We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Allen Rubin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Allen below.

Allen, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Being in business since 1997, I have learned so much along the way. Scaling up isn’t always about getting new business. It also includes cutting out services that don’t work for you or adding service that do work. Since the beginning of my entrepreneurial ventures, I had used an Attorney to file a trademark for me. It was expensive then and is more so now. I decided to learn that process in order to offer the service for my customers who also needed the protection. I also found that many clients needed to form their businesses using the right structures such as DBA, LLC, S Corp., C Corp, depending on the future in which they want to business to grow. For many years I offered the help with these services. During the pandemic, many people stuck in their homes were desperate to bring in some kind of income and I saw an increase in these requests. I had also seen an increase in many other legal types of filings. I decided to go back to college (it was all online at that time) and get a paralegal certification. It was a 2-year plan, while I continued with my business. I loved every moment of it and impressed myself with straight As. In fact, I loved it so much that I am now applying for Law School. I feel that the growth is endless when you put your mind to things. You are never too old. Growth is never only about your business but by living out your true potential!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I began my career in the web development industry in a not so conventional way. In fact I had NO plans to do it. I had started on one of my business venture ideas when I received an email telling me that a domain is available for my project name. It was in the .CC domain extension. I called to find out what the .CC was all about. It turned out to be a very unused country domain that a company in Washington State bought the rights to. I checked to find that most of the short generic term domains were available. I started buying them up to resell. During my registrations I got a call from the company asking if I would like to become a domain registry and save 30% on my registrations. So that was the beginning of CCWorld.CC, and DomainSeller.CC. It was the time of the .com resales that saw millions of dollars for a good domain name being actualized. I contacted GreatDomains.com, who were the auction site of top domain names and they added my company website link to their website. I saw an immediate rush to register domains by the public. I had already purchased over 1000 domains to resell and started listing and reselling them on DomainSeller.CC. As I grew, I had a web developer who I would ask to change out some advertising banners on my site. I found that each time I would be paying hundreds of dollars just to change one banner. I decided to go to the local college and take classes in web development and photoshop. Learning that gave me the ability to fire the web developer and start doing it all myself. Every new project I came up with, I would design my own website. People I knew started asking if I could design a website for them and that’s how it all started. In 2006, after realizing that the smartphone wasn’t just a fad, I went back to learn that process as well and added it to my arsenal. This was an organic growth process that basically told me what my business was going to be.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It appears that I now am pivoting in my career and life. As I mentioned, during the pandemic I decided to take Paralegal certification classes. That led me to the love of the law and the desire to continue into Law School. I have applied for the school and am awaiting notification. This will be a serious 40 month program that will allow me to take the BAR Exam. I am excited for this new adventure. My goals are to be an Attorney specializing in Intellectual Property, International Business, and Immigration. Those three areas all tie together when it comes to business.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I have built my reputation by always being there for my clients and responding to their emails, texts, and messages almost immediately. I follow up on their issues and concerns attempting to resolve the issues as soon as possible. Many times, the customer may have caused the issue within their website. I still fix it outside of their warranty period if it’s at all possible. This has allowed me to win BEST OF SOUTH BAY for the past couple years. It’s always an honor to find out that my clients have voted for me to win such an accolade.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SouthBayWebsiteDesign.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sbwebsitedesign
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/the-phone-app-company-and-south-bay-website-design-ba74a18