I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes. She gave me a hug.

After an illustrious career at Best Buy while at college, I graduated with a degree in Computer Science, $80k in debt and one hell of a vertical leap. At this time, my parents also went through bankruptcy.

I began working at a small vitamin company as an Operations Manager. It's here that I fell into learning marketing, simply because I wanted to help the company grow. I was making $27,500 a year to start.

Finding a passion in marketing, I moved jobs to become an SEO/SEM Manager at a custom apparel company. We fired their PPC agency and I took it in-house. I grew the bottom line by $1mm in one year, but couldn't get a good raise (I kept the printed performance review as motivation).

I get married! I decided to take a massive risk at the same time, leaving to start my own company (Gradientwave), hoping the company I was working for would become a client so I could afford my bills. I was essentially broke. I did anything... PPC, SEO, websites. I'd clean your floors if you wanted!

I had my first child, Olivia! I hired my first employee at Gradientwave and she quit in 3 weeks. I changed the name of the company to Digital Position. The domain was listed for $7,500 and I got them down to $750. Was oddly proud of myself for that.

Three years of growth for Digital Position. Steve Cozzolongo, one of my friends from high school, joins me as a business partner. He introduces me to a client who happens to be using a business consultant I knew from my previous job, who starts sending us a ton of business.

I had my second child, Connor! For two years we absolutely skyrocket and have no idea what the hell we're doing. But we make it work, and we build a team of 12 at Digital Position as we keep growing.

COVID hits, and we lose 30% of our revenue in a single day (3/20/2020). I'm crying, Steve is crying, and we have to do layoffs for the first (and only) time in my life. Six months later we had doubled as the e-commerce boom happened. What a rollercoaster.

I have my third child, Emma! I call 2020 to 2023 “the dark days,” because this is when Digital Position broke the 20 person barrier and I was absolutely miserable. 80+ hour work weeks, trying to figure out how to get more time with family, feeling like everything personal was suffering... like I had built myself a very nice prison.

I qualify for the main draw of the AVP (professional beach volleyball tour), completing a life dream. Digital Position now has a team of 30+ full-time, and I begin branching out. We start another marketing agency for small brands (SparkLaunch), and I start making small investments in companies for equity and learning.

We go to sell Digital Position and I start the Chief Marketing Dad TikTok. It takes off. Three weeks from the completion of the sale, we pull out of the deal. I step down as CEO and promote a new CEO from within. I cut my hours, spend more time with family, and build a recreation center. My wife quits her job to work with me!

I drop my work hours to 20 per week, largely freelancing here as Chief Marketing Dad - only taking on 5-6 clients at a time. I spend more time with my wife and kids. I play pickleball competitively since retiring from professional volleyball.

I complete a majority recap acquisition of Digital Position and step down to 5 hours per month. My friend Frank and I start ThreadPoint, an email marketing agency. I drop my freelance clients down to 2-3, really focusing on brands I truly enjoy working with.