How these brothers in their 20s are revolutionizing social media marketing

How these brothers in their 20s are revolutionizing social media marketing

Meet two brothers, Jordan and Luke Lintz, founders of HighKey Holdings, who revolutionized the social media game.

 (Photo: HighKey Holdings)

Canadian philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan published a book back in 1964 titled “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.” Within this writing, he famously stated, “The medium is the message.” He actually titled a future book of his, with tongue in cheek, “The Medium Is the Massage” — as in “massage.” Equally prophetic is another quote of his: “The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.”

The Lintz brothers — Jordan and Luke — are creators, even re-creating, giving a brand-new shape to the ways of proceeding within the field of social media marketing. Equipped with their smartphones and a plethora of available apps, primarily those of social media, these modes of technology have provided the means for these brothers, in partnership, to participate in a major way within this expanding global village.

Jordan, 24, and Luke, 21, have rightly earned the title “entrepreneurs par excellence.” Their company’s growth rate, as expressed within varied fields of human activity, especially last year, has surpassed even their own expectations. And yet, this relentless growth would give flesh to another of McLuhan’s quotes: “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”

Turning ideas into reality

From their inception, every one of the Lintz brothers’ ideas is born from a belief in what’s possible, despite how rarefied the notion may be or whether the idea is as brand new as sliced bread was in the late 1920s. Ironically, this technique of pre-slicing bread was introduced just before the United States entered the Great Depression.

As nearly everyone has been — directly or indirectly, and in varying ways — adversely affected by the COVID-19 crisis this past year, not unlike those who lived through the Depression, life and business must survive.

Luke and Jordan remain fortunate enough to continue with their HighKey business amid the raging pandemic. While they are grateful for their health, which is a form of freedom, they are equally determined to take responsibility for this freedom: to continue providing their services for others. And this business of serving others remains, as always, a gift.

So the Lintz brothers continue participating in re-creating the world, as McLuhan described. This participation is achieved through their increasingly diversified umbrella company called HighKey Holdings. Like all beginnings, HighKey’s infancy was unremarkable. And yet, without such a beginning — a simple business-to-customer e-commerce retail company called HighKey Technology Inc. — there would be no HighKey Holdings today.

The lowdown on HighKey

First, there was, and continues to be HighKey Technology. This company, years ago, at its inception, advertised and sold its own designed Bluetooth wireless earbuds. Later, Jordan and Luke expanded their line by introducing charging backpacks. Most recently, they introduced a clothing line and other sundry items. To begin this simple e-commerce enterprise, however, wasn’t that simple. The first set of obstacles was obvious: the need to brand themselves, set themselves apart from the competition, and acquire the money needed for setting up inventory and storage.

There’s a belief that necessity is the mother of invention. That theory would resonate with the Lintz brothers. They always knew they needed to create themselves in the form of a brand. They successfully accomplished this, primarily through a theme-related series of videos they posted on social media. Then there was the issue of acquiring a sizable amount of upfront cash to cover the costs of inventory and storage. Enter the financial assistance of a prominent investor. Fast forward to today: HighKey Holdings' assets are such that Jordan and Luke no longer require this person’s financial assistance. Nevertheless, they remain deeply appreciative of what was, back then, essential to allow their ideas to come to fruition.

A new addition

This past year, Jordan and Luke’s younger brother, Jackson, 18, became an equal partner in the HighKey Technology company, and, consequently, he has become the leader within the daily management of HighKey Technology.

HighKey Technology has proved to be an essential litmus test for expanding and pruning Jordan’s and Luke’s social media marketing skills, in conjunction with nurturing their maverick-like ideas, the latter of which has come to largely define their way of proceeding, individually and as partners. From an outsider’s perspective, this combination of skills and ideas might seem like a Molotov cocktail. And yet, as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding: These guys proceed — repeatedly and constructively — in a way as to produce leaven, giving rise to yet another social media technique. These brothers’ work could certainly confirm the definition of “technique,” introduced by French philosopher Jacques Ellul in the preface of the 1964 English translation of his 1954 book “The Technological Society,” as being “the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” It’s profound, for sure. And so, too, are the Lintz brothers: While Luke leans more toward focusing on the “efficiency” of HighKey, Jordan canvasses “every field of human activity” and Jackson is very calculated in his work. All 3 of the brothers are alike in these diverse ways of moving forward: They all have boundless amounts of energy.

Boundless energy is the driver for the brother to new endeavors. The energy from HighKey Technology gave birth to HighKey Agency Inc., a social media marketing service, to help increase high-level business individuals’ social media presence and branding. Jordan and Luke needed connections and financial backing, not to mention mentoring, in order to make this company’s growth a reality. Enter the financial assistance of another investor. But this person also provided the Lintz brothers with much-needed mentoring. This mentor had deep connections in the North American real estate business. For Jordan and Luke, crossing paths with this person was groundbreaking in kickstarting HighKey Agency Inc.

Today, the client base and services of the agency’s business are ever-expanding.

Creating a revolution

Thomas Kuhn, an American philosopher, believed that science progresses not gradually, but in incommensurable paradigm shifts that have the capacity to revolutionize the way people think and what they believe. Jordan and Luke would agree that their next HighKey company, HighKey Clout Inc., did not seamlessly follow HighKey Agency. This company was an incommensurable shift within HighKey’s former ways of proceeding. HighKey Clout was created solely to conduct giveaways with social media influencers and celebrities to accelerate HighKey clients’ social media followings. Within these giveaways, though, they use some of their e-commerce merchandise from HighKey Technology.

