Aleric Heck - The Ripple Effect
Steve Jobs once said, “The people that are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones that do.” Steve was a childhood hero of mine, and his ripple effect is why I have a business today.
I was born and raised in Chelmsford, MA. At 12, my parents gave me an iPod Touch for Christmas. They caught me playing video games on it and said, “Find a way to make your iPod creative.”
My idea was to show people great iPod apps and games. So I made videos and posted them on this little YouTube channel I had, followed by no one but friends and family. (My brother and I used it for posting little sketch comedies that we’d make). To my surprise, strangers took an interest in my iPod touch videos, lots of them.
I thought, “This is crazy,” and in July of 2009, I registered a new YouTube channel called AppFind. Viewers and subscribers spiked, especially after I made videos showing people how to use their iPhones and iPads — millions of people watched them — and soon, middle-school me was making money from companies paying me to mention their app.
I’ll never forget when my high school teacher found out I made $60,000 a year from YouTube. “There’s no way you’re making that much. That’s more than I make.” But I was.
Then came a sponsorship opportunity that changed the course of everything.
In my first year of college, a sponsor paid me $1,000; I got them more than a thousand downloads for their app. They were thrilled. “Run it again!” they said. I explained, “You can’t post the same video a few days later and get as many downloads as the first time.”
But I had an idea… What if I used YouTube Ads to promote their video? Almost nobody was doing YouTube ads because this was back in 2015. My client was highly skeptical. “Okay, we’ll give you an ad budget of $500,” they said reluctantly.
I got them 11,000 new users for that $500. They were blown away, and the next thing I knew, their marketing company, called me up with a job offer:
“Drop out of college, move out here to Silicon Valley and join our team. You’ll lead our YouTube ads division.” It was a six-figure offer with vested stocks, and they’d already raised multiple rounds of funding. Not a bad job offer for a freshman in college.
But in a defining moment, I turned it down.
I didn’t want to be the knight in somebody else’s Castle; I wanted to be the king of my own.
I knew YouTube ads were the BIG THING I’d been hoping for. So I created AdOutreach and quickly drove millions of downloads for my clients. So it was a good business.
But then came the most pivotal moment of my life.
In 2016 at HubSpot Inbound, I discovered ClickFunnels & the world of online marketing. I knew an even better thing when I saw it, and AdOutreach started driving traffic to funnels with YouTube ads.
It was a game-changer; I vaulted from serving only mobile app developers to working with companies offering all kinds of products and services. I scaled up a small team. Suddenly, we’re doing $50,000 to $70,000 a month…
But after a year, in 2018, I became disillusioned with the agency model and innovated something better.
“We’re going to teach our clients to fish for themselves. No more total dependency on us. It robs them from controlling their own destiny.”
So we began teaching our secret sauce. Our clients loved it because now they could take back control over their marketing, the lifeblood of their business — but with our help and expertise guiding the way.
12 year old me started with a YouTube channel back in 2009, and today I’m blessed with an Amazing team and a Marketing Company that’s helped over 3,000+ businesses. Not bad for a decade & a half.
Today, 15 years into my entrepreneurial journey, what drives me the most, is the Ripple Effect.
We Empower Businesses to Amplify their Impact & Create a Positive Ripple Effect on the World!
When we help clients take marketing into their own hands, sharing their unique gifts, services, talents with the world, we have a ripple effect. We help our clients go big, and that ripples out and positively impacts people we will never meet. Steve Jobs made the iPod Touch, and the iPod touch set the course of my business life, even though I never met him.
I wake up every day excited to make AdOutreach have a ripple effect large enough to make a dent in the Universe!
- Aleric
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Free YouTube Ads PDF: http://AdOutreach.com/Gift
AI Ad Targeting Software: http://KeywordSearch.com
YouTube Channel: http://YouTube.com/AlericHeckYT
Facebook: http://Facebook.com/AlericHeck
LinkedIn: http://LinkedIn.com/in/AlericHeck
