#317 Davie Fogarty - The $1 Billion Dollar Online Strategy

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Guest: Dan Martell
Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@DavieFogarty  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daviefogarty


00:00 – Preview & Intro
01:43 – Growth and Virality
05:14 – Focus vs Scattered Thinking in Business
06:35 – Costly Failures and Learning the Hard Way
10:22 – Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
11:06 – AI, Dropshipping, and Faster Product Validation
16:26 – Finding Winning Trends and Market Timing
21:38 – Branding, Angles, and Differentiation
30:42 – The $1M–$5M Trap in E-Commerce
33:34 – Personal Growth, Discipline, and Mental Frameworks
52:30 – Shark Tank, Investing, and Daily Mentor

Chapters

• 0:00 Hitting One Billion And What It Means
• 2:20 COVID Tailwinds And Brand Preservation
• 4:10 Focus Versus Spread: Finding The Edge
• 7:00 Scaling Pain: Lessons From Near‑Failure
• 9:30 The Ten New Brands Mistake
• 12:05 Coaching, Credibility, And Comparisons
• 14:30 AI Accelerates Launch And Creative Testing
• 17:30 Stages Of Awareness And Finding Winners
• 20:40 Angle, Brand, And Channel Differentiation
• 23:00 Personal Brand: When It Helps And Hurts
• 26:40 Operations Before Content
• 28:30 The Three Pillars To 10x E‑Com
• 31:00 Offers, Unit Economics, And Pricing
• 33:00 The Five Million Dollar Trap
• 35:20 Founder Growth: Skills, Hiring, Finance
• 38:00 Process, Peace, And The Gap
• 41:00 Staying Grounded: Friends And Family
• 44:00 Documenting The Journey
• 46:30 Relationships, Change, And Commitment
• 51:00 Shark Tank: Deals, Misses, And Value
• 54:10 Marketing Versus Product: E‑Com And SaaS
• 56:40 Why Daily Mentor Exists
• 59:30 Community As A Force Multiplier
• 1:02:00 Cringe, Flexing, And Inspiration
• 1:05:10 Building Daily Mentor At Scale
• 1:08:00 Looking Ahead: AI And Next Plays

Transcript

Davie: 0:00

You sold over one billion dollars. That is the best conversation starter ever at a dinner table. I didn't really know what I was doing, to be honest. I was very lucky. I was probably the dumbest person running a $200 million business in the entire world. Focus is incredibly overrated, especially in the early years. The two richest people that I know that have just kind of exploded, just jumping in on all of these things, and he wins at them. And because of that, he learns so much more than the person that's heavily focused.

Darren: 0:29

Don't compare his year one to your year eight with the results, with the lessons, with the scares that come from that.

Davie: 0:35

The way you learn these lessons is incredible failure to the point where you almost lose the entire business. So those lessons are scarred into. You're not forgetting those. At this stage, AI is struggling to beat someone like my team.

Darren: 0:48

And this is because you sold over one billion dollars in sales. That is the best conversation starter ever at a dinner table.

Davie: 1:00

Well, we're lucky we're doing it now because I think we hit it uh maybe 14 days ago we hit the billion. Um, which is good. That was actually on my birthday as well. What? Yeah, my birthday lands on Black Friday, plus it also landed on the billion. So e-commerce is in my blood.

Darren: 1:18

It's also a good and a bad thing because Black Friday brings you so much joy, but so much misery. Oh, so much misery.

Davie: 1:24

I'm so tired, man. This is December 5th or something like that. I'm just so tired.

Darren: 1:29

But dude, like a billion dollars is absolutely insane. Like, how much companies ever have ever got to that level? Yeah, you you could probably, I don't know, maybe it is like sub 10,000.

Davie: 1:43

Yeah, I've been very lucky. We we grew so quickly. We launched the wearable blanket. Unfortunately, COVID was bad for a lot of businesses. We know that, but it did help e-commerce businesses, but specifically, it helped e-commerce businesses where people wore it at home. And it was just became this big viral product. I didn't really know what I was doing, to be honest. I was very lucky. I was probably the dumbest person running a $200 million business in the entire world. But yeah, it kind of exploded, and we managed to preserve a large portion of that business. It's not what it was once was, but by launching secondary products, reinforcing the brand, it's gonna be a revenue maker. And I do think we'll hit 2 billion in sales, maybe just a bit slower this time.

