A 13-Year-Old Founder Builds a 450-Person Agency - Smart Sites

What does it really take to build a large agency without chaos, investors, or burning out your team? In this episode, Alex Melen, Co-Founder of SmartSites, shares how starting a business at 13 shaped his long-term mindset and how disciplined measurement and intentional growth decisions helped SmartSites become a 450-person agency.

Key Takeaways

• Why agency growth helps the talent game
• How accurate measurement protects your business
• How writing a book sharpens your thoughts

Want a more clarity and control for your agency in 2026? An Agency Story has three coaching spots available for 2026. Let’s see if one of those spots is right for you. Click this link to visit AnAgencyStory.com and click “Let’s Talk.”

Transcript

Russel: 1:21

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russel Dubree, former eight figure agency owner, turn Business coach, sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today. I have Alex Melen with Smart Sites here today. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Alex.

Alex: 1:59

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Russel: 2:00

Well, glad to have you, uh, get right to the chase here. If you don't mind, tell us what Smart Sites does and who you do it for.

Alex: 2:08

Yeah. Uh, so we're a full service digital marketing agency, so we do everything digital. Uh, I would say our core products are making websites and then doing the digital marketing for it, which is, uh, SEO paid search, uh, social media, email marketing. But we're typically the all in digital marketing partner. We'll make you the website, we'll do all the marketing to drive your business. Nice.

Russel: 2:28

I know there's a lot more sub context to all that, which we'll certainly get to some of that today or, um, and, um, probably more content than we could ever hope to get to in today's session. But before we get into all things agency and before smart sites even existed. What was young Alex up to in his life and how did he get started in an agency

Alex: 2:48

business? Agency business is a very good question, especially the marketing stuff, because that's definitely not my background per se, but I've been involved in digital space for a very, very long time. Um, I was very fortunate to have. Access to a computer and technology at a very young age. My family, well, along with me, we immigrated from, uh, USSR, from the Soviet Union. Um, I came to the US when I was just turned eight years old. Oh boy. And my dad, uh, worked in computer science. So the benefit of that is we had a computer at home, which gave me, I guess. Um, early advantage. This is like pre a OL. This is like the comp you surveys for those, for those that have been doing this long enough, uh, this is, uh, dialing up to the internet very, very slowly. This is not the 56 K modem days. This is, uh, a little bit before. Oh, yes. Um. So I started my first business in 1997. At 13 years old. I actually incorporated at 13 years old. I started one of the first web hosting companies. So for those, again, that have been around for that long, those are the days of, uh, tripod, hyper mar, GeoCities. If any of those names ring, ring any bells, but oh yeah, that was, that predates Google, by the way. I started, uh, and the company was T 35 hosting. Out of all those names I named, it's the only one that's still, that's still around. So I've been involved in digital space for a very, very long time, uh, making websites, uh, for both myself and helping other people. Um, and I kept running that business the whole time and it's still, the hosting business still exists.

Russel: 4:15

And you, you're like a true, like. Born entrepreneur here is the,

Alex: 4:20

um, very good question. I get into this, so I, I speak about entrepreneurship a bunch, and I go to colleges and I encourage people to do it. That's always a good question in self born entrepreneur or not. But for sure, ever since I was little, I knew that's what I wanted to do. And the funny part is, looking back on it, it, it seems a little funny now in the moment. It didn't, but I went to college, I went to Babson University. It's in Massachusetts. It's a tiny, tiny school that. Only has one major, which is business, and everyone goes there for entrepreneurship. Okay. But what seems silly to me now is. I kind of went there as my backup, like if this entrepreneurship thing doesn't work out, I'll have a college degree. Right. Although at the time my business was doing extremely, extremely well to a point where I was seriously considering not going to college. But anyways, my backup I immigrant parents, you have to go. There was no option. Oh, yes. But looking back on it, looking back on it now. So you're going to college for entrepreneurship as a backup to entrepreneurship makes zero sense. So that in itself was probably a little bit silly going to school for entrepreneurship as my backup. Um, and you just doubling down here, which is, I don't know, I, uh, it's like, let it ride. I intent. That was not the intent. Um. I majored in finance, data analytics stuff. I worked in investment banking for a little bit, Citigroup. Um, I briefly was on a path to become a actuary. I did the actuarial exams. Um, so with that kind of background, it's a good question. How I wound up with, uh, not in digital, digital space makes sense, but how I wound up in marketing.

Russel: 5:50

Yeah.

