Built to Thrive: Travis Christianson’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Travis Christianson is the founder of ThriveByWeb, a full-service internet marketing platform for real estate businesses based in the Scranton Enterprise Center (SEC).

Growing up, Christianson was surrounded by entrepreneurship, which served as both inspiration, and a hint to his future as one of the most active clients in the IGNITE program.

“My dad’s a chef, my mom is a great designer and decorator, and they’ve had their own restaurants my entire life in New Jersey and New York,” Christianson said of his upbringing. “All their friends had their own businesses, whether it was restaurants or wealth management or insurance — you name it. They all had their own business.”

The Pros and Cons

Christianson took a number of mental notes when it comes to the mindset of an entrepreneur. He recognized that being an entrepreneur allowed for a lot of freedom, but also opened oneself up to a lot of stress.

In wanting to become an entrepreneur, Christianson knew he would need to learn just as much from the negatives of being an entrepreneur as he did from the positives.

While working for a friend out of Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic, Christianson realized he wanted to start a new venture. This was the beginning of ThriveByWeb, though his mindset has evolved from where he started.

“I started this business as a hobby,” Christianson explained, recalling his initial intentions. “‘Let me just make enough to live my life the way I want to live it. No boss, no PTO.’”

Needing More Space

As ThriveByWeb became more successful, Christianson saw that the workload was becoming more than what he could handle by himself. He became a client of the IGNITE program, and has expanded his operations to match the demand for his services.

And he’s done all of this with the right attitude.

“It doesn’t matter if I know I’m going to have a tough call that day, or a long day, or just a stressful day, in general,” said Christianson. “There hasn’t been one day since I started this business where I did not wake up and look forward to coming into the office and getting my stuff done.”

Provided by ThriveByWeb

ThriveByWeb’s clients are primarily real estate investors, cash buyers, and house flippers, and those who are interested in senior transitions, downsizing, and estate sale management. He offers three major services to these clients:

— Custom branding, including the design of logos, business cards, letterheads, brochures, and other materials.

— Website management, hosting and managing clients’ websites, and automatically updating the site’s functionality.

— Search engine optimization, or making sure the clients appear higher and more frequently in search engines and artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

It’s a relatively simple service model, and one that Christianson knows inside and out. As a business owner, he believes he should be his business’ greatest ambassador.

“If you’re the owner, you should be the number one salesperson in your business,” said Christianson. “If someone asks you what your company does, you should be able to explain it clearly.”