Daniel Fagella. He started a mixed martial arts gym when he was an undergrad and sold it after getting a UPenn graduate degree in cognitive science. He did turn his grad school thesis on skill development into an ecommerce business that grew for 4 years, reaching $4.2M in top line sales and recently sold it for a million dollars with 90% paid upfront. He’s now using his funds for TechEmergence.com in order to influence global AI policy for the better.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Plutarch’s Lives What CEO do you follow? – Last bio he read was Marcus Aurelius’ Favorite online tool? — Asana How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Daniel would tell himself that dealing with the existential human condition could be done by contributing to a much bigger world
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:20 – Nathan introduces Dan to the show 02:08 – Dan was studying skill development and goal setting science in psychology for his undergrad 02:17 – Schooling was expensive; Dan decided that he’d rather use himself as a skill development guinea pig than a pizza deliverer 02:40 – Dan started teaching and making money at the back of a carpet store 03:11 – Dan’s jiujitsu gym was the smallest business back then 04:03 – Dan sold the gym after 3-4 years with $250K ARR 04:14 – Dan was 25 when he sold the gym 04:41 – The membership fee was $157 05:07 – Dan sold it for over $100K with 10% upfront to his right-hand and friend 05:45 – The business ran for over 2-3 years after that 06:05 – Dan took $30K from the $113K 06:36 – Dan was also making $20K a month selling martial arts instructional resources online 07:09 – Dan was using Infusionsoft for his e-commerce business, Science of Skill 07:56 – The e-commerce was doing around $200K top line 08:42 – The biggest cost for Science of Skill was on merchant processing, customer acquisition, advertising and affiliates 09:26 – Dan likes to spend half of his CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) on acquisition 09:42 – The CLV for membership programs were around $100 and affiliates $50-60 10:00 – One of the affiliates was Survival Frog of Byron 10:23 – Byron drove Science of Skill into 6-figures 10:44 – Dan was paying affiliates upfront 11:15 – Byron of Survival Frog was on Episode 395 11:44 – There are agencies who get onto their email list by paying 12:14 – One of the agencies is com 13:02 – Finding the right people to advertise and won’t tag you as spam 13:11 – Dan will find firearm sites in com—go through the website owners and email them to find the right people to target 14:11 – Dan sold Science of Skill in February 2017 for a little over a million dollars 14:22 – Science of Skill was valued by the multiple of net 15:11 – Science of Skill revenue in 2016 16:27 – Dan’s ultimate goal 16:31 – The buyers are a private group of 2 buyers in Ohio who previously ran SaaS businesses then sold them to the government 17:05 – Science of Skill should be at Inc 500 for 2016 17:13 – Dan sold Science of Skill because he believed he has better and bigger things to do in life 17:25 – Dan’s core objective involves the global conversation of neuroscience and AI 17:48 – TechEmergence focuses on the business applications of AI 18:08 – TechEmergence is not making money, but will make money primarily through advertising 19:09 – The goal now is to scale and make traction 19:21 – Current cash burn 20:05 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
You can start your business literally anywhere. Focus on your goals and objectives, even if it means having to burn cash. The future will probably evolve around n_euroscience and AI.
Resources Mentioned:
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio booksShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
