If you're reading this, I greatly appreciate you. You're either one of the few people who my cold heart actually considers close and, thus, I sent the link to you, or... I really don't know why else you'd be here. Maybe a misclick.

Anyways, here's some stuff about me that you probably already know.

After years of Fortnite-filled days, I realized that my dream of being a professional video gamer was over during my Junior year of high school. I began focusing (for the first time) on school, chess, and piano (I know, cool kid).

Pretty quickly after that, the pandemic hit, and I noticed that my grandparents were lonely and craving interaction, so I began putting on little music shows for them, and, eventually, expanded those music shows into a nonprofit called Quarantine Music Busters (QMB).

Throughout the remainder of high school, I grew QMB to 36 employees to support our contract with the Fairfax County government: weekly shows for senior centers around the county. Throughout my time leading QMB, I learned how to manage and respect others, especially when they may not be as dedicated as I was.

Despite my lackluster first couple years at high school, I got accepted to UNC. During my first year, I joined a fraternity (relevant soon), started Draughn Tutoring Services, and secured a Business Development internship at Siemens. Oh, I also decided I hated law and switched to business (sellout).

Draughn Tutoring Services began as an ACT tutoring program for two students—both of which, might I brag, ended up earning perfect ACT scores. After a little bit of networking, though, it grew into a regional organization offering discounted in-person tutoring for young students, especially those with intellectual disabilities. Eventually, our program spanned custom math, English, critical thinking, and even chess lessons.

At Siemens, I began as a standard BusDev intern doing standard BusDev work: competitor intelligence, pricing patterns, and some modeling/simulations. However, after my summer at Siemens, I was given a return offer, and worked part-time there for the next two years as a Capture Manager, leading opportunity development and capture for contracts for various federal agencies.

I have a whole case study on CLIQInvite here, so I'll keep this one brief. Basically, I noticed that there were some serious safety and organizational flaws with fraternity event processes, so I teamed up with my forever co-founder Mark to create a digital way to run safe and efficient fraternity events.

We came into the experience with zero software development experience, so there was obviously a sharp learning curve there (all-nighters, 18-hour days, all that fun startup stuff). After creating a maximally viable product—yep, I mean maximally—we grew CLIQInvite nationwide to over 15 schools and expanded our team to seven employees.

I don't want to spoil the ending for all of my reader (yes, singular), but it didn't end up becoming the subscription revenue-generating machine we had errantly anticipated. Despite that, I learned a ton of lessons from the experience and am excited to continue applying them moving forward.

On a happier note, I also led a cool AI initiative at Siemens regarding LLMs and got selected for an interal Siemens Startup Accelerator.

Only the seriously dedicated will have made it to this point, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart (seriously). At the moment, I'm working on launching yet another startup, EZVenues—a AirBnB-like marketplace for private event venue rentals (think corporate party at a restaurant). I'm also the co-founder and sit on the board of Skppr, a mobile app selling third-party lineskips at crowded bars and clubs while providing insights on the location (quantity of people inside, whether police officers were inside, think Waze).

On the personal projects side, you can find out what I'm working on in the projects section of this "portfolio" website. Outside of that, I have many current hobbies and responsibilities, including serving as the President of UNC's oldest fraternity, training for powerlifting Nationals, and, of course, pursuing my Business degree at UNC Kenan-Flagler. In my free time, you can probably find me analyzing stock charts, watching my two brothers kick ass in their respective fields, responding to caring texts from my always supportive parents, and hanging out with my fantastic friends and beautiful girlfriend.

Thanks for following the journey!

Steve Draughn

ENTREPRENEUR