About Marcus Couch

I grew up in a small town outside of Chicago called Oswego. When I lived there, there were fewer than 1,500 people in the town. I went to small public schools, but the teachers I had were all pretty outstanding. I learned a lot about life, hard work and collaborating with others to achieve a common goal.

I got my first computer when I was 10 years old. While that seems commonplace for the youth of today, it was quite unusual in the early 80's. Having nothing but a cassette tape drive (pre-floppy) I grew tired of the one game that I had, and learned how to reprogram it. At first I learned to give myself more lives in the game, then to change the character graphics and rules of the game itself.

I also had my first exposure to computers in business before I even turned 12. I visited the local bank and got to tour their back end computer server room. This was back in the day of computer punchcards being used to program the system. If just one card was out of order, the entire program sequence had to be restarted. Chaulk it up to having a young, impressionable mind, but I learned how to sort and recompile programs on these punchcards. I could do it faster at age 12 than the veteran electrical engineers working at the bank's computer room.

Throughout high school, I was escorted through any computer courses offered with an automatic A+. In fact, I got to write the final exam that students were taking at the end of the year. I had to do it twice, as the first exam I created was deemed as too difficult for the average course student to be able to pass.

After school, I began to pursue the graphic design end of computers. I began working in the printing industry. I learned the ins and outs of the graphic arts industry from some of the best in the business. In every employment experience, I was always the one who knew the most about computers and technology. It was a double edged sword, as I got some of the most fun work within the company, yet was also the one they called in when the most simple computer failure occurred.

In the 90's I began to work with music acts. At first I was creating album covers and stage graphics. That led to eventually managing one band, then two, then starting my own record company, Vision Entertainment.

One of the things I did to promote the bands was to produce a compilation CD of 6 different bands, and recorded a radio style interview of the bands to insert between their two tracks. This CD titled “The Scene Zine”, short for “The Music Scene Magazine” became a staple throughout the Midwest every month, as the CD was soon distributed to retail and online music stores in its own right.

In 2004 I was looking for a way to put the CDs online so that when I updated each month, a person would automatically receive it with their mp3 player. I did a massive search online and came across a project just starting up by two guys. The first was Dave Weiner who I had not heard of, and Adam Curry, who I remembered vividly from his days on MTV. I was glued to their progress and began to correspond with them about their new invention, which was Podcasting.

Because I had so much material that had never been heard outside of CD form, I knew I could hit the ground running in the podcasting platform. My show of the same name, The Scene Zine quickly became one of the top podcasts in the entire digital media sphere. So popular that I was soon rebroadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio.

With the podcast, I also had also had the opportunity to sharpen my online marketing skills. I made enough money to marry my wife and pick up our entire life to move West from Chicago to Southern California. It was a life changing event to make a living online from a hot media show tied into affiliate and digital marketing.

Within six months of living in California, I was hired as the Director of Marketing at Entrepreneur Magazine. Though the magazine is great, working for the magazine had some huge challenges. In the timeframe I was there, I learned from the best of the best and was sent to training sessions with some of the greatest coaches and technical pioneers in existence. It was an absolutely amazing experience that I relished every minute of the day. That is until I was making 5 times as much money with my podcast as I was at my 60 hour a week job. The choice was clear, I left to do my own thing.

I started my own marketing agency called Marketing Goo and worked with some amazing clients for many years. I also began to shift my podcast interests from music to technology. I wanted to express myself more as ME, the guy interested in tech. Not so much of the music DJ or band interviewer.

When I made the shift into talking about WordPress, I instantly became a pivotal member of the entire global community. I joined forces as co-host on two of the top 5 shows in all of WordPress podcasting. I'm consistently listed as a “must listen”. Exactly the goal I was aiming for.

Currently I am working as hard as ever to strive for success, learn everything I can and wake up every day being grateful for what I have. Be sure to check back on this site for the latest blogs. Follow me on the social sites. All the links are in the footer below!