About
I sit in the rare middle: tech and marketing.
A performer for most of my life, technical the whole time, now running a marketing and technology shop in the Midwest.
The Story
How I got here
My dad ran a business, and growing up I did the work for it: proofreading, building funnels, running ads, putting together websites, even project-managing five-figure jobs for his clients. I learned the marketing side by doing it alongside a lot of freelancers, not from a course.
I'm technical first. I can design, and I've done plenty of it, but it isn't my strongest thing, so I usually bring in someone for it or keep it simple. What I'm good at is seeing how the pieces fit and making them work together.
Before this I spent most of my life as a performer: acrobatics, cyr wheel, stages and shows. A solo live act teaches you to control every variable you can and own the mistakes you can't hide. That habit followed me into the work.
Over the last year I went deep on the technical side and grew fast. My first real client was my friend Richard. I built him a website and an ebook, set up his GoHighLevel system, and ran some Meta ads. The clients kept coming: PT Signature Cabinetry, where I ran the ads and redesigned both of their sites, then Penner, owned by the same family. Alongside that I picked up GoHighLevel builds, automations, Zapier work, email setups, and A2P registration on Fiverr and Upwork.
Now I'm taking these tools to local businesses and people I know. I can scale to enterprise too, because I've done it. A lot of my clients come out of real estate, which helps me read how those folks think, though real estate isn't the focus.
How We Work
You work directly with the person doing the work.
No account managers, no telephone game. The person on the call with you is the person building it. I keep the client list small on purpose, so each project gets real attention.
When a job needs a designer or another developer, I bring in someone vetted and manage them myself. That's why I say "we": it's me, Julie, and a bench of people I trust.
The Team
Julie leads creative and brand.
Julie is my wife and my partner on creative and brand, and my sounding board on everything else. Branding, design direction, the way the work looks and feels, that's her. She catches things I miss before they reach a client, which is worth more than it sounds.
She isn't a full-time production team, and I'd rather be straight about that than pretend we're bigger than we are.
Why "Alexana"
It's named after my kids, Alexander and Anastasia. Family-first was the point from the start.
Where I Work
Small town, on purpose.
I'm in a small Missouri tourist town, and I understand small and seasonal businesses because I live among them. You get genuinely advanced technical work delivered with small-town honesty, which is a combination you don't see often.
I also speak Russian, native bilingual, which comes up more than you'd expect around here.