How I got where I am today?

Since high school I was always passionate about technology, science and mathematics and somehow curious on how those topics affected our society.

In 2003 I decided to become a Telecommunications Engineer and after being awarded with the National Talent Youth scholarship I joined the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo. During the 4 years I spent there I was fascinated with one idea: The merge of business and technology, using web technologies, Internet, and innovative ways to do new things. This idea was not clear enough at that time, and it was later when I found how to crystallize it.

I have always been a self-taught person, so just before graduating from college in 2007 I started improving my education with third parties certifications and courses. With the knowledge in programming and telecommunications I had acquired I started learning Linux, Web programming, VoIP, and networking. I became a CCNA certified and a dCAP certified.

At that time (end of 2006) I was fully working as a VoIP Engineer with a partner, selling, designing and installing information technology solutions to small companies in Dominican Republic. During that time something interesting was happening: In a natural way, without noticing, I was in charge of the business part and my partner was in charge of the technical part. I was always trying to find a way to improve our marketing, our image, I was writing and designing everything on our website, having the meetings, hiring staff, and I felt so comfortable doing it that I started to see this thing I was really good at: internet/tech + business.

As I didn’t have a formal education in business or marketing I started to educate myself in the field. I started to read top books in the industry of business, entrepreneurship and marketing, specially all related to the technology sector.

During my self-teaching journey on business and marketing there was one topic I was specifically stuck to: Internet Marketing. I found this topic incredible interesting, it was geeky/techie enough and at the same time it was an important ingredient of all business. I had found my perfect blend. I started learning SEO, PPC, website optimization for different purposes, Social Media, Email Marketing, Copywriting, eCommerce, Cloud computing…

So, beginning 2007 I started working with a company called Capacity IT Academy which was dedicated to create and sell Information Technology trainings. I was in charge of designing the marketing strategy which at first was basically copywriting and email marketing (main way to communicate with customers), other things came later.

Later on the company started an evolution process migrating all of its onsite trainings to online training, so multiple new online marketing and online actions had to be designed and implemented.

With my self-teaching process (books, certifications, and courses), my background in technology and engineering, and my curiosity and passion for this topic, I managed to move from a Telecommunications Engineer in 2006 to an Internet marketing / Internet business specialist.

I spent five years at Capacity IT Academy, learning and implementing new stuff all the time. It’s not common to have a job where you have to do new things from the ground up. You normally are hired to manage process or tasks already predesigned. For example, you’re usually hired to administer a PPC campaign, not to design it; you’re usually hired to administer a Social Media account, not to implement them where there was nothing. So in general I was able to implement and design all of this in those 5 years at Capacity IT Academy. If you are interested in a list of punctual achievements here please refer to my Résumé on Linkedin.

Changes, moving forward

In 2010 I got married and my wife and I decided that we wanted to move from Dominican Republic to the United States. We planned it, we prepared ourselves and our relatives, and in 2011 we moved.

Today

I’m an Online Marketing and Internet Business specialist with an interesting experience and a passion for technology, looking for great opportunities and introducing myself to the society and culture of the United States.

I’m a Google Adwords and Google Analytics certified.

I’m doing a Master in Online Education Development at the University of Panama.

Tomorrow

I don’t really worry (or I try not to) about tomorrow, it’s too much of speculation, but I guess if I can advance in my career in terms of achievements, have kids with my wife, create value to people around me and experience more instead of having more, I’ll still be as happy (or more) as I’m today.