Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Achay
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was a college baseball player who needed a job with enough flexibility to work with my already busy schedule. A friend gave me a flyer that he was given for a part-time position opening at the LA Coliseum. I sent one email, got invited to check it out, then I started working. I spent 2016-2022 as a part-time employee at USC, working primarily for the Coliseum, while also spending some time at the baseball field and practice football field.
I finished playing my last season of baseball in 2021, graduated with an MBA, then I started working at SoFi Stadium while I looked for jobs in a different space in sports.
During my job search, I created J Sprays and began making videos of field painting and other aspects of what the field crews would do for social media. It gathered a lot of traction, I stuck with it, and eventually began getting paint jobs for my own business outside of my other jobs.
In 2022, I was offered a job with the LA Chargers as a Field Manager for the practice facility, and I have been there since. Currently, I’m running J Sprays and working for the Chargers.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s been a very busy road. Figuring out how to balance a full time job, growing a business, doing other work on the side, and having a life outside of that has definitely had me going without a break for a few years now.
I’ve had many times where I sit down, try to gather my thoughts, and have so many different tasks I need to get done, but I’m not sure where to start. I have a ton of different things I want to accomplish, and I struggle with taking a step back to give myself time to organize my thoughts. Making myself a schedule and staying consistent with it is the most effective way to keep me moving forward and less stressed.
There have been physical struggles leading up to certain jobs as well. Last minute changes to what a client wanted, equipment stops working at the worst time, needing to get creative with a location to make large stencils, and plenty of other examples. No matter what the struggle is, the job always gets done with high quality.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about J Sprays?
I started out as a baseball coach and private trainer. I would primarily give lessons and run camps, and coach baseball teams for youth baseball after I would get done working at the football fields. Doing so, I knew I needed to start an organization to make it legitimate. That really got me thinking about how I could grow the business, so I began figuring out ways to do it. I started off focusing mostly on youth baseball, and just treating professional football as my day job. I was trying to run my own travel ball tournaments and camps to grow it in that sense.
While focusing on that, I began posting painting and other field management videos to social media. These videos caught wind very quick and started spreading, which helped me realize that I should shift my attention there. I was very familiar with both baseball and painting, so it was not a tough transition.
Now, there are two parts of the business. One is the online presence and one is the physical presence. The physical business is focused mostly on field painting, with other field maintenance aspects involved as well, like sod installation and more. With about a decade of experience painting and managing fields for NFL teams, we can do any job. We’ve had jobs for major brands for football fields, commercials, soccer, baseball, etc.
With almost 100,000 followers throughout different platforms, the social media presence is mostly on TikTok and Instagram, but we’re working on long-form content for YouTube as well. This part of the business includes putting out great content for people to see and learn, while giving companies the chance to partner with us in order to help spread their brand.
I’m excited that I’ve been able to build it how I want, and even when I wasn’t sure exactly about where I was going, I knew if I kept going that I would find a path.
What’s next?
We are in the making of starting a couple different long-form series for YouTube, which will include a podcast and in-depth breakdowns of the physical side of the business. This is exciting because it’s something that has been in the making for a long time and will be able to highlight some very cool and interesting stuff that most people just don’t know about, but may have been curious.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jsprayspaint.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.j.sprays/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@j.sprays
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@j.sprays
