From Mint.com to Voy Media: How Kevin Urrutia Switched Careers and Broke Into Marketing (and You Can Too) [AMP 188]

Posted On Jun 25, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

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Stuck in a rut at work? Bored beyond belief? If you’re thinking about or wanting to change jobs and careers, consider the following: How long will it take to learn brand-new talents? Will it affect your income? Are activities accessible? Will it utter you happy?

Today’s guest is Kevin Urrutia, a former software programmer at Mint that now controls the Voy Media marketing agency in New York City. Kevin knows exactly how some of you feel. He shares beneficial insights and pieces of busines proliferation wisdom.

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Some of the highlights of the show include:

Why alter jobs? Curiosity, demand, and desire to do what you do best

Mindset Shift: From tech hackathons to sell startup and SEO talents

Facebook Advertising: Learn by doing to grow in marketing industry

Career Advice and Questions to Ask: What do you enjoy, even in tough times?

Policy: How to do Facebook ads, SEO, Amazon–instead, start from scratch

Stay Connected: Keep up with what people are saying via social radicals

Mistakes Made: Tracks/ tutors accelerate learning; avoid imposter syndrome

Links:

Kevin Urrutia on LinkedIn

Voy Media

Mint

Zaarly

Fulfillment By Amazon( FBA )

DigitalMarketer.com by Ryan Deiss

CoSchedule

If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud , Stitcher, and Google Play.

Quote by Kevin Urrutia:

“I was always in that tech mindset of,’ If you build it, they will come.’ Everybody’s saying you have a cool product. People will just magically find you.”“I don’t think I’ll ever be the best programmer, and I want to do something else that is going to be more fun and enjoyable.”

“When I was programming, I cherished programming. I cherished the challenge of going on Stack Overflow, trying to find the answer. I acquired my answer.”

“The best thing that somebody should do is start their own thing and then use that skill they want to build up to do.”

[ Tweet “From Mint.com to Voy Media: How He Switched Careers and Broke Into Marketing( and You are eligible to, Too) With @danest From @VoyMedia”] Transcript: Ben: Hi, Kevin. Welcome to the show.

Kevin: Hey. How’s it leading, Ben? How’s everything?

Ben: Things are about as good as they can be right now. How are things on your discontinue out there in New York?

Kevin: It’s good. We’re all labor from residence. We’ve been working from dwelling for the past 6-8 weeks, so only living life with the new ordinary right now.

Ben: Yeah, sure as shooting. It feels spooky to say it, but as we were like discussing a little bit earlier, it’s funny you say 6-8 weeks because I literally can’t remember how long I’ve been doing this anymore.

Kevin: Another epoch is just happening and you’re only doing the same thing over and over again. It’s sort of what we’re doing now.

Ben: Absolutely. Would you knowledge taking a moment precisely to introduce yourself to the audience and show whatever it is you do at Voy Media?

Kevin: Yes. My name is Kevin Urrutia and I’m one of the founding fathers of Voy Media. At Voy Media, we help eCommerce symbols with their paid social. We principally do Facebook ads, and then likewise help them with their innovative production. That “couldve been” photoshoots or just taking some of their existing videos and becoming them inventive for Facebook. That’s what we do there.

Ben: Cool. I understand that you used to work as a developer at Mint and I believe some other large companies in Silicon Valley. I’m curious what resulted you to leave your career as a make and seek commerce instead?

Kevin: It’s a good question. I was just going to […] institution for Computer Science because I’ve ever is ready to do startups, so growing up I wanted to do a startup, and then I would read TechCrunch or the tech report and clauses about doing a startup. When I went to college in […], I knew I wanted Computer Science because everything I speak was about tech tech tech. That extended me to start my own substance.

Wilson, who is my friend when I’m in college, we are to be able ever is being done jobs, like tiny iPhone apps, big activities, and we just restrained constructing trash, but we just never really could figure out why things would simply never taken away from because I was always in that tech mindset of’ if you construct it, they will come.’ Just build something cool because everybody’s saying you have a cool product. People will just magically find you.

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That was really the narrative back in the working day for a good deal of trash. I was actually thinking about why that was the narrative, where now maybe because I’m in the marketing field now, I’m just seeing a lot of people talk about more sell, but back then when we were doing tech and software, it was a terribly novel thing. Creating an app was like you’re the first one ever, so everybody always been talking about it. Now, I contemplate […], every industry now has a software competitor that’s the same feature, same thing, so now you need to do marketing.

Going back after college. I left to go work at Mint. I exited for Mint because I want to go to California. I knew that was the thing I wanted to do ever since I was reading up on this stuff. San Francisco, Silicon Valley, that’s where the mecca is.

