From Millions in Debt to a $70M Company (My Turnaround Story)

Sean Weisbrot: Daniel Todd is currently the CEO and founder of Influence Mobile, a company which helps mobile games expand their user base while growing their influence. I wanted to interview Daniel because his story is a fascinating one, but which differs from all of the other guests we've had on before for one big reason in this interview, we discussed how he took his company from millions in debt to being on track to gross nearly 70 million a few short years later while. We also talked about some of the most nerve wracking experiences he has encountered while running businesses and how he sees his position changing within the organization. He's built as it continues to grow. When Daniel is not managing his business, he's advising other companies. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Daniel Todd, and I hope you enjoy how much effort we're putting into creating a better experience for you. Thank you. So Daniel, how did it feel to be millions of dollars in debt? Somehow turn it around. Let's focus on the feeling first.

Daniel Todd: Yeah. It wasn't good. You know, there was, there was a mixture of positive in the sense that at the time we had millions of dollars in debt. I was also seeing business momentum. And so we had, you know, there was some hopes, but you know, we weren't paying. We had to, we had this large, uh, office, we moved out, and so the. Landlord was suing us. We hadn't paid our Facebook bills, they wouldn't let us run ads. And we had laid off a lot of employees. And so my transparency had, you know, was pushed to the test at that point in time. 'cause I was telling all of our employees, which was, it was only seven of us at this time, what was happening? We got there, you know, kind of slowly. So, you know, as a startup you start with zero money in the, to begin with. And so you're constantly kind of raising money from investors and you're telling this story and you're getting people to, you know, see the same vision and hopefully move forward. And so it was definitely challenging when we had, we were in that much debt, but at the same time we had learned a lot of lessons. And so, uh, but yeah, it was super ugly, like. But I didn't wanna, I didn't feel like it was time to go home either. So I was talking to American Express and trying to negotiate the bills and like trying to figure out, and there was somebody who was threatening to put us outta business if we didn't pay their bill. I'm like, well, you put me outta business, you all get $0. That is 100% for sure. Right? So I didn't disappear. I talked to people, I told them what the situation was, I explained the thing. I came up with a plan in my head that I'm like, okay, well this, this could work. I, you know, we owed the most amount of money to Facebook, who was a big advertising partner. They were actually super cool to deal with. Uh, they let me push it out for many, many years, literally, of this like, I'll pay $5,000 this month, or I can pay zero and go of business. And so they let me eventually pay this whole thing back. I got a whole plan in my head of how I was gonna pay everybody, and then I just needed some money and I went and talked to our investors and explained to them, you know, what the plan was. Again, it wasn't like we were not making money, we just weren't making profit. And so like people could see the whole wheel turning and then we just slowly moved forward and it still was ugly for at least a good year. 'cause like we were, you know, the bill, even when we started making more money, the bills would go up every single month. Um, but eventually it got there. 18, 20 months later, we paid off Facebook. Uh, we were profitable, we were completely debt free. Like it was a pretty amazing trajectory.

Sean Weisbrot: It definitely sounds like that, and I, I'd love to go into that more with you. It, it sounded like at the time, like what Elon Musk is facing right now with Twitter now X, because I don't know if you heard, but like as of yesterday, uh, he couldn't changed the company from Twitter to X. Um. X being the name of the company he had founded before it became PayPal. So he's kind of going back to his original, uh, name where he is firing a bunch of people, not paying bills on, you know, the buildings he's leasing and, and all of that. It just seems like a huge mess. And, uh, you were able to get out of it. Who, let's see if he can get out of it, but this isn't about him. So how did you get into that kind of debt to begin with?

