The New Era of Search: AI, SEO, and What You Need to Know | Kevin Roy

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The Entrepreneur DNA 40 min 1 speaker 6 chapters transcribed 17 days ago
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What is Kevin Roy’s entrepreneurial backstory and how did he start in SEO?

Justin Colby 0:00
What is up, the entrepreneur DNA family? This guest is something special. Most people are aware of SEO and you Google search terms, right? Um, search engine optimization. Well, this guy is the CEO of Green Banana, and not only has he built an incredible career over the last 15 years focusing on Google and search engine, but now AI is playing a main role in how people are looking things up. So the CEO of Green Banana, Kevin Roy is here. How are you, dude?
Kevin C. Roy 0:31
Great, great. And thanks for having me, Justin.
Justin Colby 0:33
Yeah. Now your story is not linear. Uh, so I want to say that first. You're you're one of the a great human that on our first conversation, right? We just both were very transparent, very vulnerable, very open. You've done something incredible for fifteen years and we're gonna get to what is currently happening where you're kind of the board member in your company. You've quote unquote made it, but it wasn't always the case. Let's walk us through kind of your journey of entrepreneurship here.
Kevin C. Roy 0:59
So Uh I guess it w it would go all the way back to um I got a job right out of uh graduate school at a company called E Room Technology and they were a a spin-off of Lotus Notes. Um and this was like right when the uh internet stuff was taken off and I remember going to internet world. Uh I was there like trade show, um trade show guy for lack of better words. Yeah. Um And I was like three and a half feet away from Bill Gates. Like it was back in the heyday when there were people were spending fortunes on these spinning trade show booths and um you know, so that was super fun, but it was you know, I didn't go to graduate school to fill out trade show forms and and do those things. So I was cubby mates with the web guy back in Cambridge and he said, Hey
Kevin C. Roy 1:51
I need something for my team. Um If like I could pull you onto the team and I can send you to MIT to take coding classes. Would you be interested in that? I'm like, absolutely. So so that so that's what it long story short, he ends up leaving. Um, I take over his position, the company gets bought up by ends up getting bought up by EMC, my boss, like the VP, gets let go and my team gets let go. And I'm doing text updates at a director's salary. And just going to the gym. Um so I knew that there was a there was a shelf left there. Yeah. So they were handing out severance packages. I took one, I bought a computer, I went to three local businesses um back in my hometown and said, this is like pre, like people didn't have good websites.
Kevin C. Roy 2:36
I'm like, I'll build you a website. And if you like it, tell your friends, just don't tell them it was free. Then I started to go to networking groups and then We grew to like I grew to a point where um I couldn't handle the work. I brought in the business partner, which I probably shouldn't have done, but I I don't know, like things all everything happens for a reason.
Justin Colby 2:56
That's a that's a learning lesson there. That's a learning. Don't ever I'm really running pause for a quick second because your story's even better. Like we're just getting to the tip. But you did the thing that most entrepreneurs don't even recognize today, right? Like you went door to door, if you will, right? To say, Hey, I'm gonna give away my best product. Like Alex Ramosy, everyone's familiar with him now. Yeah. He talks about the same thing. Now everything's digital, everything's YouTube, everything's whatever. You are basically saying, I I invented this principle, right? Like this is 30 years ago or whenever it was. I was going to door to door, giving away the best thing I knew to give so people would talk about it, which would lean into more client acquisition for free, by the way.
Justin Colby 3:37
Right. You're not out there spending a lot of money on these booths that you're talking about. You were literally getting client acquisition for free. I think there's a lot of people that might have missed that part of what you just said that I am. immediately went wait a minute, that's that's the game. Give your best shit away for free. Have a lost leader, which is your best thing.

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