About KickStart Local

10 years ago in March of 2014 I was laid off from my corporate job of almost 7 years. I had been in the IT Corporate world for over 15 years and at almost every job I had, there were always threats of layoffs due to outsourcing our jobs overseas.

It had always been my dream to go out on my own and work for myself, but in my head I had envisioned starting a side business that would eventually make enough money that I could seamlessly make the transition from employee to entrepreneur.



Well things didn’t exactly work out that way, and I found myself unemployed with a wife and 2 young kids to take care of.

I went from making right around 100k a year to collecting unemployment for the next 6 months.

I knew it was God’s way of pushing me out of my comfort zone, and it was time to sink or swim.

Up to that point, I had dabbled in real estate, getting my real estate license and also buying some investment properties throughout my corporate career.  I even, at one time, had a small wed design and seo company as a side hustle.

It was during my real estate days that I had discovered I loved marketing more than showing people houses.

Go figure.

Fast forward a few years, while I was laid off…Facebook was just getting popular and so was Amazon and e-commerce.

I decided that was the route I was going to focus on to start building something for my own.

As my income was literally cut by 70% and I was on unemployment, I had to call our bank and ask for a forbearance agreement to buy me some time.

For those that don’t know that’s when the bank will stop your mortgage payments for 6 months due to financial hardship and give you time to get back on your feet.

This gave me 6 months of breathing room to make something happen.

Well, I was able to get a $1000 loan from PayPal and I used $500 of it to invest into a coaching program on how to sell t-shirts via Facebook ads, and I had the other $500 for advertising.

Over the next 6 months, I studied, I learned, I tested, and I failed, over and over and over again….

But eventually, I started having small successes, and I would make enough money to invest back into my business and run more ads and sell more t-shirts….

In December of 2014, right when our forbearance agreement was coming to an end and we would have to pay the bank back all 6 months of mortgage payments plus interest….

I had my best month selling t-shirts online up to that point, and did over $50,000 in profits!

I was able to pay back our bank and bring our mortgage current, pay off all our credit card debt, and basically start with a fresh clean slate in January, 2015.

I eventually grew from just selling t-shirts via Facebook ads, to running sales funnels and full e-commerce stores using all forms of digital marketing like seo, google shopping ads, google ppc, email and text marketing, and YouTube advertising.

I’ve built 6 and 7 figure stores using everything I’ve learned about digital marketing over the years, and even helped coach other students who went on to build 6-figure and 7-figures stores of their own.

But like anything, business models and strategies are cyclical and eventually I got burned out and also got into a shady business partnership with a company that was stealing from me which forced me to shut down my primary ecomm business.

This happened right around or towards the end of covid, I believe it was the summer of 2021.

I went from making way more than any corporate job I ever worked, back down to essentially ZERO.

Once again I was faced with starting over, but now I was in a new state (we moved to South Carolina), and I now had a wife and 3 kids to take care of…

Having been doing digital marketing for my own businesses and helping coach other entrepreneurs since 2014, I decided that the best way to get back on my feet was to start helping local businesses with their marketing.

In September of 2021 I joined a local BNI chapter here in Bluffton, and I started taking on local business clients.

This is when I would say I officially started Kickstart Local (At the time I didn’t even have a website of my own or even business cards! All I had was a name and the knowledge in my head).

For the past 2 years, I’ve been working quietly trying to grow my business and help local business owners find clarity and simplicity in the digital marketing space.

It’s been a struggle, we’ve had huge ups and downs during the past 2 years, but I think it’s time to really start pushing to help more business owners.

I have personally spent over $1,100,000 of my own money on Facebook Ads, Google Ads, YouTube ads, and SEO…testing to see what works and what doesn’t.

As well as countless money investing into education and coaching to keep up with the constantly changing trends in the online marketing space.

What makes us different is this….

Everything I recommend to any of my clients are things I personally do on a daily basis, things I personally spend my own money on in my own businesses and things I’ve learned and implemented in all my e-commerce stores.

We consider every business we work with an extension of our own.

Their success is our success.

I’m going to be sharing a ton of content from now on with the sole purpose of informing and educating business owners of what’s available to them, and what works and doesn’t work so they don’t have to go through the difficult times like I did.

You don’t have to navigate this online space alone. We are here to help guide you and be your strategic partner to help you on your path to growth and success.

If you ever feel stressed, overwhelmed, confused or just frustrated with all the noise when it comes to marketing, feel free to reach out to us!

We are here to help simplify the process for you.