When I went to Mint, I was still working on stuff, like startup contenders. We earned some startup hackathons. Wilson and I were still always knowing this issue. We’re building stuff, but we just never knew how to bring traffic. We’re like, okay what is traffic? How come no one’s exerting our nonsense? We suppose our substance looks pretty good, designed well. Then, that’s certainly when we start thinking about marketing.

I have no money because I’m poor. Yes, I graduated from college but I still have no money. I don’t know what stuff is. I started looking into SEO and that’s genuinely the first sell thing that I did, was look into SEO, how to get free traffic right online. Everybody only does SEO. Then, you sort of go to this black hat world, pitch-black SEO, and this crazy […] about SEO. That is my first into market was SEO, then all the crazy gatherings, […] forms of beings selling all the […], I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. So, that is funny.

Once I’d learned SEO, I was working at that time at a company called Zaarly. They’re another Silicon Valley startup, and for them, we also were looking to get traffic. There I was able to do more commerce impression. That was because when I connected that unit, I was the marketing developer to help their marketing manager, such as implementing some of the labels for Google Analytics, some of the calls for Facebook, some of the tags for some email tool or software.

I was getting more exposure to the technological surface of market. That sort of certainly still constituted me more interested in that because I ever had that trouble for my own substance. I was like, oh this character now would be pretty good because I can learn marketing. I’ve always had this issue and maybe I’ll learn something about what it takes to build a company or creating commerce. From there, I’ve learned more about it, […] through books and stuff like that, but that’s the first jaunt into that because I only never knew how to bring traffic to my own commodities.

Ben: Sure. I think it makes a lot of feel. You have a marketing problem, so you took it upon yourself to learn how to solve it. And now, here “youre gonna”. Something I’m puzzled about is I imagine that when you’re making a drastic profession vary, or maybe it’s not that drastic, but you’re making a career change from being a developer to a marketer.

I would imagine that in addition to the problems that you were trying to solve, you probably have a lot of other challenges time in terms of developing an all-new skillset. I’m puzzled. Were there any specific challenges that you faced early on when you were constituting that modification? If so, how did you solve these problems?

Kevin: I think that’s a good question. I “ve been thinking about” that, too, recently and I always tell people I was a programmer for the longest time since I was maybe in high school. This being me to be considered back then I didn’t think about this acces, but when I operating in Silicon Valley, I was working with some really smart programmers. These chaps are truly, really good. I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as them no matter how much programme or bibles and see. They’re precisely get these Computer Science concepts like nothing. For me, I’m spending hours and hours trying to study and learn them.

My boss at Zaarly was so smart and I think it’s crazy like how smart you are and I would never be situations where. For me, I don’t think I’ll ever be the best programmer and I want to do something else that is going to be more fun and enjoyable, sort of solve what I want to do, and that would be to start a company. I contemplate I can be good at marketing because after examining the market, I truly adoration that thing of delivering beings to your website or product, was informed about it and use it. I think that got me more excited than precisely improving the make because even then, I don’t mull I’d be good at this, but I see I can be really good at marketing.

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That really cured me because I don’t conceive I’d be good at it, but a challenge I see now that I think about sometimes is I’ve never gone to a marketing class. I’ve seen people know all these really good tech and commerce language. For me, obviously I know more about the applied in it versus the belief behind it. For me, when I do selling now it’s for my own material or for other labels.

[…] tell you, Ben, “were having” the girl busines. A fortune of my first, pure into marketing was to do SEO for my maid firm, and that was ranking us up on Google. That’s where I learned actually how to do SEO versus reading about it.

Ben: So you start with SEO, and now very focused on Facebook advertising, social publicize. Could you share a little bit about what maybe passed you down that footpath? Going from starting with trying to get organic commerce for “free, ” pretty much time making your time and exertion to execute even if you’re not spending ad budget. How do you go from that to social marketing, to settling on your Facebook ads genuinely being the one thing that you have been able do the best to help your patients?

Kevin: Basically what happened was I was doing the maid busines for about three or four years. After that, I went tired of doing it. Even then, “youre supposed to” still read about marketing and what’s going on. A much of people are talking about Amazon FBA, you are eligible to induce so much money. I started more mining into eCommerce.

By then, plainly, the fate of the damsel firm at that point, we were probably around 50-60 girls. We’re in New York City, Boston, Chicago. We have a system there to is letting that company operated. Then, I truly want to focus my vigor on something else because I conceive people got endured and tired of things. I tell people I’m just tired. It’s fine. It’s not that I don’t like it anymore. I exactly miss something new.

