Work · Co-Founder · 2025 to Present

Makko AI

I'm Co-Founder and Director of Operations | Head of Growth at Makko AI, an AI-powered 2D game studio SaaS. I built the early prototype alone for about a month, then Tony Valcarcel joined and the two of us put in 12-hour shifts day and night until we had something strong enough to bring Jeremy Bird on board as CEO. Today I own technical SEO, AEO, content, AI workflows, and marketing operations.

Visit Makko AI Back to home

The company

What Makko AI is

Makko AI is an AI-powered 2D game studio SaaS. The pitch is direct: remove the hardest barriers in 2D game development so anyone with an idea can ship a game. No art skills required. No coding required.

The founding team is four people: Jeremy Bird (Co-Founder, CEO and CTO), Anthony "Tony" Valcarcel (Co-Founder), Mike Fehlauer Hayes (Co-Founder, helped create PAX and former VP of Penny Arcade), and me (Co-Founder).

Origin

The origin story

I built the early prototype alone for about a month. Then Tony Valcarcel joined and the two of us worked 12-hour shifts day and night for weeks until we had something strong enough to bring Jeremy Bird on board as CEO. Mike Fehlauer Hayes joined after that. The founding team formed around what Tony and I had built together.

My scope at Makko AI

Four areas I own end-to-end

SEO foundation, by the book

The fundamentals every SEO has to nail: keyword research in Ahrefs (KD, intent, SERP features, competitor gap), on-page optimization (title tags, meta descriptions, header hierarchy, alt text, anchor text), technical hygiene (XML sitemaps, robots.txt, canonical URLs, 301 redirects, broken-link audits), Core Web Vitals and page speed, mobile responsiveness, structured data per page type. None of this is exotic. All of it has to be right.

AEO and AI citations

The next two years of organic visibility is being cited by AI answer engines: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. I set the AEO direction at Makko early. Schema tuned for AI extraction. Content shaped for direct-answer formats. Citation tracking alongside SERP positions. AEO is where the playbooks have not been written yet, and I am writing them as I go.

Backlink and authority building

I run the backlink profile end-to-end. Digital PR outreach, HARO and Qwoted pitching, broken-link reclamation, citation building, niche directory placements, guest-post outreach. Every link tracked in Ahrefs and prioritized by referring-domain quality rather than raw count. Documented link velocity reported to founders monthly.

Content production with AI workflows

I run makko.ai/blog single-handed and have shipped 56 articles across 10 topic pillars against the playbook — devlogs, tutorials, comparisons, alternatives, and deep-tech insider posts. Drafts run through Claude and Cursor with custom prompt libraries that I version like code. Every draft is human-reviewed before publishing. Search is Makko's top acquisition channel at 32.4% of signups. On YouTube I own the SEO layer — titles, tags, thumbnails, keyword targeting — while the YouTube Content Director owns production. YouTube is the second largest acquisition channel at 25.6% of signups. Social accounts for 9.5%, AI Search 8.4%. Combined, the channels I operate account for over 75% of how users find Makko. Plus email lifecycle templates through Mailchimp and Resend.

Marketing operations and tooling

The content calendar lives on GitHub Pages. The UTM tracking infrastructure lives at go.makko.ai. The integration layer covers PostHog, Ahrefs, GSC, Bing Webmaster Tools, Ghost CMS, Gleam.io, Mailchimp, and Resend. I make the tool procurement calls and document the operating rules so the team is not relearning logistics every week.

Brand positioning and messaging

I co-developed the brand positioning, messaging hierarchy, and competitive framing that governs every external communication. Audience-segmented landing pages match the path the visitor took to get there. Press releases tied to product milestones get coordinated multi-channel pushes rather than wire-service drops. Brand is a strategic moat, not a style guide.

Director-level operations and team

Manage a four-person equity-holding team: a YouTube Content Director who oversees two video editors, and a Reddit and usability testing manager. I own the strategy layer; the Content Director owns production and creative execution. Budget allocation across content, paid, and tooling. Vendor management for external video production. Quarterly OKR and KPI setting. Tool procurement decisions across the marketing stack. Hiring screens for content roles when we scale. Reporting cadence to the founding team.

Podcast production

Taking over full production ownership of the Makko podcast: run of show, guest coordination, episode structure, and distribution. Currently in transition — moving from contributor to sole producer.

B2B outreach

Manage B2B cold outreach into enterprise training and LMS verticals. Separate motion from the consumer-facing growth channels.

Decisions

Specific calls I made at Makko

Built the early prototype with Tony Valcarcel

I built the early prototype alone for about a month. Then Tony Valcarcel joined and the two of us put in 12-hour shifts day and night until we had something strong enough to bring Jeremy Bird on board as CEO. The prototype became the company.

Doubled down on AI citations and AEO

Set the AEO direction at Makko before most teams treated it as a category. Schema tuned for AI extraction, content shaped for direct-answer formats, citation surfaces tracked alongside SERP positions. Goal is to lead the charge on AI citations rather than chase them later.

