marco profile 2

THE SIMPLE ENTREPRENEUR

ENTREPRENEUR | BUSINESS | FAMILY | FITNESS | HEALTH | LIFE

Hello. My name is Marco Tran (aka The Simple Entrepreneur) 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

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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

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.

10/2019 : Started Running Every Day

I started running at least 5 KM every day.

12/2021 : Digital Signage Portal

Relaunched the Digital Signage Portal

2021 : Education Tafe NSW

Completed the following Reading and Writing for Adults, Social Media Engagement

2021 : Education Charles Sturt University

Completed the following short courses Digital Forensics, Cryptography

8/2022 : Digital Signage Software - AdvertiseMe.TV

Only took a few years to finally launch AdvertiseMe.TV – our digital signage software solution.

2022 : Education Charles Sturt University

Completed the following short courses CISSP, Comparative Cloud Technologies

2022 : Education Tafe NSW

Completed the following Small Business, Introduction to Accounting

2022 : Education University of Tasmania

Completed Undergraduate Certificate in Applied Technologies, Information Technology

2022 : Education Microsoft Certification

2023 : Education Microsoft Certification

2023 : Education Amazon Web Services

2024 : Education Microsoft Certification

I'm still learning and growing

Featured Posts

Featured posts you may be interested in

ANNUAL REVIEW 2023 AND GOALS FOR 2024

Another year has quickly gone by and what a year 2023 has been. Like most other years it is time for me to review 2023 and set (copy) the same goals from 2024 as I didn’t achieve most of those goals. These are the articles I published in the previous years: ANNUAL REVIEW 2022 AND […]

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RUNNING EVERY DAY 1460 DAYS = 4 YEARS

Time flies and I completely forgot that it’s been 4 years since I started the journey of running every day for at least 5 KM. My running streak as of today is 1467 days and yes, it’s been quite a journey. This picture is of me running this morning when it was sprinkling with rain […]

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WHAT IS YOUR HIGHEST COMMISSION EARNED?

Just the other day I received an affiliate commission of AU$399.00 This was for a sporting item which has a sale value of $3,999.00 (commission of 10%). So far this has been one of the highest commission I’ve ever earned. My previous highest commission was US$345.00 (but it only had a sale value of $690 […]

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Latest Blog Posts

The art of words is to never stop writing

Marco Tran The Simple Entrepreneur HOW TO CREATE A LINUX BASH SCRIPT TO CONVERT PDF TO PNG header

HOW TO CREATE A LINUX BASH SCRIPT TO CONVERT PDF TO PNG

I needed to find a way to convert over 100 PDF files to PNG and make sure the files PNG were compressed and as small as possible. After doing some research and asking ChatGPT, I was able to get it working by using the below bash Linux script. There are...

Marco Tran The Simple Entrepreneur I ALWAYS RECORD MY RUNS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

I ALWAYS RECORD MY RUNS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN

As someone who enjoys running, I often find myself pondering the significance of tracking my workouts. Recently, I had a rather frustrating experience where I set out for a five-kilometre run, only to realise that neither my watch nor another device I commonly refer to as "shovel" recorded the session....

HOW TO INSTALL VIRTUALBOX GUEST ADDITIONS STEP BY STEP GUIDE

HOW TO INSTALL VIRTUALBOX GUEST ADDITIONS: STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

When I first stumbled upon VirtualBox, I couldn’t believe the flexibility it offered. As someone who often juggles different cloud environments and operating systems for my work Advertise Me, VirtualBox became my go-to tool. In essence, it allows me to run multiple operating systems on a single machine, which not only...

GOOGLE CALENDAR SETTING UP MONTHLY EVENTS WITH EASE header

HOW TO SET GOOGLE CALENDAR MONTHLY EVENTS WITH EASE

Juggling personal commitments and professional duties has become a part of daily life and the importance of reminders cannot be understated. I’ve come to realise the power of recurring events in my calendar, and how they can help me be reminded of certain tasks or events so I wanted to...

UNBOXING THE PINTEREST GIFT BOX

UNBOXING THE PINTEREST GIFT BOX

The experience of unboxing can be incredibly joyful. It’s akin to peeling away layers of anticipation and discovering thoughtful items waiting to be unveiled. Today, I’m going to share unboxing a delightful gift I received from Pinterest after completing the Pinterest Academy Certified Media Buyer certification. When I first laid...






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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. If you need help, you can also book me:

Marco Tran contact us profile
  • hi@marcotran.com.au