About LG
LG Road Trippin' & Life Livin' with Fitty G
I AM ENTREPRENEUR. I love life and I love living. I love discovering what it is in life I really enjoy doing and finding a way to make a living following this passion. This has become my entrepreneurial pursuit. I love being inspired and I crave to inspire others and in this pursuit I have found that I am gifted at storytelling about entrepreneurship because I live, breath, sleep and ooze being an entrepreneur. My life centers around it and my tribe is immersed in it. It is what I know and what I do. I am entrepreneur.
STORYTELLER SEEDS. When I was working on a startup years ago I attended an event where one of the founders of AOL used a duffle bag and a 7 t-shirts to tell a story about passion, perseverance and luck on how he helped create one of the great Internet startups. I was SO inspired I stayed up all night chugging on my business idea without looking at the clock or worrying about eating or sleeping or anything else for that matter. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was when the storytelling seed was planted and my journey as a producer began.
THE JOURNEY. I’ve filmed over 300 entrepreneurs on this journey and have made over 400 videos, documentaries, TV and web shows along the way. I’ve filmed some of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time including the rockstar founders of Whole Foods, Playboy, Craigslist, Baby Einstein, Starbucks, Dell, Paul Mitchell, Fast Company, Hoovers, Second Life, Sweet Leaf Tea, Craigslist, BET Entertainment and Clear Channel. I’ve created and produced a primetime series for CNBC called American Made that took me to the brink of complete entrepreneurial ecstasy (e.g. each entrepreneur we filmed called my partner and I after the episode aired to tell us it was the best profile that has ever been done on them) to the crushing collapse of my company that created it (we lost everything, went into massive debt and got sued to boot). I’ve filmed a video series for the COO of Microsoft about how small business owners are real people that use software to change lives that took us to South Africa, Turkey, Ireland, Vietnam and New Jersey (kind of like another country) and enabled me to work with the ABC Extreme Home Makeover production team and Yes – those stories are true and those families will bring you to tears when you meet them. I’ve crisscrossed the country from San Francisco to Seattle to Chicago to New York to Arkansas and from Austin to Boston filming video in every business you can think of learning what it really means to be a ‘field producer’.
iV, LG & Karen Davidson of Harley Davidson
Recent projects include creating brand and entrepreneur videos for Dell/Axicom, Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka, RISE Global and I’ve also been lucky enough to be a founder of a new start-up called BidModo.com (think Lending Tree for small business services. I’m working on a new blog, pitching Dell and Ford for new projects and probably the BIGGEST project of my life – that is still under wraps, but hopefully by 2012 you will be able to see it.
A PRODUCER’S BLOG. This blog is about sharing that journey and my experiences about being a producer of all things/ Great stories. Who doesn’t love them? Through TV, film or photography, stories about entrepreneurs are part of the fabric of who I am & what I aspire to be and what I strive to capture for you. It is about my passion, my thoughts and all those things that give me goosebumps and it is the story of those moments in life that made me smile or left a scar. I do what I love and I love what I do and hope to inspire people to follow their passions and become more than they ever thought possible.
And most of all, I am enjoying every day as I pursue my passions. To me, the journey is what truly matters – not the destination.
Lyn Graft … The LG
LG & Fitty G at Sweet Leaf Tea
OTHER STUFF (speaking in 3rd person freeform style):
LG was a ski instructor at Heavenly, CA, Keystone & A-Basin, CO, Ski Apache, NM and Sunrise, AZ (now I live in Austin, TX – he hates cold weather).
LG has put on or hosted over 100 parties and promotional events over they years (most of those parties – one of his favorites was a Dry rush event for my fraternity in college where we gave out Jolt to rushees).
LG grew up in Las Cruces and Santa Fe New Mexico and has lived in TX, NM, CA, NV, AZ & MA. Austin, TX is his home now, but his soul still resides in the Land of Enchantment (to slow to live for him though).
LG is the youngest of 4 beautiful sisters that he loves with all his heart named Cindy, Lindy, Windy & Windy with middle names of Rochelle, Danelle, Michelle, Lanelle. I was the last shot at a boy and I’d have been named Rindy had I been a girl (think Quarterflash lead singer circa 1980′s). He now has 11 awesome nieces and nephews.
LG and Mother G
LG’s mother Eva (Mother G) is the light of his life. She is from Mexico and her accent and stories to this day cracks him up. She has unending love and brilliance in her heart and shares her keen wisdom and get a real job and find a nice girl suggestions every time they get on the phone.
LG’s best friends are Fitty G and iV. Words cannot describe what they mean to him, but pure joy and unconditional love come to mind.
LG is the founder of LG Pictures, BidModo, the Austin Entrepreneurs Foundation, Bluegoggles, Club E Network, iVEEA, 212 Studios/Dryken Technologies and Threehounds (2 successes, 4 failures, 3 works-in-process).
LG has an MBA from Texas (Go Horns!) and an Electrical Engineering degree from NMSU (Go Aggies). (he tutored math for 3 years in college and attended Arizona State’s University Grad program for 1-year)
LG has created content for CNBC, Microsoft, Dell, Axicom, Sweet Leaf Tea, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, University of Texas at Austin, IC2, International MOOT CORP (some stuff awesome and some stuff not-so-much).
LG has raised over $8M in venture funding (lots of that lost by the way) and helped over 10 others raise $5M more (some successful some not)
LG’s marketing and PR efforts have received coverage in Fast Company, Fortune Small Business, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, Software Success Weekly, Ad Week and Digital South (Not always good press, but when I think of that I like to refer to PT Barnum’s philosophy that all press is good press 
)
LG was director of sales and marketing for Quadralay Corporation (a web publishing software company), process engineer/team leader for HP (formerly Compaq/Digital Equipment) along with marketing and engineering positions with American Airlines SABRE and Hughes Aircraft Corporation. (and I’ve had 5 summer internships during undergrad & graduate school).
LG was in a fraternity and was the President and vice President of said organization. One of the best things he ever did and still keeps in very close touch with 7 friends from those days (and they still think they can party like they did then).
Lastly, LG is confessed there are few things better in life than unconditional love. His best friend and happiest 4-legger on earth, Fitty G, is living proof.
Fitty G & LG - Living Large, Telling Stories & Making Memories.