Daniel Todd: So the, when the company started, we were in a slightly different business and we, we pivoted to partner with Facebook when they first released Facebook Audience Network, where can actually show Facebook ads in your apps. And you know, in those days we were, before we launched the product, we were making, you know, thousands of dollars a day. Uh, and then we launched with them and within six months we were making a hundred thousand dollars a day. And so. But we were basically taking the money we were making from them and pumping it back into their ads to send us more business. So they were very much in love with us and I was very much in love with them. Right? So like they're giving me money to, uh, well I'm spending money with them to get me users. The users are seeing their ads. I'm giving them points for checking out these Facebook ads. They're like, it's crazy. How are the click through rates so high? I'm like. I'm giving people points for trying out your ads. Like, that's what you said I could do. And they're like, it's still amazing. I'm like, I, I don't, it doesn't seem that amazing to me. But here's the thing that was the problem is I knew that I didn't actually know what the person was doing, so I knew we needed to be able to actually reward people for doing things more than just installing an app and walking away. But during this whole time, it was growing so much and everybody externally was so happy. Investors were giving me more money. Everything was going along. I. Uh, but I kept telling Facebook, I'm like, you gotta share this data with us. And they're like, we, well, we don't got to. We don't have to at all, and we're not going to. And so, uh, so the, the way that it happened was we basically, basically built up a business to a pretty large scale that I, you know, was hopeful that Facebook would give us the data we wanted. And then when it became clear that they wouldn't, we started building our own system. But it wasn't like we immediately cut the advertising scale. And so by the time when Facebook did cut it, we were at a pretty big clip, but now we didn't have their thousands and thousands of advertisers, or tens of thousands of advertisers. And so we just, you know, we were spending a million dollars a month, so it didn't, it didn't actually take long to get a million and a half dollars in debt. It took like 45 days and we just used up our credit line and then it turned off. And our hope was that we were gonna make enough money to like, you know, we were cutting our costs and hoping to get the profitability didn't happen. Didn't happen. So, but there was a lot of things at the same time, because we knew we needed to make direct relationships, I actually partnered with a company that I'm not gonna name, and they just became this transitional force. So they, they, uh, owned some of the most popular games in the world. They basically trusted me in this rewards model to make things work out for them. And we started with them giving me, you know, $5,000 a month. Which I'd pay like net 30 and eventually I got them to prepay me half a million dollars a month. You know, it took a long time to get there and that totally changed our business. So during this like dark time, I was still working the business side thinking like, okay, well what's working? Here's work's. Working for the clients, again, talking with them, explaining to them what I needed from them to give them more, uh, more users. And then that cycle worked and then them starting to prepay us. Changed the, the, the cashflow model from me having to collect net 30 and pay like net five to the opposite where I was collecting my money up front, paying net 30, and then that changed the entire thing so I could spend more marketing dollars. And we went from, you know, during this window of time, we went from about, well, 3 million a year to this year we'll do just shy of 70 million in revenue. So all based on that same concept.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, it's incredible how you were able to figure that out and make it work. I think if I was several million dollars in debt, I don't know if I would have the willpower to try to fight through that. 'cause I haven't been in anything that bad of a situation. And I mean, I, I, I had to give up 'cause the, for me, the option was start paying for it again with my, with my own money or walk away because no one else wanted to fund it. And I chose to let it die because I had already put way too much money of my own. Did you put any of your own in when you had started this, or how did you get started with it?

Daniel Todd: Uh, well, I, no, I had raised money from investors, but there was a time where I basically stopped taking pay. So I worked for about two years during this time period and used all my savings. So I didn't, I didn't put it into the business directly, like I didn't invest. Well, no, that's not true. I did put some into, yeah, so I put in money, but we had raised, uh, o over the course. By that time we had raised several million dollars, you know, now we didn't have that money at the time, obviously, but I had investors who trusted me and I'd get like 50,000 to a hundred thousand dollars at a time, but I'd have to pay that money back in six months with solid interest. So I just had to be very, I had to be, so I, I was basically taking these short term loans from investors and uh, I was able to calculate out the cash flow gaps that I needed based on these things changing. Right? And so, and there was like one time where we had a partner in the middle of all this kind of recovery. We had a partner that owed us like $400,000 and they were going out of business and they basically stopped paying their bills. And I'm like, that's gonna really suck that we get this whole thing pretty much back on track. Then we get destroyed by this. Uh, I feel like that's how business

Sean Weisbrot: works. Oh, yeah. It's just like managing, it's just like constantly managing obstacles that are trying to prevent you from having success.

