A Slice on Jason Abromaitis, Founder and CEO of Launchpad
As a child of two athletes, Jason Abromaitis was destined to be one himself, playing basketball all the way through college. Upon graduating, Abromaitis decided to go down a different path into the business world, taking on various roles before starting his own customer survey company, Corus. Abromaitis focused on Corus for roughly seven years, until founding a new company in 2021, Launchpad. In his new venture, Abromaitis meshes together his sports and business expertise with a smart, at-home athletic training system. To date, Launchpad has raised $120k in its pre-seed funding round.
With sports surrounding him his whole life, fitness is very important to Abromaitis. He sees Launchpad as a way to serve kids in sports now, by serving his younger self. “It’s a really rewarding mission that we’re on to try and help kids stay involved in sports longer.. and maybe this needs to start younger to develop healthy habits before we’re swimming upstream against bad habits.” Being located in Denver, a fitness-centric city, has been advantageous for Abromaitis, along with the kind of talent available when recruiting a team. He’s found that people in Denver often look for non-traditional jobs, rather than the typical 9-to-5.
With the entrance of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone found themselves having to work in an unconventional setting. Personally, Abromaitis was accustomed to working remotely with Corus, but with the global shift in 2020, many people have had to adjust to remote work even if it may not be their style, which can affect the team’s synergy. Building his business during a pandemic has posed some challenges for Abromaitis, most notably with his team and fundraising. He had to find team members who were comfortable with remote work and not having a dedicated office space for the “foreseeable future”.
Furthermore, not being able to meet face-to-face with investors proved to make building strong relationships with them difficult for Abromaitis. On top of that, this is his first time going through an institutional fundraising path, since Corus was 100% bootstrapped from day one. Navigating these obstacles is no easy feat, but Abromaitis has used his athlete state-of-mind to tackle them by beginning the relationship-building process with investors sooner than he had otherwise anticipated. On the plus side, Abromaitis appreciates not traveling as much so he can spend time with his family.
While starting out on his journey, Abromaitis received some good pieces of advice from his mentors that he’d like other founders to hear. First, “it’s never as good and never as bad as it seems.”
Abromaitis’ competitive nature and desire to set examples for his kids motivate him each day as a founder, even when facing challenges that could lead to failure.
Looking ahead, Abromaitis is focused on growth for both Launchpad and for himself professionally. He hopes for Launchpad to become a household name for families managing youth sports and anyone who wants to develop healthier habits. For his own growth, Abromaitis wants to be better at his job each day and create a work environment that makes him and his team think, “Thank God we got in early because we’d never be able to get a job here, given the quality of the people we’ve got today.”
Founder Bio
Jason Abromaitis is a two-time entrepreneur living in Denver, Colorado. He launched his first company, Corus, in 2013, and his current venture, Launchpad, in 2021. Connect with Abromaitis through LinkedIn.
