About

I’m an entrepreneur currently running a digital marketing agency focused on the niche of training companies and vocational schools.

I have a wide range of hands-on skills in management, operations, web development, and digital marketing. I gathered these skills over many years while building a small software training business, “AcademyX.” In 2020 I sold the assets of the company.

Stephen Fraga headshot
Hello! Looking forward to meeting you.

Executive Experience

As CEO, I was ultimately responsible for the growth and future direction of the company. At its peak, AcademyX had $3.9M in annual sales and a staff of 10 full-time and 30+ part-time employees. My duties included:

  • Negotiating contracts for leases, master service agreements, and eventually APAs
  • Building partnerships
  • Finding marketing channels
  • Launching new products and services

Management

One of my most important roles was building our team and their job functions. This involved:

  • hiring over 100 employees during my time at the company
  • defining job duties for each role
  • setting up workflows for job roles
  • conducting branch and all-staff meetings
  • defining compensation plans and territorial rules for salespeople
  • defining profit-sharing plans for branch managers
  • conducting employee reviews

Operations

In a company where we did not have an office manager, and were sometimes missing an accountant, I handled a myriad of operational tasks.

  • business filings: federal, state, and for the 5 California cities and counties in which we operated
  • regulatory compliance: filings for the agency that regulates our industry, the BPPE
  • accounting: payroll, financial audits, setup of accrual accounts, month-end and annual closings

Technical

I originally set up the company’s website and coded its various features, including a custom shopping cart. Gradually adding features as needed, I became familiar with web development and systems administration. This website (stephenfraga.com) is hosted on a LAMP virtual private server image I manage at Vultr.

Coding

Back-End:

  • PHP
  • ColdFusion
  • Perl and RegEx

Front-End:

  • JavaScript/jQuery
  • CSS/Bootstrap
  • WordPress
  • Chrome Dev Tools

Systems Administration

Servers:

  • Apache, NGINX and IIS
  • MySQL and SQL Server
  • Postfix, Sendmail, BIND and WU-FTP

Services:

  • Amazon Web Services and CentOS Web Panel
  • Cloudflare DNS, Zaraz, and Page Rules
  • Zapier
  • Hubspot, SugarCRM

Marketing

My company derived a large part of its revenue through successful SEO strategies I implemented early on. I set up Google Ads, LinkedIn and Facebook Ads. Beyond word of mouth and repeat business, I brought in steady revenue streams via:

  • SEO, which brought in up to 40% of our revenue
  • Google/Bing Paid Ads, with about $5k/month in spend. I recently renewed my certifications for Google Search Ads and Google Analytics.
  • Constant Contact promotional email blasts to our 40k subscribers

Contact Me