Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Sorg.
Stephen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My personal journey up to this point is definitely a unique one, full of unexpected twists and turns. I grew up in the Bay Area (San Jose/Los Gatos neighborhoods) my main focus at that time was playing professional soccer so pushed myself to the highest of levels throughout my adolescent years and eventually was playing at the highest level by the time I reached the ages of 17, 18, and 19, but due to injuries and other factors my playing career was cut short and had to determine another direction for my life at that point. I focused back on my schooling and eventually transferred to San Diego State University, where I focused my studies on Adaptive Physiology and Rehabilitation Sciences.
During that time, my life seemed to be steering towards a PhD career in the Healthcare field, but there was always a creative/entrepreneurial side of me that I had wanted to pursue. By the end of my Junior year at SDSU, I had begun drawing up the early stages of what would become a Biotechnology brand that focused on developing an adaptive exoskeleton product that had a direct impact on passive and active low extremity movements. At the same time, I was working for a few San Diego business owners as side jobs to help bring in some extra income during my last few years of college. I was essentially handling a majority of their company’s technical development and marketing tasks, sitting as an executive assistant for them. It was during a conversation with them that the concept of OPTYO was created when they mentioned converting my skill set into an actual business by providing other local business owners a technical and marketing one-stop-shop. I began building out the initial foundational pieces of that business concept and by my senior year, I established OPTYO as an actual San Diego based company.
For the first year and a half, I spent a good amount of my energy developing business relationships and increasing the bandwidth of my professional network throughout Southern California – the company had been slowly growing, increasing the numbers of local clients who we were assisting on the digital side – with technical development, digital marketing, and content creation. It was at this point when we discovered our true niche, which is as a creative incubator specifically designed to bring innovative San Diego based products and brands to life! We began building the internal pieces to accommodate that new business direction by bringing in-house directors for marketing & digital advertising, online sales, content creation, financial affairs, business development and technical development/design. We discovered that there is an avenue that we could go down that would separate our company from the rest, which was discovering product and brand potential at the earliest of stages and providing that potential with all the needed resources to bring it to market and scale it to incredible heights! We would create those foundational pillars that owners, product developers, and inventors need in order to properly scale their brand, successfully bring it to market, and maintain momentum to have it become a long-lasting and profitable entity.
Has it been a smooth road?
It has definitely not been a smooth road the entire way, from the beginning there were plenty of roadblocks that we hit that put us in places where the long term potential didn’t always seem to be there. We have had our fair share of startup obstacles, just like any other business, but have been fortunate to be surrounded by incredible individuals who have seen the long term vision since the beginning and have stuck by my side and the company’s side through all those up and downs. One of the biggest issues we faced, in the beginning, was the ability to gain trust from product developers and inventors who saw us as a newly established entity with a lot of young talent, in which, that can be a significant obstacle to overcome because business maturity is something you can’t fake so we had to spend the first few years really establishing our network out here in San Diego and devoting a lot of time to building up relationships and trust with owners who would refer us onto others – which at this point our main source of new business is through referrals.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the OPTYO story. Tell us more about the business.
OPTYO is a full-service creative incubator that takes San Diego products and brands from the earliest of stages and brings them to market through a team of elite professionals, whom encompass the fields of Technical Development and Design, Online Sales, Digital Marketing & Advertising, Social Media, Content Creation, Business Development and Financial Affairs. With a network of partnered entities and internal assets spanning the reaches of Product Developers, International Manufacturing Representatives, and a partnered Patent and Business Development Law Firm – our Incubator Program provides Entrepreneurs all the necessary tools to bring their brand to life!
Our unique approach of focusing on the brand establishment, business development and scalability in the most vested manner is what separates ourselves from the rest. We build up those foundational pillars that owners, product developers, and inventors need in order to properly scale their brand, successfully bring it to market, and maintain momentum to have it become a long-lasting and profitable entity. Having all of these crucial pieces in-house truly allows our Team to take our clients to unforeseen achievements, their niche becomes our passion! Our business model allows us to become a true partner with every entity we work with, in which, as they succeed, we as a whole succeed.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Over the next 5 – 10 years, I believe there will be a continued shift to digital, that being more businesses and industries shifting focus and capital towards enhancing their digital presence on all mediums. I believe that digital advertising and online sales will continue to become more popular across all business sectors and entrepreneurship will continue to grow as a result of that. I see more creative individuals deciding to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors, whether that be their own business, brand, or product, due to the increased knowledge of online availability.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://optyo.net
- Phone: (858) 304-0078
- Email: Info@optyo.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/optyo_llc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/optyollc
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/OPTYO_llc
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/optyo-san-diego
Image Credit:
Paola Torres
Preeya Manita
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