Alex: 5:51

Uh, but it just, I bounced around a bunch of different professions. Corporate finance, investment banking, uh, actuarial, uh, wound up at Mediavest. Uh, which is became Media Starcom, their Power Publicis, which is one of the big media agencies, and was really amazed at the kind of stuff. So I started Smart Sites with my younger brother in 2011. So this is three years before, by the way, only job I've ever had where I stayed more than six months. Only career. I, I didn't even switch jobs. I switched from like, I don't know,

Russel: 6:20

like complete one eighties. So I'm curious, just what was the thought process? I mean, like you were saying, you already had a successful business, you've already had your full test. Then some in entrepreneurship, but it seemed like you were experimenting and going down a corporate path. What was your thought

Alex: 6:34

process at the time? Yeah, good question. So I think as opposed to my, my brother who actually helped me get, we started smart sites together, but as opposed to the way his mentality and his outlook and his personality, um, I think mine was almost a polar opposite where. I really enjoyed having my own business and for a long time I had older roles and then I hired people, so I, I was very confident in it and I had the financial history of it. I never had to take on equity or take on investors. It was always self-funded and. I had the path to success with an m. Babson actually was a business, uh, student business of the year, one year. So it had good recognition. I was in, um, business week top entrepreneurs under 25 and oldie because I was getting old this publicity, it was tough to me to kind of take that full risk and say, you know what? I'm not gonna do any corporate jobs and I'm just gonna just do this.'cause with the corporate jobs I was doing, I was actually able to still do my business and do the corporate jobs. Um, and it, the corporate jobs paid well, like investment banking pays very well. Yes, that's true. Um, and it was like very good careers that like coming out of college, especially when I graduated, I graduated in 2006 coming outta college. This was before like Bear Stearns and, and Golden, everyone like collapsed. Right. Um. Coming out of college at that time, it was very prestigious careers, like everyone wanted it. Yeah. It was hard for me to get like a job at Citigroup and be like, you know what? I'll completely pass and I'll do the entrepreneurial thing, which was by the way, a what I should have done, but it was just. Very hard for me. I don't think I have enough. The risk-taking entrepreneur Gene. Yeah. Um, and again, goes back to your question, true entrepreneur or not, um, it's very tough to, to take that kind of big move. My brother's opposite. So my brother, uh, was when we started Smart Sites, he was still in college. He went to to college, uh, to uh, Cornell. And, uh, he called me up and I was at Publius and I loved what I did. So I did marketing There I was, I did digital for Samsung and I was promoted to do digital for Walmart, which at the time and still might be the biggest spender on digital advertising, like, period. They spent like a fortune, even though it's like so low on their totem pole. Wow. So did really, really cool stuff there. And I, that was the first time I didn't like change careers in six months. I'm sitting there having, having a blasting this really, really cool marketing stuff there. And marketing was new to me at the time too, and it, I'm like the data numbers person, so marketing is definitely, was very new to me. And my brother had the opposite standpoint to me where he was on his third year Cornell, and he was like, I'm gonna be graduating next year. And he is like, I don't want a corporate job. He's like, I don't want'em, I don't want to even try it. Like I was like trying all these different careers and everything. He's like, I don't want it. I don't want to even, he was like, if I graduate early in three years, would you start this company on me? I'm like, sure. I didn't even think he was gonna, I didn't think it was even possible starting the third year. Of Cornell to finish two years worth of classes in the remaining like nine months long. Uh,

Russel: 9:36

clearly motivated. I mean, was the business idea that what he wanted to start, was it essentially smart sites or was it just I wanna start a business?

Alex: 9:43

Yeah, it's a good question. So it was a combination of a bunch of things. So he was doing, uh, a lot of SEO at the time. It was very early years of SEO, he was doing like Ling building. He had, his business was literally back ling build.com, which was gaining a lot of momentum and doing, I remember those days. Yes, yes. There was the time of, like, the time when Blackhead a co was popular and all the Yeah. Climbed to number one overnight. Yes, yes. It's, it's that kind of, or the other way around. Dropped off our, that it was, uh, like wild, wild west of the digital marketing. So he had that part. Uh, we had the web hosting business too, like host actual websites. Um, we both have made websites at that point, ourselves. So we had that background and I was doing a lot of paid advertising at, uh, media Vest Publicis, which is, I, I would consider at the time was not only cutting edge, it was probably bleeding edge. There was a lot of stuff that was being done at the time that's only now is propagating to like the small businesses. Hmm. We were doing like really, really cool attribution analysis and really cool stuff at the digital level. So we had that background and the idea was to just combine everything into full service, digital marketing company. So, um, that was my final push and it was by the way. There was a lot of financial benefits that could have received staying three years in that job. I think I left like a month early. I think I was there two years ago. There was a lot of incentives in my, in my, so some more, more risk than taking than you're giving you. You left some. So that was the big, that was the big risk. But I think I needed the nudge because it was so much easier to just do the entrepreneurial thing, but at the same time also have a very well paying corporate job. And it was like a mix of both that I was, yeah. Kind of bouncing around trying to figure out what I really wanted to do. But it was, I find that it's people not, I don't wanna promote anyone to quit their jobs. Anyone listening, please, if you have a good job, don't quit their job. But, uh, one of the biggest learning experiences I had was being able to do so many different careers in such a short period of time. And I was able to learn so much in different fields and industries at such a quick pace that I think that was super, super helpful for me.