Daniel Todd: Oh yeah. Well, even like a few months ago when Silicon Valley Bank went bankrupt, they had been our bank. If that had happened two years earlier, it would've been. Horrible. But we had diversified. Did you? No, we didn't lose any money, but we, we had money at risk. Like we were still using them on day-to-day basis. Uh, but we had moved our bulk of our money to another bank. Thankfully, I didn't even really think about that. That's just another risk that, you know, you could have all your money disappear 'cause the bank doesn't know what they're doing. So yeah, there's all these things, but, but here's what happened with that, with that company that decided they weren't gonna pay us. It happened on a Monday. And I generally, like whenever I have any kind of fear concept in my head, I try to figure out what do, how does that drive me to action? Instead of just dwelling on the negative, I'm like, well, what do I gotta do? I come up with a plan. And so that was actually the impetus to get this big client of mine to prepay me. 'cause I'm like, okay, who likes me? I'm like, if this company likes me, then do they like me so much that they would give me a lot of money upfront and. Like my business partner was like, there's no way they're gonna do that. They don't, they're like these, none of these guys prepay anything. I got on the call and I explained to them what I needed and they're like, sure, it sounds good. Send us an invoice. And they prepaid me. And then that started to change thing. So actually I took the, what was this very negative event, but it inspired me to take creative action. And so I, I wrote an article on this kinda like, did you ever watch the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow? Super interesting movie from a business concept. 'cause it tells this story about if she catches the subway and then she misses the subway. And I, it's a kind of a depressing movie, but this whole concept, yeah, kind of like, and you think that like the worst case scenario that happens in her life would be the worst thing. But actually her discovering that like her husband was cheating on her, ended up helping her out in the long run. So sometimes when we go through adversity, oftentimes, I mean, people always talk about. You wanna have grit and you wanna have tenacity. Well, the only reason you have grit and tenacity is 'cause you made it through these tough times. Right? So, um, and I had been through other tough times, so I knew that that's actually a longer story. But when you go through enough tough times, then little tiny tough times, I know that you think $3 million isn't. A little tiny tough time, but compared to other crap I'd gone through, I'm like, God, that's not that bad. I made it through worse. So it's just kind of a

Sean Weisbrot: 3 million sounds like a big problem. From where I stand,

Daniel Todd: it sounds like a big problem, but uh, I had dealt with bigger problems and made 'em through successfully. So then you're like, oh, well I made it through that problem. I can certainly make it through this problem. Right? And so, uh, but yeah, so you have to, instead of. All, you know, it's, it's easy to be stressed and have fear, but I constantly try to force that to be like envision what would have to work, what, who would have to say yes to what to make it. 'cause if you can't even envision a plan, then yeah, you gotta shut it down if you're, you know, there was a time where we had money in the bank and my first investor and my wife were like, you should just shut this thing down and take your money. 'cause we'd just. Uh, I was on the board of a company that sold, got an infusion of cash and I was immediately ready to put it back in the company. And they're both like, that is not a good idea. And I'm like, I know you think it's not a good idea, but I think it's a good idea. And we did it. And like I said, that that was on another. Inflection point for us.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm, I would like to go into that larger issue that you overcame, but first I'm curious to know what exactly did you say to this client to get them to flip to prepay? 'cause you said you told them what you needed, but I didn't hear you say at a high level that you told them what the, that there was a problem and you needed their help.

Daniel Todd: Uh, well I had pitched, I had pitched the, this, this 2, 2, 2 fellows on like a bunch of strategic things, right. Including them buying us and like all kinds of things, you know, 'cause you know, someone giving me $5 million for the company, I would've solved it. Like, you know, I, I was coming up with various solutions and just one of the things on this 10, so they actually said no to most of the things, but the one thing they said yes to was, I'm like, or instead of giving us millions of dollars and buying us, what if you just started prepaying us instead of be paying, you know, instead of paying me net 30. And then I, I basically told 'em, if you can, instead of paying me a hundred thousand dollars, 30 days late, right? 30 days after the month, if you start prepaying me a hundred thousand dollars, I can go from giving you this many users to four times as many users. Right? So the benefit to them was they get, and they wanted more of our audience, right? But I could only get more if I could get the cash flow right and start, 'cause I had to pay the Facebooks and the Googles at a certain time period. And that was worth it to them. And they were spending lots and lots of money. So in reality, the money they were giving me was, it was just, they were just fast forward paying it a little bit early, and I don't know why they said yes, they don't. I'm literally the only company in the world that they've told me that they've ever prepaid.

Sean Weisbrot: Maybe it's because you threw so many options at them and then that was the last ditch option. They're like, eh, that one doesn't seem so bad. I don't know. I do not know.

