Jonas Keavney: choosing startups over corporates

“Before Jumpstart I was mindlessly applying to corporate grad schemes I wasn’t particularly interested in at all, writing obscene numbers of cover letters for jobs I didn’t even want”

He’s now loving his role as Junior Brand Manager at Heroes, an e-commerce company that buys, operates, and scales consumer brands. 

“Our company mission is to acquire consumer brands, primarily based on Amazon, and operate and scale those brands. We’re like a private equity firm for e-commerce businesses, where we buy brands from solopreneurs and then grow those brands with our in-house team of experts. 

“In my role, I have full oversight over a brand that does millions in revenue a year, I have a tonne of responsibility, every day is different and I get to work with great people” 

For Jonas, a particular highlight of working at Heroes is their sense of company culture: 

“Everyone is pulling in the same direction, with the same overall sense of mission. But also some occasional free beers at work doesn’t do any harm either!”

Looking back on the Jumpstart programme, Jonas felt he benefited most from the training – where we provide our candidates with support in areas such as comms, prioritisation and excel to help them hit the ground running when they start their new role. 

“My favourite part of the Jumpstart programme was the training. I use more in the day-to-day of my role from the training than I learned in my three years of my degree. It was a super rewarding process, and I’ll use those experiences beyond the startup I’m currently working in, to help traverse my future career too.”