Starting a business with a newborn might seem like the worst timing. For Michael Costin, in 2015, a regular job offered the stability his young family needed. However, having a daughter under one year old pushed him to act sooner rather than later. “I knew the older she got, the more trapped I would become by obligations like school, activities – costs only grow as kids get older,” he explains, “so I had to go all in right then and there while she was still young.”
With $10,000 in starting funds and a six-month runway without salary, Costin and his business partner launched Local Digital. The initial investment—$5,000 from each founder—was admittedly arbitrary but carefully considered. “We had to buy some computer screens, chairs, and some basic office equipment and rent a little very cheap office,” Costin explains. “We figured $10k would be enough to do that and have a little buffer in our account.”
During those early months, Costin supported his family through an unexpected source: affiliate marketing websites he’d built promoting VPN companies, putting his SEO skills to practical use. “Without this, the first 6 months would have been tough as there wasn’t much runway there financially for our young family,” he admits. “However, it would have been possible – looking back we could have started drawing a salary a little sooner, we just played it conservatively in the business trying to build a big cash buffer.”
Today, their agency employs 27 people, generates millions annually, and helps businesses find customers through Google Ads, Meta Ads, and SEO campaigns.
Costin’s path to building Local Digital wasn’t direct. After spending his early twenties as a DJ and nightclub promoter, he took an entry-level marketing role at a car rental company in 2009. There, he discovered search engine optimization (SEO) and Google AdWords advertising. This led to a position as an SEO specialist at a marketing agency in 2012, where he worked for three years and met his future business partner. Together, they spotted a gap in the market that would eventually lead them to start their own agency.
“We saw lots of good prospects get turned away because they couldn’t meet the $6,000 monthly minimum,” Costin says. These businesses often landed with what he calls “cowboy” agencies – firms focused on sales rather than results. “Our approach was ‘nerd first’ – an SEO specialist and a Google Ads specialist teaming up to deliver quality campaigns to clients we know we can help, transparently, and taking pride in saying no when they’re not the right fit.”
Smart preparation helped them hit the ground running. Before even quitting their jobs, they had secured their first client – an air conditioning manufacturer where Costin’s brother worked as marketing manager. They won the account by pitching against three other agencies, proving their concept before taking the leap. Their outbound sales strategy proved particularly effective: they approached competitors of brands they’d worked with at their old agency, leveraging their industry expertise. “We let them know we knew a lot about their particular industry and that we could bring that know-how to their account,” Costin explains. “This worked surprisingly well, with strong response rates.”
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The co-founders divided responsibilities based on their strengths from their agency experience. Costin’s partner focused on Google Ads and client services, while Costin handled SEO and operations. However, both wore multiple hats, sharing marketing, sales, finance, and administration responsibilities. “Not the most efficient,” Costin admits, “but as it was a new business, it was fun to be involved in everything.”
Their location strategy evolved significantly over time. For the first four years, they followed the conventional wisdom of keeping their office close to the city despite living in the suburbs. “Even though we had a commute of 1 hour to 1.5 hours each way, we did the same thing,” Costin recalls. Eventually, they decided to break from tradition and relocate. “We knew a lot of good employees lived that way and hated the commute too, and felt we could draw on them to work closer to home. That was exactly what happened, and we built an awesome team, working close to home, and our business rapidly scaled.”

Their early approach to winning clients through education and detailed proposals proved successful but time-consuming. “In some ways, we kind of avoided sales calls and tried to win by educating and providing massively time-consuming levels of 1-to-1 advice and feedback on a prospect’s scenario,” Costin reflects. “This worked, but it was slow going.” As founders handling sales directly, they found themselves pulled into day-to-day client management, limiting their ability to scale the business. “If you sell to the client as the founder, they will then come looking for you during delivery and suck up all your time and mental capacity,” he explains. “As a founder, you can’t be that in the weeds in your business if you want to grow to 3, 4, 5 million plus. Your time is better spent working ON the business rather than being stuck in sales and dealing with client delivery.”
Looking back, Costin points to early lessons about time management. “My co-founder and I handled all sales for the first 5 years because we thought ‘no one can close as well as us.’ Getting someone that can close 70% as good as you is much better than you handling sales.”
He also warns against believing oversimplified success stories on social media. “Online influencers make claims like ‘all you need is 10 customers paying you $8k a month to make a million a year’ as if it is as simple as that. The reality is that to keep a million-dollar business fed, you need to build a brand, run a lot of ads, take a lot of sales calls that go nowhere, invest time and effort into operations, deal with churn, deal with unrealistic clients and in time hire and possibly fire staff.”
Costin’s journey shows that building a business doesn’t require perfect timing. Success came from seeing problems others missed – businesses that needed help but couldn’t afford high agency fees, talented employees who wanted shorter commutes, and gaps in the market that others overlooked. His story points to a simple truth: sometimes, the best time to start isn’t when everything looks perfect but when you spot an opportunity to solve real problems for real people. As Local Digital demonstrates, you can start small, reinvest in growth, and build something significant – even with a young family and limited resources.
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