Russel: 11:45

Well, I mean, again, what is the definition of entrepreneur entrepreneurship? Um, um, right. We all kind of probably create our own, but you know, it can be a blend or it can be extreme of part. What is your risk or risk aversion? And I've heard all kinds of stories of people that just leave their job and go for broke to walk their income on their side hustle right up to their corporate or their, their full-time gig and then, so they don't have to deal with that. But, but then it's also just about the innovation and the ideation and the, and the creation of things. Um, it sounds like you might lend, um, well, slightly less risk averse. You're an innovator. Yes.

Alex: 12:20

I think, yeah, so on the web posting stuff aside, I had a lot of patents. I'd been to a lot of early web posting technology, so I really, I really enjoyed that part of it. Um, I think a lot of it is passion. I find people who start side gigs and. Who are doing things a little bit on the entrepreneurial side, if they don't have the passion, they, it just doesn't succeed. You need to put in the hours, you need to have the passion, um, you need to be out there learning, improving. So for sure. I think it's a lot that goes into it. I think risk taking is, is a big part of it. Uh, certainly not on the lowest side of the risk taking side, but, uh, compared to some of the other entrepreneurs I've met, they're definitely people who are, um, have higher risk tolerances in me.

Russel: 13:02

Yeah, well it certainly takes all kinds. So you make the move and you start smart sites. Um, what was the most stressful part of the early

Alex: 13:12

days of smart sites? I think every, uh, part of the journey has different stress. Um, I think in the beginning, trying to find exactly what we wanted to. B and our value add was very challenging. So we took on a couple of employees that, uh, came from Cornell as well. I think we started with maybe 10, 11, 12 people, but we self-funded, uh, me and my brother. Um, and it's not like. We had like a generational wealth that are like, our parents are immigrants who came with nothing. Right? And no, they had no investments from them. We didn't have any investments for anyone else. We literally put in every penny we had of our own money to fund this. Yeah. To pay salaries for these 12 employees and changed it and marketing everything else. So for sure that that in itself was a little stressful. Um, trying to do that without really. Figuring out our value add as a agency. And I think that's also a, a big point. I speak to a lot of agency owners and I find that many of them don't, haven't figured it out, or they tried to do too many things. Like it took us a little bit, kind of zero in on our value add because we were all over the place. We were doing and social media, and we did a marketing for an outdoor gear. Website. A company like they sell like camping stuff, right? And they started doing so well. We're like, you know what? We'll start our own outdoor gear. And we bought the domain outdoor gear.net. We know the suppliers that guy used. We got the same suppliers and we started our own eCommerce business. We were like selling tons of e-commerce and we were like, this is great.'cause we know how to market it. So we're like, we start our own outdoor gear. Yeah. And it actually did well until it didn't, until we figured out all the stuff that goes into it. So

Russel: 14:54

yes, yes. You have to learn the, you're always gonna encounter the school of hard knocks anytime you enter new, new endeavor. I'll give you,

Alex: 14:59

for example, so. We had very high paid employees. Even at the time we were probably paying six figures, um, especially these kids coming outta Cornell. We had to convince one guy not to take a job with Facebook where he was gonna get Facebook equity to come work for us instead. So. Needless to say, we were paying very high salaries. We wound up doing like customer service and returns for this outdoor gear business. People were calling up and they're like, my tent broke. We're like, what? They're like, we wanna return my tent. My tent broke. This lady, I remember this lady called, she's like, I'm gonna sue you. We're like, what? She's like, I received gloves with glass in it and I cut my hand. She's like, you have to pay me or I'm gonna sue you. We didn't like even ship it. It was drop ship and then we were doing returns, packages were coming in, so like I have like. I dunno. PHP developers that turn out jobs at Facebook, packaging boxes and like doing returns of t-shirts. I'm like, wait, this is not our value add. So I think those were the stressful days where we were like really? Like yeah, that shiny where we started doing a little social media. And there's some articles, by the way online you could find about this because NPR covered it and. We got a lot of issues after we got coverage for it, but we started doing some social media, and this was early, this was 2011, so early Facebook. We started doing social media and we're like, we'll help you do social media and your page will get more likes. Yeah. Um, and we got roped into all this crazy stuff for like such low margins. We'd make like a hundred bucks, but like, and again, it was like, wait, where is our value add? I don't think our value add is helping like these politicians and celebrities to pretend they're more popular than they are. Yeah, that's not, that's not our value, but it took a little bit, right? We didn't know. Yeah. So I would say out of all the stress, those were the most stressful years as we were trying to figure that out. Obviously, those I think were the more stressful years, but as a company, we grow 35% minimum every year. Roughly. We double in size every 18 to 24 months, so we're now at 450 employees. In two years, we will be close to 900, so there's. Stress at every part of the journey. Oh, that's a little different. Yes. Um, and some like those years were very stressful, the 12 people, but it's completely different story when you have 450 or when COVID hit, we had 200 something and all of our clients stopped paying us and we have like millions in salary to cover. So there's definitely different moments, but I think the most, uh, crazy moments were when we were just starting up.