The FBA thing got me really excited. That’s where I started searching for more eCommerce. That resulted me to start an outdoor paraphernalium companionship to do eCommerce. We sold hiking spars and moving surveys. From there, we start realizing Amazon is one set of traffic like SEO was one form of traffic. There’s too Facebook now. That’s actually where I started doing more Facebook ads to bring a user to our website to buy the products and eCommerce. That is really how I first came started into Facebook ads as searching it as a kind of traffic.

Amazon was good, but SEO for eCommerce was going to take forever. I can never compete with REI, The North Face. All these huge outdoor gear symbols have been doing it forever. I think that as a marketer, you recognise one traffic might not be good for the type of business that you’re doing. That’s what extended me to do Facebook ads for that.

Ben: Something that’s interesting about Kevin’s narrative is that he went to college for Computer Science, which isn’t exactly related to marketing at all, but it did cure him get his foot in the door of the startup world which was really where he wanted to be. And it goes to show that you don’t consequently need a college background in marketing to be successful in a marketing career, as long as you can develop the skills that you need, “youve had” the imaginative drive, and the problem-solving abilities necessary to learn and to grow with and within the marketing industry.

If not having a college degree and the “correct freehold” is a hang-up or a matter of concern for you or maybe someone you know, as it pertains either coming into marketing or to switching over into a different character and a different province of marketing, I think that Kevin’s story is proof that you don’t have to let that be the thing that holds you back. Now, back to Kevin.

There seems to be being very smart about spotting where the possibilities of are and capitalizing on it for sure. If a listener to this episode, let’s say they’re considering making a career change and maybe for them, they want to get into marketing from another profession like you did yourself, or maybe it’s even time shifting from one range of marketing into another. Maybe they want to go from SEO to advertising, whatever the occurrence may be. What are some things that you would suggest that they ask themselves before “theyre starting” gravely following making a change like that in their profession?

Kevin: I think what they should ask themselves is if they think that this is something they’re going to love doing or even merely experience doing, even when things get hard or are rough because that’s genuinely what’s going to help you through the tough times. When I was programming–I cherished programming–I love the challenge of going on Stack Overflow trying to find the answer. I was like, oh nonsense, I saw my reply.

You experience that hard-handed treats because eventually, things ever suck. Things are not going to work out like SEO stuff goes up and down all the time. But you find enjoyment in figuring out, let’s say my website because maybe it has too much content here or my links are bad here. You have to find enjoyment in that process. That’s something hard to know in the beginning, but you still have( at least) experience that affliction. I feel that that’s the most fun part of when you figure it out.

At least for programming, you figure out the code. The problem took me three days and yours is so good. That have taken place in any industry or anything you’re doing. I think it’s the biggest thing. You ask yourself if you like that challenge.

Ben: Yes, for sure. Let’s say they’ve gotten that far. They’ve determined something that they think that they would be better at or something then they would just enjoy more, and that’s really igniting a flame under them to start that modify. Once you’ve decided, yes this is the right step in order to be allowed to take, yes I will enjoy it or I think that I will thrive on the challenge of having to figure all this nonsense out from scratch, what happened next?

Kevin: I reckon for what comes next, I always tell people it’s always huge to read about all these immense programmes like how to do Facebook ads, how to do SEO, how to do Amazon. I still fantasize the best thing that someone should do is start their own thing and then use that talent they want to build up to do.

People

For illustration, I want to learn Amazon FBA. What do I do? I went to learn how to actually sell a concoction on Amazon. Then, you’re truly able to put your knowledge to the test. I recall for myself I enjoy knowing, can I do it with my own money? With my own resources? Then, I know that I’ll be as efficient as possible because you’re not going to be spending $100 and you’re okay, cool, whatever, I don’t care about it. No, that’s your $100. You’re going to make sure that you’re spending it wisely and efficiently.

I always tell people to put your money there. I’ll sometimes say it’s easier said than done, but if you can save some coin and assessment something yourself or sell something yourself, I think that’s the best way to learn any skill. For programming, for example, I learn more really by construct my own apps than clas. I want to build this app that I saw online. I’m going to go and program it. I improve it how I think it is and then go to Google and Stack Overflow. That’s to help me solve 90% of questions. That’s where I tell people that is the best way to learn something. Just figure out what you want to build and then how would you market it or represent that.

Ben: I think it makes a lot of gumption. I think that example of leaning on aids like Stack Overflow, makes( I suppose) that super smart. I’m likewise curious. I think you touched on this a little bit in general. You’re following TechCrunch. You were standing well-read on the technology industry in general.

When you started making this transition into commerce, you said you’re maybe going down these black hat rabbit excavations that I reflect a good deal of people are caught in, maybe somewhat unknowingly in the early goings with that. What are some other resources, though, that “youre reading”, and that you noticed especially useful for you in the marketing space, that really helped you find your foothold and helped you figure things out?

Kevin: Because I’m safer with SEO in the beginning, SEO Moz was really good back in the day. That was a great resource. I use it a good deal. I too exerted Search Engine Land or their search engine websites. I’m really big on Twitter. People follow this Twitter list of purveyors. I would enjoy just going to Twitter searching for a hashtag of digital sell. Even right now. Actually this morning, I went to find more D2C beings, so direct-to-consumer founders or direct-to-consumer marketers. I only sort in D2C and Twitter gives you a roll of accounts to follow. That’s super supportive for me.

I adoration keeping up with what parties are saying. At least for now, what I find works really well, I’m not sure if you guys have this, Facebook groups of manufactures, like SEO groups, affiliate marketing radicals. Those are really good. They’re the new gatherings, basically, and parties are always affixing gratuities or marketing tips-off. I still mull the pitch-black hats are certainly pretty interesting to look at even now and I still like looking at it because just the room I think about it, these guys are in these forums, were working to represent$ 1 out of 50 C /. They’re certainly pushing the limit on what’s working or not working.

People exactly look at that. How can you apply this in your own way that’s not seen as negative? These people actually have some interesting tactics that you can see what might work for you. The path they’re doing it patently alternates differently, but there’s something there. What can you get from there is to extend to your trash?

I ever tell people at least for redoing SEO, everybody always wants to look at the good search results such as’ best teacups, ’ for example. This is good and every […] that you read about. But look at the black hat keywords. Undoubtedly, we all know what some of those are. Those guys are really pushing the limit about what’s going to work on SEO.

The is why I say that is because a great deal of these proscribed expressions that might be taboo , no one can advertise on Google. SEO is the only thing that they can get traffic from. The firebrands that are propagandizing it to get SEO traffic, are really doing top-notch SEO. The best of the most wonderful. Your job is not to reverse architect that. I think that’s the exciting part of SEO is reverse engineering. I belief any sell is more like reverse engineering top symbols. I’m CS, so I got some plans there.

Ben: That obliges gumption. Last-place question I’ll throw your space. I imagine that as you were learning from these different marketing tricks, different marketing channels and things, and I think that this is true anytime anyone is trying to take on anything that is new to them, you’re going to make some mistakes because that’s how you learn. What are some common mistakes that you find apprentice purveyors obliging or maybe even mistakes that you see when people are making a career change, that you would recommend that they shun?

Kevin: Something I recommend now is even now, I still foresee parties sometimes avoid having instructs or tracks that they need to buy. I reflect trends and managers actually can really help you accelerate your memorize. I think what people want is to only predict everything for free. Okay, I certainly feel for free. Everything available is for free, but certainly having a course or instruct can really intensify that learning.

I think sometimes parties determine the error of, I don’t want to coach because I can do it myself. Yes, you can, but you tend to be slower at it. I’d rather if you can get a instruct or a route to school you this–sometimes they’re really expensive–I still think they’re enormous.

For speciman, digitalmarketer.com by Ryan Deiss. He’s got a ton of resources there. You can just take that for $40 a month and exactly learn everything you ever need to know. All the stuff he probably says is for free somewhere, but it’s there. They’re paying world-class experts to teach things.

One other thing I just tell people more of myself because it’s more of a mental obstruction is that sometimes you only feel the imposter syndrome, like I can’t get it on. Even for me, I still fight that sometimes. I’ve never done an busines before. I’ve never succeeded in a marketing company before. But that’s sometimes an advantage. You can come in with a new perspective, so it’s more about a mindset. You could do it.

I ever tell people the person that worked in an enterprise probably was the same person as you. They just started it. So, go on and only make love. Know that you have the ability in the talent. It previously takes a unique type of person to really applied themselves out there. Just travel make love.

Ben: I affection that advice and I think that is probably something that was true for everybody who has ever been successful at starting something new or actually coming into this industry. At some spot, you just have to take a leap. It’s certainly, really easy to look at whoever it is that you idolize and to think that they were just born great.

Kevin: Everybody got their disbelieves. Even for me, I have a company with 20 employees […] and sometimes it’s crazy that this is me that’s doing it. Everybody, it’s your self-doubts, but I’d say use that to your advantage sometimes. It’s a skill. Even when I talk to marriages, I’m like, hey, this is who I am, this is my company, “thats what we” do. Either you’re going to believe in us and the route we do things. If not, vanish look for somebody else that follows what you want to do.

Also, you’re not to be right for everybody, and that’s fine because not everybody is going to be your friend. Some parties might not looks just like you, but that’s okay. You have the person or persons that looks just like you and the person or persons I don’t like you, and you can do whatever you want to do. It’s your firm, your symbol.