George Kepnick Email & Phone Number

Portland, Oregon, United States

Portland, Oregon Area

Chicago

Summary: This is the first business I created on my path to working for myself.Highlights: Freedom from the 9 to 5.Story: A partner and I founded this while talking online trying to figure our next move. Our skills and desires lined up and we gave it a go. Neither of us had any idea what we were doing when it started and both have gained massive experience in the 10 years we have run it.Out of the gate we did consulting but quickly turned it into a longer term play building sites that make money through a variety of channels including ads and affiliate sales.I learned quite a bit about hiring and growth. We made many bad decisions in the 10 years, but many good ones which keep this little business sticking around.I did everything here from Site planning and Design to Traffic Acquisition Strategies. Strategic Planning, Software Planning, Project Management, Employee Management... all the way to company finances. This business really got me to see what all is involved in running a successful business.Currently this is a very low work load business. Not 100% passive, but probably in the 80% range. Very fortunate to have been part of this.

The Internet

Summary: Moderate, Yahoo! Search Marketing, RSS and Microsoft AdCenter Forums.Highlights: EverythingStory: I found this website while working at GDMI. I immediately dove in and learned as much as I could. I would spend countless hours on this site and learn about all things internet marketing. I joke that this is really where I went to school. I owe a great of my success to all of the information on this site and the people who share it freely.

Chicago, Il

Summary: Grew a business 7 fold in 3 years.Highlights: Helped an employee buy her first home.Story: This was the first business that I have ever bought and sold. It started with a single site and grew into a small empire.I bought it in the end of 2011 and did a poor job with due diligence and started 2012 with a penalized site and a large dip in traffic from the previous year. I was able to recover the loss of traffic through PPC and other means and turn my investment around. There were many growing pains in this time and I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I survived and brought on one employee.In 2013 I worked on the business part time and increased it 1.83x. I did lead gen and created sales funnels. I hired wisely and turned this into an actual small business that helped a few employees out.In 2014 I focused on this full time and grew the business 3.83x. I had to build out new systems for the increase in business and that numerous employees could work together on remotely. It was a rough season and I was worn out. At this point I was experiencing a lack on confidence on how to take this to the next step. It would require hiring management which I felt totally overwhelmed with. At this point I really thought about what I should do, and my best option seemed to sell.Up until this point the business was rather seasonal, so I fixed that, tidied things up and listed it with a broker. In Feb 2015 it sold and I remain a partner in the new company.

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Summary: Managed millions of dollars of pay per click advertising. Developed systems, software and standards for arbitrage. Trained staff.Highlights: Forced me to get a passport, and my first time living outside of the USA. Got me to to look at business decisions with a conscious. Story: This was the job that broke my spirit and forced me to work for myself. I came in as a young buck ready to take on the world and over the course of 1 year I learned about greed in numerous forms.My biggest gripe was that we were ZERO VALUE ADDED. We bought millions of dollars of traffic from Google and sent the traffic to Yahoo!. It generated millions of dollars for the company, but I always wonder what it did for the advertisers. Since online advertising was my background I always felt terrible doing this work.At the same time I was incredibly skilled at this work. I came in as the only person in my department, and later managed 6 staff, and about 50 web properties. I was tied to this department so I also helped create another department which turned the company into the true rocket of growth, but had no financial stake in the outcome.Probably the coolest part of the job were some of the people I got to work with. Experience wise it was nothing new for me, but the scale was just ridiculous. If I could get a return on ad spend there were no limits. There were Google rules that were created based on the work that I was doing. Not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of that.Based upon that internal conflict and some personal issues I terminated my contract and started a new company with Geosign as my first client. This was the last time I did anything strictly based on on money.

Chicago

Summary: This was the first startup I worked for, even though I did not know it at the time.Highlights: Learned quite a bit about myself and met great people.Story: Coming Soon

Chicago

Summary: Started as an artist and left as an SEO.Highlights: I paid of my college debts and dove into a new career path.Story: Coming Soon

Painting & Sculpture

Aas, Graphic Arts