John Knific

 

 

CEO and Co-Founder of
Decision Desk

 

 

by Brian I. Evans, crew 6

 

 

John Knific has been an entrepreneur from a young age John had a lot of businesses while growing up. Mr. Knific had a computer repair business in high school. He also worked at a film making side job when he was in college. These early experiences gave him the tools he needed to start his business, Decision Desk.

 

John Knific is the CEO and co-founder of his company called Decision Desk. John had zero dollars in revenue and it was just him and both of his college friends together who started it. But now John has 13 fulltime employees. He is currently managing applications for 150 universities. Decision Desk is a company that helps high school students gets into the best colleges in the United States to help them get a better education. John says that there are 4,000 colleges in the United States and are 1,300 performing arts programs also known as collegiate and summer arts institutes. Columbia College in Chicago is running all 13,000 applicants through Decision Desk including transcripts, letters of recommendation, and all other documents that students need to submit with their college application. Decision Desk helps the colleges keep all these documents organized.

 

John was also in college for music because he played the piano. He was passionate about music so he practiced the piano three to four hours a day. Both of John’s parents were professional musicians. His parents both teach music at a college in Michigan. John’s brother is also a pianist. When John was little, his parents used to let him travel with them on gigs. This is what led him to business making because of his parents working at one of the best colleges. He attended college at Case Western Reserve University. John says that his parents had a huge impact on him while growing up. That gave him a pretty different perspective on life than a lot of kids which enabled him to start the businesses he later started.

 

While in college, John studied biology. While he was studying biology, afterward John was debating on whether he should become a doctor or not. His uncle is a doctor, so that’s what inspired John. In the end John fell in love with business making. And that’s how Decision Desk was made.

 

John said, “Decision Desk is held in Cleveland because it is more affordable.” He also had advice for students as well. “Stay passionate about things,” he said. John also said that a big reason why he was successful was because he learned self-discipline and stayed positive. He says that becoming a professional in this city is different than other cities. “Cleveland is an interesting city because there’s a lot of opportunity, but it’s not overwhelming like New York or San Francisco.” John plans to keep Decision Desk’s headquarters in Cleveland even as he continues to expand the company to more schools around the country.