About Clay McIlrath
An introduction to Clay McIlrath
Welcome to my site, and thanks for stopping in! I am a startup and technology consultant part-time, and an app developer full-time. In the past few years I have accomplish a few awesome things:
2007: First Career Job and Climbing the “corporate ladder”
I worked for Spartan Internet, an web and consulting company in Lansing, Michigan. I started out as a designer and quickly moved on to development and project management. My role in the company accelerated faster than I could have ever predicted and I had a lot of fun working on high profile projects from Michigan State University to Sumitomo and Golder.
2008: I started my first business
I partnered with a group of friends to create an organization called Chosen whose name signified the fact that we would choose select businesses or non-profits to donate our time and efforts to. As a group we did a variety of services: promotional events, branding, website development, marketing, etc. Our group helped promote a few local restaurants that were struggling to stay afloat, we walked hundreds of dogs for the Lansing Area Humaine Society to help raise awareness and increase adoption, and we did countless other work for young entrepreneurs. After a year of doing Chosen as a do-good project, I decided to quit the corporate world and start a full-time business under the same name. I failed miserably my first year in business.. I almost lost my house, and absolutely destroyed my credit. That lead me to look out of state for work and a new start. I moved to Colorado in 2009 and kicked up business again, and this time, it thrived! We started working with extremely large brands like Red Bull, Chase, Comcast and Dish Network. As we grew as a development company we needed to expand our services and strengths leading to an acquisition into a larger agency!
2012: From a startup to an agency
After running Chosen successfully for a couple years, an opportunity came along to sell and merge Chosen in with an agency known as Arrae Creative. Arrae was a merger of Adventured, 67AD, and Chosen, creating a one-stop shop for branding to full business execution for tech startups. We’ve helped reinvent and start companies like TechCocktail, Qwizzle, and IREA.
Today: I create apps and consult businesses
I build and sell mobile apps. I consult and do contract work for Tech Startups that I love: Active Junky, Tech Cocktail, and Young Go Getter being among my favorites.
More than the work
Faith is what guides me, and I strongly believe without faith I would have nothing. I’ve been humbled by the opportunities and blessings that I have received and I am so grateful to the mentors and motivators in my life. I strive to reach higher goals with my businesses and personal life. I also have a very quirky and jolly nature and I don’t let impressions or embarrassment hold me back from being myself or being a little off center.
If I described myself in one word it would be technology. Like technology I can be very smart, useful, and hard working. But on the other hand I can also be very quirky, buggy, and frustrating if you don’t understand me.
As far as interests go, I love technology and design. I tinker with just about everything from software development to hardware modding. I have a natural desire and talent in all things web and computer related. To stay fit I rock climb, skateboard, snowboard, and swim as often as possible!
My skills
I can do everything from design, development and IT. My passion is dev and design:
