HERSKY
The Story

Built on stage. Wired for systems.

Lawns at 11, bakery overnights at 16, four years as an electrician, thirteen years behind a booth, and now full systems for small businesses. Same job every time: read the room and make it work.

13 yrs
DJing professionally
24
DJs mentored to paid gigs
3 days
Website turnaround
0
Outsourced contractors

The short version

Obsidian Logic is the name on the work because the work is exactly that — sharp, black, intentional. I build the thing, show you how to run it, hand over every login.

Most agencies sell you scope. I sell you a delivery date and a guarantee. If we take your project and can't deliver, you pay nothing. That's BrainForge.

On the DJ side, The Blueprint is the 90-day program I wish I'd had at 19. Six modules, live coaching, every event type, every emergency. 24 working DJs have come out of it.

Who I am

My name is Jake Herscovitch. I go by Hersky on stage and on the bill. I grew up between Ottawa and Toronto, and the real beginning wasn't a controller — it was the passenger seat.

When I was 12, my dad got back into the equipment the way he had as a kid, playing vinyls again. Every weekend he'd drive from Toronto to Ottawa to pick me up, then drive me back to Toronto for the weekend. I got carsick on those trips, so I'd stare out the window and listen to his mixes for hours. That's how I learned what a good transition feels like before I ever touched a deck.

At 13 I asked for a DJ deck for my birthday. I had saved up, and my dad took me to the store so we could pick it out together — an SB2. He gave me advice constantly, helped me figure out branding, and backed me on gear whenever he could. He got sick in 2013 and it turned terminal when I was 16, which mostly meant we stopped wasting time and started treating every drive like a working session.

Before any of it paid properly I was cutting my neighbours' grass, then baking overnight at Tim Hortons for a year and nine months, then DJing seasons at Calypso Water Park and running birthday parties at Kids Kingdom. By 14 I was with Dynamix Entertainment, then Extreme. I learned fast because I had to — real rooms, real clients, real consequences. At 16 I passed a DJ school, then went to college for electrical and spent four years in the trade until 2022, when I left it to build the work I actually wanted.

Somewhere around gig #400 I realized the actual bottleneck of a working DJ career isn't talent. It's the back-office: bookings, contracts, deposits, playlists, follow-ups, the endless "hey can you send me that email again" from the couple whose wedding is Saturday. I started writing tools to fix my own problems. Then other DJs asked for the tools. Then non-DJs asked for the tools.

That's Obsidian Logic. The DJ half is Hersky. The build half is BrainForge. Same person, same phone number, same guarantee.

What my father gave me

My dad didn't just buy me a deck. He was the one who got back into vinyl first, who played the music I studied from the passenger seat, who sat with me through every question about branding, gigs, and equipment.

He got sick in 2013, and by the time I was 16 it was terminal. What I remember isn't the hospital side of it — it's how much we got done anyway. The store runs, the branding arguments, the long drives spent picking apart a mix. The SB2 wasn't a gift off a shelf; it was a decision we made together.

His standard is the part that stuck: do it properly, do it now, put your name on it. Every booth I step into and every project I ship carries some of that.

What I actually do

Build side

BrainForge — full-stack solutions

Custom websites in 3 days. CRMs, booking systems, AI-drafted responders, internal automations, entire digital ecosystems for small businesses. You bring the problem; I bring the whole build.

Perform side

Hersky — DJ & The Blueprint

Live sets across weddings, corporate, clubs, private events. Plus the 90-day mentorship that has turned 24 hobbyist DJs into paid working professionals.

Consulting

Business Launchpad

Idea → operating business in 30 days. Payment stacks, ad playbooks, CRM, payroll, the whole scaffolding a solo founder needs to actually take money in month one.

Studio work

Mixes, edits, custom sets

Custom mashups, wedding entry edits, ceremony music sourcing, and full-length mixes for private clients. If it needs to sound right on Saturday, I'll cut it.

Why I do it

Two reasons, honestly.

One: I watched too many talented people — DJs, founders, small-business owners — get chewed up by systems that were never built for them. Agencies overpromising, SaaS stacks bleeding them dry, courses that sold hype instead of skill. Every project I take is a small refund on that.

Two: I like the craft. I like the moment a room locks in with a song they didn't know they wanted. I like the moment a client opens their new dashboard and realizes they don't need the six tools they were paying for. Both are the same feeling.

If that sounds like the kind of person you want in your corner, we'll probably work well together.

Principles I actually hold to

Zero-Risk Guarantee

If we can't deliver a working solution, you don't pay. Full stop. That's the promise on every BrainForge project.

You keep everything

Every login, domain, database, and repo is yours from day one. No hostage stacks. No monthly rent on your own tools.

AI as plumbing, not marketing

I use AI to remove hours from your week — not to slap a chatbot on your homepage. If it doesn't save real time, it doesn't ship.

One builder, one thread

You talk to me. Not an account manager. Not a project coordinator. The person building the thing answers your questions.

The full work history

Every job that built the skill set, in order — from cutting grass to running three businesses.

  1. First job

    Cutting grass on my street

    The first money I ever earned came from my neighbours' lawns. Knock on the door, quote the job, do it properly, get asked back. Every business I've run since has worked exactly the same way.

  2. Age 12

    Riding shotgun, learning the music

    My dad got back into vinyl the way he loved it as a kid. His mixes were the soundtrack of every Toronto-to-Ottawa drive, and I learned what a clean transition sounds like long before I owned a deck.

  3. Age 13

    The SB2

    I saved up and my dad took me to the store so we could pick out my first controller together. He coached me on branding and gear from day one.

  4. Tim Hortons

    Baker — 1 year, 9 months

    Overnight bakery shifts. Volume, timing, and consistency under a clock that doesn't negotiate. Best operations training I ever got for free.

  5. Calypso Water Park

    Seasonal DJ

    My first job where the music was the job. Outdoor sound, all-day energy management, thousands of people who didn't come for me — they came for the day, and my job was to lift it.

  6. Kids Kingdom

    Birthday parties & playground events

    Running kids' parties at an indoor playground. If you can hold a room of eight-year-olds, a wedding reception is not going to scare you.

  7. Age 14–15

    Dynamix, then Extreme Entertainment

    Real companies, real weddings, real consequences. I learned to wire a room, mix monitors, read a crowd, and handle a client whose plan collapsed twenty minutes before doors.

  8. Age 16

    DJ school + a hard year

    Passed a formal DJ program, which put technique under instinct. Same stretch my dad's illness turned terminal — which mostly meant we stopped wasting time and got to work on the things that mattered.

  9. College

    Electrical apprenticeship

    Went to school for electricity, then worked the trade. Code, load calculations, panels, inspections — and job sites where nothing matches the drawing.

  10. 2018–2022

    Four years in the field

    Four years as an electrician while still DJing weekends. Plan the run, label every wire, test before you close the wall. I build software the same way now.

  11. 2022

    Left the trade on purpose

    I'd seen enough of the electrical world to know I could do my own version of it. So I left to chase the work I actually wanted and started collecting the skills to make that possible.

  12. 2022–2024

    Rebrand + training 24 DJs

    Extreme Entertainment got a new owner and we rebranded. My job became building the bench: about a year and a half to train 24 DJs to run events the way I ran them. Two years in, the system worked without me — so I left to build my own.

  13. Now

    Relentless + Obsidian Logic + Rogers

    Relentless is my DJ company. Obsidian Logic and BrainForge are the build side — websites, booking systems, CRMs, automations. Alongside that I do installation and technical field work with Rogers, fixing real problems in real homes.

Questions people ask before hiring me

Are you actually a one-person shop?＋

Yes. No subcontractors, no offshore team, no white-labeled agency behind the curtain. If I take your project, I build it.

What if my project is too complex for one person?＋

Then I'll tell you before we start. I'd rather refer you than fake capacity. The Zero-Risk Guarantee only works because I only take what I can finish.

Do you do maintenance / ongoing support?＋

Optional monthly retainer if you want it. Most clients don't need it — I hand over documentation and they run it themselves. That's the point.

Do you take equity instead of cash?＋

Rarely, and only for founders I already know. Cash keeps the relationship clean.

Where are you based?＋

Ottawa, Ontario. I take on clients across Canada and the US, remote-first, in-person for weddings and select events.

Want to talk?

Free 20-minute call. No pitch deck, no follow-up drip.

Book a discovery call