[quote style=”boxed”]I will say that I vet my ideas by asking myself questions like “Would I like this?” or “Would I buy this?” I’m the biggest marketing critic there is so if I can sell myself on an idea I’m usually pretty confident I can sell it to someone else.[/quote]
Matthew Epstein is a product marketer and digital strategist helping to bring products to market offline and online.
Based in Atlanta, Georgia (soon to be San Fransisco, California) Epstein started off his young career at an interactive marketing agency as a project manager curating several Fortune 500 accounts. During his three year stint Epstein nearly tripled account revenues by helping clients build out their offline and online assets.
In an attempt to bring his career to the next level Epstein decided to pursue his dream job in the technology industry as a product marketing manager. With his new goal in front of him, Epstein launched an offline and online marketing campaign to get the attention of and land a job with one of the biggest technology companies in the world – Google. A week after launching his campaign Epstein’s campaign received over 400,000 unique visits and 430,000 YouTube views and earned him phone as well as in-person interviews with Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce.
Epstein looks forward to helping create something amazing as he gets ready to move to San Francisco to fulfill his product marketing role at his new dream job.
What are you working on right now?
I recently launched a campaign entitled www.googlpleasehire.me to attempt to land my dream job at Google. The campaign went viral within 24 hours. The website received 400,000 unique visits in a little over a week and my YouTube video received over 430,000 views in less than two weeks.
As a result of my quirky approach toward recruitment I received phone and in-person interviews with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce and more. I’m happy to announce that after spending two weeks on the road, from Atlanta to New York, Seattle and San Fransisco, I’ve finally landed my dream job with a tech company in California. I’ll be announcing the employer later this week on my YouTube channel and my blog www.matthew-epstein.com
What does your typical day look like?
Unfortunately my typical day isn’t nearly exciting or interesting enough to warrant an answer to this question.
3 trends that excite you?
1) Mobile Payment: Google Wallet and Square have given consumers a sneak peak of what’s to come in the mobile space. Innovation in the payment space in the United States has remained stagnant even in the face of innovation overseas. I think we’re going to see some incredible innovation around mobile payment and I think we’re going to see it very soon.
2) Data and Analytics: The ways in which we’re aggregating, cross-referencing and correlating data is astounding. There are some VERY smart people out there creating some incredibly complex and beautiful dashboards for every industry. I’m really looking forward to seeing how engineers continue to create systems that mine data and turn it into digestible dashboards for stupid marketers like me.
3) Web Design: As HTML5 and CSS mature I think we’re going to start to see the traditional website evolve. There’s designers out there doing some incredibly innovative things around design and I’m looking forward to seeing how the things they are doing to push the envelope will be incorporated into mainstream websites.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I bring my ideas to life through hopes and dreams. Ok, maybe not. I wish I could answer this question with some inspiring words of wisdom but the fact of the matter is that I bring my ideas to life through dedication and hard work.
I will say that I vet my ideas by asking myself questions like “Would I like this?” or “Would I buy this?” I’m the biggest marketing critic there is so if I can sell myself on an idea I’m usually pretty confident I can sell it to someone else.
What inspires you?
Passion. My obsession with passion started after I witnessed a Flamenco dance during my first visit to Spain. As I watched the two dancers’ perform I felt as though they would give up everything to continue to living in that that moment.
It’s inspiring to see passion in entrepreneurs who give up everything to create a business they believe in but it’s also inspiring to see passion in anyone, regardless of industry or profession. Whether you’re a painter or an athlete there’s something very human and very inspiring about relentlessly dedicating yourself to what it is you love to do most in this world.
What is one mistake you’ve made, and what did you learn from it?
I actually made a huge mistake a few weeks ago when I launched my campaign. When www.googlepleasehire.me went I had received 50,000 visits and over 5,000 Facebook likes with a matter of hours. The moment TechCrunch picked my story up my website and my personal blog crashed. The package I had chosen didn’t have sufficient bandwidth because I never thought in a million years my website would go viral within hours after launching.
I learned to ALWAYS buy more bandwidth then you think you’ll need. I can’t even imagine how many eyeballs and social shares I lost due to the server outages. I’m sure everyone in the tech world has had to put out a bandwidth/server fire, luckily though I made the mistake on my own dime and not my employers.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Think less, act more.
What do you read every day, and why?
To keep up with the technology industry I read Engadget, Mashable, Gizmodo and TechCrunch. To stay up to speed on marketing and design I follow Noupe Design Blog, AdFreak, Six Revisions and Smashing Magazine. For my fill of world news I stick with Huffington Post, Reuters and BBC.
What is your favorite gadget, app or piece of software that helps you every day?
I love Thunderbird. I started with Gmail, and then went to Outlook and Live Mail. I eventually found reasons to hate them all. Two years later though Thunderbird still has my heart.
Who would you love to see interviewed on IdeaMensch?
He’s no longer alive but I would have loved to have seen Charles Bukowski interview. I’m sure his answer to “What does your typical day look like?” would have been interesting to say the least.
When is the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it.
Last week Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit.
Connect:
Matthew Epstein on Twitter: twitter.com/metweetz
Matthew Epstein on Linkedin:
Blog:
Biz Card: www.flavors.me/meonline
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.