Meet Joshua Hashemzadeh of Gro Club Marketing

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Hashemzadeh.

Hi Joshua, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Like most entrepreneurs, there was a lot of trial and error to get here. Gro Club Marketing is the culmination of over a decade of marketing jobs, start-ups, and freelancing that has become an “overnight” success. People find it odd that I started my career as a fine art painter and gallery director. These worlds are usually pretty removed from one another, but I view companies much like I do paintings. Every gesture and material choice come together to build a singular vision that resonates with an audience or consumer. It’s the same form of creative problem-solving, just on a larger canvas.

I have also always loved business since I was a kid. To own a business in America and be self-made is something iconic I’ve always wanted for myself and my family. I grew up mostly with my dad, whose family immigrated to the US from Iran after the revolution in 1979. His hard work and disipine as a single father left an early impression on me. I’d see how hard he had to work to pursue his version of the American dream. I recall getting dropped off at middle school at 6 am so he had time to get to his office in El Segundo from the Valley. Anyone form LA knows how brutal that commute is. I wasn’t a fan of having to waking up that early, but it afforded me a lot of free time to try things other kids couldn’t. I remember spending my mornings sneaking off campus with my $2 of lunch money to buy soda that was on clearance at a local Rite Aid. I’d haul that back to my locker so when recess hit, I could open up shop and sell 12 cans of soda for $1-2 each. As soon as I learned how to 10x my money, I fell in love with the hustle.

Now that I’m an adult, I still hold a lot of that entrepreneurial spirit. After pursuing a career in the fine arts, I was forced to reinvent myself during COVID. The art world shut down completely over night, and my life shut down with it. Not wasting time feeling defeated, I decided to connect with the owner of the property management company I was renting from and asked him if he’d like to start a business with me. We noticed their home maintenance expenses were spiking due to quarantine, so we decided to start an in-house maintenance company for them. The idea was to turn their growing expense into revenue. That took off quicker than I expected. I was able to apply all the software, marketing, and project management skills from my time managing art galleries to this new endeavor. It felt surprisingly natural. We did something like $500k in our first 12 months. That definitely helped me shed some of my imposter syndrome and delve deeper into marketing and operations.

I went on to work for an agency that was acquired by iHeart Media, where I ran millions of dollars of ads for brands like Toyota, Starbucks, and Lexus. While there, I co-founded a marketing software start-up that raised VC funding and earned grants from partners like AWS. After some ups and downs, I later found myself working as the director of a legal staffing & marketing agency, where I managed a large team and built SOPs for their firm. Towards the end of my tenure, I started looking for more freedom and began consulting on the side. I was very fortunate that when I decided to open up my own shop, several clients decided to follow suit and come be a part of Gro Club.

It’s been a long road, but every unlikely scenario was practice for where I am today. A little patience, humility, and hard work definitely goes a long way. Gro Club Marketing really is the sum of all my professional experiences, and I love that now I can spend my time helping my clients grow businesses and put food on their tables. It’s become a very fulfilling way to spend my time.

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?
Business success is never linear. In our first year, I recall three instances where I thought we’d miss payroll, but each time, I managed to secure new clients, improve our systems, and drive more revenue. I still can’t wrap my head around exactly how we managed that. You have to have faith, I guess. More than the money, though, it’s about managing the stresses of life while remaining composed enough to lead. Building that level of self-control and discipline was the steepest learning curve of all. Without it, your clients and team lose trust, and things start to come apart.

I had been involved with startups before, but being a CEO is a different experience. It can be a very lonely and challenging experience at times. I had quickly transitioned from an agency employee with low overhead to someone responsible for a team of people and $20k in monthly expenses. Trying to do that alone over a couple of months is hard enough, but when you pile on everything life throws at you, it can be a lot. I literally had my girlfriend break up with me the day before I launched my agency, my old boss sent me a cease and desist letter on my birthday after realizing his clients had opted to drop his company for mine, and I felt totally insecure and burnt out trying to juggle it all. In business, none of that noise matters, tho. When it comes to your clients, you either deliver or you don’t. I had to really lock in and was working 12-to 15-hour days for weeks on end to ensure we didn’t fall behind on deliverables. I think the idea of failing was more brutal than anything I was dealing with on a personal level. Sometimes you have to bury your emotions and fight through it.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Gro Club Marketing?
We are a boutique marketing agency that predominantly focuses on scaling small to medium-sized service businesses. Our clients range from legal firms to medical offices, home service providers, and property managers. All of whom look to Gro Club to manage their lead-generating ad campaigns, website SEO, social media content calendars, digital CRM funnels, and fractional CMO strategy. It’s like getting a whole marketing team for less than one in-office W2 hire. What used to cost a company $100-250k a year, we can provide for $20-80k. Plus, you avoid a significant amount of legal liabilities that come with hiring employees. Instead, you get a month-to-month contract with no long-term commitment. Clients really like that.

Most of the time, these businesses don’t have marketing or AI experts and don’t have the knowledge or infrastructure even to manage a team like ours. We aim to make it easier for them to focus on their core offerings by helping optimize data collection, marketing spend, and workflow automation in the background. That seems to be a pretty good market fit for us, and our growth reflects that.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
That’s a good question… It’s hard to boil it down to just one thing, but if I had to, I’d say that to deal with all the rejection, stress, and failures associated with success, you’ll need to be someone with a pretty high pain tolerance. Grit is very important.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.groclub.marketing
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gro.club_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561652480657
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/103726284/admin/dashboard/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/gro-club-marketing-beverly-hills?osq=Gro+Club+Marketing