Hello World

The first person to ever call me C.Vo was my late friend, Jacob, back in middle school. I miss you, pal. Thanks for being the force behind so many of the good times, the bad times, the laughs, the tears—you were the catalyst for all this creative expression.

We came of age during the heyday of Jackass. Much like Steve-O and the rest of them, we spent our teenage years finding out who can be the most destructive, both to oneself and to society. Unfortunately, when you play that game long enough, some of us don't make it.

It's strange to think my Hello World is shipping on my 40th birthday some twenty-five years later. What's normally considered a mid-life crisis for most is, for me, a mid-life revival. I'm truly grateful to be here today.

The rebel years

I came of age an idealist, a rebel, a vandal—someone who compensated for my own insecurities by pushing the boundaries of what is permissible in a civil society.

Rage Against the Machine to Modest Mouse; Radiohead to Atmosphere; Pink Floyd to Eminem. Somewhere at that intersection of musical influences, I got wired for deep introspection, social angst and activism, a bit of violence, and an open hostility towards the powers that be.

In response, my friends and I made art and music, took psychedelics, played ping pong, and did whatever we could to escape the institutional world we felt boxed into. That's usually where the story goes one of two ways for young men: the artist burns bright and burns out, or he trades it in for a salary and lets that person die quietly inside.

Somehow, I've been able to straddle that line.

Know your enemy

There was a turn from the fight-the-power idealism that fueled my creative spirits to something more 'pragmatic.' Something happened in our family that forced me to grow up right when the destructive behavior was taking a new turn. Reality hit hard and I had to change my priorities, for their sake. It led me somewhere I never expected to go: business school.

At the macro level, if I wanted to bring the system down with my creativity, I first had to understand the system. At the micro level, if I wanted to be my own boss, I had to learn how to run a business. So, I made a hard pivot from the cushy music, art, and design courses at community college to business management and marketing at Cal State Long Beach.

Who would have guessed that business school would be so…awesome?

I learned that it's all one big game—a game where my strategic mind thrived and where my creative execution was my competitive advantage. Research reports were fully formatted. Presentation decks had artwork. Marketing pitches had videos, animations, and storytelling. I excelled at spreadsheets, I designed my words.

The art kid grew up and went to business school, and it felt like it was a turning point towards 'maturity.'

It's business time

That's what a web developer told the founder of the first startup I joined. He wasn't wrong. We went from $200K to $3M in under three years (pretty good for a small manufacturing company in Southern CA competing in a commodity market). But I realized that making money for someone else, in an industry I didn't care for, was not the path for me. I needed an exit strategy and found it in a couple of PDFs.

I discovered two documents that sparked the inspiration: "Communications for Social Good" and "How to Make Money and Change the World." These writings identified the thing I wanted to do before I understood what the nonprofit sector was. The skills I built to win at business could be pointed at something worth winning. So, I headed to Washington, DC where the framework of marketing strategy for nonprofits was validated, and the marketing execution, or lack thereof, became the niche I could fill.

Specializing in being a generalist

The creative profession has a way of funneling people into a specialty. But I wasn't a specialist, I was a generalist. Something that often reads as a liability on a résumé turned out to be the thing the philanthropic sector needs: highly skilled generalists.

They need people who could hold strategy and production in the same head. Mission-driven organizations can't afford a VP of marketing, a creative director, a graphic designer, a video producer, a web developer, and a social media associate. They need someone that could do it all, and luckily this is my specialty. Serendipitously, I spent six years working for the coauthor of Communications for Social Good at the FrameWorks Institute. It was the role I was designed for.

But alas, life has a way of changing course. I got the news that Jacob died.

Rebuilding

The loss of one of my best friends made me homesick to say the least. We had lost others, but this one hit hard. After the funeral another friend approached me in helping him with his new business venture, Keynote Builders. It was an opportunity to build again and reconnect with my past, so I said yes.

Another cross country move, another marketing plan fully executed from the ground up. We went from being $75,000 in debt to $2.5 million in gross revenue, in the green, and had more projects than we had capacity for. I was picking up momentum again back in the small business world.

Then my life partner and I found out we were having a baby, and babies are expensive.

Even with the growing success of Keynote Builders, it wasn't enough to support my new family in the way I wanted to. I had to make another pivot.

Financial stability, at a nonprofit?

When your heart and mind are in the right place, God has a way of presenting the right opportunities to you—that's what I found at the Financial Health Network. With the mission of improving financial health for all, it was a sign that if I'm seeking financial stability for my family, this ought to be the place to do it.

The generalist got hired, moved to the Midwest during COVID, and was a part of a special cohort of parents who had a COVID-baby. Times were challenging but it was the right call.

Fast forward to 2026, the Financial Health Network has been the foundation for my financial stability, giving me the means to provide for my family. In return, I provide all the strategic thinking and production execution I've always done, now at a higher degree and with more social impact. I get to do what I love and provide for my family—what more could one ask for?

Ping pong

My path always felt like a series of false starts and hard pivots: art school to business school; small business to nonprofit twice over; west coast to east coast to Midwest. It was frustrating, and at times I felt really lost. I was the ball in this existential game of ping pong.

But now that I can sit and reflect, each turn was made for one of two reasons: I had to do it for the family or the work had to mean something.

Now I get to do both.

What this is

This is my portfolio site to showcase the work throughout the years and into the future. This is the first post in a section I'm calling Writings. I'm starting it on my fortieth birthday because forty is the time for a mid-life revival.

I'm at peace now that the idealist and the pragmatist are the same person. The world needs humans helping humans and that's what I'm striving for—what I've been striving for. So, here are the working notes of someone twenty years into a craft and just getting started, again.

Hello world.

— C.Vo