Carlos Alaniz
Miami, FL
Okay, where do I start? My name is Carlos Alaniz - pretty obvious based on the website you're reading this on. I was born and raised in Granada, Nicaragua & I'm currently 20 years old at the time of this writing, May 27th, 2023 (woo-hoo!).
How did I get into e-commerce & web development?
It started back in middle school, 8th grade. I used to walk to school for 30+ minutes and to come back as well.
We didn't have, in no exaggeration, any extra money to even get a bus or a bycicle.
Me and my 2 siblings share the same bed, same room and more often than not, the same clothes.
So question remains, how did that lead me to e-commerce?
There was a time where I went home and I borrowed my mom's iPhone 4 (I still have it for memories) and I literally looked up on Google, "How to make money?" "How to make money online?"... you know how it goes.
That being said, a few hours later, I start getting targeted by ads on:
- Make money playing games.
- Make money filling out surveys.
- Make money by reselling.
I couldn't do reselling since that required at least $20 bucks from almost anything I found so that was a no-go.
So I went ahead to start playing games and doing surveys. A few days later... I made $2.54!
While that is not a lot, it gave me an epiphany. A feeling that I will not forget. Making money.
Fast forward 3 years later, I believe I was 15-16 at the time, I kept getting targeted on ads about Reselling, Amazon FBA, Freelancing Shopify Dropshipping, Marketing Agencies and so on.
I kept learning, and learning, and learning non-stop about all types of business.
And then I found out how hard it actually was to start as they either required: Money or Selling.
I had no money. And I couldn't get a job either due to age or time (It would be like an hour walk for most jobs and I'd get home from school at 6-7pm). I used to do aftercare for my school and dual enrollment.
And I couldn't sell either. I'm not a shy person at all; however, having a foreign accent gives me an insecurity that's quite hard to shake off.
So which option did I pick?
Freelancing.
Why freelancing? It requires no money and I could work from home.
I studied hard to get accepted into a good magnet public school, in which they provided me with a Macbook for my studies.
Little did they know that in the next few years, I would have made multiple 7 figures for my clients, which allowed me to be able to dropout from high school (first dropout in their records 😉)
Back to the main story. I started freelancing as a virtual assistant. I'm great with numbers, math and analytics. I was also certified in Microsof Excel, Powerpoint, Word, Access, and Outlook.
You can see this happy picture of little Carlos. It was my 5th by the way smh. I got the last one a week after Access.
Carlos Alaniz obtained his 4th Microsoft Certification in Microsoft Access. He's the 1st middle school student in Miami-Dade to pass it! pic.twitter.com/IvPUCVN0cO
— Shenandoah Middle School Museums Magnet (@ShenandoahMS) April 6, 2017
So all the skills I learned, I used them to start freelancing, while I was still learning about business.
Until I got this one customer...
He did Amazon FBA and was interested in dropshipping, which I kept learning about. I disclose to him that I was confident that I had learned enough but hadn't actually done it before.
I told him that we could give it a try, where I do it for free just to gain hands-on experience, and if it works, he makes money. If not, he learns as well.
Built a, in lack of better words, funny looking store selling a unicorn toy. You press the button and it starts walking lol.
But that funny looking unicorn store was that catalyst for what was about to come.
In the following week after launching the site, we did $5k in revenue!
Woo hoo!!!
It was breaking-even or probably lost like $100 but it was a proof of concept.
It.
Works.
I was excited. I kept jumping in joy (not literally) and I was telling my parents about it.
As cliched as it may be, they didn't believe in it or that I could do it.
But I kept going.
I started reaching out to people in the e-commerce space for partnerships. I wouldn't get paid upfront but work on percentages to run dropshipping stores.
That way I didn't need any capital, hopefully make money, and gain experience. It was perfect!
And in that same year, I got some new dropshipping stores from:
- $0 to $60k in 30 days.
- $0 to $550k in 4 months.
- $0 to $1m in 6 months.
I was shocked.
Wow, I'm making money... ONLINE!!!
That same year, I gave $20k to my family (in 2 months) to help them out with their debts, college debt, credits cards and cars.
Just wow.
However, while my mom was grateful, she was not happy that her 17 year old son was starting to fail school.
Especially when said son had a full scholarship to a 4-year college in Florida. And yet, he was failing all his classes.
My mom was old school. Both of my siblings got accepted into private universities, 4.0 GPA, and his youngest one was on the same path... until his "business" kept getting in the way of his studies.
I wasn't always the best kid. Not keeping up with my studies, not helping a lot around the house and etc. She was super close to sending me to bootcamp to learn discipline and responsibility.
I get it. She sacrified everything for us to have better lives. She sacrified being in our childhood in Nicaragua so she could go to work in the United States to send us money. She worked multiple jobs. Janitor, waitress, anything you can think of. She would do it for us. A single mom raising 3 kids is no joke.
Even when she was able to bring us to the United States, she had to work more to maintain us there.
I would see her work all day, every day. Nonstop.
Now, it has been easier on her and she's proud of the person I have become.
Quick note: I moved out of the house at 17, and still live alone until this day. I help my family whenever I can and will always continue to do so.
Back to e-commerce, I kept doing partnerships until I finally started my own agency.
Ever since then, I have generated my clients over $20m in sales combined. And I have worked with major names you've most likely heard of.
I even got the chance to run the analytics for a 10-figure brand! Crazy.
Over time, as I kept running ads for multiple clients and kept getting great results. There was a point where it was hard to grow further.
"How can I get them better results?"
I asked myself that question.
ROAS was great. But how can I make the MORE? Where's the missing piece of the puzzle?
That's where I learned more about website conversion rate.
That's the one thing that could help my ads perform even better.
But my clients weren't web developers, and neither was I. They were comfortable with the results where they didn't think they needed a web developer.
And if they said they would get one, it would take them weeks to actually do something.
That's where I took it upon myself. I started to learn about code online. Small things at a time.
"How to code in an sticky add to cart?"
"How to code an announcement bar?"
"How to make a dynamic section?"
And so on.
As time passed by, doing this for multiple clients, I had gotten to the point that I was able to realize, from all that I've learned about HTML, CSS and JavaScript, that I can code a better website!
And so I did.
Results skyrocketed.
I optimized a high ticket brand converting from 0.2% to 1% with a 13x ROAS and an AOV of $540.
I optimized another brand with a 3% CVR to 12% CVR with an AOV of $35.
The results kept coming and coming.
Which ultimately led me to building my own site here https://carlosalaniz.us where I'll be helping more businesses reach the stars through advertising and web development.
I hope you learned a valuable lesson from my story and always know...
Don't give up.
- Carlos A.
P.S. Fun fact about me: I LOVE bunnies and birds!