An Inspired Chat with Tom Nguyen of Downtown St. Petersburg, FL

Tom Nguyen shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Tom, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
I learned to be conversationally fluent in Spanish by learning mostly through applications and watching videos.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Tom Nguyen, and I started and run Mr. Technique, a Web Design and SEO firm located in Downtown St. Petersburg. There are other services that Mr. Technique provides such as Google Workspace Management, but Web Design and SEO are our two main services.

Since 2014, Mr. Technique has had at least one Top Web Designer mention per year. Unlike many other Web Designers and SEO Consultants, I have met almost all of our clients in-person.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
I can tell you about an event early in my life that laid the foundation of my knowledge.

I was 12 years old, and I was living with my uncle in the Washington DC metropolitan area at the time. He had given me a really tough assignment of programming a multiple choice vocabulary quiz, and it was due in 3 months. I told him that I didn’t know how to type much less write code. He responded by showing me a computer application that taught you how to type and by giving me a book on how to program in BASIC.

I was sweating it, but I used the typing application, and I read the BASIC book cover to cover. By the end of the 3 months, I was able to type at around 40-50 wpm, and I could program in BASIC.

I’ve taken these skills and applied them in my business. I type constantly, and I’ve had to write website code (PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc).

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
At the end of 2009, I had gotten a divorce. On top of that, my business was struggling, and I had trouble getting new business. I spent Christmas Day alone in my apartment. I wasn’t just failing in business, I was failing in life, and I was pretty depressed.

To make a long story short, I rectified my situation. I ended up meeting my future wife at the end of 2010, and by the end of 2014, I was able to make Mr. Technique appear in the top 3 results for web design related keywords.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
There is a higher power that is directing us.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope that people would say that I was optimistic and that I was always trying to learn new things.

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