Today we’d like to introduce you to Lui De Luna.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story is quite an interesting one that I should publish much more often or at least talk about on social media. But unfortunately, since I am quite busy I don’t usually tell it. So I am very glad to finally be able to share it in this publication.
I graduated back in 2005 from Nogales High School which is in the West Covina La Puente area. Child of Latino and first-generation immigrants looking for the American dream. My relationship with my parents especially my stepdad was never a good one. After a huge fight that involved the police, abuse, and an altercation, I ended up leaving at the age of 17. I landed at one of my best friend’s homes with all my belongings in my vehicle. It was a tough time for a while.
After looking through my finances which were virtually zero, I decided I needed a job that paid much more. Anything for a kid that pays much more is in service, so I applied at a nice private country club in the city of Walnut – Royal vista Country club was the name. My manager, a very young European girl loved my story – where I practically begged her for the job; she said I could start right away.
There I got to know Older Business Owners, Successful Entrepreneurs and got exposed to people with connections. After befriending a few, I decided I wanted to be a Business Owner / Entrepreneur. I loved the idea of controlling your own destiny and making your own ends meet.
While working there, I attended Cal State Fullerton (since no one laid out a different more direct path for me) and decided to do something with computers since I was always sort of techy in High School. I decided to study Information Technology, but Marketing always really interested me. I did all my IT curriculum but any chance I got, I took Marketing classes as extra electives – just to rack up the credits for the degree.
After a few marketing classes and an internship at Warner Brothers Music, I started learning about digital marketing before it was even a real “thing”. Back when I began messing with SEO, Analytics and Paid Ads, these concepts and marketing methods were just in their infancy and referred to as specialized media / non-traditional media. I remember talking about all this in one of my classes and the professor being very intrigued to try it for his business since he was a guest professor teaching business marketing.
He decided to hire me as a “paid intern” to develop the website including setting up all analytics. I decided to take on the job even though I really had no training. He asked me for a flat rate payment for the project and gave me a very high number which took me by surprise. I gladly accepted and took on the challenge. This started me on a path to gathering more and more clientele. By my Junior year in college, I was making very good money and neglecting my college study.
I finally decided to drop out when I got noticed that my grades were tanking. I finally understood that a college degree did not provide me with any Digital Marketing knowledge, as no classes were teaching this. That is when I decided to open up an office and officially start a business since at the time, I was just a freelancer getting hired under my name.
I got an office in the city of Baldwin Park, yes not the sexiest city, but the office was quite expensive for a recent grad and I was able to sleep there as well as work. Since I hit the gym daily, I just showered there. It was a great solution. The business I started was DTI Restaurant Marketing. We decided to go with restaurants because there were so many, and they all needed marketing.
From LA to Ney York I started picking up the phone and calling with no regard to time zones. I got shouted at, cussed out, and hung up on. But It did not stop me, at one point you googled “Restaurant Marketing” and my website would pop up first page top 3 results. After a few months, we finally started getting lots of clients, I had no idea how to run the business and was using my personal checking account for all transactions. It was comical and very rudimentary, but it worked. For a few months as a recent college dropout, I was bringing in 20k-40k a month. This was life-changing back in 2010-11
After making some good money, I decided to move to Downtown Los Angeles at the SD Manhattan building. This was when downtown started to become very trendy. I got a $8000/month penthouse complete with 2 stories and a rooftop spa – this was quite expensive for 2011. It was a magical place, I had parties, lots of booze, gambling, dining, and women. It was quite predictable for a 22-year-old making 30k a month to be spending his money on very dumb things.
Unfortunately, I never had a mentor to tell me how to properly invest, properly save and start a business. So I ended up losing everything after 1 year. I got lazy and entitled, I stopped doing sales for my business so money started drying up. After 8 months I had to give up my penthouse. I went a little too hard. And did not capitalize on the connections I made along the way. I did everything wrong, the opposite of what you are supposed to do to grow your money. I ended up antagonizing my employees and great friends. Plus, I had the IRS sending me letters – I decided to finally close the business.
This was a few years ago, after a few years gap, I started coming up with other business ideas that I thought would work great online, online printing ( sort of like Vistaprint ), Social media marketing, and eCommerce. But unfortunately, I was not 100% focused on one idea so they never took off quite like my first. Feeling uninspired, I got a marketing position at a nonprofit called AltaMed. There I got exposed again to larger agencies and how they functioned, I got access to invoices, estimates, proposals and RFPs. After a huge mess up on behalf of the digital agency, they threw all the digital ads project rollout to me.
