Modern-Day Renaissance Man with Dan Fleyshman, Ep #86

Dan Fleyshman is a social media mogul, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and angel investor to over 35 companies. He is the youngest founder to ever take a company public at 19. After licensing his apparel for $9.5 million dollars at the age of 19, he went on to scale energy drink products into 55,000 retail stores. Over the years Fleyshman launched and been involved in many businesses in a variety of industries.

He throws “Elevator Night” events, co-founded the “100 Million Mastermind Experience”, spoken at over 200 business events, and his agency “Elevator Studio” has spent over $60 million dollars with social media influencers for fashion brands, film studios, mobile apps & consumer products. Some of his most recent endeavors include Everbowl and Cards & Coffee. However, Dan’s main passion is his Model Citizen Fund charity which creates backpacks for the homeless filled with 150 emergency supply items inside. Dan has so much to share you definitely don’t want to miss it!

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

Who is Dan Fleyshman [1:15]
How it all started with Who’s Your Daddy [4:55]
Avoiding pitfalls of the rich & famous [10:54]
Misconceptions and missed steps that set people up for failure [15:43]
Getting into the trading card space [17:15]
Dan’s selection process when it comes to investing [24:32]
Why Dan invested over $60 million in influencer marketing [26:32]
Getting involved with Everbowl [30:58]
Knowing when to cut losses and when to get out [33:20]
100 Million Dollar Mastermind [39:01]
Model Citizen Fund [43:13]
The importance of a network [45:53]
Advice for a new entrepreneur [49:30]

Who Dan bets on

In Dan’s words, this is what he looks at when deciding to bet on a company or not.

“Supply matters, demand really matters, but in the beginning, you can't always tell. I'm just looking at if people care. If you came to me and said I sold 30k of juice then I know people care. And I can help you sell $300,000 or 3 million because people vote with their credit cards. The fact that 30 grand was sold at four bucks a bottle and you sold 7500 bottles. I know people care. If you tell me you have this great new juice company and you haven't sold anything, well, that's not for me because I don't want to be the Guinea pig. I would rather invest at a higher valuation a little bit later knowing that people care. It saves both of us time and energy. The next most important part is the CEO because I'm really betting on the CEO. This juice is interchangeable. The juice could become vegetable juice. It can become a pressed juice. It can become a juice cleanse and juice snacks. He might start making frozen juice for your freezer. Whatever it is will the CEO figure it out? Do I believe that at 3 am they're willing to work? Do I believe when they're at the convention and the lights go out, they're going to go get candles and figure it out? Do I believe that when a mess happens, they're going to clean it up and figure it out? That's what I'm betting on.”

Advice for the budding entrepreneur

Dan says the first thing is to just get started! When you have an idea spend the next day Googling everything. What do the competitors do? Who went bankrupt? Who raised a bunch of capital? Who has multiple locations? Who sold their stores? Who sold private equity? Who had lawsuits? Read everything about whatever it is that space is. Juice, phone cases, it doesn't matter.

Dan says it doesn’t matter if you want to open up a funeral home, a bowling alley, a plumbing company, everything is on Google. And all of them have conventions and trade shows. So research everything. Then dive in the pool. How do you dive in the pool? Pick your name. Go get a corporation. Open up a bank account. Get your social media handles. You don't need any pictures yet, just reserve the name. Go grab the name and get on every social media platform. It costs nothing to get social media accounts. The corporation is going to cost you a couple hundred bucks. The website is going to cost you $20. He’s asking you to spend a few hundred dollars and dive in the pool.

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Dan Fleyshman

On Instagram
On Twitter

Connect With Peter O. Estévez

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