Meet Jason Steele | Credit Card and Travel Rewards Expert, Freelance Writer and Conference Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jason Steele and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jason, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
In 2008, I was working as a technical support specialist at the US Geological Survey. However, I was very underutilized. In other words, I had to be at the office eight hours a day, but they didn’t give me much work to do. While others played video games and talked about sports, I dove into subjects that interested me, like travel and personal finance.

What I found was that many articles in the mainstream media weren’t very well thought out. For example, their advice on saving money while dining out often boiled down to simply ordering less food. In contract, I knew of many little-known dining discounts and rewards programs.

So I decided to start my own blog about personal finance and travel. The only problem was that I had no idea how to promote it, and nobody read it. In a key moment, I Googled “paid blogging” and uncovered an insatiable demand for content. I started writing about travel and personal finance, and finally got paid to do it.

After a year or two, I realized that I was finding the most demand, and receiving the highest rates for writing about credit cards. I made the decision to become an expert on credit cards and award travel, which are closely linked. In 2011, it didn’t surprise me to be laid off my job, and I decided to become a full time freelance writer. As I focused all of my energies on writing, my rates kept rising, and I have been able to contribute to over 100 outlets.

By 2017, I was looking to increase and diversify my income. I didn’t want my income to be limited by how many articles I could write, and I certainly didn’t want to burn out on writing. I realized that there were many people, like myself, writing about credit cards and many websites making money from credit card affiliate marketing, but there wasn’t an event that brought them all together. I produced presentations and sponsored events at FinCon, the personal finance media conference, but I could see that there was demand for a separate event for the credit card writers and industry. So I started CardCon, which is the only conference for credit card media.

CardCon attracted just over 100 attendees in a one-day format back in 2017, and expanded quickly to over 250 attendees in a three-day format by 2019. But the 2020 event was virtual, and it’s taken a few years for it to recover to our 2019 attendance levels.

If there’s a common thread between my freelance writing career and producing a conference, it’s that I saw the demand first, and then proceeded to focus on meeting that demand. Often, entrepreneurs are portraited as coming up with a great idea in isolation, and only then selling it to their customers. Essentially, many believe that supply creates demand. But in my experience, demand typically comes before supply. And I found that as a business owner I’m taking less risk when I know that there’s already a market for my products or services, before I go about creating them.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I never considered myself to be a creative person. But only after writing thousands of articles, it dawned on me that I was. My guiding principal has always been to offer a new perspective. When people are writing the same things, always strive to find a different angle.

And when I started my CardCon conference, I also realized that it was a creative endeavor. Every year, I have to come up with new ideas and new formats, so that the event stays fresh and relevant.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live in Denver, and I love it. When my friends come to town, I tell them to enjoy the outdoors. Visit the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, where you can see deer, elk and bison just outside of the city. Go to small towns along the mountains like Boulder and Golden, where you can take a hike in nature. Stay in Downtown Denver, where you can enjoy great food and nightlife. But then, visit attractions like the Denver Museum of Nature and Science or the Wings. With more time, I’d recommend driving further into the mountains, and visiting Summit County or Estes Park.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I need to thank my wife Janna for supporting and encouraging my business. It involved risk, which she tolerates. It also involves a lot of travel, and she’s always able to manage our house and kids while I’m gone. I’d also like to thank Phillip “PT” Taylor. He founded the personal finance bloggers conference called FinCon. Being involved in FinCon helped me to further my freelance writing career, and partnering with FinCon allowed me to start CardCon. and make it successful.

Website: JasonSteele.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-steele/

Twitter: @RealJasonSteele