Darren: 2:25

Why do you think it's not what it was before? Like what are sort of signals?

Davie: 2:30

I think there's a certain level of when when one of the main inputs or multipliers is an external environmental event, such as COVID, there is only a certain amount of control that we have on that. I'm not gonna go create another coronavirus just to go sell some hoodies. So it's like, okay, how do we leverage what we currently have, which counts as something? It's we've got the email list, we've got the previous customers, we've got the incredible team, we've got cash and resources. We can leverage that. That's our new inputs, and we can play the field that we're we're playing at that point in time. But yeah, it's it definitely was like the old saying, like what comes up must come down. There is some truth to that in that side of things. I think there are some businesses, you know. I when I talk about this, I feel like it's a bit of a cop-out. You know, when you say something that maybe is slightly untrue and it makes you feel uncomfortable because you're trying to give yourself an excuse because there are some incredible e-com brands out there that went up like that in COVID, have stayed up posting record days the past couple of weeks. So, you know, when I look at the differences between them, first of all, they're just way more involved as operators, they're obsessed with e-com. I'm a little bit scattered all over the place with that. But at the same time, I think what they did was really preserve the brand as well. Um, they made sure that they were very, very streaked around discounting, making sure that the brand was strong. They weren't revenue grabbing, they're building for the future, and they probably just executed a little bit better than me in that period of time.

Darren: 4:10

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Davie: 5:14

Focus is incredibly overrated, especially in the early years. I think that the two richest people that I know that have just kind of exploded, one of them is doing well over $500 million revenue. He had multiple brands, was doing multiple different marketing channels. He was doing he and he still does. He's just jumping in on all of these things and he wins at them. And because of that, he learns so much more than the person that's heavily focused. And I think that that's very, very common. But at the same time, it's a it can be a double-edged sword. Like I think that certain people need to, when they find the right opportunity, the right channel, the right product, they should be incredibly focused and stay on that. But to be spread initially with your focus can actually be like a huge benefit as well. I think I went to spread, spread to I think I spread way too much. And then I had that opportunity, but then I stayed spread. And I should have been like a magnifying glass starting to focus on things and compounding them.

Darren: 6:23

What was an example for that? Because I think it's interesting when you look at those numbers and retrospectively go back, there's so much inputs you need. Yeah. Like logistics, fulfillment, like how do you manage that complexity at that scale?

Davie: 6:35

Because I guess the lessons that got you to a million and to 10 million, do you forget them or do you No, they're they're the way you learn these lessons is incredible failure to the point where you almost lose the entire business. So those lessons are scarred into. You're not forgetting those. It's always new lessons in the future. But an example of that is when I was doing, you know, I think it was 150 million dollars very, very quickly annually. I went and launched 10 other brands. 10. 10 other brands in that year that I invested $3 million, started literally everything under the sun. I could tell you some stupid stories of the dumbest products. What was the stupidest? The stupidest was probably that's a really good question. I think the stupidest was I thought ESKIs were really cool, like electric coolers were really cool. So I imported them. And because that was so hard to get because there's like a monopoly on these electric coolers in retail stores. So they own all the factories and whatnot. And I finally got them and brought them in. And I had to sell them three times as much as the the regular retail stores, which was just never gonna work because I had to ship them as well. You need retail presents for big, bolt, bulky products like that. That isn't the stupidest, but you put me off, put me off there by asking, asking that. Um, but yeah, it's it's you just learn those lessons and um and I think I have, you know, now I'm just a hundred percent focused on daily mentor, and I see that as a huge opportunity. So I'm a hundred percent focused on that because I'm playing with other people's money now as well. You know, I'm playing with other people's livelihood. So I'm not gonna make that same mistake again. I have opportunities to buy some incredible businesses at the moment, but I'm just not gonna do that.

Darren: 8:27

I guess the best way you can help you with Daily Mentor is you leading from the front and still having some great results with Audi and even other investments that you have, though. You gotta do it for yourself before you do for anybody else.

