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 books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

711: Bootrapping into Silicon Valley

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders