heyDominik: Law School Drop Out To 7-Figure Agency Owner

Anyone who calls themselves a social media marketer or Instagram guru has heard of heyDominik or had the chance to enjoy his YouTube content, over the past few years he’s not only grown his agency MVRQ to 7-figures annually, he’s inspired and taught thousands of others techniques on how to do the same, and really improve their social proof online along the way. “MVRQ is a Growth Hacking & Consultancy Agency based in beautiful Vienna, Austria (mostly, and by that I mean 10% of the time). We’re mostly focused on healthy organic Instagram growth, getting lost engagement back and our newest endeavor: helping content creators build and launch digital products that will sell like hotcakes.” Dominik says. This online based agency concept has served many like Dominik well with world-wide lockdowns and restrictions inhibiting in-person business well into 2021 and beyond, every aspect of the business can be handled entirely remotely, granting Dominik an extraordinary autonomous lifestyle.

Dominik Rieger (heyDominik) started his agency in 2017 after dropping out of law school, tired of the daily grind. “I’ve bootstrapped MVRQ from pretty much working 19 hour days, earning next to nothing for months, to becoming one of the go to Instagram agencies in the industry – currently on track to hit our 7 figure goal this year in 2021.” Dominik says. Often where it starts for many, they’re sick of mundane 9-5 work and can’t imagine a life with no freedom or time to themselves in exchange for a salary and an insurmountable amount of student debt. In this case, Dominik knew this life wasn’t for him early on and pursued financial freedom instead online with Youtube and his agency. The path less taken. His expertise in Instagram growth and their inner-workings behind it on Youtube as heyDominik have undoubtably created substantial social proof resulting in new clients flocking to MVRQ like bees to fresh cut flowers.

heyDominik comes off as that expert bad guy vigilante social media personality, never taking time to look behind him or try to fit in with the crowd just to get your attention. Maybe because he was too busy researching the latest and most effective Instagram optimization methods to bring to his subscribers and clientele. I asked Dominik the niche of client he attracts and works with typically. “Boy that’s a tough one, because our typical client base is anything from adult film stars, famous musicians, to ordinary Instagram fitness influencers trying to get their accounts to a healthy level again. I know this kind of goes against all of the marketing books out there that say: “Focus on one sub-niche only” but here we are, kind of breaking the rules yet again and being successful at it. It also has a lot to do with the pretty broad audience my YouTube channel is attracting.” says Dominik. MVRQ is leading is the way in 2021 demonstrating what it means to be a social media marketing agency; as the concept has changed so drastically overtime as trends and methods come and go, it takes someone that can tactfully adapt to a new circumstances at a whim to truly survive and shine.

With many agencies to choose from, what makes one better than the other? In 2021, there’s so many different specializations and ways to go about bringing your clients social proof, sales, and an engaged audience in general. Dominik is taking the full-service approach offering a wide-array of virtual products to his viewers and clients, not only educating them on how to best ways to leverage their social media presence through detailed materials, but offering services to take the reigns and build it for you. This is why heyDominik is different and incredibly valuable to the social media marketing community as many are just out for wealth and personal gain, it’s clear Dominik is not a phony fly by night guru; he genuinely cares about his audience and loves what he does so much so that he takes the time to produce hundreds of hours of premium Youtube content for kids out there curious on the subject to learn and grow from. Dominik stands by a concept I really agree with myself and I think it’s what makes him so relatable. Dominik says:

“There’s one principle that I live by dearly and something that I try to teach all of my students in my programs as well. It’s what I call the NO BS approach. Basically meaning: just don’t bullshit, in any area of your life and try to be as close to your true self as possible – even if it might go against the grain or make some people angry. Cause frankly, nowadays people start to really smell bullshit, especially on social media. That’s what a lot of people actually tell us when they start working with me and my agency. They feel like there’s finally somebody naming things how they are with real substance behind it, rather than one of the million copy & paste ‘lemmings’ out there.”

Dominik wants to be clear and transparent with his fans and prospective agency owners on how much time and effort there is behind getting to the level of success he’s obtained. I asked if it all came easy to him. “I’d be lying if I said yes. In fact, it was actually one of the toughest things I ever did, especially in the beginning. If there’s one thing I could tell all future agency owners, personal brands or whatever they wanna do, it’s to just stick with it and keep executing. As cliché as it sounds, and I’m not usually the one repeating these guru phrases – quite the opposite actually. But back when I first started, in my pre-YouTube days – we’ve had a group of likeminded people getting together once a week discussing our strategies, business plans, etc. Now, almost 5 years later, out of the 10 or so people that we were, all of us who kept going – trying to reinvent ourselves after multiple major setbacks and just not giving up – we’re still in the game and pretty successfully. The others? They’re still at square one, back at their jobs, having this whole thing ticked off as a failed attempt. Just because they gave up at the first hiccup.” Dominik says.

The concept of consistency is an often overlooked but an essential part of why many truly successful people end up where they are today, simply because they didn’t give up. Especially in the realm of social media marketing, things can change so quickly and you have to reinvent your entire strategy. If you have the ability to fight through the urge to go back to school and get a job, committing fully to your craft, it’s entirely possible for you to be successful too.

“Another important thing people should never underestimate was the power of my personal brand, and by power I don’t mean the amount of followers, but rather how you structure the whole thing. So better start now than never. And don’t be afraid to be awkward or just flat out bad in front of the camera. For the first 50 of my YouTube videos most of the comments were about why I was so weird. Every other question was whether I was high, or drunk in the video or not. I actually wasn’t ever. I mean in the videos, not ever ever haha.” Dominik says.

“At the end of 2019, we were at one of these major setbacks in our agency and we were at a point where we were actually thinking of closing down for good. Hint: we didn’t and we started to, yet again, reinvent ourselves to grow from our past mistakes and start crushing it again in 2020. Then the pandemic hit, nobody knew what was coming. What actually happened was that we’ve outgrown our goals and catapulted the whole agency to yet another level. More revenue, better structure, even more amazing clients – and coming into 2021 we’ll continue to disrupt – not only with our marketing and Instagram account health-related services, but with our soon to be launched product launch incubator program, where we take content creators with mid to large sized followings, put them through the heyDominik machine and help them build and strategically launch their products. With the same system I made a $15k product launch with a YouTube following of 2,500 and with the same, but continually tweaked system I still launch products to this day.” Dominik says.