Led the Makko AI Product Hunt launch

Owned the launch end-to-end: press outreach, founder email campaigns, paid directory placements, platform-wide distribution coordinated across six channels simultaneously. Built the launch playbook before launch day so the team executed a documented sequence rather than improvising.

Built the press release engine

Press releases tied to product milestones, written in-house and distributed through targeted media lists rather than wire services. Each release coordinated with the content calendar, social distribution, and email lifecycle so the news event lands as a multi-channel moment.

Designed audience-segmented landing pages

Different traffic sources have different intent. I built persona-specific landing pages targeting distinct user segments with their own messaging hierarchy, social proof, and call-to-action. Conversion improves when the page matches the path the visitor took to get there.

Manage a four-person equity-holding team

A YouTube Content Director who oversees two video editors, plus a Reddit and usability testing manager. I own the strategy layer; the Content Director owns production and creative execution. Documented playbooks, weekly WRAP system, async review. The team ships reliably while I focus on direction.

Set the keyword strategy direction

Cluster mapping, intent classification, and keyword target criteria for every article that ships. Documented in the SEO and AEO Master Playbook so the next article is cheaper to ship than the last one.

Migrated the blog from subdomain to root domain

Subdomain blogs accrue authority separately from the main domain. With Makko at DR 16, splitting authority between two surfaces was the wrong trade. Consolidated to makko.ai/blog, redirected legacy URLs with 301s, centralized link equity on one domain.

Built the UTM registry at go.makko.ai before scaling distribution

Untracked links lose campaign attribution forever. Stood up a UTM short-link domain with a documented naming convention before publishing the first batch of cross-platform content. Every external link is attributable to campaign, channel, and content piece.

Results · The receipts

The work, by the numbers

Screenshots pulled directly from Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, YouTube Studio, and the Makko AI admin dashboard. Every channel below is one I personally own or operate end-to-end at Makko AI. No mocks, no third-party scorecards — these are the live panels.

Ahrefs · Site health across 5 owned properties

100 / 100 / 88 / 97 / 93 health scores

Five active domains under management: Makko AI, the Makko blog, kylemccool.com, Phantomline, and ProLocalBuilder. Every site green across crawl, redirects, broken links, and blocked URLs. The Makko blog jumped 14 → 97 (+83 health score) after migrating from a third-party subdomain to makko.ai/blog and rebuilding the schema layer.

Ahrefs project overview screenshot: Kylemccool 100 / DR 3, Prolocalbuilder 100 / DR 3, Phantomline 88 / DR 0, Makko blog 97 / DR 16, Makko 93 / DR 14 — Ahrefs Projects dashboard — all 5 properties I run, current.

Ahrefs Site Explorer overview for makko.ai: DR 16, Ahrefs Rank 11,274,953, 1.7K backlinks, 76 referring domains

Makko AI main domain. Domain Rating 0 → 16 from a standing start. 1.7K backlinks, 76 referring domains, Ahrefs Rank 11,274,953. Source: Ahrefs Site Explorer.

Ahrefs Makko blog card: Health 97 +83, Domain Rating 16 +15

Makko AI blog. Domain Rating 1 → 16 (+15). Health 14 → 97 (+83). Root-domain migration consolidated authority instead of splitting it.

Ahrefs ProLocalBuilder card: Health 100, DR 3, 935 crawled

ProLocalBuilder. 935 pages crawled. Zero broken links. Zero blocked URLs. Health 100.

Ahrefs kylemccool.com card: Health 100, DR 3

kylemccool.com. This site. Health 100. DR 3 in the first weeks of public launch.

Google Search Console · ~4 months of indexed data

3.4K clicks · 11.9K impressions · 28.6% CTR · avg position 3.1

A 28.6% click-through rate at average position 3 is roughly 10× the typical CTR for a site at our domain rating. That is the AEO playbook doing work — title tags, meta descriptions, and on-page content shaped for direct-answer formats so the snippet earns the click, not just the impression. Trending content view shows the homepage at +609% and the pricing page at +800% clicks over the same window. The filter shown is set to 16 months for completeness, but Makko only began registering meaningful Google traffic in late February 2026 — so all 3.4K clicks are inside a four-month window.

Google Search Console performance: 3.4K clicks, 11.9K impressions, 28.6% CTR, average position 3.1 across roughly 4 months of real indexed data within a 16-month filter window — GSC Performance · web search · 16-month filter but only ~4 months of real activity · daily granularity.

Google Search Console top content view: 2.47K clicks up 62 percent, 9.35K impressions up 73 percent. Top pages — AI 2D Game Studio homepage up 609 percent to 2.43K clicks, Pricing page up 800 percent to 9, Sign in up 100 percent to 4 — GSC · top content trending view · clicks +62%, impressions +73%, homepage +609%.

