Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristoffer Taylor.
Hi Kristoffer, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always been fascinated by business and entrepreneurship, even as a kid. One of the first “businesses” I started in my youth was a landscaping company. My buddy and I called it The Handyman Brothers, and we serviced a variety of our neighbors in the area. I was living in Colorado at the time. It was by no means a large venture, but it was fun and it gave my 10 year old self some spending cash – and more importantly taught me valuable hands on business lessons and fueled the entrepreneurial flame.
Fast forward to college, I think it’s relevant to touch on briefly what I studied, and why. I knew I wanted to do business as far as my career, but was less certain that was the path I wanted to take regarding my studies. I love languages – I currently speak 4 conversationally – and so initially decided to study linguistics. But after a semester, I decided that wasn’t the route for me. Deliberating on how to best proceed, I came to the following conclusions: 1. Many of the business skills I felt I’d need for success I could learn better through hands-on experience, than in a classroom. 2. Increasing my soft skills, meaning my ability to think critically, problem solve, communicate effectively and clearly, and use logic, would serve me in whatever future roles or endeavors I sought. With those suppositions made, I determined to major in Philosophy with a minor in Global Business and Literacy.
The reason I bring that up, is I believe my background in Philosophy has uniquely positioned me for my current endeavor, which I’ll explain more on briefly.
During college, in order to get that hands on experience I desired, I prioritized getting solid internships. I was lucky enough to get a number of interesting roles, working in marketing, operations, and software consulting for a variety of companies and industries.
From one of those internships, I was offered a full time position doing software consulting and implementations post graduation. I accepted the position, exited for my entry into the workforce. then COVID hit.
I graduated from BYU in April 2020, right after COVID hit the US and sent the world into lockdown. I left an empty campus, had my graduation ceremony out of my room with my family on zoom, and most impactfully, had my offer rescinded due to a hiring freeze.
Suddenly I was left without a job, in a market paralyzed with fear of the unknown.
No one was hiring.
When you graduate college, you are full of excitement and anticipation, ready to take on the world and become a “real adult”. I had that excitement initially, but after months and months of applying to jobs, having interviews, and then getting the dreaded “thank you for your time, but we are moving forward with a different candidate email”, I began to feel dejected and hopeless. It was hard to stay positive amidst so much rejection.
But I didn’t give up.
Finally, in December 2020 – almost 8 months after graduating – I got a wonderful job as a marketing consultant, helping companies across the Americas improve their software marketing efforts. I learned a ton in that position, and thoroughly enjoyed working with global teams and clients. That job lead me to a new position in August of 2022, as a Senior Marketing Manager.
Then crisis struck again.
In December 2022, the company I was working for went through a restructuring, and my position was eliminated. I was laid off right before Christmas.
It was an emotionally difficult and frustrating time, wondering what I could have done differently. Was it me? Did I do something wrong?
But I didn’t give up.
That event actually ending up being the catalyst for me starting my own company, Pitaya Consulting Group. In 2023, I decided to take my future into my own hands, and went all in on my own venture. While things haven’t necessarily been easier since starting Pitaya – in reality I’d say many aspects have been much more challenging – it’s been an enjoyable and insightful journey for me. I’m happy to say we have doubled revenue year over year since starting, and are on track to continue that trajectory through 2026.
It has truly been a rollercoaster journey to get to where I am now, but I couldn’t be happier with how things have ended up, and am looking forward to more growth and learning in the coming years!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. In the last section I mentioned some of the challenges I faced leading up to starting my business. It’s funny now looking back and seeing how each of those difficulties I faced have been paramount in getting me to where I am today. In the moment they look like insurmountable mountains, but as you keep moving forward you inevitably find the path through. (Those here in Utah should be familiar with walking paths through mountains!) Now, to be clear, I’m not saying I’ve made it to the other side and am basking in a tranquil paradise. There are still new mountains to climb everyday, some seemingly even bigger than the last! But I always try and keep that perspective and the momentum moving forward.
