David Koves knows all there is to know about being a Googler — even the feeling of leaving the “mothership” behind. When working for Google left him feeling jaded, he decided to follow a long-standing passion: making explosive digital growth accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Growing up in Hungary when it still had a “post-Soviet” mindset and where getting ahead was all about who you know, David felt a bit lonely as a big dreamer.
David saw himself as the future CEO of a company with millions in revenue helping others redefine their success. This vision would come true, but first David would have to leave his humble beginnings behind, earn the skillset of a CEO, and take a leap of faith.
The Courage to Lead
David grew up in Hungary where the average household income was $1,000–1,500 per month. Hungary is a great place to grow up and David enjoyed it, but he also saw the possibility to strive for a better, more challenging life and this was the catalyst for his entrepreneurial journey.
His adventurous spirit led him to leave Hungary at just 19 to study abroad. After a few years in Vienna, he landed in Madrid where he enrolled in IE Business School, a top ranked international business college. He was granted a $15,000 scholarship and because David wanted to get the best education possible, he took advantage of every opportunity that came his way.
Because he was admitted to IE and was active in the digital marketing community, Google reached out. They flew him to Dublin, where he went through a rigorous 8-step interview process and then they hired him to work for the Google Ads department.
David says, “when Google reached out to me, I was over the moon! Google is a name recognized around the world and I knew this could be a game changer.”
David would spend the next four years of his life learning everything there is to know about acquiring customers online and Google Ads. This allowed him to work with hundreds of businesses, consult with thousands of clients, and direct over 100 millions dollars in ad-revenue. All of this was better than the best masterclass to create the skills needed to be his own boss.
But first, he had to get lost in the lifestyle of a Silicon Valley tech professional.
Living the High Life
Sometimes working for a large corporation, making 6-figures, and living the lifestyle of a Googler can cause you to lose touch. You can easily forget your roots when salaries are that grand. But during his years working for Google, David often returned to his desire to find more meaning in his work than just money and to help others achieve a greater impact in the digital world. This gave him some much needed perspective.
Returning to his “why” also allowed David to skip wanting to be the next internet mogul and prioritize what aligned with his personal values. David says, “I’m no enemy of Capitalism. It is about the money, but for me, it’s about a concentrated effort where I can also make an impact by helping businesses succeed in the digital space by growing their brand and helping people make the money required to live the life of their dreams.”
In other words, David sees his impact as helping others level up their revenue so that they can level up as a person. The most satisfying moments in David’s life have been the ones where he has guided someone to their potential, which increases their digital presence, and often triples their business’ bottom line revenue and growth rate.
The hoops and rungs of the corporate world left him feeling cut off from the people behind the companies he worked with while at Google. He knew he wanted to help at a deeper level, establish stellar business relationships with business owners and entrepreneurs. This realization led to another pivotal moment for David.
After four years of “living the high life,” he decided to leave it all behind to start Red 2 Green Digital.
Explosive Growth
R2G Digital is a very skillful and experienced team, all industry veterans, a great mix of people with former Google employees, Certified regional ad-trainers, and award-winning designers. David’s mission with R2G is to ensure that digital growth is universally accessible for digital businesses around the globe. In this way, he is taking the elite out of Google and replacing it with hands-on relationships with his clients.
With the mind of a Silicon Valley professional, a more engaged focus, and the ability to call the shots, David has enabled many companies to experience explosive growth. David and his team have helped businesses like Claire’s, MyCalm Blanket, and ThinOptics engage with their clients by utilizing innovative digital strategies in the e-commerce space. Today, R2G offers a full suite of services including Facebook, Google, and Amazon ad management, email marketing, and AI based conversion rate optimization.
David is a great example of how when you focus on your vision and values, success follows. He may have come from humble beginnings, but his journey is nothing short of remarkable. Today, he gets to be the CEO he dreamed of back in Hungary.
About R2G Digital:
R2G Digital’s mission is to help digital businesses break out from the old silo system and achieve meaningful revenue growth through innovative and data-driven advertising techniques. In 2020 they perfected an eCommerce strategy so powerful that it generated over $12m in sales for a single client. To learn more please visit offer.r2gdigital.com/case-study.