Wonderflow
March 2015
Mike and Alex start an agency together. Each runs his own part of the company, and in the years since, they haven’t had a disagreement that one conversation couldn’t settle.
Our story
Two friends, two paths, one agency
Mike and Alex grew up in the same neighborhood and played the same computer games. Technology and the internet were their shared interest long before either became a career.
Mike The search path
The first site
Around 2006
Mike built his first website for a relative’s business.
SEO, professionally
The agency years
He joined a well-known marketing agency and became an SEO specialist. His first win was that same site: he got it ranking high in search, and the business felt the difference.
Paid for results
His own agency
Then he started his own agency and ran it for several years on a pay-per-lead model, at a time when few agencies would.
Alex The business path
Chasing a dream
Age 22, San Francisco
Alex moved there with a dream and looked for work as a bartender. He had an international bartending diploma and the skills, but his English wasn’t good enough yet, and no one hired him.
One 3D printer
A leap of faith
With his future wife, he put all their savings into a 3D printer, then built the website and ran the ads himself. The first order came in week one: a student who needed plastic models of his project, fast. They worked on his order for days and nights straight.
First on Yelp
Within a year
Orders from large companies followed. By the end of that first year, Model3DPrint ranked first on Yelp for 3D printing in San Francisco, with a 5.0 rating and dozens of reviews. Two years in, Alex, his wife and their cat moved home, and the company was sold. The love of marketing and of working with people stayed.
