About me

First in my family to go to college. Still learning by taking things apart.

A curious marketer from Houston who learns by building.

Six-plus years in marketing, turning messy questions into something a team can use. Outside work, same habit: take things apart until they make sense.

Juan Tellez, smiling, wearing glasses and a navy suit jacket.
1st gen college graduate
B.B.A. in marketing, Texas Tech
UT Austin digital marketing certificate
5 pets at home
The bigger picture

I learned to figure things out before I learned to call it a strength.

I’m the oldest in my family and the first to go to college. A lot of the time, there wasn’t a ready-made answer or a person nearby who had already done the thing. I got comfortable teaching myself: finding the useful source, testing what I thought I knew, and asking a better question when the first one was wrong.

That background still shows up in how I work. I don’t need to be the person who already knows everything. I need to be the person who can make the unknown smaller, explain what changed, and keep moving without pretending the uncertainty was never there.

When a project is unfamiliar, I leave a trail: the question, the source, my first guess, and the next check. That makes handoffs calmer, because the next person can see what was decided and what is still open.

The kind of teammate I try to be Prepared enough to be useful, direct enough to be clear, and comfortable saying “I don’t know yet” when that is the honest answer.
Life outside work

The crew that keeps me grounded.

Five pets who run the house, whether we agreed to that or not. Select any photo to see it larger.

Bailey, a small white curly-haired dog, lying in green grass wearing a rainbow bandana.
Baileyprofessional grass supervisor
Chloe, a grey tortoiseshell cat with green eyes, sitting upright on a bed.
Chloegoverns the household
Renny, a yellow and cream crested gecko, perched on driftwood in a terrarium.
Rennynocturnal and unbothered
Lucy, a small black kingsnake, coiled in an open hand.
Lucycalmer than most people
Rosie, an orange and grey bearded dragon, climbing on driftwood and looking toward the camera.
Rosiethe most opinionated one
Juan and Kymm laughing together on a mountainside at sunset in Colorado.
Juan & Kymmstill laughing at each other
Right now

What I’m into this fall.

BuildingBoulevard 21, a blackjack card game, one written rule at a time.
LearningAI tools and game development, mostly by building Boulevard 21.
PlayingValorant with friends, most weeknights.
RunningThe gaming clips channel, one approved video at a time.
What shaped me

A few things that shaped me.

They say more about how I work than a list of adjectives would.

Curiosity I go down the rabbit hole. I genuinely like learning how a system works, then making the explanation useful to someone else. Most recently, that meant learning enough code to build the Market Scan.
Competition I like a clear scoreboard. Games taught me to prepare, notice patterns, and change course quickly when the result says the plan isn’t working. In Valorant, that means looking at what went wrong, not just the highlights.
Resourcefulness I start before it’s perfect. I don’t wait for a perfect brief or a familiar tool. I find the source, learn the gap, and build the smallest useful version. Boulevard 21 started as a written concept long before it looked like a game.
Perspective A full life makes better work. Kymm, five pets, games, travel, and time outside keep me curious, grounded, and able to return to hard problems with fresh eyes.
Say hello

Happy to talk shop.

On a team, I’m most useful in the messy middle between the audience, the budget, the reports, and the next decision: make the question clear, build what helps, and explain what the result does and doesn’t mean.