Meet Joi Jetson

We were lucky to catch up with Joi Jetson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joi, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
Funny. I actually learned how to swing a tennis racquet before I could tie my shoes. While other four-year-olds were still working on those bunny ear loops, I was learning discipline and form on the court. Tennis completely rewires your brain – it’s wild how it teaches you that getting better is really just about showing up and trying again. I spent years at Nike camps, Reebok clinics, and made it all the way to Dartmouth’s courts. That’s where it really clicked – success isn’t about never failing, it’s about not letting failure stop you.

Then around 9, I discovered a whole different kind of game when I started coding. With a fashion designer mom and an interior design dad, I guess art was kind of inevitable – it was just part of daily life at home. So while all my friends were figuring out their AIM profiles, I was already taking college classes at FIT, juggling graphics, photography, and advertising on top of high school. Looking back, those crazy double-duty days really shaped how I approach design sprints and building apps now – it’s all a blend of precision with creativity.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’ve launched over 7,000 projects across 70 cities globally, but my path into tech wasn’t exactly conventional. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn. Those childhood dreams of white hat hacking somehow morphed into me building websites in every programming language I could get my hands on. People know me for saying “I dream in CSS” – and honestly, I still do.

These days, I get to wear different hats at RE:STUDIO. One day I’m crafting front-end designs for SaaS apps, the next I’m mapping out user experiences that actually make sense. Lately, I’ve been helping folks navigate their way through the WP Engine and WordPress situation – turns out my love for technical challenges comes in handy when founders need a smooth transition to less dramatic hosting.

The best part? Every project is different. Whether it’s building custom WordPress themes or launching new Shopify stores, I get to keep learning and growing. What really lights me up though is our work as a non-profit, mentoring hundreds of underrepresented founders and creatives completely free of charge. We believe in opening doors and sharing knowledge – that’s how we build a stronger creative community.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Curiosity drives everything I do. From the moment I started coding at 9, I’ve been obsessed with understanding how things work. It’s not just about learning new technologies – it’s about asking “why” and “what if” at every turn. That curiosity led me from building websites to diving deep into user behavior and digital innovation.

Then there’s my relentless drive to simplify things. I see complexity as a challenge, not a given. Whether it’s streamlining a user experience or breaking down technical concepts for non-technical folks, I believe everything can be simpler. This mindset has been crucial in making technology more accessible to everyone I work with.

Finally, empathy – it’s the secret ingredient in everything from design to mentorship. Understanding not just what people need, but why they need it has shaped how I approach every project. It’s why our non-profit work is so important to me – technology should open doors for everyone, not just those who already have the keys.

My advice? Let curiosity guide you, but use empathy to make your work matter. And when things get complicated, remember that your job isn’t to add more complexity – it’s to cut through it.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I think it’s critical to focus on your strengths. When you iterate and hone your craft toward that 10,000-hour mark, you discover micro-skills that need sharpening to amplify your major talents. Sometimes those smaller skills you pick up along the way end up becoming incredibly valuable as technology and industries evolve.

Take my journey with web design. Two decades ago, when I built my first websites, the most celebrated aspect wasn’t the design – it was the copy. My background in poetry actually shaped how I wrote for the web. Then one of my early mentors, John O’Farrell, handed me an SEO book that changed everything. It connected the dots between search results and on-page copy, showing me how each search result is like a tiny poem waiting to be optimized.

Now, as I’ve evolved from design to development, then to UI and UX, that early SEO storytelling skill has become incredibly valuable. It’s the copy that drives the design, and what started as a small skill picked up along the way to web design completely transformed my approach, aesthetic, and efficacy of each pixel I push.

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Joi

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