Russel: 17:23

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And not an uncommon journey. Right. I have really yet to meet the agency that's started right out of the gate and knew exactly what they were gonna do and focus on and who they're gonna do it for. It is just that journey of figuring out, Hey, let's not do this and let's do more of this. And, uh, certainly that process of discovery and I, I love, you know, even just sharing that and I think it speaks to how well you shared even what you do at the beginning of how hard it. Of work it does take to get very simple, very specific, very explicit, uh, and sharp about what you do. And it sounds like you spent a lot of time on that. Uh, yeah, I do love, I wanted to fast forward and kinda where you're at today because a lot had to go into this growth and this, level you're at at your business. I'm sure there's more things to talk about than we'll ever have time for, but you know, what was the first catalyst that really. Kicked you up a few notches in that growth for

Alex: 18:19

you? I don't think there was a specific catalyst. I think we were always focused on maintaining a minimum 35% growth, so we were always like. I can't say crazy growth focus because in San Francisco we'd be growing very slowly. Um, it's very industry specific, I guess. Sure. But we were always focused on measured growth. Uh, and luckily not having investors, not having a board of directors to report to, um, we could prioritize. Growth, customer success. I wanna say customer results. Um, our reputation and employee happiness over anything else. Uh, profits is always one of the last things we look at if we look at it. So that's a lagging

Russel: 19:02

indicator to the other ones.

Alex: 19:04

Yes, yes, yes. And I have the benefit to be able to do that, and I think that helps everything else. I get into these discussions with other agencies but I found that a couple things happen. Uh, number one, uh, you'll eventually start losing out because of retention issues, clients leaving. You have to be getting enough, and that in itself, or that growth becomes a little bit of a weird equation. I think the most important one is if your company's not growing, you're not giving your employees the opportunity to grow. And I think that's a huge, huge one. And I think over time you will lose your best employees and you'll retain your worst employees. And what I mean by that is the typical, I don't know that. I think the best example I've used for this has been a law firm. So typically a law firm has a couple partners, right? Established partners. You come in as a new lawyer for you to become a partner in that firm. Someone pretty much has to die, right? That's, that's, that's, that's your career's trajectory, right? You wait until something like that, uh, which in law is kind of accepted and it's become okay, but outside of it, it really isn't. Like I can't have like a junior person come, start our company and for me to be like, well, you're gonna be a junior person until supervisor passes away. I can't play that game. So by growing, we're constantly giving our employees opportunity. Right? But the overachievers, the ones that go above and beyond, want the opportunity to grow, want the opportunity to take manager, director, VP roles. And if you're not growing, how would you create those roles from? Like our product is our services, which our trained employees perform. So, um, if I lose all of my best trained employees, because I don't provide them the opportunities. Things will crumble very quickly. So for those reasons and several others, we're always in growth node. There's no like specific inflection point. We also don't wanna grow too quick because then results suffer. You get bad reviews, clients are unhappy. It's very like fine balance. And I think that's the biggest challenge in a leadership role at a agency is to balance the challenge of growth.

Russel: 21:04

Yeah. Well it sounds like the crux of that, I mean something, it sounds like you came to very early that, um, was a hard thing to solve or a point of innovation for you was the ability to measure that If you're measuring, uh, all the things that you shared that you were measuring, um, you can be more specific, more targeted, more strategic about the moves you're making and know when the wheels might be falling off. Doing, being successful in one aspect might cause a problem. Another is, is kind of what I'm hearing is the underneath, but just, yeah, a super focus on measurement has been very helpful for you.

