I learned SEO on accident

The summer after I graduated university, I traveled to Bali for a month to work with an eCommerce brand.

I did a bit of social media and storyboarded a few creative ads, nothing too crazy.

In my free time, when I wasn’t surfing or drinking Bintangs, I worked on my own eCom brand.

It was an apparel brand that I started in college — I sold it in 2022.

I spent 8-10 hours a day at a coworking space, daydreaming about the waves I’d finally get to surf when work was over.

I have to be honest with you, I was not at all sold on the whole eCom thing at the time — I went to Bali so I could surf and get paid for it.

One day as I’m about to head out, one of my friends that I’d met at the coworking space stops me.

We were supposed to meet for drinks later that night.

“I can’t go anymore, I’m working late tonight on this SEO project for this blockchain company.”

I had no idea what any of those words meant.

I hopped on my scooter and went down to the beach for a sunset surf session.

I never ended up going out for drinks that night, just went home & chilled.

The next day, my friend apologizes again for bailing on drinks and tells me he was up until 11:30pm working on that project.

I was 22 at the time — nothing except alcohol & girls could keep me entertained at 11:30pm, especially not blockchain and whatever the hell SEO is.

Or so I thought.

He gave me a crash course on what it was — it sounded pretty fucking boring at the time.

I tried a few things out on my eCom site — I started to like it.

I spent the last few days of my trip learning as much as I could about SEO.

I went to grad school a few months later and forgot everything.

3 months into grad school — I dropped out.

I didn’t want to spend another minute of my life looking down a microscope.

But I’d just studied to do that for 4 years, so what was I meant to do now?

I started applying to all kinds of jobs. When I wasn’t doing that, I dove back into SEO.

Even though I’d only had about 5-6 days of SEO ‘experience,’ it felt like something I could get into.

Or at least, get into enough to make a short-term career out of it.

I was right. And a little bit wrong too.

At 22 years old, I’d never even heard of SEO.

At 23, I had my first SEO job.

At 25, I started my SEO agency.

And at 27… Well, I’m already dreaming up my next few companies, many of which are based around SEO.

I was bummed I couldn’t get Bintangs with my friend that night.

Turns out, getting stood up by him was a huge turning point in my life.

Catch y’all on Monday.

Kai

P.S. My friend went onto build a $80k/mo agency and launch a $40k/mo SaaS, we still keep in touch.