Hi, I’m Brent Weaver.
I help digital agency owners make more money, get their time back, and achieve freedom in business and life. I have a goal of helping 10,000 agencies double their income, free time, and impact on the world. Big, I know.
My current company and focus is UGURUS, a business coaching and training program that helps agency owners get more leads, win more deals, deliver and delight their clients, so they can scale their business.
I am the author of the best-selling book, Get Rich in the Deep End, which helps guide digital agency owners on how to commit to a niche, own their market, and audaciously scale their agency.
I am the host of the Digital Agency Show, one of the leading podcasts for the niche I serve with over 10,000 downloads a month and over 200 episodes and counting.
I host an annual agency owner conference called USUMMIT which brings hundreds of entrepreneurs to Denver, Colorado each year.
I am an investor in UnlimitedWP, a white-label WordPress development service built to help agencies offload more dev tasks and scale without the headache of finding and training developers.
Since 2012, UGURUS has helped thousands of agency owner entrepreneurs grow their business. People have told me our training has helped them land countless projects for a lot more money and changed so many lives it’s hard to keep track.
I’ve seen people struggling to land two thousand dollar website deals transform into confident businesspeople earning ten times what they once did (or more).
I’ve watched people working day jobs they absolutely hated, use our programs to make the leap to run their own business full-time. And it means the world to me when I watch them go on to earn three times what they did in the corporate workforce. In some cases, their spouses and families have taken the time to write letters to thank me and our great team at UGURUS.
In one case, a graduate of our program approached me and confided that our program helped him land a deal worth over $500,000. I was dumbfounded. And really proud of him. Then it happened again. And again.
While helping people make more money is exciting, I don’t think it’s all about the money. But measuring deals and the number of clients is an easy way to gauge some success.
I think what gets me really excited about the work we do at UGURUS is the change I see at a deeper level. When our members start believing more in themselves and bringing new standards of leadership, growth, and values to their lives and those around them.
Before I started UGURUS in 2012, I ran a digital agency for almost thirteen years called HotPress Web. We grew the business to over three hundred active clients, working with businesses of all sizes. From billion-dollar, publicly traded companies like Dish Network, to local top restaurants like D Bar, Vesta, and Breckenridge Brewery. We ended up getting acquired by my good friend and mentor, Phil Lockwood of Distill Agency.
My thirteen years building websites and doing digital marketing for hundreds of companies and organizations was like getting an unofficial master’s in business administration.
I spent well over 10,000 hours visiting with and working with so many different kinds of companies. Every conference room, factory floor, and kitchen I visited was one more chance to learn about business. While I eventually found that teaching and coaching was my calling, my days running my agency were some of the fondest memories I have.
About two years before selling the agency, I launched an information product business focused on how-to tutorials and website templates for the Adobe Business Catalyst community called BC Gurus.
That website and business took off. Within two years of launching, we had over 500 paying members and were responsible for helping to launch tens of thousands of websites from the templates we provided.
It was really cool to get an opportunity to work hand-in-hand with Adobe. Since I started my own business from my bedroom, I never really had experience in a big corporate environment. My partnership with Adobe took me out to their campuses in San Francisco, San Jose, and Bucharest, Romania. Adobe brought me on as a leading advisory board member for the Business Catalyst product, had me host their official BC podcast, and put me on stage at several of their conferences included Adobe MAX.
Someone once told me that working with Adobe was like dancing with an elephant. Quite amazing, that is until they step on you. Which they did. Eventually, Adobe announced that BC would be no more and almost a decade worth of work from our team got thrown in the trash (shoutout to the thousands of BC partners that got the short end of the stick too…).
I’m not much one to regret though. The time I spent with Adobe and the thousands of BC partners worldwide became the basis for the company I still run today, UGURUS. It was working within this sub-niche that really started to help me define and shape what I would plan to do for the next couple of decades.
It’s funny, as I write this in 2020, twenty years after I started my first web company, I find myself pondering what it is about the web and internet that has pulled me so far into this industry…
I’ve had the great fortune to watch as the World Wide Web took shape, seen social media go from a “neat little technology that kids use” to practically eating the internet, and I’ve watched the mobile revolution.
I think since launching my very first website at the age of fifteen, it’s always been about creation and connection.
That first time I saved a file to a web server and called up a friend and relayed the URL over the phone. It was a graphical page that I had built for a Phish fan-site to trade bootleg copies of concert tapes.
Their response, “Cool.”
I couldn’t get enough. I started designing and building websites to share information about PC Gaming trends. I built sites for the various after school clubs at my high school. Then I built sites for the classes and departments.
Then, sometime around my 17th year on this earth, a small candy store out of Whittemore, Michigan named Sherni’s Candies, paid me $500 to build a website for their shop.
That very week I quit my job stocking shelves at a local fabric store for $6.25 an hour and incorporated my web design business.
The website we made for Sherni’s helped the store immensely. Instead of having to fax customers order forms and get the faxes back, they simply emailed them the store URL and started taking orders online. We helped the store save hundreds of frustrating hours a year and earn thousands more in revenue.
Overnight their store was no longer limited to the local customers driving through, but could now connect and ship to customers all over the world.
That was the last website I ever did for $500.
Creation. Connection.
Since then, I’ve had the honor of helping countless businesses get online, trained countless more on how to better use the internet for their business or organization, trained untold amounts around the world, and (I think) made a small dent of good in this world.
I’m really excited to play my part in what happens with the internet and technology over the coming decades. I’ve enjoyed leveraging video for my business and am looking forward to continuing to grow in this area as it becomes more important to business, storytelling, and self-publishing. I am also keen to see how augmented reality and virtual reality shape the future of connection and creation.
Who knows what will be around the bend, but I’m confident it will bring with it new opportunities and challenges.
These days, I spend most of my time meeting and leading our team at UGURUS, coaching digital agency owners, and creating training and content to further our vision. Anytime I’m hanging out with entrepreneurs–either clients, friends, partners, or industry peers–is a good day.
I feel endlessly fortunate to get the opportunity to call what I do work. I have up days and down days like anyone else, but whether I’m head in the clouds visioning where we’re headed next, or hands in the dirt building what needs to be done, I’m full of joy as long as I have fun problems to work.
When I’m not focusing on my business, there are only a couple of places you’ll find me. The first and most common is with my family. I’m married and have two young boys that are the light of my world. I savor each moment I spend with my family.
If I’m not with my direct or extended family, there is a high probability I’m on a bike, either clocking in some miles on the road or pumping some air on my BMX at the local skatepark.
I hope this page has helped you to get to know me a bit. If you’ve made it this far, it seems that there might be something I do that you’ve taken a keen interest in. If that’s the case, I’d like to invite you to connect with me in some way shape or form.
Hit me up on FB or Instagram, or head on over to UGURUS and reach out to our great team.
Thanks for sharing this great journey of mine. I hope we have a chance to meet someday. Have a great day.
Until next time,
Brent Weaver