her in meetings was amazing. Like, I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in a couple of meetings with her over my time there and also, she was really good to the employees, like she would throw these parties and, like, sponsored parties like Hendrix jig. I remember having a party on a rooftop where we played croquet, and we’re playing Nintendo 64 and they were like specialty cocktails that were being made. But the party had no purpose. It was just, like, just, you know, just a party, just to say,
John Corcoran: 1:04:15
Appreciation.
TJ Pitre: 1:04:14
Pizza parties. It wasn’t like Domino’s, like sitting in a room or all party hats on. It was like, This was her appreciation party, yeah, a rooftop party. Beautiful weather overlooking that.
John Corcoran: 1:04:24
Well, it’s Martha. I mean, she has a reputation to uphold, right? You know, you can’t have a couple of boxes, especially in today’s age of social media. That was, that was back in the day, but now, like someone would certainly tweet it, so you got to be careful. Well, TJ, this has been great, really interesting. Really appreciate your time. Where can people go to learn more about you and learn more about Southleft?
TJ Pitre: 1:04:45
Sure, Southleft.com, that’s S, O, U, T, H, L, E, F, t.com. You can get all of the information about the types of services that we provide, and you can see some of the case studies for some of the projects that we’ve worked on. We do it mainly for. Then web application design and development. So we like to focus on what your problems are and seeing if we can solve them with our digital services.
John Corcoran: 1:05:08
All right. TJ, thanks so much. Excellent. Thank you.
TJ Pitre: 1:05:11
Thanks for having me.
Outro: 1:05:14
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes