Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Chagala.
Hi Michael, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Rank Harvest is a San Diego digital marketing agency specializing in GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). What is GEO? Think SEO, but for Ai search like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. Most people don’t know GEO exists yet, but anyone with a business that relies on search traffic for its survival will know exactly what it is within the next 6 months. Traditional search engines have been part of our lives for so long that we can’t easily imagine life without them – but they will soon be extinct. The battle to influence which products and services Ai recommends has begun, and we’re on the front lines.
I started Rank Harvest alone with no business loan or investors and 3 month’s savings in the bank. I didn’t have a secret safety net from a previous successful business or inheritance. I took this leap of faith, taking my wife, kids and mortgage with me. In my 40s, I traded a comfortable corporate career for business ownership in an industry some say has a 90% failure rate.
But here I am, 6 years later, still in business. It’s been a wild ride. There was a period of time I was making so much money that I tried to buy an abandoned gold mine because I have an odd fascination with underground tunnels. Then another time my business was doing so poorly that I asked my therapist how to manage the overwhelming shame if I failed in full view of my friends and family.
What I’ve learned, and I think most business owners learn, is you can’t control everything. Be the best version of yourself and make good decisions, but ultimately you also need the wind at your back.
What I do now feels lightyears from what I was doing as an employee. There’s something about getting a steady paycheck that kills something inside you. Getting a paycheck is like getting food from the grocery store. Owning a business is like hunting for your own food or starve.
However, I wouldn’t be where I am today had I not spent a long time in the corporate world earning a paycheck. My career began as a software engineer and web developer, then transitioned into digital marketing. My niche was being the only person in the marketing department who could both design digital marketing campaigns and have the technical knowledge to build them.
This background has positioned me perfectly for Rank Harvest’s current focus on generative Ai search; one foot in code, the other in marketing. It’s also been critical to have absolutely amazing employees, most of whom have been with me for many years and probably deserve more credit than me for the success of the company. I should be writing this about them, not me.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It hasn’t been a smooth road. For example, there was that one time the entire company revenue dropped by 30% basically overnight. It was unforeseeable and nobody’s fault. I had no way of knowing if I’d be out of business in a few months, or this would be just another temporary setback. Thankfully it was the latter. After having gone through several severe, yet temporary, setbacks – it now feels like the worse the company (and I) suffer, the greater the upswing on the other side.
A big struggle for me personally are periods of intense burnout. I work in sprints where I’m unstoppable for a few weeks, followed by a period of complete burnout. During the burnout phase, I can’t get even the simplest tasks done. I seem to just stare at my computer and can’t really account for the time. I was told to get a hobby and step away from the keyboard when I’m burned out, which does help. So does getting out of the office and working remote in interesting places (I’m writing this from an RV park in Quartzite, Arizona). However, these dramatic swings seem to be wired into me in a way I’ll never fully get away from. At least it’s easier to get away with as the owner; I had a harder time explaining this as an employee.
We’ve been impressed with Rank Harvest Digital Marketing, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Most agencies focus on the branding and creative side of marketing. It’s the fun side where you get in front of a whiteboard with a latte and brainstorm catchy slogans. We’re not that. We focus on the technical side of driving traffic to our customers’ products and services. We’re exceptionally good at it. In fact, more than half our customers are other agencies that need someone to do their technical work. Writing code and pouring through spreadsheets might sound like most people’s worst nightmare, but we’re a bunch of developers and data scientists who love this stuff.
What’s really exciting is we are launching the first ever LLM Automated Engagement Engine, or Inception Engine. It’s based on the concept that what Ai learns from one user interaction can influence the information it provides to other users. It’s a sophisticated tool for influencing which products and services Ai recommends. We got way ahead of the competition by betting on this early, before there were any guarantees that Ai actually worked this way.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Anyone thinking of starting a business should do it while they are young and can sleep on friends’ couches until they are profitable. And they don’t have to pick their kids up from school in the middle of the afternoon.
Pricing:
- GEO (generative engine optimization) starting at $2500 monthly
- Google Ads & Social Media Ads management: $500 monthly
- ChatGPT Atlas Ads management: $500 monthly
- Complete Ai Video Production: Custom pricing
- Access to the only Generative Ai Reverse Learning Engine (GARLE) in existence: Priceless
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rankharvest.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rank.harvest/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rankharvest/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelchagala
- Twitter: https://x.com/rankharvest
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RankHarvest