Daniel Todd: And you know. It was very positive outcome. But yeah, I mean, I gave them a lot of different options and I think they were inclined to try to do something. They were happy with us and they remain, they're still, this is back in 2018, there's still a huge client of ours. They've been very happy with our, uh, our relationship with them over many years that we no longer need them to prepay, like we delivered on all the promises that we told them they would get if they gave us the money. And we had had enough of a relationship, I think, where they had. Some trust. And I think that same thing, uh, same thing with investors. Like I was very transparent with investors. Many of our investors will say, you've told us all the good things and the bad things. And so when you, if you're going through a down a downside scenario and you have a lot of relationships that you've shared all the downside scenarios within the past, but you've overcome them, it really increases people's confidence that you can do what you say.

Sean Weisbrot: So you didn't share with these two. Guys that you pitched that there was an issue you were facing and you needed that cash?

Daniel Todd: I, I don't know that I maybe emphasized the, the degree of my concern, but they also knew we were a startup that, you know, like I hadn't hidden the, where we were like they knew we were a startup. They were a much bigger company. Like no one asked you to prepay because they're in a super strong cash position. Right? Like, uh. And it wasn't like, again, most of it was cash flow, not that we weren't, uh, like the $400,000. It wasn't so much that I didn't have cash coming that would eventually cover everything. It was like there'd be a two week stretch where I wouldn't have enough cash to pay payroll. That would be very bad, right? I'd get the cash, but then, you know, two, two weeks late is not good for employees. So, no, I don't think I, I, I don't think I detailed that out to them.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, I, I've been there, there were two times I had to pay people late and I was really upset. And by then they started leaving. They, they could see, they're like, ah, it, it happened twice. It's gonna happen a third time. Yeah. And we have, and, uh, very shortly after that, we just let everyone go.

Daniel Todd: Yeah. They, well, I went without pay for a very long time. Then I had to have, have one other employee who was financially secure enough. He was willing to go without pay for. Various different months and I gave him more equity, um, and he got all paid back. So yeah, I mean, it's a risk. There's no doubt it's a risk, right? So, but you had to be, but when you start a startup, right, you have nothing and you don't even have a functional business and you only have an idea. But when you, where we were sure we were farther in the hole, but we had lots more information. We had. We saw the thing working, right? So you had built the widget. The widget was turning, money was coming out of it. Like you could see it working and so you're like, you know, if I wasn't $3 million in debt, this would be really awesome. And so, and again, most of that debt was, was in investors in Facebook. So I mean, a bulk of it was in Facebook. Like I said, to their credit, they were zero. They were not willing to write off $1, but they were very cool. With like a very long pay payback window, as long as they got all their money. So I credit that. And then the investors, you know, didn't totally have a choice, like, what are they gonna do, force outta business. So, uh, yeah, it was, it was ugly. But like I said, I had gone through. Uglier things and just realize that like you just gotta keep going through it.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work and every week we bring you a new guest and a new story. And what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back to the show now. So I think it's a perfect time to kind of touch on that. What was something that was really, I don't, I don't know if horrific is the right word, 'cause I don't know the context yet, but obviously you've mo mentioned in a plural that you've encountered other things and overcome them. So why don't you kind of share.

Daniel Todd: Yeah, so the very first, so I started a company in 1999 and it was, it was kind of like a pay people to surf the internet. This is kind of when like net zero and free eye and like you could get free, you know, dialers, you know, when a OL would send out, I don't know if you're even old enough to remember all these things. But there were these, these,

Sean Weisbrot: of course I am. I got a OL discs in the mail. I remember them.

Daniel Todd: Okay, there you go. Well, there was a time where you could get, like Kmart had a free dialer and you could get net zero, right? And you get internet for free and you'd see these ads at the bottom. Well, there was a company called All Advantage that came out that offered to pay people a certain amount of money per minute that they surfed on the internet. Uh, and that company raised a buttload of money and so we were doing something similar and so we're like, Hey, why don't we do this, uh, ISP thing? And so, uh, we started cutting these deals and this was all before, like the bubble burst in 1999. But anyways, we ended up owing like a hundred thousand dollars to people and they ended up bubble burst and we couldn't pay any of the bills. And people complained to the Washington State Attorney General. The Washington State Attorney General contacted us, which was very scary the very first time that it happens. But we just told them, told 'em exactly what happened. We're like, here's what was happening. We used to get paid X and we would share this much with the players and they earned this much, and we were collecting the cash and paying it out like this, and this is what happened and the internet crashed and now we don't. We instead of making this much, we make this much. We explained the whole thing to them. And they gave us a judgment, right? They're like, you have to repay all these people, but you only have to pay. It was like six, 6 cents on the dollar. So they gave us a judgment after explaining everything that was like, I'm like, so you're, you are formally, lemme get this right? You are formally discharging 94% of our debt. They're like, yes. I'm like, well that seems really good.

