Hey, I’m Austin (or AJ, or James, or Augustin for my Spanish-speaking friends), whichever you prefer to call me.

I spent the first 25 years of my life in what I would consider “small-town USA” between northern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, but I always had a wild imagination about where I was headed. I envisioned myself performing music, living an adventurous lifestyle, and exploring the world, but the finer details of what that looked like and how to achieve it were always fuzzy. There was no existing roadmap or career opportunity that would lead me to where I wanted to go. When I entered post-university life and became just another tax-paying employee, I quickly realized that the best, if not only, way to make my ambitious lifestyle a reality was to build it myself.

In 2016, after coming to terms with my displeasure with the 9-to-5 lifestyle, the future of print media and journalism, and other aspects of the more “traditional” ways of life, I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to try something different. Within a few months of the move, and with the support of my new entrepreneurial friends, I launched my first LLC and began a new journey full of unknowns. After a slow start and working numerous odd jobs on the side to pay the bills, by mid-2017, I had enough freelance work to focus on my business full-time.

Since then, despite a handful of detours, pauses, and reboots, I’ve spent the past eight+ years honing my craft as a freelance writer and marketer while also creating the life I used to only daydream about. I’ve helped small & medium-sized businesses increase profits and lead-gen online through various digital marketing channels while traveling to 20+ countries across six continents.

Away from the screen, I’ve performed music in Istanbul, Edinburgh, Bali, Barcelona, Melbourne, Essaouira, Buenos Aires, New York, and countless cities worldwide. I’ve eaten the most exciting and incredible foods, soaked up awe-inspiring hikes through mountains and volcanos, dove with manta rays and sharks, and made lifelong friends in unexpected places. I’ve also discovered a new passion in photography, organically improving my skills by taking thousands of photos in some of the most breathtaking landscapes and cities.

So, what does all of this mean for you?

I’ve found that the skills I’ve learned from building and maintaining a business have helped me design my lifestyle away from business and vice versa. The skills that allow me to adapt to physical environments in foreign places are the same ones that enable me to fill numerous roles and write/advertise to almost any audience in the digital domain. I can ride the ups and downs of small business revenue fluctuations, just as I can ride the emotional rollercoaster of trying to live where I know no one and don’t speak the language.

Whether you’re a small to mid-sized business looking to launch or scale up your digital marketing efforts, a digital agency that needs a hired gun to fill in gaps when you’re over capacity, or a fellow deviant that wants to learn how to do what I do, I can help as much or as little as you need.

Let’s start a new adventure.

Sincerely,

Austin James Kettelhut