Davie: 8:39

Definitely. I think there's there's an element of how much past experience do you need to actually coach a brand at its stage? So if you know a person at a hundred million dollars revenue has learnt all of the lessons tenfold that someone building uh is at a million dollars revenue. Like there is really sure, maybe there's the way you articulate it, the connections that you have, they're a little bit different from a billion dollars revenue founder versus a hundred million dollar founder. But you know, I feel very, very equipped to help these million dollar brands become 10, 100 million dollar brands through through the education that I've got through UD.

Darren: 9:24

I remember watching a video of yours with one of your mates, and you mentioned him don't compare his year one to your year eight with the results, with the lessons, with the scares that come from that. And I think it's not just only revenue, it's also just maturity.

Davie: 9:39

Everything. Right? It's just maturity in the business. Everything don't compare how I'm speaking on this podcast right now when I've done seven podcasts before this. Don't compare how I managed to stitch a 12-hour day together when I've been working 12-hour days since I've been 18 years old. Like every single thing, never compare yourself to other people because chances are they've just had so many more reps. And the only reason you're noticing these people is because they're doing something extraordinary. They're the the the the reel where I talk about doing something extraordinary here will be the only reel you see because of the algorithms. So why would you therefore compare yourself to my most extraordinary thing that the algorithms are forcing on?

Darren: 10:22

Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you. Have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the that's the power of having a very specific focus and absolutely nailing it. I think uh one thing that's was really kind of apparent to me when I was doing even more research into your work is Audi's been around for quite some time now. But it looks like to me that with like AI production, AI creatives, AI development, that it's almost never been easier to get started with e-comm. Or at least that there's a better opportunity than back in the day trying to drop ship socks. What's your what's your thoughts on that?

Davie: 11:06

The main bottleneck. So we I I recently just launched an AI dropshipping store. I got AliExpress images, I uploaded them to a bunch of AI different softwares and created a store that is better than most. And then launched it, got $500 in sales in like it's in its fifth or so day. I did that super quickly. If we compare that to the old process of having to um order a bunch of stock, organize a model or a mum or or a girlfriend to come wear the product, film it, like idea. Like that time to validate products has shrunk dramatically. It can be done within a day. And I think that that feedback loop being closed will really accelerate our ability to launch more products. And then the the other thing is just the content production costs is rapidly dropped, which is uh quite a large expense for that industry. So I think now is definitely the best time to you know get into e-commerce and validate through AI.

Darren: 12:12

So let's explain that a bit more deeper in terms of how it used to work before. So you would have waited weeks possibly to get UGC creators and so on. But have you seen, have you been utilizing like AI video creation so for a lot of the products? Yep. Dude, I was at a I was speaking at um a conference in Bali recently, and Roy Flynn, he does a lot of like the UGC AI creation work. He spoke before me, and it was his his speech was amazing. He was showing all of those UGC products, how to split testing like 6,000 different variations, yeah, and it's costing them next to nothing. Yeah. What's your what's your opinion on that? Because surely this is going to be way easier.

Davie: 12:55

I think it's gonna be incredible. All you really need to do is go to Pinterest, find an image that you really like. Let's say you're selling handbags, you go find a beautiful handbag lifestyle image that matches your brand. Then you want to create a JSON file with that, which is basically computer language. It says, you know, background blue. It's just it's it it just really simplifies what the image actually is in text format for the computers to read. Then you create a brand new image with the AI tools that looks that that is similar to that image, but isn't that identical image because you're basically just giving it this is kind of the feel that I want it to be, and we'll create a brand new person, brand new handbag, brand new everything. Then all you need to do is go in and highlight the product and replace it with another AI tool, and suddenly your handbag's in that. And then you can just launch that ad. That will take five to ten minutes. And before, how long did that take you? Well, it would take maybe three weeks to get the sample, then it would take uh uh two, three days to actually shoot it with the model that you've organized to come over, then it will take maybe a week to edit it. So it could take you know months. And if you're trying to test 30 products, you're also for beginners, that's gonna cost every time you have to order that sample, you know, for someone like us, that's not a huge amount of investment. But when it's someone's first shot, you know, $200 investing in a business, they've only got one shot at a product. Now they can do that much cheaply.

Darren: 14:28

Have you observed some of the bigger companies using a lot of this too to come up with new ideas?

Davie: 14:34

I think that at this stage, AI is struggling to beat someone like my team. And this is because of and this will always be a question whether it's kind of supply and demand in that and the fact and the fact that it's an auction system. So right now, if you go into a Facebook ad account, there's a hundred creatives. One of those creatives might get 80% of the spend. Then let's combine all of our competitors and just assume they're all in the same ad account, because that's kind of what it is, they're all auctioning against each other. One of those prop creatives is still probably gonna get 80% of that spend. If that the day that there will be a huge inflection point is when the AI creatives can actually beat that one creative that's getting all of that spend. But right now, for me, investing $2,000 into a piece of content that's gonna produce me $100,000 of revenue is no big deal. So therefore, I'm willing to invest in that content. But that's where the inflection point will come. But the good news is for beginners, you don't need 80% of the spend for a brand new product. You might only need it to get to $1,000 a day, which is very, very possible with AI content.

Darren: 15:46

It's crazy, man, because like we were talking about earlier, it used to take so long to even see results if you're building out a store. Like even when I was doing this out of my bedroom in like 2016, it was going to take me twice as long. But it's almost like it's almost like it's just never really been easier to that degree. But I guess where are you seeing like opportunities now elsewhere? Because I I saw a lot of you're writing about um like picking untapped niches, untapped channels. So like TikTok shop is like the perfect example for maybe 2020 2023, 2024. How do you think about that right now? Like, where's your observation? Because you've obviously done this a thousand times.

Davie: 16:26

Yeah, I would still say go into e-commerce expecting that it's going to be very hard and take ages to build still. Nothing has changed there. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Every single business is incredibly difficult. And I would say e-commerce and drop shipping, while it's one of the most accessible and one of the most rewarding for beginners, it is still difficult to get mass scale. But to your point, the stores that you're seeing, again, the outliers that the algorithms are pushing to you that you're trying to compare to, they are people that have hit one of those trends. So we have stages of awareness. People are problem aware, people uh sorry, we've got people that are not aware, then they're maybe problem aware, then they're solution aware, then they're brand aware. What we want people to be, when we want to launch a product, we want to get something that maybe people are problem or solution aware, not brand aware. So if you're going, what's a I I know that I'm cold, so I'm problem aware, then it's like solution aware is like, oh, there's wearable blankets out there. But then if if that trend is currently in the brand aware, which is like I'm gonna get an hoodie, it's too late. So you want someone that were there that's problem aware, such as such as IceBus, were probably one of the big ones that scaled up brands doing over $50 million in their first second year. That happened because people were um people knew that uh ice recovery was starting to solve things, but there was no existing brand or solution that was portable at home. Introduced that product, there's already the awareness built, and they're the ones that scaled to crazy numbers initially. This is the time, this is the thing. It takes so much product iteration and testing to get those. I was lucky, I hit three winners in my first, you know, two years. They all went to like million dollar stores very, very quickly. But after that, I just told you I launched 10 other ones and they all flopped. So it was it does take time and it does take effort, and it does take um it takes you to be very observant and have a robust process to filter out trends.

Darren: 18:40

That's so awesome, man. From problem solution to brand, is if you look at like electrolytes, yeah. There's element, there's all the big names. I guess I would you say that's at brand awareness now level. Yeah. That it's past that kind of threshold.