Sean Weisbrot: Right. So you had to pay 6,000 at the end.

Daniel Todd: Yeah. Some very reasonable amount of money, but you also had legal fees and all of that, which I assume was higher. I don't know. It wasn't, we didn't even have lawyers. We just con, we just talked with them. We were like late twenties startup people, you know? We were just being really honest and that transparency and honesty, I think gets you a long way. It doesn't always get you the way, and so they gave us. The ruling we're like, we can live with that. And then we did it. And then years went by and the company recovered and we started growing. And I don't know if you remember, so that business that was this like dialer became the toolbar business that ultimately Google and Yahoo dominated. But there was a time where we. Got caught up in what was called spyware and adware. So we were delivering ads on people's computers. Right? Yeah. And so, uh, there was a time where all the companies in the space were getting investigated and the FTC came knocking on our door. And I was like, that's very scary. But I remembered what happened with the Attorney General, and I knew we weren't doing anything bad. Right? I mean, we're showing ads. People think that's bad, but like we weren't. Russian mob stealing, like, you know, trying to steal people's credit card numbers. And so the FTC did a multi-year investigation. There was only like three people in the company, including myself, who could even know about it. You couldn't tell anybody without getting in big trouble. And so, but they were largely investigating. I was the business guy. They were largely investigating my deals. Like, were we in collude? Were we colluding with Russian mobsters to steal people's data? I'm like, no. What? We're not, yeah, no. 'cause there was a company that was doing this. You know, you've heard of only one you've heard of like spyware, right. And like botnets, like they, this is like a legit thing. We eventually worked with the FBI and help the FBI set up stings on Eastern European mob because of like our business. It was crazy. So that's what I'm saying. So like it started with the what? That state attorney general one, and then we did the FTC. I was telling our board, I'm like, I know you guys are freaking out right now, but trust me. When this gets done, it's gonna vindicate that we never did anything bad. Like we had thousands and thousands of partners distributing our software. And it turns out some of them were doing it without player consent. And we got caught up in this whole thing, and I spent time in Washington, DC talking to Congressmen. But so these,

Sean Weisbrot: do you mean that these, these, uh, referrers of yours were adding code to your. Your toolbar or they were, how were they, you said they were doing it without, uh, player permission. What does that mean?

Daniel Todd: Yeah. Yeah. So there, there was a way to do it on computers years ago that was called the Drive by Install, where you could use like some kind of JavaScript to force because it was basically like, if you remember a long time, same time period, like there was this shareware sites where you could download like kaza, like all the early music, uh, companies. When you want to download those, it would be like to get this. You also need this and this, and this and this, and you would install this other software. We were one of those places, places, uh, software products. And 98% of the people who distributed our software did so above board, but some of them didn't. Some of them installed it well, some of them installed it with, uh, with the, um, botnets. You know, they were literally European dudes hacked other people's computers when they were sleeping. They would install software in the background. The next day that person comes and sees our ads and they're like, you know, what the heck are you doing? They'd complained to us, they'd think we did it. We're like, we're not doing this. But they couldn't tell us where they got it anyway, so after he years of investigation, FTC shut down some companies in the space for doing exactly what people accused them of doing, and we didn't have those problems. And so. Uh, so like, it just, those are, and then there were more, there continued to be controversy. Right? And so, uh, in the same business, same thing. Yeah. So there was somebody who accused the CEO, my business partner, of giving them stock instead of stock options, even though we had all these emails and, uh, it resulted in lawsuits and the tens of millions of dollars, which all got settled. But like all the, every single time, what would happen is this thing that seemed really horrific, uh, ended up becoming reasonably manageable. And so like time and time again, and we, and we just dealt with it because number one, we knew we weren't doing anything wrong to begin with, right? So like we were in a, a new space and there were lots of people, there were people who were bad actors. So it was reasonable for the people. Interviewing the bad actors or chasing them be like, well, they're doing something similar. They're probably bad, but they didn't really ever have, like they didn't know, they just were guessing. So after all of that shenanigans when we started this company, like just being a few million dollars in debt, you're like, ah, I probably can figure it out. So plus going out of business at the end as opposed to giving up and just going outta business. Resulted in the same thing, right? So I just, you know, I stuck around as long as I could. Like, like you said, if I had, uh, there was a time where we got down where we basically had zero more money. I had no personal money left, so I couldn't have carried it forward. So if investors hadn't believed in me, it wouldn't have gone forward. Um, but I'd like to believe that the legacy of my previous behavior is what built up for them to feel comfortable. I. Lending you the money.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I couldn't imagine going through any of those things. I feel like they would all be like world ending for me. Just the anxiety of of having these three letter, three letter bureaus coming after P would like Yeah.

