From Building Websites In Middle School to Managing a $100M/Year Advertising Agency with Alex Melen

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, this week’s guest and his family dropped everything and moved from the USSR to New York in the early 1990s barely knowing any English. Fast Forward to today, he is an Award-Winning Serial Entrepreneur who went from starting to build websites in the early 90s, to now managing over $100MM/year in advertising spend for his clients. Alex Melen is this week’s guest on “The Jake Dunlap Show”Alex’s family settled in Washington Heights/Harlem, and he moved to different schools every year until his family resettled in New Jersey. While in Middle School, Alex’s father was in Computer Science, and the access to a computer allowed Alex to build his first website business in Middle School. This business grew to over 600,000 active users in High School prior to studying Business Administration/Management at Babson College. Over his career, he wanted to move away from coding and into growing businesses, and at that time, everyone wanted to be in finance. Alex held Analyst positions at both Citi and Electric Insurance prior to taking a role at Toys R Us. At that time. Toys R Us didn’t have a website, and were so focused driving traffic to their brick/mortar stores that they drove online business to their competitor, Amazon. From there, Alex made the shift from Finance to Digital Marketing at MediaVest.At MediaVest, Alex was a Digital Analytics Manager for companies such as Samsung and Walmart. Now, Alex is the Co-Founder of SmartSites, a best-in-class digital marketing services company that is the #1 rated digital marketing agency that specializes in:Digital Marketing AgencyOnline MarketingWeb DesignWebsite DevelopmentSearch Engine OptimizationPay Per Click AdvertisingSearch Engine MarketingWordPressGoogle/Facebook AdsAwards and Publications:AwardsBabson Business of the YearBloomberg Top 101 Best FreebiesBloomberg Businessweek Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25Empact 100 2013,2014INC 5000 Fastest Growing Company (2017-2021) 5 Consecutive YearsNJBIZ Top 250YoungBiz Top 100 Young EntrepreneursPublicationsDriving Digital SuccessHow to Use Digital Marketing to Plan for Success with Dwindling Inventories and Uncertain Market ConditionsPivoting Your Marketing to Capture the New Digital ShopperWhat Can We Learn from the Last Financial Crisis?The 4th Technological Revolution: AI & Machine Learning Alex’s Social Links: Website: https://www.alexmelen.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexmelenYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/cinsatagInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/alex.melen/?hl=enLearn more about Jake Dunlap and Skaled by visiting the links below: Jake Dunlap:Personal Site - http://jakedunlap.com/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlap/Twitter - https://twitter.com/JakeTDunlapInstagram - http://instagram.com/jake_dunlap _Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JakeTDunlap/ Skaled:Website - https://skaled.com/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/skaledYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsw_03rSlbGQkeLGMGiDf4Q