Davie: 18:52

So when with it often when I talk about this stuff, I see it in two camps. I think that there's the novel, interesting problem-solving products that are slightly new technology that people, when they're scrolling their feed, they go, What is this? And it's just like, oh, this is this thing, and then it gets described to them and then it solves their issues, and then they purchase. So I would say that though that that's in those stages of awareness. When you get past that, and let's say everyone's quite aware around the product, everyone knows what electrolytes does, everyone knows these brands. You need to differentiate in a different way. And the differentiation needs to happen in terms of brand, in terms of brand positioning. Think liquid death. Like all of the waters out there were crystal clear, pure. Then liquid death comes in. The the anarchists, like then there's the gruns, the the gummy. I'm not sure if it's gruns or guns. I can't remember. But you know, a lot of the the supplements out there and the gummies and stuff out there were like were quite scientific. A lot of the supplements are out there. They're a bit more playful. Like they're the kind of opposite in terms of the brand um values that are people people are showing. Then on the flip side we've got the acquisition channel which you can differentiate in, which, you know, is comfort clothing is a perfect example. Yeah, I I've said this multiple times. Like Hudson, he owns Comfort Clothing. They're doing well over $500 million revenue. He's, in my opinion, the best in e-commerce at the moment. But what he did was differentiated through massive affiliate networks, TikTok creators, and built that engine. His product wasn't super differentiated compared to other things. He was selling hoodies. They did have some great features in them. But that was his skill set. So if you want to sell something that's commoditized in those stages of awareness, you need to have a different edge somewhere.

Darren: 20:50

Are you an agency owner, coach, or consultant looking to scale your online business? At Vulks, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high-ticket offer, create content that turns into clients and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025. That's so interesting. I'm trying to think of like other kind of random examples but it's it's basically down to finding like a wedge that's almost like the antithesis of what the market is going across. So Liquid Debt is a perfect example. If it's like water, energize all playful and they're coming with a different angle I guess like 90% of this is the angle though, right? Yeah. Would you say that's more than the product to some degree?

Davie: 21:38

Angle angle is similar to brand. Angle is the if we define brand, brand is a set of expectations that a set of customers has for the product. Your angle is setting those expectations around your product. So let's we can take any example let's say ice baths they're all you know Joe Rogan's jacked up men going in there. Maybe you design an ultra feminine ice bath or maybe you do one for people that party and drink too much the complete opposite demographic that you're currently selling to suddenly now people have trust in that suddenly now you have a reason to speak. Suddenly now you have pockets of audiences that will listen on Facebook that don't have ad blindness for you.

Darren: 22:20

Do you think that having like a personal brand is helpful for a brand or do you need it?

Davie: 22:26

Having a personal brand does not help you grow an e-commerce brand that has already been proven to have a viable marketing channel. So if you are currently already selling on Facebook and you're getting a little bit of results you should just go absolutely 100% focus on that until you're at a level 10, 20, 30 million dollars because it takes so much work to to grow these e-commerce businesses and it also takes so much work to grow a social media page. The only exception is when they're a professional and they create an unfair content edge for the existing product. Let's say you're selling a certain type of water flosser and you're a dentist clearly you need that content anyway. You're going to be producing it you may as well create the content engine for an organic side of things but also from a paid side of things because your best point of leverage is you sitting there filming content.

Darren: 23:24

If you look at Iman for Hills like that's a perfect example of leveraging the actual brand that he's built to basically be able to sell anything to some degree right yeah glasses are fucking awesome. I have two pairs myself but it's interesting how you could blend it in from that side whereas he didn't really need that in the first place. And I guess many people don't even know it anymore because it's hills right yeah it's not under guard you anymore.

Davie: 23:45

Yeah he can't sell anything but he was already dressing really well dressing was already one of his pillars of his personal brand so therefore by introducing that it wouldn't make sense if he started to do you know probably super oversized streetwear or something like that. But I think yeah the brands the best personal brands are extremely malleable you know but the more malleable you create the brand the less you're reinforcing to that core audience that you're actually trying to sell to so for me if I start doing content about social media marketing agencies suddenly my e-commerce content people, the algorithms all of that kind of stuff, they will be less confident in my ability to do e-commerce. This is the same you see this all the time like the only exception is Dyson when they release a hairdryer in the uh hand dryer in the bathroom and then a a vacuum you're kind of like that's great because they have the the the foundation of like technology as a brand but as soon as we go outside of those brand pillars which is why you need to define them people start to get diluted in terms of their emotion to you. How did your brand grow alongside RD? When I first started the brand there was no brand pillars there was no direction it was just like let's make money that's the brand um then we realized quickly that people were obsessed with the product and then we just asked ourselves why are people obsessed with this? What do people believe once they wear our product and it's just like we are creating moments of comfort and joy for them. And that then created the foundation. So for example when we launched our bathrobes we put a lot of function into them so they were very absorbent so people could wear them after the shower but then instantly everyone started emailing it's just like leaving us negative reviews. Like we we invested heavily into this product and they were like it's not comfortable and we're just like oh we've used the wrong fabric. I know that the function was supposed to be there for the product category generally but people expect it so much from our brand. So we changed the fabric to our UDI fabric and everyone absolutely loved it. So that's how the brands evolved now and we just don't do anything that isn't just extremely comfortable and soft.

