How this tech enthusiast turned his side project into $2M/year creator empowerment platform

Kyle Morrand, an entrepreneur from Florida, lives with the vision of making everything fun. He attended the University of Central Florida, pursuing technology and simulation. Kyle was intrigued while pursuing his technology career and always wondered how he could leverage it. As his inclination and love towards technology grew, he wanted to build something that people would love.

When he started college, he realized he needed to do something revolutionary. That's when he experimented, took his first coding class, and was mind-blown. 

The inception of 302 Interactive

Since college, he has been fascinated by how technology connects people from around the world. Kyle recalls the idea of developing a platform and turning it into a flourishing business. He lived in Apartment 302 with two roommates who loved gaming. Their journey started with spemding a lot of money on buying and playing retro video games.

He explains, "I was originally influenced by watching ‘Indie Game: The Movie,’ a movie about ‘the trials and tribulations of creativity.’ It was eye-opening for me to see that such talented creatives with highly valuable skills were essentially living as starving artists to build their passion projects."

In 2013, Kyle experimented with several ideas as he wanted to create a digital platform for creators to encourage their creativity. He never wanted them to sacrifice their living and working stature. So he built a game studio aimed at empowering creators. 302 Interactive is an Orlando-based digital media company, originally founded in 2014 as 302 Studios focused on creative and technical solutions. 

Kyle explained in an interview to Entrepreneur, "The business is a reflection of my own life, ambitions, and creativity. I get to spend my days reshaping our relationship with technology to design lifestyles that are more playful and ultimately eliminate some of the symptoms of depression and anxiety that seem standard to modern-day living."

Surpassing the struggles

The first three years of the company were filled with struggles as things were not working in their favor. But Kyle was pretty positive about it and said, "I am designing, managing, and operating a business to help my team play in what they do best and then help our clients and customers play and help them do what they do."

He adds, "Because if you're playing, then you're helping our customers play and that's the connection that we want to get to." Kyle and his team then started to see a ray of hope when they started collaborating with businesses looking to integrate game design and XR technology.

As 2017 came to an end, the company had secured two regular clients, bringing in between $5,000 and $10,000 per month. Following the footsteps, the company made a monthly revenue of $10,000 with raking in $130,000 annually.

Kyle expressing joy shared, "In the spring of 2018, we secured a contract with Steamroller Technologies to work on a project for Universal Creative. That contract gave 302 Interactive enough of a stable revenue forecast that I was able to leave my day job and employ myself full-time under the company."

Kyle aimsed to expand client base by enhancing their project and contract rates. By 2021, 302 Interactive was making $30,000 monthly and in 2022 the numbers touched $70,000. They constantly worked on the platform and hired talent and in 2023 their total earnings were marked at $1.9 million. As per The Orlando Life, "Morrand sees his recent wins as a good motivator to keep going."