Bing Webmaster Tools + Microsoft Copilot · 3-month window

475 clicks · 3.6K impressions · 920 Copilot citations

Bing matters because Microsoft Copilot pulls from it. 920 citations on Copilot in three months — the AEO bet showing up where the answer engines actually surface. Bing's classic search performance is smaller in absolute terms but trends sharply upward through April and May.

Bing Webmaster Tools Reports search performance: 475 clicks, 3.6K impressions, trending up from March through May with clear inflection in late April

Bing Webmaster · search performance. 475 clicks · 3.6K impressions. Clear upward inflection after the AEO and schema push in late April.

Microsoft Copilot citations from Microsoft Copilots and Partners: 920 total citations over 3 months, average 1 cited page per response

Microsoft Copilot citations: 920 in 3 months. Sample-only data per Microsoft. Makko is being cited as a primary source, not just ranked on classic SERPs.

YouTube Studio · Makko AI channel

101.4K views · 747 watch hours · +410 subscribers

I own the SEO layer on YouTube — titles, tags, descriptions, thumbnails, keyword targeting, end-screen strategy. The YouTube Content Director owns production and creative execution. YouTube is Makko's second largest acquisition channel at 25.6% of signups, behind search.

YouTube channel analytics for Makko AI: 101.4K views, 747.4 watch hours, +410 subscribers — YouTube Studio · Channel analytics overview.

Makko admin · Onboarding survey response

Search 32.4% · YouTube 25.6% · AI Search 8.4% — the channels I own move the needle

In-product survey across thousands of Makko signups: "How did you hear about us?" Search Engine and YouTube — the two channels I own end-to-end — combine for 58% of all reported acquisition. AI Search clocks in at 8.4% with 29 unique sources called out by hand: ChatGPT 143, Gemini 62, DeepSeek 67-ish across variants, Claude 22, Grok 7, Copilot 7. The AEO playbook is no longer theoretical — users are typing the names of the engines that sent them.

Makko AI onboarding survey response breakdown: Search Engine 1,293 (32.4%), YouTube 1,021 (25.6%), Social Media 377 (9.5%), Reddit 319 (8%), Friend/Colleague 268 (6.7%), Blog/Article 94 (2.4%), Advertisement 90 (2.3%), AI Search 334 (8.4%), Other 193 (4.8%) — with AI search breakdown: ChatGPT 143, Gemini 62, deepseek 37, Claude 22, Deepseek 17, DeepSeek 13, Grok 7, copilot 5, deepsek 4, DeepSeek 2, Copilot 2, google 2, Google 2 — Makko AI admin dashboard · onboarding-survey insight · self-reported by users at signup.

Product growth · Signups

7,291 total signups · 2,223 in the last 30 days · ~57–100 per day

From a standing start in June 2025 to 7,291 total users, with a clear acceleration through Q1 2026 and a steady 60-to-100 signups per day in the last 30 days. The April 2026 inflection lines up with the Product Hunt launch and the AEO push hitting compound returns.

All-time signups: 7,291. Two major inflection points: November 2025 (early product launch) and April 2026 (Product Hunt + AEO compounding).

Last 30 days: 2,223. Daily floor around 57, ceiling around 100. That is the engine running on its own without a launch event.

Product Hunt · Launch · April 2026

#11 Day Rank · 105 upvotes · 160 followers

I led the Makko AI Product Hunt launch end-to-end: press outreach, founder email campaigns, paid directory placements, and platform-wide distribution coordinated across six channels simultaneously. The launch playbook was written before launch day so the team ran a documented sequence instead of improvising. The signup graph above shows the result — the launch event seeded the April compounding curve.

Product Hunt page for Makko AI showing #11 day rank, 105 upvoted points, 160 followers, AI Generative Media category, launched 1 month ago — Product Hunt · Makko AI launch page · #11 day rank.

Ghost CMS · The content engine

56 articles published across 10 topic pillars

The Makko AI blog. Tutorials, devlogs, comparisons, alternatives, and deep-tech insider posts shipped against the SEO and AEO Master Playbook — every article gets a keyword target, internal link plan, and schema markup defined before writing begins. Drafts run through Claude and Cursor with custom prompt libraries I version like code. Every draft is human-reviewed before publishing.

Ghost CMS success banner: Boom! It's out there. That's 56 posts published. Featuring article How to Write Your First Prompt for an AI Game (What the Makko Team Actually Does) — Ghost CMS publish confirmation · 56 articles shipped.

Team

Co-founders

Makko AI's founding team brings senior leadership experience across Amazon, Penny Arcade, Twitch, Nintendo, and EA Games.

Jeremy Bird, Co-Founder, CEO and CTO. Former senior-level engineer at Amazon (S6 band). LinkedIn
Anthony "Tony" Valcarcel, Co-Founder. Previously at Twitch Prime, Nintendo, EA Games, and Amazon. LinkedIn
Mike Fehlauer Hayes, Co-Founder. Helped create PAX. Former Vice President at Penny Arcade. LinkedIn
Kyle McCool, Co-Founder. kylemccool.com