Darren: 26:03

So that then as a result it's less about you having to be involved in a product strategy. Is there anyone that's leading that way though you look at George Heaton. Yeah George Heaton would be have you met George?

Davie: 26:13

Uh I haven't no link up with I've DM'd him I've I've chatted to him in DMs I believe his brother does a lot of the product specs and stuff doesn't he or I guess yeah both of them.

Darren: 26:22

But but I guess from his perspective he does a lot of the front end stuff as well but but I guess what I what I'm getting at here is that it's not hindered on the personal brand largely even for him right I think I don't want to speak for their business too much.

Davie: 26:37

I know a little bit because I respect them so much there's sometimes a difference between like when there's two founders and uh I I I even in their situation I would almost be like until they got to a certain level they shouldn't have been creating social media content because they somebody needs to be in operating the business. It is just so chaotic at the early stages. And this is why I don't want founders to look what I do and then go in year one it's like yeah we finally got traction let's talk about journey let's get a jet let's get a jet it's just like no like learn operations spend spend six months with an operations mentor and just learn it rather than going to shoot more content because chances are that the we we we're we're either marketing constrained or operationally constrained within businesses. Marketing constraint is can we attract customers? And then operationally constraint is like if we attracted a million customers tomorrow, what's going to break? Or like can we even handle that? Chances are if you're a marketing founder and you're chant wanting to start a personal brand, you're probably already being able to get customers and good at marketing. So go learn the other constraints within the business and fix them so that you can keep scaling the other side of the business.

Darren: 27:52

Yeah I think that's so important whether it's look uh e-com coaching agency if you can't like it's right it's from um there's a great book called 10x easier and 2x and the the the model is if you're not able to 10x your delivery don't even try look for those small incremental improvements like you need to be operationally sound to handle all of the shit that can come at you. So yes you want to go acquire customers you want to double your ad spend or triple ad spend can you take what's going to come exactly and I think it's just it's just universal for every business but it's funny because like e-commerce like everything on hard mode.

Davie: 28:25

Yeah yeah it it it really is but the main levers for e-commerce to 10x is 10x your your Facebook output 10x it's efficiency like your Facebook creatives different angles different avatars 10x your offer and your website and your landing page and then 10x your emails so the the secondary channels the emails is probably optional but if you fix those three pillars like you'll you'll scale so much quicker than small you know couple of YouTube videos here and there.

Darren: 28:57

How do you evaluate that I think this is really good like your decision making process so like somebody sold a billion dollars decision making process to look at the theory of constraints to look at top down where those issues are operationally.

Davie: 29:09

Yeah first of all look at how many creatives they're actually making if they're making if introducing two creatives a week and they're a million dollar business chances are that needs to be banged up a little bit then I would also look at their unit economics and the competitors around the product. So for example we had a brand I think they were doing $2000 a year they could not get Facebook ads to work. They had 500 products in their website and all of those products were selling for $40 we just created a welcome pack that included all of their best products at $110 suddenly their business 10x because they could suddenly start spending on Facebook. That's the offer change but then you've got to look at your competitors as well like some some businesses are you know some brands one that I've invested in is like 50% cheaper than the the competitors and it's like okay that's a value proposition that's a point of differentiation for them but it doesn't need to be that much so we can just simply jack up the price 20% 30% still bargain for the competitors but um a bargain for the brand but yeah it's just like fixing those offers.

Darren: 30:18

Really interesting because a lot of times it's doing less right yeah having less products having less like creatives in terms of variety to make sure that you're focusing on the right thing e-commerce very similar to SaaS in that way which is it may not be just a pricing issue like if the product at the end of the day right if the product is shit you're always screwed. So it's like having product first and then going backwards from there.