Daniel Todd: Well the first one was definitely the scariest. 'cause you didn't have any context. Right. But after you do one, you're like, well that actually oddly turned out really beneficial. It was kinda like when those, that company that was gonna pay owe us 400 grand and said no. And then I ended up. Asking these other guys a prepay, I don't know how we would've ever grown as fast as we did. Had that one kind of like event not driven me to, to take this action, right? Because I wouldn't have necessarily thought to ask for prepayment because everybody I talked to are like, nobody does it. But what do they say? Necessity is the mother of invention. So I had the necessity and I came up with a plan and I had no idea that they'd say yes, but they did. And I. We moved along.

Sean Weisbrot: I try to never make assumptions. I mean, of course I'm, I can't just, I can't just say I try to never, 'cause I do make assumptions. Everyone makes assumptions, but with that in mind, I try to limit the assumptions I make, and maybe it's because I see my dad as the kind of person that makes tons of assumptions in a way. Like, oh, you can't negotiate with that insurance company. They'd rather just kick you off and let you find someone else. I was like, but how do you know that if you don't ask? So like I, instead of, instead of being told this is the reality, I always have to go forward and go, but is it, and can we do something?

Daniel Todd: Well, you're just making positive assumptions. There's a lot of people who make ne, you know, you're making assumptions one way or the other. Right? So my assumption was there was a way to solve the problem. Right? So you're an envision. So I'm generally more of a person envisioning positive outcomes, right? So. I don't, it's not that I don't have anxiety, but I generally am a more glass, half full kind of operation, right? So I wake up thinking I'm going to find things that work out. And there are some people who they only see problems, right? And there's, there's a time when that's very necessary. But as an entrepreneurial skill, being more optimistic is, is a very, very big benefit.

Sean Weisbrot: I would say my daily outlook is. There's more problems than I'd like to deal with, but. My assumption is I could probably solve most of them relatively easily by just like making this positive assumption as you said, that a solution can be created. Even though I don't know what that looks like right now. And I don't know how long it's going to take 'cause I don't know what obstacles will get in the way of making that happen. But I have to try. And so for example, uh, my dad and I went and took my mom to get a car this weekend. She had her car. It was a 2006 Acura tl. She had it for 17 years, so she got it zero miles off the lot. Brand new, bought it 17 years and. When we went, uh, we ended up getting a 2022 Acura ILX, which was like 35 something, whatever off the line. We got a, it's like a year and a half used. So we ended up getting like $15,000 off a car. And when they came to us to talk about financing, they're like, okay, space Coast Union is gonna offer you 6.9%. My data has a credit score of 800. It's like 6.9%. They're like, oh, that's a really good deal. And I'm like. My dad was like, yeah, no, we can do that. I'm like, what about Honda of America? Like, what do they say? And they came back and like they could do 2.99. I'm like, great. We just saved literally a hundred dollars a month in payments, which is 1200 a year over a five year loan. You're looking at like six, $7,000 of interest saved just because I asked that question for one second. So my dad's the kind of guy who's like, ah. And I'm like, no, why Ed? Like ask. And so when you do that, and like, I ended up getting four or $5,000 off the price of the card that they wanted just because I was like, look, this is my price. If you can't give it to me, I'm out the door. And so like, but it took a, it took a few hours, but I got everything I wanted. So like I have a, I interviewed a guy, um, two years ago on the podcast who owns two dealerships. And so afterwards I texted him like, Hey, I got my mom a car, or I helped my mom get a car. This is, you know what it was, this is the deal. And he was like, this is an incredible deal. He's like, I don't think, he's like, I don't think like you could have done any better than you did. And I'm like, great. Um, so I felt, I felt, as you said, vindicated, it felt good to be able to do something for my parents while hopefully showing my dad, Hey, if you just like ask questions. 'cause when I said to them, I said, I like. Don't say a word. I'm gonna do all of the negotiation, just like, this is for her, but I'm doing everything. Just keep quiet. Let me talk. And they're like, okay. So hopefully, 'cause like I, I harp on 'em all the time. You gotta ask questions you got, 'cause my mom taught me to ask questions. My mom is like the queen of asking questions. Don't point the, she like annoys people sometimes. Which also may, may, might have made it easier for me to, I think, hone my skills as an interviewer. But my, I think my dad needs to see it in action to go, oh. Maybe I should have a little bit more courage to stand up for myself, although he's like 66. So at this point, who knows? But

