Jordan Calderon, founder of performance marketing agency StratDev, explains how he built initial credibility with business owners after being dismissed due to his young age.
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“What I did is I went to business owners, and instead of saying, hey, pay me to go work for you, hey, I'll work for you for free, as long as you do two things. One, write me a video testimonial, and two, we're allowed to use all your work as a case study. And so with that, we worked at three different businesses.”
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More from Jordan Calderon
Insight
Founders must burn hotter during an exit than when building a business
“It is the beginning of that end, and it requires you to actually be burning a lot hotter than probably the rest of your experiences. Maybe there's a little, you know, spikes throughout that entrepreneurial journey to building that business, but I promise that,…”
Jordan CalderonJul 14, 2026▶ 25:48From Free Work to a Buyer-Ready Agency Exit
Insight
Quality M&A counsel can alter a founder's payout by seven figures
“The difference of just knowing what to do or having the right cancel or not is, Literally in, in some cases you know, seven plus figures of a difference of, you know, what the outcome is for you as a founder.”
Jordan CalderonJul 14, 2026▶ 26:51From Free Work to a Buyer-Ready Agency Exit
Opinion
Calderon says his UC Santa Barbara economics degree taught him nothing useful
“I did not, if I'm being honest, learn anything as an economics major that was directly applicable to marketing, or if I'm being honest, being an entrepreneur as well.”
Jordan CalderonJul 14, 2026▶ 2:28From Free Work to a Buyer-Ready Agency Exit
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Calderon: StratDev Grew ~118% Year-Over-Year Over Five Years
“In the five years of us or me running the business I was able to grow the business about a 118% year over year.”
Jordan CalderonJul 14, 2026▶ 8:29From Free Work to a Buyer-Ready Agency Exit
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Calderon engaged 215 potential buyers to secure 11 LOIs for StratDev
“As a result, I think we spoke to 215 total buyers on an offer. We got 11 LOIs”
Jordan CalderonJul 14, 2026▶ 13:24From Free Work to a Buyer-Ready Agency Exit
Disclosure
Calderon hosted a 300-person Bali victory party months before deal actually closed
“In September when I thought we were, you know, days away from closing, I actually ended up renting this massive villa in Bali, because I was in Bali at that time, inviting all my friends, I'm not even kidding you, there's probably like, 300 people at this part…”
Jordan CalderonJul 14, 2026▶ 17:48From Free Work to a Buyer-Ready Agency Exit
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