Meet Jess Hellmich | Entrepreneur & Chief Marketing Officer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jess Hellmich and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jess, what do you attribute your success to?
If I had to boil it all down into a single, most important factor behind my success and the success of my brand it would be “Taking Action.” There is of course context to this factor, and can be further explained with the following points:

1. As business leaders, take action in developing your team. Share real data with them and let them be part of your success. They are way more likely to be inspired and stay motivated when you give them the ability to have their contributions to your efforts matter.

2. Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunity and don’t be afraid to take action on them when opportunity knocks. But do your homework. Plan, think ahead, and know what you’re going to do several steps in advance.

3. Don’t give up. If you set out to accomplish something, failure is always an option. But getting back up and adjusting your approach using the insights you’ve learned in that failure will help you succeed as long as you continue to act.

4. Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. There are a lot of high points in business ownership and entrepreneurship. But there are also a lot of lows. You have to ride the whole ride, and that means you have to be willing and able to act and do ALL of the parts because at the end of the day, it is your dream that you are building, and no one will care as much as you do.

5. When times get tough, and they will, take action and educate yourself. From my experience, the best way to solve a problem is to deconstruct it, dig in, become educated on what needs to be done and take action.

6. Lastly, simply TAKE ACTION. Nothing happens if no one acts. Don’t wait for others to give you approval – if you’ve done the homework, and you believe in what you are doing, do it, and keep moving forward.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve known for a very long time that I wanted to own my own business. I didn’t necessarily know what that business would be, but I knew that an entrepreneurial path was for me. My approach was to get a college education (San Diego State University – Go Aztecs) and then get professional career experience, building and fine-tuning the skills and experiences I would need to eventually own something of my own. Thankfully, my entire professional career was in small business, which gave me a unique professional upbringing of always working directly with, and alongside, the owners of the companies I worked for. This was an invaluable experience and I encourage and even challenge all of you business leaders out there today to take the time to mentor your team members. You never know who you will influence to create the next big thing. This experience allowed me to be part of business-focused conversations, and debates on what decisions should be made in different situations, and then see the outcomes of those decisions. I was able to be hands-on in my role, as well as wear multiple hats so I experienced a breadth of responsibilities. I was close enough to the people at the top that I was asked my opinion and influenced decisions. I had a sense of ownership and pride.

After a successful start to my career in marketing/advertising/sales, I found myself in a position of really yearning to get out on my own and start a business. I just didn’t know what it was. In 2016, I decided to seriously start thinking about what I wanted to offer to my community, what would be the right fit for me, help me accomplish my goals, and make me happy. In early 2017 I was perusing through LinkedIn and came across an article that was about healthy ways to relieve stress. The story focused on “rage rooms,” which is an activity you can do where you pay to go in a room and break things, throw plates at the wall, or take a sledgehammer to a TV set, etc. The rage room part of that story is what caught my attention because I had never heard of that as a thing to do before. It was different and interesting. It got my brain turning, but I quickly came to the conclusion that the business model involved wasn’t for me. However, it just so happens that the “suggested” reading after that article was about an axe throwing facility located in New Jersey. Again, this caught my attention. Axe Throwing? This is a commercial thing? Does it make sense? Are others doing it? It got me thinking.

In 2017, axe throwing was nearly non-existent in the United States, but had been around for several years in Canada and the UK. Some quick napkin math and sorting through some high-level business model ideas gave me the gusto to dig into this as a real business opportunity. After all, I had been hearing for years about the shift towards spending money on things to do and experiences, versus things to own and store. I thought, “This could make sense.”

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We’re gonna go with the city where we are headquartered – Columbus, Ohio. Despite popular belief, Columbus has a lot to do and see, and I really love this city. Depending on the season you are in town, there are a few sports things that are a must-do. One, you have to check out The Buckeyes play a home game football game at The Shoe. Not only see the game, but you have to go down to campus to tailgate as well. It’s one of the best tailgating and college football experiences you’ll ever have. Two, Columbus, is home to the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL hockey team. Their fans are called the 5th line for a reason. Seeing this team play in Nationwide Arena is amazing! Three, the Columbus Clippers baseball team hails from Central Ohio and their ballpark, Huntington Park, has won multiple awards. They are a great baseball team to boot and dime-a-dog night ($0.10 hot dogs) is hard to beat. Fourth, I would want to take a visitor on a bike ride using the rail-to-trails path that has been connected throughout the city. You can go for miles and miles seeing rivers, and beautiful trees, head through downtown, and really enjoy yourself.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
No matter what you think, you never do it alone. Of course, my family is number one here. My wife deserves all the credit for believing in what I was trying to build when it was just scribbles on a napkin, and giving me the leeway to pursue it while she was pregnant with our first child. Now, blessed with two beautiful little girls, they deserve some credit as well. They are a tremendous source of my motivation. To succeed for them means everything. I also need to include my wife’s parents with a huge shoutout in our story of success. The early days of our company were amazing, but also a learning experience. My in-laws believed in what we were doing, helped to support my family during the building years, and even helped us with a not-insignificant bridge loan to get things fully up and running. My story could be very different without their support. Shoutouts to those who helped us get to where we are would not be complete without mentioning our professional services team (attorney, CPA, insurance broker, advisors). I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers. But something we did very early on in our entrepreneurial journey was build a team of professionals and advisors that we could go to help us flesh out ideas, get advice on matters, and stupid check ideas. Lastly, my business partner Paul Sherry. This guy had the guts to jump head-first into a new industry with me, and he dreams big. He pushes and fights for what he believes to be true and has a work ethic like I’ve never seen before. Our strengths complement each other’s very nicely and together we have accomplished some pretty amazing things.

Website: www.theduelingaxes.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duelingaxes/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dueling-axes/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DuelingAxes/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dueling-axes-columbus

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKE3Ch0T5fYy3G_THHZCjA

Image Credits
Dueling Axes