Daniel Todd: well, sometimes it's not encouraged. Like, you know, I've seen people with enough money that they, they don't necessarily want to do it. Like it's just a convenience issue. But yeah, it can be both, right? So,

Sean Weisbrot: well, the thing is like they're trying to retire. And they don't have passive income, so the minute they stop working, they have to rely on what the government gives them in their savings. And if they don't change their lifestyle, now that money's not gonna last. So that's why it's like you need to make these changes. And so, you know. Sure if you have 10 million in the bank, fine. You probably don't need to think about it. But for most people, they have to make those changes and most people, especially in America, live way beyond their means. Um, and my parents are a pretty good example of that. Unfortunately, thankfully living in Asia and Europe, I've learned to live quite, I don't think minimalistic is the right term. It, it's probably a good term. But like I try to live beneath my means. That doesn't mean I have a bad life. I'm traveling all the time. I'm enjoying myself, but I. I try not to spend more than is necessary where I think a lot of people just don't think about it. So, so your business is, is on track to do 70 million in 2023 optimistically?

Daniel Todd: Yeah. Somewhere, you know, north of 64 or south of 70. You know, I. If we hit our stretch goal, we'll hit 70.

Sean Weisbrot: And how many people are on the team now? About 65. And they're remote or they come to off to the office now,

Daniel Todd: primarily remote. So there's about half of the people? Well, no, it's about 60% in the United States and about 40% in Canada. We bought a company, uh, that was one of our largest, uh, sales and marketing partners in 2021. So two years ago. Then we have a few people outside the US and Canada.

Sean Weisbrot: So this Canadian company gives you the added benefit of having their own slew of can of clients, or are they just only working on this company now?

Daniel Todd: They, yeah, so they, well there's a small, there's an agency that represents, you know, so yeah, they, they had relationships with game developers. I had that one that I talked about that was very critical and they had dozens of those. And so I worked with lots of people like them that had all these other relationships, but most of them wouldn't. Take the time to actually explain what we did. This rewards ecosystem was very new back then. And so, uh, to their credit, the sales team, which is amazing, and the president really took the time to educate these game developers on what we were doing and how it was different. 'cause I explained to them how much it worked with our primary client and when they did it, they were very happy and they spent more money. And there became a time where I was like, Hey, I've got this proposal. We were doing about four $40,000 a month together in business, and we were keeping like roughly 70% and they were keeping 30%. And I said, Hey, if you'll take 20% so we can spend more on marketing, I'll send you more business. And we'll eventually, you know, grow together more and more and you'll take a smaller cut, but you get more dollars together. And they agreed to that plan in, uh, it was 2018, and so roughly two and a half years later. We were doing $4 million a month together in revenue and we, we finished acquiring them and it was all because as we, 'cause we needed to, we spend money every day to bring in users into our app. And so the margin is more important to us. For them, they were existing agency, so they didn't have as much, you know, uh, they had a smaller fixed cost, so as long as they just made more total dollars, they didn't have cogs and all these other things, and so it worked out very nice. I'm very happy with it.

Sean Weisbrot: Sounds like it. Yeah. So as all of these things have happened and you've seen your company grow so fast, how do you see the way your role as, or how, how do you see your role adapting or do you see your role changing at all?

