HARD work and a lot of research brought Davao-born and raised Kenn Costales to be where he is right now as a young entrepreneur and the CEO of Monolith Growth Consulting, a digital marketing agency he founded in 2016.
In only a span of two and a half years, his multi-million company has grown globally and has been partners with a number of popular international brands.
In April 2019, he was selected as among the Forbes 30 under 30 under the Media, Marketing, & Advertising category for Asia. How did he do all that?
Although he had been encouraged by his friends to consider starting a marketing agency as he understood creative strategy, branding, and marketing strategy at a deeper level than most people, Costales said the idea of Monolith Growth Consulting came to him as an accident.
In 2015, he quit his corporate job and spent a year and a half testing different business ideas.
"But while I did stumble into digital marketing and subsequently started Monolith Growth Consulting, scaling it to this size took a lot of intentional effort. After committing to the idea, I hit a multi-million run rate in about six to eight months, which is pretty fast by most standards. I immersed myself in a lot in books and courses to learn from people who have done it before. I read biographies, bought online courses, and devoured a lot of material from other agency owners and successful entrepreneurs. I didn't develop a lot of original ideas actually. I took a lot from those who have walked this path before and applied the best to what I was doing," Costales said in an online interview with SunStar Davao.
Developing Monolith Growth Consulting, Costales said his focus was fixated on being a good listener to the individual business problems of his clients while seeking to find solutions for each one of them.
Eventually, being a good listener and a good problem-solver helped Costales build better relationship with his client-partners.
As digital marketing is not as widely used and explored here in the Philippines as much as in other countries, the clients of Monolith Growth Consulting were foreign companies. They have worked with Fitness First, The Boston Consulting Group, Sonos, and Klipsch to name a few.
According to Costales this is also because Western countries are currently more willing and more open to providing vital information of their companies to third parties and business consultants as compared to local companies.
"As far as the current climate (of digital marketing in the Philippines) is concerned, it is true that the acceptance of digital marketing is much lower compared to our counterparts in the West, but local companies are starting to warm up to the idea of digital marketing (even i slowly). I find that acceptance is much better with small to medium enterprises. Larger companies are still quite resistant and are slower to adopt this approach," he added.
Life outside the business
Costales spent his elementary and high school studying at Ateneo de Davao. Early on, he knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur and so he took Economics in college although he believes that the course people take in college does not dictate whether or not they will be good entrepreneurs in the future.
Now Taguig-based, Costales only gets to go home once or twice a year. He shared that the one thing he misses the most about Davao City is the local chicken inasal restaurant, Penong's.
Like a regular guy on his 20s, Kenn spends most of his time outside work with his girlfriend or alone at the gym. He is also a licensed scuba diver and goes diving occasionally.
"I just want to be known as a good guy, really. Eventually, I want to be able to give back through philanthropy, even if I don't become famous for it. I believe in helping underprivileged children who have potential but are held back by their circumstances," he said.