Davie: 30:42

Yeah e-commerce is hard because even if the product is great if you don't get it into their hands they'll never know and this is the main trap that everyone falls into I have this beautiful idea for this incredible product. They develop it it's twice the price of all of the competitors they've added a bunch of features sure those features are nice tabs but they're very hard to convey in a visual element on social media and then it just tanks. Whereas some people will strip down features change the color of the product and it will just explode and they they've taken things away so I think it's yeah all about understanding how the product's going to be conveyed but also the price point as well. Can you walk me through the five million dollar trap so I often see brands stall out at a million to five million and this is largely because of their product selection in the beginning if when you launch a product and this is one of the beauties of e-commerce and why it's so good you can launch pretty much anything very quickly very cheaply but because of that everyone else can launch it as well so you're kind of in this race to one figure out actually what you're doing but two get enough market share so that you can take the cash, invest in more but a lot of people struggle to execute on those. So they pick a product that maybe is like a dog bed that is scaling globally and then they can't differentiate that product enough to charge more they need to charge less and less and less and less and the profit margins erode and they end up around one to five million with one feature product, a ton of inventory and they're just like what do I do next Davy? Whereas if we can find from the early stages a brand with a natural product progression in terms of this is why clothing's so good. This is why beauty is so good. This is why supplements are so good. There is clear product flywheels that we can then create that will take you from okay that product did fatigue at five million I learned a lot there's a clear next product that everyone's going to want to buy and then launch it there. So it does get very difficult if you pick the wrong products early um so you just got to be really mindful of that when you're first selecting but again if you're a beginner don't even think about that just get to five million it's great. You know what I mean? Like it's it's okay. It's just like if you're a second maybe you're going for your second winner within your brand think about what you're shaping your brand to be.

Darren: 33:16

It's interesting because like a lot of the fact that your product needs to develop it's similar enough to you need to develop as the person. Yeah. I'd love to get some of your insights into like the person that you've evolved from because even when we first met man like three years ago you're pretty much like a complete different person. How much evolution has happened like internally for you?

Davie: 33:34

When I look back at all my 12 failures of business there's one thing in common which is me not being able to handle the problem that needed to be handled. That's kind of obvious there's no there's no consistent oh I launched them all in Australia or oh I focus too much on Facebook ads. None of these variables are consistent across anything because you learn so I have just been constantly trying to develop skills in every single area that I believe is within the constraint and that's always just been that's just always been different. I and often it's actually hard to find what that next thing that you need to learn is. For me the main thing was to get people around me that had already learned the next skill to unlock but it was really in hiring and leadership. It was really in finance and operations. I was just so bad at those things. So just by devoting myself to learning those things that's probably where I've grown the most but yeah it's been it's just a it's just a process you know what other kind of internal work do you do yourself?

Darren: 34:46

Like you obviously do like a lot of training a lot of yeah just what are kind of personal things you're doing personally as well.

Davie: 34:53

One of the main things that I've started doing everyone's heard of time mapping where you decide what you need to do by blocking out uh certain times in your calendar I've gone a step forward. So I have a list of things that I need to do that are like protocols like meditate like um a bunch of different things there and I'm actually tracking that on a daily basis and that has really taken me kind of to the next level because every single and then I have all my OKRs in that sheet and it's just like I'm just a much more organized kind of person. Does that give you more peace or more pressure the it creates you know I'm I'm hard enough on myself I don't like it I don't need anyone else to put pressure on me. It's as I put it pressure on myself but I am starting to become at peace because I've had so many bad things happen in business and I've made so many mistakes and I'm still where I am and I think when you zoom out when you make so many mistakes but then things keep going right as well you start to realize that it's only the process that really matters. So if I went to a young entrepreneur that's listening to this right now and I go if you wake up every morning you put effort in you are conscious about what you're doing you're a good person and you try to solve issues for people and create value in this world and you do that nonstop I can guarantee you you'll be successful. So therefore why would you care if you make a mistake why would you care why would you feel any pressure that things aren't going to work out because the process is all that matters. And I look at this now when I go okay the last two days I um I really fell off in terms of like my productivity and I used to go in this dark spiral it's like I'm never gonna hit these new records. I'm never gonna beat these people that I really want to beat. But now I'm just like wait that's part of the process I've done that so many times in the past so why would I just beat myself up about this it's not going to get me to go what sooner because I I'm I'm being negative about the situation. So and sure enough today went straight back into it back on back on the horse and that's the process so it it takes a lot of the pressure off.

