Jordan Mayerson ’07
Co-founder + CEO at Hoplite Power shares his story as a tech entrepreneur
From an early age, I was mesmerized by the inner-workings of the business world. I mean, I started investing and following the markets soon after my bar mitzvah at age 13, and thought someday I would build my own financial advisory firm that specialized in investment banking and private equity–I was an interesting teenager to say the least. But because business was not a subject taught in middle and high school, I had to find another topic of interest to focus my studies on, and naturally developed a voracious curiosity for the sciences and technology. I wanted to learn how things worked, how the world worked.
While at Campbell Hall, I took every science course I could. Given my interest in business and technology, it was only appropriate that I continue my education at UPenn’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. During my time there, I focused on finance, operations management, and computer science, the last being ironic since after taking an Intro to Java course at CH, I swore I’d never touch computer programming again! Although I was in both Wharton and the School of Engineering, I always found myself more connected to my business school peers, and therefore decided to pursue a career in investment banking after graduation. As a 21-year-old fresh out of school and ready to conquer the business world, I would have never thought I’d be back to tech so soon.
After spending five years in big finance, my life as a tech entrepreneur started officially on January 28, 2015, the day I quit my job at Goldman Sachs. I don’t think I will ever forget the 30 minutes I spent at my desk that day convincing myself to go through with this leap of faith, stepping willfully into the unknown. Plenty of people probably thought I was crazy to walk away from a firm like Goldman and a six-figure paycheck, but I was determined to accomplish something more, something where my contributions were material and meaningful. Consequently, I decided to take a complete left turn and dove headfirst into the hardware start-up space. And what was the business concept that was powerful enough to cause this monumental shift in my career trajectory?Enter Hoplite Power.
Hoplite Power started with the simple idea that power for our mobile devices should be conveniently accessible when on the go so that individuals can enjoy the connectivity to which they have grown accustomed. As such, we planned to develop an on-demand smartphone “charge-sharing” network consisting ofHoplite Hubs (vending kiosks), which would store, dispense, and automatically re-accept Hoplites (universal battery packs). You would be able to rent a Hoplite from or return a Hoplite to anyHub in the network, allowing you to charge your phone effortlessly whenever, wherever. We had the idea, now we had to make it a reality.
In terms of roles and responsibilities, it was always my expectation to serve as the main interconnect between the engineering-related and business-related functions of the company since I could understand both languages, so to speak. It was never my expectation to become a multi-disciplinary engineer leading software and electrical development, but as it turns out, that is exactly what happened. In the beginning, like most young entrepreneurs, we were downright naive. We hired a few engineering consultants, developed a barely working prototype, got a 100+ businesses to indicate their interest in partnering with us, and went to raise capital; we thought we had it all figured out.After a few laughable pitches, it was back to the drawing board with less time and even less money. People say that necessity is the mother of invention, but in our case it was utter desperation.We needed to build a consumer-ready product on a bootstrapped budget and get it to market ASAP. To make a long story short, during the course of 2016, I went from not having programmed in four years to becoming a full-stack software engineer and self-taught electrical engineer who helped to design, build, and program a smart, connected vending kiosk, all because it needed to be done and no one else was going to do it.
Fast forward to today, we are continuing to expand our network, developing our next generation Hub and Hoplite, and are looking to take Hoplite to the next level. We still have a long way to go andI have no way of knowing whether the venture will succeed or fail in the end, but that doesn’t stop us from pressing forward. Rarely does the launch of a new venture go according to plan, try as you might. Clearly I am not positing anything groundbreaking here, and am reiterating what most of you already know, but at the end of the day, I’d make the choice to embark on this wild, unforeseeable journey time and time again.
Website: hoplitepower.com
Instagram: @hoplitepower
Facebook: @hoplitepower
Email: Jordan@hoplitepower.com
Back
While at Campbell Hall, I took every science course I could. Given my interest in business and technology, it was only appropriate that I continue my education at UPenn’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. During my time there, I focused on finance, operations management, and computer science, the last being ironic since after taking an Intro to Java course at CH, I swore I’d never touch computer programming again! Although I was in both Wharton and the School of Engineering, I always found myself more connected to my business school peers, and therefore decided to pursue a career in investment banking after graduation. As a 21-year-old fresh out of school and ready to conquer the business world, I would have never thought I’d be back to tech so soon.
After spending five years in big finance, my life as a tech entrepreneur started officially on January 28, 2015, the day I quit my job at Goldman Sachs. I don’t think I will ever forget the 30 minutes I spent at my desk that day convincing myself to go through with this leap of faith, stepping willfully into the unknown. Plenty of people probably thought I was crazy to walk away from a firm like Goldman and a six-figure paycheck, but I was determined to accomplish something more, something where my contributions were material and meaningful. Consequently, I decided to take a complete left turn and dove headfirst into the hardware start-up space. And what was the business concept that was powerful enough to cause this monumental shift in my career trajectory?Enter Hoplite Power.
Hoplite Power started with the simple idea that power for our mobile devices should be conveniently accessible when on the go so that individuals can enjoy the connectivity to which they have grown accustomed. As such, we planned to develop an on-demand smartphone “charge-sharing” network consisting ofHoplite Hubs (vending kiosks), which would store, dispense, and automatically re-accept Hoplites (universal battery packs). You would be able to rent a Hoplite from or return a Hoplite to anyHub in the network, allowing you to charge your phone effortlessly whenever, wherever. We had the idea, now we had to make it a reality.
In terms of roles and responsibilities, it was always my expectation to serve as the main interconnect between the engineering-related and business-related functions of the company since I could understand both languages, so to speak. It was never my expectation to become a multi-disciplinary engineer leading software and electrical development, but as it turns out, that is exactly what happened. In the beginning, like most young entrepreneurs, we were downright naive. We hired a few engineering consultants, developed a barely working prototype, got a 100+ businesses to indicate their interest in partnering with us, and went to raise capital; we thought we had it all figured out.After a few laughable pitches, it was back to the drawing board with less time and even less money. People say that necessity is the mother of invention, but in our case it was utter desperation.We needed to build a consumer-ready product on a bootstrapped budget and get it to market ASAP. To make a long story short, during the course of 2016, I went from not having programmed in four years to becoming a full-stack software engineer and self-taught electrical engineer who helped to design, build, and program a smart, connected vending kiosk, all because it needed to be done and no one else was going to do it.
Fast forward to today, we are continuing to expand our network, developing our next generation Hub and Hoplite, and are looking to take Hoplite to the next level. We still have a long way to go andI have no way of knowing whether the venture will succeed or fail in the end, but that doesn’t stop us from pressing forward. Rarely does the launch of a new venture go according to plan, try as you might. Clearly I am not positing anything groundbreaking here, and am reiterating what most of you already know, but at the end of the day, I’d make the choice to embark on this wild, unforeseeable journey time and time again.
Website: hoplitepower.com
Instagram: @hoplitepower
Facebook: @hoplitepower
Email: Jordan@hoplitepower.com
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Phone 818.980.7280
Phone 818.980.7280
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