Baby + Amazing Wife + New Job = Great Life

I’ve found that living life to the fullest should be exhausting in all of the right ways. With the right blend of blissful relaxation and mind crunching critical thinking, we can take advantage of life’s precious gifts. Taking in what nature, technology, art, friends and family have to offer us.

For myself, I’ve been focusing on a few simple ingredients that are very important to me which will shape countless amazing times in the future. Our new precious little baby girl, my amazing wife and my new job as VP of Product Marketing at TVPage Inc.

Baby: Frankie Is Here!

The build up prior to seeing our first born girl was so worth the wait! Frankie has made our house an official home and is so alert and happy. We’re very lucky to be new parents with a golden opportunity to raise her in sunny San Diego. We feel confident that the extra time in the womb was meant to be.

Not only did the natural birth turn out to be smoother than expected, but being a dad feels so right too. The wild party times of our twenties and early thirties will certainly change to be kid parties. So bring on the outings to the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, Water Parks, Disneyland, Petco Park, you name it! I can’t wait to teach Frankie about things that I’ve learned in life, make her laugh, and learn from her ever-changing personality and passions to support her all along life’s journey. It will be challenging and fulfilling, sometimes aggravating, but that’s all part of the ride. Things do feel larger once they extend beyond yourself.

My focus has shifted with Frankie and Naomi being the core (including Pfeiffer of course, woof). Don’t get me wrong, I still adore my instruments and need to write riffs all of the time. Yet need to do so with knowing that the core is happy and healthy at the same time. I recently picked up a vintage Guild D-50 dreadnought acoustic which sounds mighty fine!

Amazing Wife: Naomi is the Best

The amount of preparation and learning that Naomi put into Frankie’s birth undeniably set us up for the successes we’re feeling. I learn something new from her every day. She’s a natural born mom and wife. I sure lucked out. I’m glad I walked up to her at the Street Scene beer garden while Modest Mouse was playing to see if I could get her number nearly 7 years ago 🙂

I’m looking forward to Naomi and I building new rituals with our immediate and extended families and friends. With Naomi as my life partner, times will be fun and well balanced. She keeps my roller coaster mind in check and is now officially one heck of a mom.

New Job: VP of Product Marketing at TVPage Inc.

Staying on the topic of new things, I have decided to take on a new VP of Product Marketing role with TVPage Inc., a start up technology company in San Diego. They have built a top notch platform which enables retailers and brands to leverage video content to increase website engagement, conversion and average order value. It unlocks the great potential of video content that every eCommerce store needs to add in order to intimately connect with their visitors’ wants and needs.

This role represents an ideal match for myself and TVPage given my deep understanding of running an eCommerce site and familiarity with knowing the challenges/opportunities that enterprise eCommerce organizations face. I’ll be putting every ounce of effort that I can into supporting product development to make it the best video commerce solution, along with a marketing plan to make it take off. We’re going to be publishing all sorts of eye-opening content in upcoming months and years to contribute to the eCommerce community with our insights. We’ll be sharing info about how impactful video is online on a consistent basis.

I had the opportunity to work with TVPage and launched it for AutoAnything over the course of the last year. Catching the video bug in recent years, I’m a firm believer in what Allon has vision to build and support the concept to the fullest. I’m eager to start working closely with the very smart folks that I already know at TVPage, meet the additional team members, as well as help to hire new team members to build a dream team which will create amazing things together.

Video is going to be huge for eCommerce. I look forward to supporting enterprise brands looking to improve their user experiences!

AutoAnything: My Home For the Past 11 Years

Before I leave the company I’ve been with for the last 11+ years, I’ll be working with folks to off-board things and help out with a transition plan that is already in motion. It is very important to me that my team members and the organization are set up for success while I depart.

To reflect on just a few important aspects of what AutoAnything has meant to me, I wanted to share the following. My experiences are unique to the course I took, yet hopefully correlate with things you’ve experienced if you’ve worked within a well-organized forward moving company.

(Pic taken during one of our infamous Halloween decorating contests. These were intense through the years!)

My Team
Several years ago, I made a mental shift where I became focused on hiring and mentoring folks to build the best eCommerce Team I could possibly build. This included roles focused on SEO, UX/UI Design, Web Analytics, Conversion Optimization, Product Launching, Content Strategy, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Graphic & Video Production, Email, Comparison Shopping Feeds… you name it. Numerous integral team aspects needed in order to run a highly successful eCommerce store.

The empathetic aspects of my Pisces fueled heart guided me to support my folks as best as possible. I mentioned during a meeting one time that “you guys are all hand-picked talent” and truly believe in every team member in my crew. Those that are still a part of it now and were over the years. With great Executive Team support, I was lucky to be able to directly hire more than 30 team members, transferred several folks internally into my team with higher ROI role changes/promotions, and inherited over 10 team members. Every single one of them is on a path towards individual success. They embraced and cultivated the culture we built within the team. I also had to let go of a few poor performers or team chemistry challenges along the way which was an important part of running a highly successful team.

It will be hard to move on from leading them through the trenches, but they are well prepared. We accomplished amazing things together and I fully owe my final 4 years at AutoAnything to you guys. You’re what kept me there, fixated 24/7 on what we should potentially do to grow the business and what I should work on to be a better leader.

Peers at AutoAnything and AutoZone
In addition to AutoAnything accomplishments, I was also able to spearhead building a SEO Development and Management Strategy and supporting SEO/Copy Team for Autozone.com shortly after the acquisition. My AZ counterparts back in Memphis were fantastic to work with from the get-go. Across the board from the Dev Team to Executive Team. We established great communication, trust and respect and had fun times working together to bring AutoZone’s desktop and mobile web apps up to speed with A+ SEO.

AutoZone now has enterprise systems in place to dominate in organic search. Between AutoAnything.com and AutoZone.com, we have built dominant, organically-rich and authoritative domains. If you’re an automotive parts/accessories competitor of AA or AZ reading this, good luck – you’ve got years of work in front of you to catch up 🙂

Development was always at the forefront of what I focused on since technology and product development are core functions of what make AutoAnything a cutting edge and successful eCommerce company. Not only did we develop amazing things, the people across the entire IT Department were great partners and extremely bright. Competitors have followed in our footsteps for years in many ways. We should be proud about all of the cutting edge web features and experiences we’ve built.

Peers at AutoAnything run deeper than the primary teams you work within when it comes to longer tenure or highly cross-functional roles. Starting as a family-owned company, that same vibe has continued through the years. I embraced working more closely with peers in other teams as years went by as it was not only fun, but was also a way to branch out and support other exciting initiatives. I felt connected and impacted by every single team which was a great feeling to have within an organization. It included the stresses and challenges involved with cross-functional communication and political issues, but was chock-full of new action on a daily basis.

I’ll certainly miss the thrill of going to SEMA with the team and celebrating our successes and progress as a company.

In a Nutshell
AutoAnything has been an exemplary organization to work for. I’ll forever carry the experiences with me, and most of all, will remember all of the great people. The Klein family got it right from day one when they demonstrated dedication to positive culture and hard work ethic. It was an honor to give my best for such great people.

The Future: Balancing What’s Important

While this feels like big changes colliding at the same time, they are the right changes. I’d love to hear your feedback and recommendations on ways to be the best Father, Husband and Vice President for a growing company. Feel free to comment below to share your tricks of the trade.

Cheers to the up and up!
Andrew