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Vincent Velasquez
Small Business Owner — MediaCutlet, Hurricane Productions
Velasquez founded his first company (Hurricane Productions) when he was just 16. What started as a small music business servicing neighborhood parties evolved into a live special-events brand. The company earned more than 500K in revenue last year, working more than 100 events in the Northeast. The company employs five full-time staff members and manages over 30 independent contractors.
He’s leveraged the marketing success of his first business into a startup with scale in mind. MediaCutlet is a full-service, forward-thinking marketing group (he dislikes the words agency and firm). The team advocates for video-first marketing campaigns. But given Velasquez’s background in journalism – the company operates with the speed of startup and resourcefulness of a newsroom.
At The Star-Ledger, Velasquez worked as a reporter, videographer, internet designer and social media developer for five years. Before newspapers hired the ‘one (wo)man show,’ reporter – they hired Velasquez. He was the lead designer of the paper’s sports web pages when they re-launched in 2007 as a real-time news portal on NJ.com. He led social media training for the newsroom in 2010. He was one of the paper’s first videographers, producing hundreds of videos. Along the way, he wrote and edited dozens of content pieces.
Velasquez is as comfortable in front of the camera as behind it, on stage as off it. He has been the master of ceremonies at hundreds of events – in front 25 people and 2,500.
Velasquez is a 2009 graduate of Rutgers in New Brunswick, where he obtained a B.A. in Journalism and American Studies. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, raised in Manalapan, NJ and graduated from St. John Vianney in 2005. His offices are in Red Bank; he lives in Bradley Beach.