Alex: 21:38

Measurement, yeah, for sure is very important. And I'll tell you the first part of any kind of growth. So we don't do any outbound marketing. I know a lot of our competitors, especially of our size do. We do not. We do only inbound. So our avenue of growth as we. Advertise ourselves more like on Google and whatnot. And we we're spending, I don't know, 600,000 a month on Google Ads now advertising ourselves, right? So the first avenue to increase growth is to spend more on marketing, to bring business in. And then after that, we hire more salespeople to take those leads. And after that we take more project managers, analysts, whatever, to. Get those fines so that that's the avenue to growth. But yet a good point about measurement, all of this only works out if you're measuring very, very accurately. Uh, things are like your cost to acquire customer, uh, things like your customer lifetime value and retention, because it's very, very easy. Doing the game we're playing to wind up spending more than you're getting, which will very quickly, especially at the levels we spend. Very quickly put you outta business. Um, I'm very big in measure growth because all the teams have to slowly staff up. Um, to be able to do it, but it's very important to measure. You have to know very well, uh, all of those numbers to be able to invest correctly.'cause if you're not estimating correctly in one direction, you go outta business.

Russel: 23:05

And I think what to to the point, it's not easy to do. It's not easy to figure out. And, and I think that is a key to anyone successful or growth or whatever of any sort, is that you've solved something hard and um, you know, that happens to be your strong foundational layer. And then as you said too, you're not measuring lagging indicators or just very outlier indicators. You're measuring very specific things that ladder up to what is. Ultimately gonna lead to financial success and how important that is. Um, something else that you shared there that I think is interesting and, and I kind of felt this way in our own agency, and I'm gonna be careful when I word it this way, but, right. If, if you're not growing, you're dying. And growth doesn't always have to be by volume. It can be. And you said that provides more opportunities, more clients, et cetera. Yes. Even if you don't want that bigger business, that you still have to be innovating, you still have to be growing your people. Um, and challenging and finding ways to look like that kind of sitting back and, um, relaxing.

Alex: 24:07

That's just not gonna work in this business for sure. I think the big agencies of the world, and they're feeling this too, by the way, like the publicis of the world to some extent, don't even need to, uh, innovate as much as a smaller. Agencies, um, because they will get the business in lot cases anyway. Yeah. Nobody gets fired for hiring IBM as the old saying goes. Right, right, exactly. Or publicist. Yes. Yeah. So like the Coke, Pepsi, I know United Deltas of the world. We'll go to those agents. To the Publicis of the world, right? They have a choice of three to go from, but that's who they're gonna go to. So to some extent they're gonna get the business regardless. Although Publicis, where I worked at Media Vest, they did very well with innovation stuff, but a lot of these agencies don't. And that, that's in itself gives agencies like mine opportunities. But for sure, I think, um, unless you're that size, I think innovation becomes even more important because everything is so fast moving. Um, and you really need to be not only. Innovating. But I also think it's very important to be a thought leader in the space and to be perceived as a thought leader. And, um, from our end, we encourage our employees to speak at conferences. We encourage our employees to go to conferences, so everyone gets, uh, 1500 every year. Mm-hmm. They'll cover travel hotels and conferences to go to a conference of their choosing and learn something better yet, if they go and speak at a conference, we cover absolutely everything. I think thought leadership and. Very similarly perceived thought leadership, which is often the same thing, but not always. I think it's super important for thought leadership innovation. And by the way, it's not only. Me doing thought leadership for smart sites, me going to these conferences and seeing what others are presenting, speaking to other thought leaders is super, super important in innovation also, because that's the only way we could actually, uh, see what others are doing and be able to, uh, pace ourselves correctly compared to, to what others are doing. So I really, really think all of that's very important. I think it usually gets, um, gets really. Forgotten. And I know bigger companies send employees to like conferences once a year. Like they're predetermined the industry conference. But I think it's such a missed opportunity of not encouraging employees to go to any conference they want to and learn something new, even if it's not directly in, uh, related to what they do. I think, uh, all of that helps innovation because I don't think innovation lives in a vacuum. I don't think you could just expect your employees to do their daily, I don't know, eight hours a day and then. Like as a hobby during their like evening hours and instead spending time with their family, like sitting at a computer and trying to innovate something. I don't think that's how it happens.