But, not unlike the requirement of procuring upfront cash for HighKey Technology, HighKey Clout would be a mere pipe dream without a significant amount of ongoing cash flow. Enter the financial assistance of yet another investor — but his style was different. This person, Adam Quinn, has become an integral, ongoing part of every HighKey Clout giveaway, a textbook example of collaboration.

Having been deeply influenced by their past HighKey Agency mentor, Jordan and Luke again purposefully stepped outside their comfort zone by acquiring local real estate, with partial funding from a few of their existing HighKey clients. This new venture has birthed another HighKey company: HighKey Real Estate. For these powerhouse brothers, this real estate undertaking is just the beginning.

Recently, when Luke was asked about any future expansions for HighKey Holdings, he — not unlike how Jordan would sound too — had strong opinions about experiencing anything that smacks of stagnancy. He insists on continued upward mobility — without limits.

“The next business sector that HighKey will be going into is big-box online retail automation,” Luke said. “And with this expansion, will introduce yet another new HighKey company, HighKey Investments. We’ll even be allowing our clients to invest with us on this new venture.”

Working with your gifts

Jordan’s primary gift is about accessing permutations within his vast network of relationships — invisible to the naked eye and acquired with his unbridled 24/7 social media canvassing — while Luke’s primary gift is about efficiently maintaining and more deeply solidifying the HighKey brand. Other side of this coin, for Jordan, stagnancy equals boredom, and for Luke, stagnancy equals image atrophy and sloth. These differing motivations have, curiously, continued to coalesce, resulting in increased production and exposure for the good of promoting HighKey and, at the same time, more opportunities to learn about themselves, personally and interpersonally. So even planning for the future, such as the implementation of HighKey Investments, doesn’t come close to satiating their appetites for more fully activating the power of social media marketing.

For instance, these brothers, seemingly joined at the hip, are also currently focused on rectifying a dynamic they have witnessed while traveling for work: Businesspeople often find it difficult to sustain a semblance of physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This interest has led them to envision starting another HighKey company, HighKey Fitness. The idea didn’t come out of nowhere: Jordan and Luke, along with Jackson, actively participate in daily high-intensity fitness programs together.

And what difference might the HighKey Lintz brothers make next? When asked this question, Jordan’s eyes narrow, and he simply utters the letters “IPO.” It seems that they have their long-distance gaze on meeting specific requirements, including those of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to hold an initial public offering.

IPO status: such a laudable goal considering the company’s humble beginnings. As a comedian once glibly suggested about how to become a millionaire, “First, get a million dollars.” Just as various professional basketball players didn’t acquire their respective skill sets the day they first handled a basketball — in other words, without first experiencing trial and error — so, too, have Jordan’s and Luke’s respective, but complementary, skillsets within social media marketing evolved. The title of a famous spaghetti Western might best encapsulate their journey: “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Of course, Jordan’s and Luke’s predilection would be to highlight only the good. And yet, on a more intimate and personal level, the Lintz brothers would readily admit that deep down, at each of their companies’ roots, both the “bad” and the “ugly” necessarily coexist, and with the power of reflection and reappropriation, they are essential in forming the basis of today’s decisions, along with their dreams for the future of HighKey. And contrary to the comedic suggestion to “get a million dollars” before doing anything else, Jordan and Luke have earned $1 million-plus, but only by first having exhausted each of their savings accounts.

In hindsight, both Jordan and Luke have always believed there was more inside themselves, waiting to be expressed within a social media presence, but not without enduring both time and experiences. The image of the acorn is an apt one: An acorn eventually, over decades of time, turns into a monolithic oak tree. This acorn, HighKey, is today a visible oak tree, but it still has much growth to experience. And yet, given the Lintz brothers’ pre-HighKey beginnings, maybe a better way of imagining their journey is a cocoon, which today has turned into a beautiful creature — a butterfly. One of their beginnings, their cocoon, involved a social media video series they called “J-Baller Gaming,” which provided commentary on how other people were playing video games. Though both Jordan and Luke would likely see the series as unremarkable today, it remains a hidden cornerstone of HighKey Holdings, not unlike the hidden cornerstones many professional basketball players have.

Since launching HighKey’s first social media account years ago, the Lintz brothers have allowed no moss to grow beneath their feet while each of them moves forward from a different perspective. And within all of those varied — and sometimes contrary — movements, they remain brothers. Chaotic? Sometimes. But the best interpretation of any temporary chaos is that it’s all entropy — a necessary process in transformation.

And speaking of necessity, the Lintz brothers emulate the truer meaning of collaboration: respecting the members of their workforce and their permanent clients, both of which are global in reach. For everyone working within HighKey Holdings, maintaining relationships is paramount in doing business, especially within the expansive niche of social media marketing.

Finally, in the words of the late English poet John Donne, which merely highlight, if not reinforce, the Lintz brothers’ worldview, as accentuated during these pandemic days, weeks, and months, “No man is an island.”

Stay interconnected on this human island of ours.

For more information about HighKey’s companies, visit either www.lukelintz.com or www.jordanjlintz.com.

Members of the editorial and news staff of the USA TODAY Network were not involved in the creation of this content.

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