The Simple Entrepreneur

| ENTREPRENEUR | BUSINESS | FAMILY | FITNESS | HEALTH | 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 focuses on digital solutions. 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

5/2019 : Social Timeline

Social Timeline is a new Idea for a social media application to display digital content. Created the beta version so visit Social Timeline

2/2020 : Online Hosting Solutions

Online Hosting Solutions is a hosting business and I started this because I was frustrated with domain renewal costs. I’m looking at expanding to hosting SaaS tools.

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

WE DID IT – EDITORS CHOICE AWARD FOR LAUNCHER DOCK

Just a few days ago I received an email saying our Launcher Dock software has won the Editor's Choice award. Say what? Yes, we launched Launcher Dock over 6 years ago and out of the blue we received an award - yuppie! By the way, the Launcher Dock (a free...

September 20, 2020 0

STOPPED AT DAY 45 FOR THE 60 DAY BURPEE CHALLENGE

I had to throw in the towel and admit defeat. I honestly didn't feel good knowing that I quit but I think it was the best decision - I had to listen to my body. Here's a breakdown of what happened: My friend suggested we do a fast run on...

September 19, 2020 0

CHEAP FASCIAL MASSAGE GUN

I got myself a cheap Fascial Gun (model Manyeli SK 668) - there are a few terms that are being used to describe the same device (fascia gun, percussion massager, massage gun, muscle gun, fascia gun massager, deep tissue massager), but basically it's a massage device to help with muscle...

September 10, 2020 0

30 DAY BURPEE CHALLENGE

Our fitness training group decided to start a 30-day burpee challenge last month and I finally completed it. I did something similar back in November 2017 and you read about it in this article: November Burpee Challenge The challenge consisted of doing daily burpees (starting at 5 burpees a day...

September 6, 2020 0

CREATING THEMES FOR OUR DIGITAL WAYFINDING SOLUTIONS

In my previous post, DEBUGGING CODE AS A NON CODER, I shared with you how I debug code as a non-coder. In this post, I'm going to share with you some code enhancements I made to our Digital Wayfinding Solutions application as a non-coder. Basically, the idea was to be...

August 31, 2020 0

DEBUGGING CODE AS A NON CODER

I'm not a coder. I have done some coding back in the day when I had a Commodore 128 but all I was doing was typing the code from a book. I have also done some simple coding in high school and in University. It was many years ago and...

August 27, 2020 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