Jon Olsen Email & Phone Number

Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Helping startups make the hard jumps from great idea to market dominance.

Austin, Texas, United States

Transformed the hand sanitation market by pioneering Vaask, a built-in hand sanitizer fixture, from concept to market adoption in record time. Led the design and execution, navigating early challenges and establishing a robust supply chain during critical times. Innovated with connected product enhancements, driving customer value and sales. Engaged directly with top-tier clients, broadening our market reach.- Finalized the core engineering specification within three months by iterating through 12 prototypes and engaging over 60 commercial customers.- Directed cross-functional teams in industrial design, mechanical and electrical engineering, compliance, app development, backend, firmware, sourcing, and marketing to ship new 8 products. - Addressed early pandemic supply chain challenges by establishing redundant overseas and domestic tooling to maintain quality and delivery speeds. - Proactively addressed product flaws by halting manufacturing and shipments, swiftly implementing a preemptive field upgrade initiative. This strategic response not only rectified the underlying issue before it impacted most customers but also reinforced trust and satisfaction by enhancing product reliability.- Personally exhibited at over 20 trade shows within six months after product launch, gaining insights that shifted market focus from luxury hotels to high-traffic venues like airports and casinos. - Led sales team on all large opportunities. Created rich and compelling proposals for large organizations including airports. Negotiated contracts and ensured that obligations were met. Delivered systems to over 20 airports on-time.

Austin, Texas, United States

As a founding member and Principal Investor at Unorthodox Ventures, I facilitated investments across more than 20 companies (including HelloTushy.com, Lumen.me, VibrantGastro.com, and Zippsafe.com). My role was characterized by a hands-on, strategic investment approach, blending technical acumen with keen business insights to identify and nurture groundbreaking innovations.- Managed deal flow and stakeholder communication for the firm. Coordinated weekly updates and reports from local, NYC, and Israel partners. - Implemented a hands-on investigative investment approach, including an operational role in aquaculture. This led to the identification of red flag biological risk factors, thereby safeguarding significant time and investor capital.- Served as an advisor to portfolio companies, driving market research efforts that informed strategic product and marketing decisions, enhancing market entry success.- Directed business development for the firm in the Texas area. Created connections between dozens of family offices and firms to develop and share deal flow.

Lexington, Kentucky, United States

I led a cross-discipline project management team focused on early-stage product development. As a manager, I created self-driven, empowered project managers and teams. As a leader, I expanded my teams’ impact throughout the company by engaging other departments in meaningful ways.

Lexington, Kentucky

I evolved agile project management techniques into a form uniquely suited to tackling multifaceted early-stage, proof-of-concept projects encountered in my department. I drastically improved internal, project-centric communication by changing from reports timed to a project’s end to bi-weekly discussions. Through these changes, I increased valuable output from projects by an order of magnitude.

Lexington, Kentucky, United States

Spearheaded fundamental research efforts necessary to open new business opportunities for Big Ass Fans. Major projects included sleep research, shelf life for produce, and energy-efficient comfort control solutions for commercial spaces.

Developed and built a system to remotely monitor post-harvest conditions of soybeans during truck transportation in Brazil. I also created and taught a short course on building low-cost data acquisition systems at universities in the United States and Brazil.

Modeled and optimized the extraction of solar heat contained within the attic space of poultry houses for the reduction of fossil fuel use. Models were verified using a field data acquisition system.

Used various EPA methods for air emissions compliance testing. I worked in industrial settings, including paper mills, refineries, manufacturing plants, power plants and superfund sites. Routinely performed field laboratory work including titration and sample preparations, gaining experience in ground water sampling in a variety of environments.

Masters, Agricultural And Biological Engineering

Activities and Societies: ASABECourse work focused on heat and mass transport, numerical simulation, and sustainable design

Bioenvironmental Engineering

Bs, Biological Engineering

Activities and Societies: IBEBeach Renourishment Project – Planted experimental estuaries and built protection structures on Mississippi.

Mechanical Engineering

Activities and Societies: SAEFormula SAE – Student run project to build and race an open-wheel racecar 2007 – Electronics Team Leader –.