San Diego·32.7157°N

Chris Trovato

Building in San Diego

Performance marketer turned technical founder. Seven years of paid media. A year of shipping software. The next thirty here.

ABOUT

San Diego is the place I started. It is the only place I plan to build.

I was born and adopted in San Diego. Mater Dei Catholic High School came next. As an adult, I chose this city on purpose. I am not leaving.

Started at fifteen as a bagger at Sprouts Farmers Market. At home, I watched my mom run her small business. Two things became the spark for everything after. The job at fifteen. Watching small business marketing from inside a household trying to figure it out. By seventeen, I was running ads as a Performance Marketing Manager at Your Dream Agency.

Four years later I became a Senior Media Buyer at Hirsh Marketing. I am still there. Across both roles: $12M+ in managed paid media, up to twenty-five accounts at once, monthly budgets from $100K to half a million. One VIP client did $1.1M in profit in thirty-five days.

In early 2025 I taught myself to build. No bootcamp. No degree. No formal training. I picked one stack (Next.js, Supabase, TypeScript, Claude API) and started shipping. Within twelve months I had five production applications live: a telehealth compliance SaaS, two towing lead-generation networks, a PFAS water-quality tool covering the United States, and a ten-site niche content portfolio. The combination is the advantage. I can build the product and the acquisition engine. Most people can only do one.

I am not building a startup. I am building a portfolio. Businesses, tools, and the kind of local infrastructure most cities have stopped investing in, anchored here for decades. The plan is to spend the next thirty years showing up. Partnerships with nonprofits I haven't met yet. Work with civic organizations I haven't approached. Ownership in neighborhoods I've known my whole life. I am twenty-six. Everything on this site is the foundation, not the result.

PROJECTS

Active builds across compliance, lead generation, public utilities, and content infrastructure. Everything ships.

RESULTS

Seven years of performance marketing. The numbers below come from campaigns I actually ran, on accounts I actually owned.

$12M+
Total ad spend managed

Across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, Amazon, TikTok, and 6 other platforms over 7+ years.

$1.1M
Profit generated in 35 days

Scaling paid media campaigns for a VIP client with full-funnel alignment.

43%
Cost-per-lead reduction

Leading to the client's highest recorded revenue month.

2x
Revenue growth in 60 days

Scaling Meta and Google campaigns for a new client while improving CTRs and CPA.

15–25
Ad accounts managed simultaneously

Each with $100K–$500K in monthly spend, across DTC, SaaS, info products, and local brands.

$500K
Peak monthly ad spend managed

Overseeing budget allocation, creative strategy, and performance optimization.

What Others Say

Chris is an amazing mentor — he creates world-class marketing systems that allow brands to scale to high six and seven figures. He has taught me a lot. If you are looking to scale, Chris is your guy.

Ben JonesRetail Media Search Expertvia LinkedIn

Chris is an absolute expert in his craft. He focuses only on what works — his knowledge of every different type of company, product, audience is incredible. He's straight to the point and what matters most is that he's always trying to make the experience better for his clients. I would always recommend Chris to any company that wants to get at least a 4x ROI on their advertising. He simply knows what he's doing.

Saarim AsadyLinkedIn Business Coachvia LinkedIn

SAN DIEGO

You already know where I'm from. What matters more is where I am staying. The work is remote now. Clients are everywhere. Tools run on someone else's servers. None of that decides where I live. San Diego is the choice. It's where my family is, where my career started, where every business I have built is rooted. I am not passing through.

My daughter was born here too. She turned five in March. Every tool I build, every local partnership I pursue, every dollar I keep inside this city's economy is shaping the place she'll grow up in. That makes the long play personal.

The plan is long. Twenty, thirty years of showing up. Free and low-cost tools for San Diego residents. Pro bono and reduced-cost engagements with the nonprofits that already hold this city together. Years ago I connected with the Regional Chamber. I want to renew that contact. Next on the list to approach: SCORE San Diego, SDSU's Lavin Entrepreneurship Center, and the neighborhood BIDs in North Park, Barrio Logan, and Little Italy. I haven't done most of this work yet. I plan to spend the next twenty years doing it. Businesses owned here. Jobs created here. Buildings I can walk past.

CheckYourWater.org is the first real example. A free water-quality tool that already covers the country, with a San Diego-specific version coming next. More are on the way. I am at the start of this. But what we build in this city over the next thirty years will decide what it becomes. I want to be one of the people who built it.

Tools for the City

Free and low-cost digital tools built for San Diego residents. Water-quality lookups, neighborhood resources, public data made accessible. CheckYourWater.org is the first. More are on the way.

Nonprofit Partnerships

Pro bono and reduced-cost marketing, websites, and software for San Diego nonprofits. Seven-plus years of performance marketing, applied to the organizations that actually hold this city together.

