A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people. ~ Will Rogers The other day I was talking with my mom – who owns a delivery service – and she asked, “Dan, you know a bit about business, what can I do to grow?” (You may find this funny, but I’ve never ...

As a teenager I was a “skater.” One of those kids who hung out downtown and annoyed the pedestrians. Skateboarding is how I spent my teenage years. Was I any good? I like to think so. Towards the end of my skating days, I almost got my 360 flips dialed in, used to launch myself straight off huge ...

In 2009, I was at a party in San Francisco and had a chance to talk with Keith Rabois about startups and why certain ones succeeded, while others failed. As someone who’s invested and been involved with some of the best companies (Square, Slide, PayPal, etc.), his insights were extremely profound. ...

Did you know making more than $75,000+/year won’t make you any happier? Most people think that more money will make them happier. It won’t. Being happier comes from within. Most people associate having more “stuff” with happiness. “If I only had a nicer home, car or body, I would be happy.” ...

Did you know that the highest paid profession in America is professional speaking? Speakers can earn between $5,000 and $10,000 for a 20 minute keynote presentation. It’s the reason why great entrepreneurs know how to get up and share their message. They indirectly get “paid” by moving employees, ...

As the world evolves to one of “instant gratification,” it seems that doing business has as well. Even though I believe in moving fast and creating value for customers as quickly as possible, I do believe that we should take a long term view on building a business. Long term means that you invest ...

Roy Williams once said, “The risk of insult is the price of Clarity.” I truly believe that. Below are 7 questions that I’ve answered on Clarity using our Answers feature and I thought my responses could provide some Clarity (pun intended) for your startup.

“It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.” ~ Abraham Maslow All great entrepreneurs have this in common. They know what they want. But they didn’t always know what they really wanted. Most of them went through what I call Maslow’s Hierarchy of ...

“Marketing is the price you pay for being unremarkable”~ Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad. That quote cuts like a knife because it’s a simple reminder that we can all be doing more to standout in our businesses. The picture above is of Renee and I in New York after we got custom hats made ...

A few months ago I had lunch with my cousin who runs a property management company. He started telling me that he was having a hard time growing his business. So I asked him a few questions. I realized his challenge wasn’t in sales, it was that he didn’t understand his market or the “unit ...

Shit happens. As an entrepreneur, it’s inevitable that things aren’t going to work out as planned. Just because you came up with the idea, doesn’t mean it will work. That would be like working out at the gym and thinking just because you put the weight on the bar, that you should be able to lift ...