Russel: 26:46

Yeah, so true and, and very similar philosophies. We had, I think, the exact same budget for our team as far as like a, a learning and development budget. And look, the things are just moving so fast. You just have to support and invest in that and is so important. And while, what's interesting there, right? I think there's a lot of agencies right on the smaller side that they could go, um, speak and it would be worth it from a biz dev perspective, one or two clients. But yeah, where your size is

Alex: 27:12

at, your value is at, I don't even, e is even a, I don't know, even a small agency, if you're like a, a c level founder, I dunno, CEO or whatever, I, I get it. You're like just starting out trying to build your company or whatever. Man, if you did the calculation on the value of your time, it's not like, uh, I don't know. I, there was a conference I was gonna go to that was a private conference, so less than thought leadership. Like, I got invited to speak to a group of people, let's, let's call it that. And there was a little bit of benefit to me, but mostly they're like, maybe you'll sign some clients. And I'm like, well, that's not really what I'm looking for. And they're like, oh, don't worry. You could bring all the salespeople you want and they'll help you. And I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, man, there. They're not doing the correct calculation. Me bringing salespeople makes the equation worse because it's opportunity cost. It's not just like the flight and hotel, which fine costs money, right? But the opportunity cost of salespeople not being at their computer, taking in leads, but instead flying halfway around the world to try to convince people to do stuff. So it gets tricky. I don't know. Opportunity cost is something that a lot of. Founders and C-level people don't really think about, but it's not just like the raw cost of travel. It's like the value of you absolutely not working for three days or four. Right. It's not like one day you don't go to a conference for one day. Yeah. It's tough. But I know, I know. When you're smaller, I mean, listen, we, we were smaller too, and when you're smaller and scrappy, everyone has to do what they can and everyone wears many hats and you go out of your way and do stuff. But I think in reality. Opportunity cost of a, of a founder of a company going to a conference to Chase business is probably not the best.

Russel: 28:49

Well, and I, I think that's even the point I was getting to is, you know, your value and at this point in the business for certain, you know, you've done the math and you've done the measurement to say, look, this is not on a client acquisition basis. This is not where the value lies. Um, and, and that's an important thing for us, for all founders and owners to know a hundred

Alex: 29:07

percent. Where, where's your value? That's a really good point. I don't think a lot of people realize that, and I think the sooner you realize that, the better you'll have use of time. Because I go to conferences knowing that I'm not gonna pitch people, right? I go to conferences, I'm like, I look at each conference like I, I'm gonna this conference, here's what I'm trying to accomplish. This one, I actually wanna attend these four sessions. I learn stuff and I wanna network with these other people. It's definitely a lot easier as like your, your batch says speaker to network with everyone. Right. I almost have like a free pass to come up to anyone. I want to network with anyone I want and they do speaker only dinners. And there's a lot of, but like I know going in what I'm trying to get out of it, because I know that like for me to try to sell clients. Beyond what we even discussed, me selling a client then like they contact me if something goes wrong or something goes like, it becomes a lot, it becomes a lot more involved than you would realize. Yeah. So, but the sooner I kind of realized what value am I trying to get, the better I became at conferences and the more value I started getting. So I actually go and I network with the people I wanna network with instead of like. Trying to pitch someone something. I'm not a salesperson either, so maybe that's part of it. Like I, okay. I got kicked off of the sales team when we had,

Russel: 30:18

well, at this point, your value is expanding the reach and expanding, as you said, this heavy investment you've made in. Yeah, and there's a lot of, by the way, personal,

Alex: 30:24

personal value, I try to get from conference too. Yeah. It doesn't always have to be business stuff, and that's okay too. And that's also something that, that a lot of people don't realize that sometimes I just go there to actually learn something like it. Yeah. I don't know. It's not for my business, but I'm here to actually learn this, this, this, I don't know, there's a AI conference I was gonna go to, which we do some AI stuff, but it's like hardcore ai like modeling, um, that I just wanted to learn about. So there's, I think conferences could be, we could have a whole podcast. Oh yeah. Conferences. And how do people should get the best value?

Russel: 30:54

Yeah, go in at the right intentions and maybe longer term intentions or a value proposition than, than short term. And, you know, the value's not always just whether you're gonna get clients in that moment, but there's a lot of other, as you shared many, many other tentacle uh, benefits to just. Investing in thought leadership, showing up in communities in circles where you either wanna learn or be known, and that's been clearly central to your growth. Um, speaking of thought leadership, you did write a book, I think you mentioned that earlier and, um, I

Alex: 31:25

didn't, but you must have

Russel: 31:26

looked it up. I did look it up, yes. Yeah. I'm just curious on that process and is the outcomes were what you intended and how has that just all around been for you? Very, very, very

Alex: 31:36

good question. I think we could do a podcast just on that. Also, we have a lot of good content to cover. Oh, yes. Um, this was like a personal development thing, kind of like I do with public speaking. So with public speaking, I had the benefit of, uh, being invited to. A lot of events just from being involved in digital space for so long. Like, I don't know. I know Jack Dorsey from back in the early Twitter days. I know a lot of digital people. So, and by the way, just to preface that, I'm terrible at public speaking, I. Getting better, but I'm not like the natural, like go on stage talk person. All of high school, college, I was like, you guys present? I'll do all the work as long as I don't have to go on stage. So, uh, pers uh, public speaking and even doing this podcast and everything is all personal development, which I decided it was a important skill for me to get better at. So the book writing was very similar. I think the behind public speaking writing was probably my second worst thing ever in high school, college. Um. And it was actually through speaking, a couple other speakers were like, man, you should really write a book. It's actually very helpful. So, uh, to answer your question, uh, probably. Didn't get out of it what I wanted to, but I got, uh, more in some other ways. So just something I would recommend to everyone. First of all, uh, anyone? Literally everyone. Um, we do every single industry at smart sites. I personally, I'm a car enthusiast, so I do a lot of automotive. Like we work with hundreds of dealerships. Mm-hmm. And, uh, OEM. So it was, and I speak at all the automotive conference, so it was a lot easier for me to start with automotive. I was gonna do every industry. Um, this really helped me, uh. Put together a better sense of our products and how to sell them in my own head by putting it on paper. I think that in itself was very helpful. Um, I spoke about it a lot, but you know, when you're up and speaking, you don't have to be as, uh, I don't know. It's, especially the way I speak. I, I don't prepare speeches. I'm usually like off the cuff, kind of public speaking. Um, it's a lot more. Casual and writing a book was a lot more intentional. Mm-hmm. So every couple of sentences I had to think about, is this how I wanted this information to be relayed? And then I would look at it, I'm like, man, this makes no sense if I was just reading it. So it gave me the super, super helpful for me to, in my head, put together the pieces of how we sell our services better. And then that in itself made my future presentations better. Um, writing in itself, I. Quickly, I write quickly. So I did it in one month. I did one hour a day in the month of November, uh, I think three years ago. Um, and I was gonna do one for every industry. And this was before Chad, GPT by the way. I wrote it one keystroke at a time. The old, old fashioned way. I like picture me out a typewriter. That's how I was writing. So one hour a day for, for like 25 days or something like that. So in terms of that, the time commitment wasn't huge, just because I just think quick, I write quick. Um, the publishing company. Took six months to publish it. That was a big struggle.'cause I thought like, you know what, I, it took me a long time to actually do it. And by the way, for people who are thinking about writing a book, the most helpful thing ever, ever, ever, is to start telling people you're gonna write a book. So once I started telling people that I'm gonna write a book book. Clients at conferences, every time they would see me, they're like, how's your book coming along? And it like, really puts you on the spot. So I was like, ah man. And then November, I forgot who, but someone like called me. They're like, how's your book? November is like, write a book month or, and it is like National book authors month or something. I'm like, that's it. Like there's. That's, that's the sign I was looking for. Uh, I can't come

Russel: 35:07

back to this conference if I don't have a book next

Alex: 35:09

time. No, no. I, it started getting embarrassing because it seemed like I wasn't, so anyway, that was super, super helpful.'cause otherwise I think I would've kept stretching an out, because it takes time, it takes concentration commitment. So if anyone wants to know how. Full transparency on everything we do is in here. So writing it was a very good experience publishing. It was not. But for sure, aside from the. Not being ROI, positive on selling it or whatever you want to do, the metrics, it was super helpful to write it. Um, I do need to update it'cause now it's a little bit out date. I would definitely recommend everyone to do it. Uh, again, we could have a whole podcast on book writing, but I enjoyed my experience. Guys, go ahead. Don't even have to provide. If you message me online, I'll send you a copy of it.

Russel: 35:50

Well, I appreciate that going through. All the, some of the learnings and to your point, many, many more about the book writing process, but perhaps the biggest takeaway is just the intentional focus that it has to sharpen your thinking and polish just your thought leadership and how you're showing up in the world. Just that process itself sounds like that was a huge benefit. And,

Alex: 36:10

um, so for sure, I think that was, that, that's the key word. I think it helps you be a lot more intentional. Yeah. Um, more so than you would otherwise. I don't know. You're coming up with like your services for your website or you're talking to clients, you're doing public speaking. Um, I think all of those, you don't have to be as intentional because once you write this down, you can't change it. Right? Like it's add there. Yeah. They add the physical copies, right? So like, like once you say something like, that's it. So you have to be like very intentional and I think it's very important to be. Very intentional with a lot of what you do, but writing a book will teach you how to be more intentional than anything else will,

Russel: 36:47

which is why I've always appreciated a book as a learning. Not to say all the other mediums don't have their, pros and cons, but a book is most of the time anybody that's gonna take the time to sit down and do that, they're gonna be intentional. They're gonna think hard about it, and therefore it is gonna be some. Depending on how good their writing style is. Yeah. Good information contained in there and I, I always just have such a deep appreciation for authors, so Thank you. Big, bigger

Alex: 37:13

potential, bigger potential for deep learning versus someone writing a quick article to publish online.

