Dan has worked on 17 startups across 15 industries. Early on, he realized his brain worked differently than most people. Back then, there wasn't a name for it. He just didn't fit in boxes. In traditional, structured environments, that became a real problem. But in startups... pure chaos... it became liberating. He discovered that his wiring lets him shift easily from tactical to strategic to tactical again, seeing patterns that others miss. He calls it seeing one extra color. His solutions don't live outside the box. They're planets away from the box. Some people would call it a superpower. In a traditional corporate environment, he says it's not helpful to put it mildly. But he's learned over the years that he can solve pretty much any problem, with two caveats. First, he needs to understand the problem. Second, sometimes the solution is worse than the problem itself.
The founder mentality
There's a difference between an entrepreneur and a founder. Dan says an entrepreneur is disciplined. A founder is a composite: part visionary, part catalyst, part glue. It's the ability to bring people together and keep them together, to build a vision and mission that gets people excited to work with you, not for you. His father was an entrepreneur who built businesses that succeeded and failed. Dan got to see both the struggles and the fascination. His father could have been a really good founder had the term existed back then. When I ask what excites him most, he says he gets excited when he identifies a problem, finds a solution, brings it to people and sees them realize that he understands where they are. That moment of connection... that's his fuel. I also pushed him on the difference between entrepreneur and visionary. He said both apply to him, though timing is everything. He started a drone detection startup in 2016, way too early. Nobody wanted to invest. Six years later, billions of dollars flow into that industry every year.
Givers and the future of work
Over the years, Dan's noticed he's had about 25 or 26 jobs total. The common thread in every one was helping people. He sees the future of work moving toward super freelancers... multifaceted people who can do a little bit of everything. Marketing, sales, design, building. They'll adapt faster to changing environments than people who only fit one role. He's become clearer about something too. He doesn't have time or energy for takers. He focuses on givers, people generous with their time, knowledge, insights. His core value is togetherness. He'd much rather be doing anything together with someone than going at it alone. This is one of his core realizations after years of experience. And he lives it actively too. He spends a ridiculous amount of time having coffee with people who just arrived in Malaga or joined the community. He's fascinated by their backgrounds, what they've done, what they're looking for. It triggers ideas, connections, thoughts. That fuel, that oxygen to the system, that's what drives him.