Local Business Growth

Helping San Diego small businesses compete with better digital infrastructure and lead generation. The same systems that scale national accounts, adapted for the shops and operators next door.

Long-term Investment

Building and acquiring businesses rooted in San Diego. Hiring locally. Investing in real estate. Contributing to the economic density and civic fabric that makes a city a place worth staying.

This is where I'm from. This is where I'm building. This is where I'm staying.

32.7157° N117.1611° WSan Diego, California

JOURNEY

From first job to fifth production app. Eleven years.

  1. 2017Career

    First Agency Job

    Performance Marketing Manager at Your Dream Agency. Full-time at seventeen, running multi-client acquisition campaigns. The first real introduction to paid media at scale.

  2. 2021Career

    Senior Media Buyer

    Joined Hirsh Marketing. Fifteen to twenty-five ad accounts at a time. Monthly budgets from $100K to $500K. First time managing campaigns at this scale.

  3. 2025Building

    Learned to Build

    Taught himself production software development through AI-assisted building. No degree. No bootcamp. The founder chapter begins.

  4. 2025Building

    ClinicShield Created

    Built a telehealth compliance SaaS from scratch: 109-rule library, two-tier Claude API pipeline, 23-table database, full go-to-market infrastructure.

  5. 2026Building

    RJ Towing Network Live

    Shipped a 15-site lead generation network for one San Diego towing client. Twilio call tracking, 107 pages on the flagship site, Google Ads running daily, automated content pipelines.

  6. 2026Building

    CheckYourWater.org Launched

    Deployed a free PFAS and water-quality lookup tool covering 10,297 US public water systems. A public utility, not a product.

  7. 2026Building

    Content Portfolio Running

    Ten niche websites publishing twenty articles per day through automated pipelines. No manual touches after configuration.

  8. 2026Building

    christrovato.com

    This site. The permanent home base. The first entry in a public record meant to last decades.

  9. FutureVision

    The Long Build

    More businesses, more partnerships, more local infrastructure. All rooted in San Diego. The portfolio grows.

NOW

Last updated: May 8, 2026

What I’m actively working on right now.

ValidatingApril 2026

ClinicShield Outreach

Testing cold email campaigns to roughly 300 contacts from a 467-prospect database. Three angles in rotation: free audit, regulatory urgency, competitor warning. Go/kill decision by June 1, based on close rate.

ShippingApril 2026

Towing Sales Outreach

Outreach to 69 personalized prospects across 10 US cities. $2,500 setup plus $500/month. Prospect pages live at towing-sales.vercel.app.

LiveApril 2026

RJ Towing Google Ads

Google Ads running 5–11 PM daily with Maximize Conversions bidding. Tracking call data. Tuning toward cost-per-call.

BuildingApril 2026

Content Portfolio: Mission 18

Building the social video pipeline for the 10-site content portfolio. GA4 analytics setup in progress. Twenty articles publishing daily.

ShippingApril 2026

CheckYourWater Journalist Outreach

Second batch of follow-up emails to environmental and health journalists. Pitching the PFAS water-quality tool for coverage.

BuildingApril 2026

christrovato.com

Building this site. The permanent home base. Identity, portfolio, community vision, proof of work.

PRINCIPLES

Beliefs sharpened by doing, not reading.

  1. Distribution Wins

    The best product without distribution loses to a worse product with great distribution. Every time. I spent seven years learning to put things in front of people who want them. Now I build the products, too. Both halves of the same job, owned end to end.

  2. Build First, Theorize Later

    I have not written a business plan. I build, ship, and watch what happens. Five production apps in 2025 came from that loop. Strategy comes after the thing exists.

  3. Start Before You’re Ready

    I was running ads at seventeen. I started building software with no CS background. The gap between “ready” and “started” is where most people stall permanently.

  4. AI Changes Who Can Build, Not What Matters

    I learned to code through AI-assisted development. The barrier to building software is collapsing. What stays rare is knowing what to build, who to build it for, and how to get it to them. Tools change. Judgment doesn’t.

  5. Local Depth Over National Scale

    Anyone can build for a national market from a laptop. Choosing to build for one specific city is a different kind of ambition. Showing up. Partnering. Investing. National scale is a byproduct. Local depth is a choice.

  6. The Portfolio, Not the Startup

    I don’t bet everything on one idea. I build multiple things, ship them fast, and double down on what works. One business is a risk. A portfolio of businesses is a system.

  7. Compound by Showing Up

    Trust isn’t built in a pitch meeting. It is built by showing up consistently for years. Every tool I ship. Every partnership I honor. Every commitment I keep. It all compounds. The people who matter are watching.

  8. Own the Means of Production

    I don’t outsource my core capabilities. I learned marketing by doing it. I learned to build software by building it. When you own the skills, you own the optionality. Nobody can take that away.

CONTACT

If you are building something in San Diego, or you want to, I would like to hear about it.