The Simple Entrepreneur

| ENTREPRENEUR | BUSINESS | FAMILY | LIFE |

Hello. My name is Marco and I am an entrepreneur based in Sydney Australia. I was born in Vietnam, grew up in Italy and currently residing in Australia. My passion is in the digital space and I have launched several digital products. You will find these on the portfolio page. I started this website so I could leave a digital footprint of my random thoughts, ideas and life in general. I hope this website can be an inspiration and help you in your own journey in the digital space.

Major Milestones

The start

1978 : Born

The start of my awesome life. Was born in Baclieu, Vietnam.

1978-1987 : Lived in Malaysia and Italy

Parents fled Vietnam as refugees a few months after I was born. Our family spent time in Malaysia before being given the opportunity to live in Italy.

1987 : Moved to Australia

Our family moved to Australia.

1996 : HSC

Completed Year 12 and was accepted to UTS studying Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) majoring in Telecommunications Engineering

1997 : Love

Met the love of my life

1998-1999 : Project Manager/LAN Administrator Assistant @ Transgrid

Started my first job at Transgrid

2002 : Graduation

Graduated from Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.)

2004 : Graduated from Masters

Completed Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) in Telecommunications Networks

2003-2004 : Network Project Manager @ RTA

Project Management of various network project to specify, install, configure and commission new systems and services for the Roads and Traffic Authority

2004-2005 : Senior Network Officer @ ABC

A technical role to provide support and maintain voice and data network for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

1/2006 : Married

Married to my beautiful wife Angela.

2005-2006 : Infrastructure and Telecoms Engineer @ Lilly

Managed the voice, voicemail, data – (routers, switches, VPN, firewalls), fax, teleconferencing, web conferencing, mobile phones, wireless and blackberry services and provided Tier Support for Australia and New Zealand

2/2006 : First company Advertise Me

Started my first company. Came up with an idea whilst attending a course and soon after launched Advertise Me. Advertise Me is a digital advertising company that primarily focused on the digital signage industry. The company now look at all that is digital. This includes custom tools, mobile applications, advertising so much more. I’ve learnt so much since the inception of this company. Visit Advertise Me

11/2007 : Son

My son Jayden entered into this world.

8/2011 : Daughter

My daughter Olivia joined our family. Our OJAM (Olivia Jayden Angela Marco) clan is complete.

5/2012 : Launched Squeak

Whilst working on a number of projects for Advertise Me we saw an opportunity in the mobile space to create an exciting app that helps consumers shop and find great sales based on their interests. Visit Squeak

6/2015 : Launched Social Wall

Our parent company Advertise Me launched a new product and website called Social Wall. The idea with this product started as we saw a need to be able to display social media posts on digital screens. Social Wall is a simple and easy to use tool to aggregate and display social media posts on any digital device. Visit Social Wall

9/2012 : Launched StinkyThePig

Helped started a cool and funky brand called StinkyThePig. I turned a friend’s idea into an actual product. Visit Stinky The Pig

1/2017 : Launched this website

Decided to start my own personal blog and here we are.

12/2018 : ePosters Launch

Launched a new digital signage solution product called ePosters. This is an interactive digital poster solution designed to be used for events, exhibitions or any location that requires displaying interactive posters. Visit ePosters

3/2018 : Vegan Journey

Started the Vegan journey. Decided it was time to move from a Vegetarian to a Vegan diet and launched a new website called Veggie Meals. Visit Veggie Meals

I'm still learning and growing

Portfolio

Some of the websites, businesses, products and ideas I have launched

Latest Blog Posts

The art of words is to never stop writing

AFFILIATE MARKETING – DO UPSELLS REALLY WORK?

If you're an affiliate marketer do you promote products that have upsells and is it worth it? What are affiliate upsells? Affiliate upsells is a way for an affiliate vendor to promote and sell additional product features. It is generally part of a sales funnel where several products are promoted...

January 10, 2020 0

FREE TOOLS I USE TO KEEP MY KIDS SAFE ON THE INTERNET AND SMART DEVICES

I have two young kids and being a protective parent, I needed to find ways to keep them safe on the Internet and on their smart devices such as tablets, mobile phones and personal computers. I wanted to share free tools that I use to achieve this and more importantly...

January 8, 2020 0

OUR TRIP TO CANBERRA FOR NEW YEARS

We decided to take a quick trip down to Canberra and spend 4 days there during the New Year. We drove down using our Renault KOLEOS and the drive took about 3 hours and 29 minutes (including stops). We rented an apartment in Canberra City (The Metropolitan - London Tower)...

January 5, 2020 0

WE PURCHASED A RENAULT KOLEOS – OUR REVIEW

We needed a new car since our Honda CRV was involved in a car accident and was written off. The Honda CRV served us well for the past 10 years and we made many memories with it. After some research and driving several cars, we decided to go with the...

December 16, 2019 0

HIT 1000KM RUNNING IN 2019

I just noticed that I've hit the 1000km mark milestone. I don't believe I've ever hit this mark in the past and I do hope I can continue this next year. I keep reminding myself that the World Health Organisation recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the...

December 14, 2019 0

TRACKING YOUR INDOOR RUNS

For those of you who were not aware, in Sydney we are currently experiencing a number of bushfires across NSW and most states and Australia. On Tuesday, the haze was pretty bad, probably the worst I've seen since living in Australia. According to this World Air Quality website the area...

December 13, 2019 0

Contact Me

I’m very approachable and I’m more than happy to answer any of your questions. So, just send me a message and I’ll try to respond to you as soon as I can. You can also follow me on any of the social media platforms below.

hi@marcotran.com.au