Growing up, I remember my mom would often tell us kids “You can do hard things”. And that has stuck with me, and now often when I’m in the middle of a struggle, I tell myself “I can do hard things”. And it seems to help.
There’s a lot that goes into starting and running a business that I don’t think you necessarily realize when you first start. Even simple things like figuring out how you’re going to do invoices, where you are going to take payments, how do you keep things organized internally so nothing falls through the cracks.
Another thing I don’t think is truly dimensioned about starting a business is the emotional struggle involved. It’s hard to detach yourself as a person from the business, meaning that if the business is struggling, you also tend to feel down. Then when business is going well, you also feel just better emotionally. Maybe that’s just me, but that is a challenge I wasn’t totally prepared for going into it, and something I’m still navigating.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Pitaya Consulting Group is a boutique consulting firm specializing in software implementation and support within the work management space. Our mission is to enable all teams, everywhere, to do their best work, the best way possible. We accomplish this by helping businesses increase efficiencies to save time and money by optimizing the way they get work done.
Pitaya started with the focus of servicing Adobe Workfront clients. For those that may not know, Workfront is a robust project management tool used by companies and teams around the world – and was actually founded right here in Utah! In one of the internships I had during college I worked for a small Workfront consulting firm, which is where I had my first exposure to the tool and fell in love with its capabilities as a work management software. That consulting firm was later acquired by IBM. Through that experience I obtained the skills in Workfront that provided the foundation to start Pitaya Consulting Group.
Today, we continue to provide expert service in Adobe Workfront and Fusion (the sister automation tool to Workfront) and are proud to be an official Adobe Solution Partner. And while Workfront is our primary line of business, in order to best meet our mission to help all teams we have expanded our offerings and partnerships to enable us to adequately serve all our clients.
We provide software agnostic process improvement consulting, meaning we can come into your organization and determine how to refine your work processes for enhanced efficiencies, regardless of the tools you currently use. Many clients come to us to help them assess their current tech stack, and make recommendations on which softwares they should be using to achieve peak performance.
We also have deep knowledge and expertise in automations and integrations, and help a great deal of our clients connect their tools for a truly unified operating system. We’ve saved our clients thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars through the different task reducing automations and integrations we’ve built for them.
And of course we are leaning into AI, creating custom agents and building AI integrated workflows for clients.
We have experience helping businesses of all sizes in virtually every industry, so I would say if you’re a company or team that is curious about ways to streamline work and save time, reach out. We are always happy to provide our thoughts and give you a strategy for ways to improve, regardless if you decide to work with us or not.
We have a strategically curated list of technology partners to ensure we can provide our clients with deep expertise in their systems and tools. Our most notable partnerships are:
Adobe
Process Street
Jitterbit
Limble
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Well, in my line of work there’s the technical knowledge aspect that is critical to be able to help clients make the most of their tools. But as for the quality or characteristic that I feel has been most influential in my success up to this point, and will continue to be crucial moving forward, is my tenacity. I’ve had countless opportunities to quit, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it multiple times. But my drive and determination to just keep pressing forward has been critical to Pitaya even existing today, and I’m sure that will continue to be necessary moving forward.
Another quality that I believe has really helped me is being teachable. You know the saying, you never want to be the smartest person in the room. I wholeheartedly believe that. I’ve learned so much from others, and love connecting with people and hearing their thoughts, learning from their experiences, and seeing the world from their perspective. Along this vein, I actually recently started a group of young entrepreneurs to connect and learn from each other. The group is comprised of business owners from a variety of different industries, and we meet monthly to share ideas and get feedback on the challenges we are going through. Being able to meet with likeminded individuals to get their take on the things going on in my business has been so valuable, and I would recommend it to everyone out there starting or growing a company.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pitayaconsultinggroup.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristoffertaylor/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristoffer-taylor/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI97DO-x0jNhR4ToU7SeGGA
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitaya-consulting-group