Daniel Todd: For, for sure. Uh, in, in most of that time, from 2018, to call it 2021, I was an individual contributor 90% of the time, so I was still a leader of the company. We had a very small number of people. So I was literally doing the marketing every day. I was doing these business development calls, like, uh, we had developers and some customer support people and people handling redemptions, but I was kind of like the main business guy. And then as we got bigger and bigger, it stopped being about me doing all those things. I couldn't keep doing it. And hiring people, you know, I generally like to backfill people that could do the jobs that I was doing. Um, and that went. Well, and now it's mainly vision setting and making sure that everybody's happy. You know, like we're very, uh, having a good culture and having people being very productive. We're still a very product driven company. The product that we make and the what, what happens? Um, it's very important. And so like I focus on making sure that, that people never leave. So we haven't actually had anybody quit the company in the United States. Uh, since pre 2018, or actually 2018, so it's been six years since somebody quit. And that's an important part for me because like people get more knowledgeable the longer they stick around. So I want people to be more productive and it improves the quality of the company. So I focus a lot on making sure that people are motivated, they have clear goals, uh, they're compensated fairly. And so that's probably where I spend most of my time. And then I, I still love product ideation, so. I'm, I'm building some new games that I get to get my hands dirty on actually coming up with the ideas, but even that, like a lot more of the product management and we now have a team that does all these different things, so. You know, we've productized or we've created groups of all the different activities that I've done, and now I just manage those people.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you see yourself slowing down at all or retiring or selling this business? Or is this something that you think you'll continue doing? Because like I, I think for entrepreneurs, the idea of retiring is very difficult. I think we would all be lost if we had literally nothing that we needed to do every day. How do you see that kind of as your career is, is reaching a high point?

Daniel Todd: I love what I do. I did actually, I, I took a year and a half off back, not in a very good time, but like 2007, 2008, I had sold a part of the company that, my first company that I started took a year and a half off. Yeah. And it was weird. I had, I had kids that were like teenagers, so I played a lot of Call of Duty with my son and he loved that. And so like, I got to spend time with them. But yeah, to me the a perfect kind of my, my perfect life is. Close to what I'm doing, maybe just not as many hours per week of working. Um, but I love, I love connecting with the team and helping people. One of my favorite parts is, is, is hiring people and putting them into this perfect position and then them watching them grow over the years and taking up more responsibility. Uh, and so I like that part. Uh, so our, our plan all along has been to sell the company and I've been very transparent about that. In fact, I just met with every. We have 65, I think I've completed 60 in the last month of one-on-ones with every single employee. We're rolling out this new, uh, I call it a Coin Fluence bonus program. It's a profit sharing program tied to us hitting $20 million in ebitda, um, which is a little bit more than one and a half million dollars a month. And when we, when we pay out and we hit this goal, which is 1.5 million a month for, for any three months in 2024, I'm gonna pay out a million dollars in bonuses. Uh, and it's gonna go, it's gonna be tied to the value of these coins. So I'm gonna give out a certain amount of coins. I don't know the total amount of coins. I'm gonna take a million dollars, roughly, divide it by the total coins and everybody's gonna get, kind of, get their pro ratta apart. And so, like, I just spent a very significant amount of time this month doing that to set this vision towards this goal and making sure everybody knows where we're headed. Um, and so, you know, that's kind of where I would say I'm spending most of my time is in, in that area. And when we do sell, you know, I've. Uh, I don't anticipate leaving all that quickly, right? I imagine sticking around for several years and getting to continue to do just the parts of the business that I love, and, you know, having more and more people doing other, other parts. So

Sean Weisbrot: what's the most important thing you've learned in life and in business to date? And that'll kind of move us towards our closing thoughts.

Daniel Todd: Uh, it's 100% about the people you work with, like. I always, and I've said this so many times, people are probably sick of it. I will always hire a person who's a hundred percent cultural fit, and I can even explain what I mean by that. Uh, and only a 75% fit for the job. 'cause I, I have found it's way easier to train people to do technical tasks and to do business tasks than it is to find somebody who you wanna work with every single day and then everybody else wants to work with. So, uh, it's very important to me to find people. Which, when I, when I define cultural fit, it's primarily somebody who has a growth mindset that believes that they can learn and that people around them can learn. It's not the person who wants all the glory and who wants to become, you know, the smartest person in the room. It's more people are focused on a team effort. We all work together towards a goal and like lots of times, almost every week, somebody that's new here is like, you've built this amazing company. And while it's true that I, I got the building blocks. Going in the right direction every single day. Each of the employees that work here make it a great place for everybody else. And that is what, in my mind, is the most important thing. 'cause if everybody enjoys coming to work, they have a clearer sense of what they're supposed to do. You've given them the right training. Like it's hard enough to be successful in business, but just coming up with an idea. But if you don't have that infrastructure in place. It's nearly impossible. So I focus on that infrastructure and then you can pretty much take that concept and apply it to any business. And then, you know, you've gotta iterate through through that stuff. But it's all about the people and enjoying coming to work in my, in my opinion.