The Carrot Blog

I just started here at Carrot, but my experience with the company began long ago...

...over five years ago, to be exact, when I was studying graphic design at Indiana University. On one of those countless nights at the library, I was crawling the web for resources on brand identity and came across Just Creative, a blog about just that. It turned out that the blog was run by Jacob Cass, an employee at Carrot, a creative shop in NYC. That's cool. Seed planted.

I graduated college and landed my first job at a NYC-based agency. As anybody who's moved to NYC knows, it's a rush. You're basically on crack. There were so many like-minds who were also excited about the possibilities that lay at the intersection of creative marketing and digital media. It wasn't long before I ran into Chris Petescia and a number of other Carrots at Digital Dumbo (they roll deep). Nice people. +1.

Only a couple of years later and I was already on a fast track towards becoming yet another jaded advertising exec. I'd been at several shops and the work just wasn't rewarding. That's when I ran into Mitch Kapler, an ex-Hollywood hustler who also had more ambition than his 9-5 job could pay off on. We started the side hustle, landed some sweet gigs, launched an iPad magazine... and then he joined Carrot. WTF!

It started to feel like Carrot was everywhere. I ran into their people out in the city and at parties. The entire time I'm thinking, what is the deal with these guys and their Twitter avatars? They must be drinking some serious kool-aid over there in DUMBO.

Year five in the city: It's a big benchmark. You're no longer on that NYC high; the honeymoon is long gone; but there's really no where better to go. Where are you supposed to go? I flirted with Los Angeles, San Francisco, even Detroit, but none of them were right. Instead I moved to Brooklyn, a compromise and personal memo to start a fresh phase in the city. And that's right around the time that RG, Carrot's strategy director, hit me up. We had chatted casually before, but this time he had an opportunity... and I jumped on it. The timing was just right. Part of this new phase in NYC was a goal to distance myself from companies where turnovers and layoffs are not only the norm, they are an epidemic. I wanted to be somewhere that values culture, where people are a priority, and where all of that leads to better work.

Carrot radiates of all of these things, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's exactly this that has made them successful and will make them even more successful in the longterm. Now, after all of these years of being on the periphery, I'm excited to say that I'm part of the Carrot family, as a senior strategist, and am honored to be taking a sip of that kool aid. I even have my very own Twitter avatar!