Russel: 37:19

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Well, easy and easy out and speaks to the quality. Yeah. To the point that's kind of already come up here. I mean, uh, I feel like we need a 27 part series on smart sites and your journey to, to really uncover so many of the nuggets and things that you've experienced. But we won't do that today. Um, so, last couple questions for you. One is just what does the future look like? What are you, what's your big goal? What are you trying to achieve here in the end?

Alex: 37:45

Yeah, good question. Future for smart sites is our continual path of growth. I don't think anything's changed, and I get asked that question a lot more in the last 12 to 18 months than ever before, as if something's changing. I don't know. There are things changing, but there's always changing, right? There's our whole industry, digital, digital space is always in a state of, uh, of change. Um, I do think the next 18 months will probably be more change in the industry than the 10 years before. So I do think there's a lot of change coming industry-wide, but I don't think that changes our business model. Our business model is to help our clients succeed online. That stays the same, whether AI's in the picture, AI's not in the picture. Uh, it it really, as the industry changes, we're just agile to change with it. And our goal remains to keep our clients getting business and successful online, which has always been the goal. So in that standpoint, I, I think that's. Our business model isn't changing. Um, our focus and our plans aren't changing, but I do think the digital industry is gonna have a lot of disruption. Um, sure. More so than before. Yeah.

Russel: 38:47

Well, great answer and final question for you, and we've kind of already talked about this a little bit, so I'll just ask the question directly. Are entrepreneurs born

Alex: 38:57

or are they made? Oh man. That's how we started all of this. That's how we got into the mess to begin with, I think. Anyone could be an entrepreneur, uh, but I don't think everyone will want to. So I think to some extent you have to want to be in that kind of setting and all of that, and some is risk taking. But as you could see with me, who's not a big risk taker, not all of it is, um, I think you have to have the appetite for that. I think some of it is something you're. Born with slash pickup early in life, which, uh, I think are tied closely together. Uh, but after you have that, I think anyone could be, and especially in the United States, uh, I think it's land of opportunity. But I, I think everyone's given some opportunity, they just might not see them as such at the time. So I think it's not about being given the opportunities, I think it's about using the opportunities, whether you see them or not. Uh, I think most people actually could be, but I don't think everyone. Should be. Perfect. Wonderful.

Russel: 39:55

Well, it's certainly not easy and anyone that makes it look easy, it's still not easy. If, if it was easy, everyone would have multimillion dollar, huge agencies. And the reality is, uh, they don't. That is certainly something, uh, to always keep in mind. Well, if people wanna know more about smart sites, where can they go?

Alex: 40:14

Smart sites is an easy one. You go smart sites.com, follow us on social media, we're on the, on the channels. And then for me personally, if you go to alex melen.com, which is my name, A-L-E-X-M-E-L-E-N. Com. On the bottom, I have all my social media contacts, so definitely connect with me. Reach out. If you want a copy of my book, just message me on any of those platforms. I'll send you a free copy.

Russel: 40:35

Wonderful. Thank you for that offer and uh, there, you have it, folks, go get you a free book. See all. Alex's hard work, in between the pages there. Thank you so much, Alex, for coming on the show today to tell us about the power of investing in thought leadership, to the power of measurements and how that really needs to be a foundation to allow growth to happen and so many other wonderful takeaways. Really appreciate you taking the time to share those with us today. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Love it. Thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps you write your own, subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit an agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.

Alex: 41:27

When we started the company, we had, uh, first of all, man, I'll reference the video so you could actually see what it was like. Um, it was such a, I don't wanna say fraternity, but it was such a startup thing that we had, that we actually had a big, uh, uh, media. Conglomerates, let's call them. Gotta make sure I don't violate any NDAs. Um, reach out to us. And they wanted to make a pilot about our startup, so we actually made a little video clip. I think it was supposed to be the opening to the pilot. I don't remember if we filmed the pilot or not, but if anyone's interested, our original company name was Mellon, LLC, so M-E-L-E-N-L-L-C. So if you go on YouTube, I'm gonna do this right now and see if I could find it. If you type Mellon LC Pilot, you'll get a nice little video. It says lc Tech Startup TV Show Pilot Trailer 2011. You'll get such a crazy. Uh, intro to a pilot of what business was like for us when we just started. Wow. I think anyone listening to this would enjoy that. So definitely look it up on YouTube. Um, I don't think I'm violating any kind of rules with, uh, since it's on YouTube anyway, so there you go.

Russel: 42:38

Well, we'll let the video tell the story. Uh, have to go check that out. And for folks listening as well, I'll post a link to that on the blog page for this podcast episode, so you can go check it out there.