GB EP 13: How To Get Started With Internet Marketing & Parlay It Into A Job At A Startup

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Welcome to another episode of Growth Bites. Today we’re talking about how to get started with Internet marketing whether you’re a small business owner or working for a start-up.

• I started out in Internet marketing three years ago doing SEO and branched out into other areas like conversion rate optimization. [00:36]
• I moved around jobs to gain more experience and learned from designers and developers. [00:54]
• Remember to make things simple and make sure you’re damn good in one area of marketing first. [1:08]
• SEO is considered black magic by people who don’t understand it, but it’s relatively easy once you get the hang of it. I got my feet wet doing SEO and started a blog. [1:25]
• I read Neil Patel’s blog to learn more about growth hacking. I would reach out to him with questions and ask questions and he eventually became my mentor. [2:08]
• You need to be very hungry about learning. I also look for that in my hires at Single Grain. [2:31]
• No one really taught me Internet marketing, I went out and looked for it to find my way through the noise. [2:55]
• I got an unpaid internship through Craigslist and learned a lot and juggled that with my full-time job. [3:22]
• The people who are remarkable in Internet marketing are the ones who fight through roadblocks. [4:20]
• I got a job working in-house as a growth hacker from social media to content strategy. [4:31]
• I had typical Asian parents who advised me to stay at one job for 4-years and my Dad wanted me to become a pharmacist. But I wasn’t interested and pursued my dreams instead. [5:22]
• If it doesn’t maximize your growth, move on. [5:41]
• When you wake up in the morning, you should have a sense of passion and ready to go. [6:19]
• I worked with Break.com on their SEO stateg and felt like it was working with talented people and was there up to six months before getting fired. [6:42]
• I had a consultancy on the side and a lead reached out to the company I was working for. They fired me. [7:05]
• Afterwards, I went to TreeHouse as their head of marketing and it was my first real Head of Marketing job. I had to be a Jack of All Trades and manage a team. [7:30]
• To get that job, I saw a Tweet that lead to the job and saw they were hiring. [8:54]
• Learning never stops. There were many things i didn’t understand when I joined like what it was like working with a pre-growth start-up with fires to put out. [9:19]
• Be humble and reach out to people individually or look at Angel Lists to see salaries and equity. [9:51]
• Follow startups on Twitter you’re a fan of and see if they’re hiring. [10:18]
• Hold your ground and agree to disagree. [11:25]
• Take advantage of opportunities and go from there. [12:09]
• World-class people will be motivated to find the information that’s out there and figure out what you want to be. [12:42]

Selected Links from this Episode:

• QuickSprout
• Angel List
• My interview with Neil Patel’s business partner Hiten Shah

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Connect with Eric Siu:

• Growth Everywhere
• Single Grain
• Twitter @ericosiu