Baunfire, Juan Sanchez

Written by Kevin Marks Photography by Erik Quiocho

What began as a Bay Area–born local army of one has grown into a tightly woven family of creatives and professionals who have built digital landscapes for major brands like Nike, Google, Cisco, and Disney.

Most Silicon Valley natives can remember the exact moment they first met the internet—the fledgling technology whose presence is now ubiquitous. Some of us noodled on AOL via a screeching dial-up modem, and others gazed with awe upon the wondrous animated graphics of Netscape Navigator.

Juan Sanchez discovered an affinity for the web in an unlikely setting—as an economics and Spanish double major at San Diego State University. “It was mostly timing and an entrepreneurial spirt that got me going,” he says. A Bay Area native from a creative family, Sanchez was naturally drawn to computers, creation, and tinkering. As a college student, he took an interest in building websites. “Web design and development was perfect for me, because I liked the creative side of it, but there was still that analytical and logical side of it because of the code,” says Sanchez.

For Sanchez, the full creative freedom that came with operating as a one-man team energized him. By taking on clients who were interested in having their own websites, he came to the realization that, “For not much capital, I can actually create things that are valuable to others.”

Sanchez’s first job out of college ended when the company he worked for was acquired and quickly transplanted to Minnesota. However, he didn’t want to leave the Bay Area. There was another opportunity developing; the dot-com boom was in the midst of crashing. “Companies were looking for these scrappy, smaller agencies that were cheaper—which was me! It was the perfect launch pad,” he says, seeming even all these years later to relish the good fortune that many successful Silicon Valley stories are built on. It was in this unique intersection of talent and timing that Baunfire was born.

What began as a Bay Area–born local army of one has grown into a tightly woven family of creatives and professionals who have built digital landscapes for major brands like Nike, Google, Cisco, and Disney. As the founder and creative director of a renowned creative

agency, Sanchez feels a unique responsibility to his team and their ongoing individual and collective success. First and foremost, he prioritizes the requirement of being a good human being. “You just want good people on your team that will take care of each other,” he says. From there, he has a consistent growth mindset for his staff. “You can go as far as you want to go here. I’m not going to limit you. If I limit you, your passion will fade, because you’re not going to feel like you’re getting to do the things you love,” says Sanchez.

Baunfire has always built beautiful websites with the highest levels of design talent. Yet, the very origin point of Sanchez’s professional life is in flux. Even as our digital sophistication has grown societally and globally, a unique question remains: what is a website in 2022? “It used to be just a brochure,” he says, “The value has gone up quite a bit. It’s an easy way to create perception. Websites are a part of everybody’s daily life at this point.”

While that may seem obvious to us now, it highlights Sanchez’s instincts from many years ago. Hitching his wagon to a fledgling technology has put him and his agency in a position to give back to the culture and community they love. “We’re in this area, we have this talent, we’re running a business, and that’s great. But what can we do for the community?” he asks, “We’re hoping to make a mark and just promote the South Bay.”

Sanchez and his team are passionate about celebrating the local creatives and championing the culture that inspired and nurtured Baunfire. The mindfulness with which they undertake this task could serve as a powerful example, especially as San Jose continues to lure the hugest of tech giants with real estate, development, and incentives.

The pandemic has been surprisingly kind to agencies like Baunfire, which long to help their clients grow their businesses and seek new audiences through digital frontiers. While many of us reprioritize our lives and careers as we (try to) emerge from the pandemic, it seems Juan Sanchez is once again ahead of the curve. C