Winging it, I managed to spend $300k in ads digital, search, youtube and display and was responsible for the Obamacare rollout campaign for this huge non-profit. After companywide recognition, I was feeling good, but the fact that I had to answer to a Director, management as well as a corporate culture did not completely sit well with me. It was stressful and I told myself ” was not easy money” LOL. I decided to leave but was armed with so much more knowledge.
Right after, I got a part-time at a company called Lusive in downtown LA which was extremely laid back with a tech culture. I needed a “chill” job that would allow me to have lots of free time to learn other skills and improve. But unfortunately, I was never fully focused on one specific thing, so I did not accomplish much.
Time passed and in 2017 I finally started Networking Bizz Digital. We would focus on custom-developed websites, SEO, Social, PPC (Paid Ads management). It was good and helped pay my bills but it never grew until I finally started getting serious. I decided to drill down and focus on a few good services and what we did best – Websites.
After a few years in 2019, we started seeing exponential growth and many clients calling from all over the nation. We now have a multitude of clients from Los Angeles, Texas, Nevada, Florida, and New York. We started focusing on a leaner business model with a key skeleton crew, freelancers, and low-cost management. This allows us to spend less and make more!
I am thankful that finally I have learned much much more about business, and have great mentors to start teaching me, and finally started investing in real estate. Even at 33 years old, I feel that I’m just beginning my journey. You really never know where life takes you, but I feel I’m definitely doing what I love and even if I don’t become a large known billionaire CEO at least I know, I am happy and make the people around me (the ones that truly matter) happy as well. I go a few times a year to Hawaii (Maui) and love the outdoors there. I am finally happily married and expecting my firstborn, which we hope to one day be raising in Maui (hopefully within the next five years).
I hope my story reaches some younger entrepreneurs or people who have completely given up and my message delivered to you. Sounds cliche but: Its never too late to figure out what you love to do, and once you find what you love – give it all you’ve got. And definitely dream BIG!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have struggled quite a bit. I came from a troubled childhood and first-generation immigrant parents so I’ve never had a leg up. Whether it’s knowledge about finances or about life since I got kicked out of my house very young. I’ve always had to learn on my own. Never really opened up to any mentors, never really had a mentor but a few business owner clients who became my friends.
I’ve been cussed at, hung up on, laughed at. Same struggles that most entrepreneurs go through. Itas a tough living when you are climbing the ladder of success.
I’ve been sued, and harassed by the IRS, lawyers, and past clients whose relationships became soured.
It’s definitely been a challenge.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Networking Bizz Website Experts?
My organization is called Networking Bizz Website Experts. We specialize in local website design, local SEO and digital ads management, and lead generation in a Subscription as a service model. Like our name suggests it’s been a long time coming but we specialize mostly on building great digital brand experiences.
What sets us apart from others is not only our customer service but our website-building process. We have managed to create a hybrid do-it-yourself website system. Not only are our website fully custom and unique. They are also easy to manage. I mention a hybrid system because a website builder such as Wix or Squarespace gives you the tools to build it yourself, but most business owners have no time or proper knowledge, and if they do build it does not look good.
Our hybrid model allows us to build the website and once it’s done looking extremely nice and professional we hand over the keys and create logins so they can manage the site themselves easily and efficiently.
We have also expanded to Local SEO. We are the only company that delivers the lowest SEO cost package on the market, at only $50 were running extremely efficiently. Our plans not only improve your presence by delivering the best quality on the market, they also bring you actual leads and paying customers right to your phone, address or website.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
What I do love about LA is the food and diversity in areas. From Sunset, Venice, and Santa Monica to the Asian neighborhoods of San Gabriel Valley. There is always something to eat, drink and do.
What I don’t love is all the rising crime and homeless which have now spilled over into many beautiful areas. I feel this problem has gotten extremely out of control by special interest groups and corrupt LA politicians.
Pricing:
- $50 Website Design Package
- $50 Local SEO Package
- $50 Local Digital Ads Package
Contact Info:
- Website: networkingbizz.com
- Instagram: tharealgeek
