Hey there! I’m Brendan, and I’m not sure that I totally belong here because I did take an investment from my mom once.
Ok, not a “real” investment. She just bought me some blank CDs so I could rent CDs from the library, burn them onto the blanks, and sell them at school. I still don’t think she knows that I sold them at school, haha.
Anyways, I guess my story starts with me sitting in my college cafeteria about seventeen years ago, holding this giant course catalog and being told to decide on a major.
Apparently we think it’s a great idea to let 18 year olds take on a ton of debt and decide their course in life.
In that moment, I decided to be a teacher. But, like most teachers, I went through college and did everything right, only to be rewarded with a lackluster career.
But I still did everything I could to get ahead: I started a business. I became an assistant principal.
Again, what was I rewarded with? 25 extra lbs. on my midsection, Sunday night panic attacks, and an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. All for the privilege of being the lowest paid assistant principal in my state (I know because I checked. Sigh).
Externally, things looked amazing. I was advancing in my career, I had a cool side business, I had a $1500/mo business coach and everything I put out into the world screamed SUCCESS.
But inside, I was dying. My business was failing. My career was failing. I couldn’t sleep. AND, I had a new baby to take care of.
I asked my family for money and was told no. Everything I used to build my business was crashing down around me (especially that good old 100% organic Facebook and Instagram reach).
In a moment of clarity, I decided that I was either going to sell my businesses or shut them down.
Within the next six months, I sold my businesses and doubled down on the only thing that I’d ever seen work in my business, organic traffic from Google.
SEO.
So I got really good at SEO, first on my own sites, and then for clients. Getting extremely good at SEO has radically changed my life.
Obviously, I wouldn’t change anything about my experience, but a small part of me wishes that something like this existed when I was in college. If I did, we’d be having an entirely different conversation right now.
Currently, I’m an agency SEO Director working with $90M+ venture backed startups and a few badass bootstrapped startups, and I’m also the founder of a small, amazing SEO community.
I’ve noticed from other intro threads that people often ask questions based on the person’s expertise, so here’s what I’d love to do:
If you post your startup’s site below, I’ll give you direct feedback on how you can get more customers through SEO.
Looking forward to sharing everything i know here with fellow founders! 
