How Steven Pope Turned My Amazon Guy Into a Global Remote Agency Powerhouse
From losing $2M on failed software to training hundreds through MAG School, Steven Pope’s story is a masterclass in grit, systems, and remote-first growth.
The first thing Steven Pope tells you isn’t about his $20 million agency or the Amazon clients he’s scaled. It’s about the $2 million he lost. Quietly. Early on. “I built something no one used,” he says, flatly. “It hurt. But I learned. And then I built something they did.”
That sentence is classic Pope: blunt, unpolished, and entirely without ego. He’s not the kind of founder who performs startup mythology. No hero shots. No pitch decks. What you get instead is a man who’s worn failure, survived it, and transmuted it into process.
“They Don’t Ask For Me. They Ask For My Amazon Guy.”
When he launched My Amazon Guy (MAG) in 2018 from his basement, Pope wasn’t betting on blitz-scaling. He was trying to stay fed. He’d left corporate marketing. He had two young kids and no backup plan. Within a week, the first client called. By the end of that quarter, he was clearing $30,000 in monthly revenue. That surprised him too.
“I didn’t want to build a personal brand,” he told me over Zoom, his voice worn but steady. “But people kept saying, ‘Can I talk to my Amazon guy?’ I leaned into it. That’s the name.”
His humility isn’t performative. In fact, it’s almost stubborn. He deflects credit. “Nobody cares about Steven Pope,” he repeats, like a mantra. “They care about their listings, their SEO, their margins.”
But as much as he downplays it, MAG is imprinted with his personality. The agency’s culture, systems, even its internal training school—MAG School, launched in 2022—are built around his ethos: teach everything you know, and hire the kind of people who want to learn it.
The Reporter Who Learned To Lead
Before Amazon, before agencies, Pope was a radio journalist. “I chased breaking news stories. Crashes, crimes, city hall fights,” he says. The voice he uses when he talks about those days is more animated, almost nostalgic. That training—looking for patterns, organizing chaos—turned out to be surprisingly useful when he moved into eCommerce.
“Amazon’s a mess,” he says. “Constant updates. Algorithm changes. It’s like covering a beat. You don’t get comfortable. You stay curious.”
It’s why his agency feels more like a newsroom than a startup. Interns are trained through SOPs, client issues get triaged with the urgency of a breaking news desk, and Pope still insists on reviewing creative output—listing optimizations, A+ content—like an editor redlining copy.
That former life also taught him not to panic. “You learn to work the problem,” he says. “Whether it’s a vendor suspension or a software you just sunk two million into.”
Scaling Remotely, By Design
By 2021, MAG had 100 full-time staff spread across 10 countries. By 2024, it had created over 500 jobs. The entire company remains fully remote—not as a pandemic necessity, but as a design choice.
“Remote forces you to be intentional,” Pope says. “There’s no hallway osmosis. Everything’s got to be documented. Trained. Re-trained.”
He’s fanatical about documentation. “Most businesses rely on tribal knowledge,” he says. “We’re building a library.” That library now powers MAG School, a public-facing training platform that’s become both a recruitment pipeline and a client resource.
Friction and Feedback Loops
Success hasn’t insulated Pope from criticism. Some Reddit threads accuse him of being overly promotional. Others question his pricing, his advice, even his style.
“I get it,” he shrugs. “I’m loud. I post a lot. I don’t hide the ball.” He doesn’t engage trolls, but he reads everything. “Sometimes they’re right. And when they are, I fix it.”
He points to one example: a pricing model that got pushback. “Someone said, ‘This feels like a cash grab.’ I hated hearing that. But I changed it.”
That feedback loop is part of his process. “You can’t teach transparency unless you live it. Even when it stings.”
Building Something Durable
Today, MAG isn’t just an agency. It’s a media company, a training institution, and increasingly, a platform. The summits, the YouTube channel, the podcast—none of it is vanity. It’s scaffolding. “If I get hit by a bus,” he jokes, “this company better still run.”
That long-term thinking shows up in how he hires. MAG doesn’t look for pedigree. “We hire interns. We teach them. They become managers. Directors.” He believes in systems that give people a shot.
And the people stay. His core team—many of them from the Philippines, Kenya, and Latin America—have been with him through the chaotic scaling years. “They built this as much as I did,” he says.
The Weight of Responsibility
When asked what he’s most proud of, Pope doesn’t mention revenue or headcount. He talks about a team member who bought her first home. Another who paid for her sibling’s education. “We don’t just sell services,” he says. “We create jobs. We teach people how to win.”
Still, the weight of it is real. “There are days I wonder, what have I done?” he admits. “Not out of regret. Just… the scale of it. I was a solo guy in a basement. Now 100 families count on this company.”
He pauses.
“I don’t take that lightly.”
The Founder As Teacher
In every conversation, Pope circles back to one thing: education. He’s not building an agency to flip it. He’s building a training ground. A blueprint. “If I can teach someone how to solve a problem,” he says, “they don’t need me.”
That might sound like an odd goal for a founder. But for Pope, that’s the legacy. Not headlines. Not exits. Just systems that work. People who grow. Knowledge passed forward.
“My Amazon Guy,” he reminds me, “was never about me. And that’s the point.”
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Ratnakar Upadhayay, known professionally as Ratnakar Mavilach, is an Indian businessman who is best known for coming up with the idea for Hinglishgram, the first content delivery platform in the world. His innovative endeavors range from launching Debonair Magazine back into the public sphere.
