FOUNDER SERIES BRANDON DEWITT: HOW BRANDON DEWITT CO-FOUNDED MX.

• Position: FOUNDERS SERIES

I FIRST STARTED CODING COMPUTERS when I was around 14 or 15. At first, I used the skills I learned coding to compose music on the computer. This further fueled the passion I already had for music and I was inspired to enroll at Illinois State to study the art.

Over the course of my education, I ended up taking several freelance composition gigs for marching bands and the like in the area. Music remained an important part of my life all throughout college but my love of coding inspired me to officially change my major to computer science when I was a junior.

My experience with freelance work in college taught me that I wanted to work for myself because I liked to be my own boss--though I didn't really start thinking about building a company until I interned with Nike in Beaverton, Oregon.

During my internship program, Nike acquired this skateboarding brand that I absolutely loved. I came up with a bit of a pitch to turn it into a men's fashion line--but I was a lowly intern at the time. The executives were immediately like, "No way!" (As it turns out, Nike did end up turning that brand into a men's fashion line--known today as Nike Skateboarding or Nike SB.)

Though they didn't go for my idea, my experience with Nike taught me about what it would be like to create a brand, build toward a goal, and make an idea tangible and real. I held onto this experience for the next five or six years until I eventually started my first real entrepreneurial endeavor.

STARTING A COMPANY

The idea for MyJibe came when I was 28 and living in Indianapolis. I had engineering experience after working at Experian for a few years--which allowed me to better understand all of the financial data in the banking industry--and I had an idea to create a software program that would help the average person understand it as well.

After raising money from an investment group in Bloomingdale, Indiana, I built out the product and brought it to life alongside a team of six. Looking back, I can't believe I was so young--and I'm grateful it turned out how it did. MyJibe had several offers, one in cash, and as a first-time founder who had never been a part of a deal like that before, I had to look at how I saw short-and long-term value as well as what I was most passionate about, because I didn't really have any prior experience.

It would have been really nice to take that first all-cash offer. But it all changed when I met Ryan Caldwell on a trip out to Utah and saw what he was...