Peter Selmeczy

Content is nothing without passion. If you don’t enjoy writing about a topic, you probably shouldn’t be writing about it.

 

Peter Selmeczy has always had a passion for getting hands-on and building things. What he didn’t imagine though, is that he’d be creating and running websites instead of machines!

Though Peter dabbled in websites from the age of 12, he was always destined to do Mechanical Engineering at University. His love of Lego (from the age of 2), and his want to build things made sure of this.

While he loved University – even going as far as building a race car in Stockholm, and a bamboo bicycle for himself – he started to despise large organization reasonably quickly. He felt that the pace was too slow, and disliked the endless autocracy over every little factor.

After graduating, he decided to travel the world for a few months and landed back in his home country of Hungary due to personal reasons. In need of money, he quickly got back into the website circuit, starting off as a technical writer.

As he quickly learned the ropes, he saw that websites were his true calling. His natural knack for ideas and implementation meant that he impressed employees left, right and center. As an entrepreneurial spirit, it wasn’t long before he became his own employee, and that’s the short story of how SEOTech was born.

Where did the idea for your company come from?

After graduating from university I ended up working for a small website company. Within a very short time, I became the right hand of the CEO. While I was happy there, and couldn’t really complain, I’ve also got an entrepreneurial spirit and decided it was time to move on. Luckily, my ex-boss is now my business partner and client, so there were no hard feelings.

I was heavily involved in the SEO side of the company I decided to start my own SEO company. Naturally, as a technically and logically minded person (certified by Mensa), it had to include technology. That’s how SEOTech came to be. Luckily, I was able to start securing new clients quickly, due to the quality of the work I provide.

As you might have guessed, SEOTech is a lovely double entendre as we do technical SEO and our main USP is high-quality technical writing.

We handle other content as well, but if we’re not interested in a topic, we won’t take it. Content is nothing without passion.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Instead of most people, who do emails first, I start my day off by doing the most critical tasks. It’s very rare that an email can’t wait a day or two if it has to, but I aim to do at least one important task every day.

By early afternoon I usually have the important task(s) ticked off. The remainder of the day is just day to day activities and keeping on top of projects, emails, relationships, so forth.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Most of my ideas tend to infest my brain for days, weeks, sometimes even months. These usually come to me when I’m having a coffee or on my morning jog.

Once I’ve figured out the details in my head, I’ll do the actual analysis to see if it’s as good as I’ve imagined. Even if the idea doesn’t seem to pan out, I’ll put it in the endless list of discarded ideas as it might come in useful later.

Once that’s done, I’ll use Trello to plan the actual steps, and round out the plan when and where needed. Once it’s on my to-do list, an idea will get implemented as quickly as possible.

What’s one trend that excites you?

The cryptocurrency world is one that I’m keeping my eye on. The start of 2018 has led to much turmoil in the industry. However, I believe that a lot more is going to come out of the industry still.

In fact, blockchain technology hasn’t really reached large-scale implementation yet, and once it moves past the hobbyists and financial traders, it’s going to be extremely useful.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

The habit the helps me most, in my opinion, is the use of the Pomodoro Technique. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s concentrating on a task for 45minutes and then having a 15minute break. If you stick to it entirely, you’ll have a distraction-free environment, allowing you to do pure uninterrupted work.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Keep working on websites. I used to create websites before university and got back into them a year after finishing university. I feel like if I had kept working on websites, I would be a lot further ahead in life. If you’re passionate about something, keep doing it, and (as a side-note), consider if going university is something you want and need.

Also, to buy Bitcoin in 2010 when I first heard about it and thought it was just an interesting little thing.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

People are lazy. Through courses and forums I see many people complaining, yet when it comes to actually implement feedback and doing something, most people will give up. If you’d look at course completion rates on sites like uDemy and Linda, I’d be surprised if it was above 10%.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Enjoy the little things. Fantastic, large-scale accomplishments are great and all, but if you’re not enjoying your day-to-day, then is it really worth it?

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

It’s a bit of a boring answer, but client happiness and communication.

While SEO isn’t cheap, when done right, it has a significant ROI. Not always in the short term, but most definitely in the long term. We make sure to provide clients with the value for money that they are expecting by committing 110% to the work we do for them. On top of this, we provide them with weekly, and monthly emails not only for reporting but also giving them additional tips and tricks.

Since our clients are so happy with our work and ethics, we get substantial traffic through client referrals, and until recently we didn’t even worry about our own site as there was no practical need for it.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

I don’t think I could pinpoint a specific failure to highlight. As an entrepreneur, you’ll face failures on a weekly basis – big and small. I’ve had everything from a poorly configured email list to having to worry about being able to pay employees at the end of the month.

My solution to failures and issues is nearly always the same. Sit down, think it through logically, and calmly solve the steps that lead to the issue piece by piece.

Luckily for me, calmness comes incredibly naturally to me. If you’re an entrepreneur, I’d recommend improving this aspect of your personality.

A classic story I tell my friends is how I once arrived on holiday only to realize my wallet (with substantial cash in it) was stolen. While my friends started to panic, I promptly canceled my cards and was happy to resume the holiday. I knew I wasn’t going to see that wallet again no matter how much I panic.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Short term I think Vaping is probably a good market and for long-term, I would hazard a guess at the cannabis market. Of course, I’ve not researched either of these ideas, but I’d be willing to bet that they are both an excellent investment opportunity.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I bought my newborn daughter some new toys to play with. The smile on her face always makes the day better, and all work and no play will always lead to burnout.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

Trello. It’s a modern to-do list, and since I’ve found it, it’s helped me keep on top of all my projects.

A slightly more interesting one is Zapier, which is essentially IFTTT on steroids. It allows you to integrate nearly all mainstream web services with each other. For example, if I move a Trello card to the completed list, it can automatically publish the article, send me a Slack confirmation, and line that article up for social sharing. That’s just a small and simple example of the many things it can be used for.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie for some straight up networking know-how.

Mr. Nice by Howard Marks for some good old-fashioned real-world comedy.

What is your favorite quote?

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster” by Sun Tzu.

Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” is a fantastic book that can be applied to business and personal life as well. I think this quote thoroughly reflects the fact that if you’re prepared enough, you can do anything in life.

Key learnings:

• Content is nothing without passion. If you don’t enjoy writing about a topic, you probably shouldn’t be writing about it.
• If you’re prepared enough, you can do anything in life, so don’t let anything stand in your way
• Failures occur! Don’t panic! Sit down and calmly, logically think through the problems, and you’ll have a solution quickly and efficiently.

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