In the world of entrepreneurship, there are some people who can be heard without shouting. Cris Urzua, who was born in Cancún, Mexico, on May 8, 1989, is primarily that type of person. For more than ten years, he has been creating companies, imparting sales techniques, and influencing digital marketing practices throughout Latin America.
Urzua was featured on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine long before half of the individuals who currently identify as “founders” had even registered an LLC. That was in December of 2009. He was twenty years old.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider that. In 2009, the field of digital marketing was very different from what it is now. Social media was still getting established. The majority of small business owners were still learning how to use email newsletters.
This young Cancún man was creating frameworks that other people would later package, rebrand, and claim as their own. According to his website, “Most of today’s ‘gurus’ learned from us… or copied us and bought a Lamborghini.” This statement is straightforward and somewhat humorous.
One of Urzua’s four businesses, MAS Academy, focuses on assisting entrepreneurs in expanding their enterprises through digital marketing, sales training, and, more recently, artificial intelligence. The others include NDEFI, which aims to assist people in creating digital businesses from the ground up, Elanda, an AI and digital marketing implementation agency, and Café 4AM, which reflects his well-known love of early mornings and coffee. Four businesses, each with a different goal. It feels like a man who thinks in systems rather than disorganized.
A lot of his ideas about sales were outlined in his 2015 book Everybody Sells, which was straightforward without being combative. The main point was straightforward: salespeople aren’t the only ones who can sell. It’s a life skill. You are selling something whether you are negotiating with your own children before school, pitching a product, or persuading a partner.
He was named “The Man Who Changed Sales Forever” by Forbes in 2019. That’s a bold headline, but it doesn’t seem overly dramatic when you see how his students explain the change in how they approach business.
Over two million entrepreneurs, over 340 webinars, clients, and students who collectively claim more than $300 million in additional revenue generated using his strategies are just a few of the numbers that show up across his platforms. He takes care to point out that those outcomes are self-reported. In an environment where exaggerated claims are frequent and seldom challenged, that level of transparency is actually welcome.
It’s not just the scale that makes Urzua intriguing. It’s because, in a field that equally rewards performance and exaggeration, he has remained comparatively grounded. His social media presence—nearly 800,000 followers on Instagram alone—reflects a blend of real parenting moments, business-related content, and sporadic candor about the challenges of being an entrepreneur.
First and foremost, he identifies himself as a husband and father, and his discussion of his family doesn’t sound like a marketing ploy. It reads as though the author truly means it.
In recent months, he has also focused a lot on AI, investigating how tools like ChatGPT can alter the economics of business operations and freelance work. He argues that those who know how to use AI can provide more value rather than less, not that AI replaces value. That’s a more nuanced perspective than most, which is probably why people continue to listen to him.
Beyond follower counts and revenue claims, there’s something enduring about Cris Urzua’s career. He built things that outlasted trends, started early, and maintained consistency. More than anything, that could be the point.
