Justin Meyer, Writer: The Origin Story

It was a routine weekday afternoon in the adolescent life of Justin Meyer. I was in the living room of my friend’s house: ignoring homework, discussing the intricacies of girls, and scarfing down SportsCenter highlights we’d already consumed at breakfast. As ESPN transitioned to Around The Horn – the network’s opportunity for major sports columnists to use their faces – so too did our conversation.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”

I didn’t know. I hadn’t thought much about it. At 15, I was mainly focused on survival.

“Why don’t you do what they do?” my friend posited, his finger aimed at the screen for good measure.

Fourteen years, four companies, and millions of readers later, writing has remained my core endeavor, though I have evolved greatly through the years. From my humble abode in Columbus, Ohio, I pen sports analysis and commentary, e-commerce content, stories, ghostwritten pieces, creative works, music lyrics, satire, white papers, social media copy, and so much more. I edit, I content plan, I optimize. If it can be written, I do it.

And if there is a problem, I solve it.

The Diamondback, the famous student newspaper at the University of Maryland, rejected me as a freshman. No problem, I’ll solve it: I launched The Left Bench with two buddies in our dorm lounge. By our graduation, we had 70-plus employees, full credentials to Maryland sports and DC United, and were on even-footing with the Diamondback.

I didn’t like how mainstream media covered basketball. Too much flash and not enough emphasis on the underappreciated, deep-rooted areas of the sport: women’s ball, high school hoops, the international game. No problem, I’ll solve it: with no funding, I co-founded Nothing But Nylon and grew it organically for three years until it sold as part of Fivestar’s acquisition of Red Label Sports in 2021.

A friend approached me with an idea to sell flamingo products online. He needed a writer – someone who could establish the brand’s voice as the authority in the space. I didn’t know anything about flamingos, and I had never sold anything online before. No problem, I’ll solve it: now more than three years later, I have driven hundreds of thousands of unique visitors to my flamingo blog posts, we have carved out the top spot in our niche with content as our backbone, and I could best anyone without a PhD in a flamingo knowledge contest.

Communication is the cornerstone of success. Without it, chaos, uncertainty, and assumptions ensue. This is also known as: nothing.

Is lackluster language plaguing your brand? Is there a story screaming to be told? Are you in desperate need of a clever, general use one-liner? No problem, I’ll solve it.