Darren: 37:24

Yeah man that's a really good reframe. Yeah because I think if you look at it over a long enough time horizon a decade so much things are going to happen in a decade I think the only issue is if you're not actually doing the work and then you're complaining right you're just like okay this isn't going to work so I'm not gonna do it and then as a result of not doing it of course I didn't get the result that I want to do. I would almost prefer someone to do something and absolutely blow it up than not do it at all. Because they're gonna learn either intuitive like subconsciously or consciously you made a really good point though about a conscientiousness I feel like a lot of guys are just not conscientious about what they're actually doing. So whether that's like putting all their time into personal development or professional development that's like the issue right it's like if you're not and I often find that guys in particular are less conscientious. They're not retrospectively looking back and saying okay I fucked up here let's go make this change in this way which I feel like you've been a little bit harder on yourself than sometimes you you almost like need to yeah but that's why you've made so much such great results right you need to find the gap.

Davie: 38:27

So there's a term in meditation around or mindfulness that when these thoughts pop into your head you have the thought and then you have your consciousness. The consciousness can focus on anything any thought that it wants the consciousness is pure it's white then there's the the thought itself the gap refers to that small moment in time before that consciousness just loses control and just becomes the thought the gap is oh hang on can I challenge this thought and then it just kind of stops and that is what meditation and you can even do uh consci uh meditation around finding the gap which is sitting there eyes closed going okay who had that thought okay who heard that sound and then you're you're splitting like your ability to delineate between all of the things that are going on and you that that white pure energy that's kind of focusing on things. What's real or not? What's what's real or not and what's what's what's truly you because you've got the object and then a you and the thought is an object and you are you and you aren't your thoughts you aren't if you cut off your ear like you know if you cut it off enough body parts you're still there you know what I mean and so I think that's that allows you to start being being very conscious about what you're doing but just relentless deliberately Being conscious can be created in anything by having a pre and post-journaling stage. So a pre-thing it could be in simple like productivity. It can be like, I'm going to do this exercise, this task, this is the outcome, this is how long it's going to take me. And then write that down. And then go and do it. And then after this is the post, go, what actually happened? You can do that with everything. You can do that with, I'm going to go out with my friends and drink. I'm going to, uh, this is what I think is going to happen. And then after the next day, yep, sure enough, I got no work done. And that space uh and that that reflecting will make you just far, far better. And it will create a lot of stories along the way that you can actually start telling yourself. It's honesty with yourself.

Darren: 40:52

Yeah. A lot of people are a lot of people are telling themselves lies. Consciously or unconsciously. Yeah. How have you uh stayed so grounded, right, throughout the years? Maybe it's like a and also like in in Australia too, it's tall poppy syndrome to call it, right? So it's you're in an environment generally that can be, I'm not saying it is, but can be a little bit limiting at times, similar to Ireland.

Davie: 41:16

Extremely limiting.

Darren: 41:16

Ireland and Australia is very similar in terms of ideology, in terms of like but it's interesting, right? So you've had that, you've had huge breakouts, but then you're still very grounded, but then you're also still paving the path for along people. So what was some of those kind of internal dialogues? Because people can lose themselves, and even myself, right? Like sometimes I don't think about the changes you're making, whether they're positively or negatively.

Davie: 41:39

What would you define being grounded as?

Darren: 41:42

You're very self-aware. You're still like you're obviously very close to your family, you're engaged, you you know, you can buy anything in the world and you haven't. Yeah, put it that way. And the fact that you're doing a lot of this introspective work as well, many people like you're the same age as me, right? You're 29? 30, 31. 31. Just turn 31. Roughly the same age. A lot of people with your net worth with your age would be hurting all the time.

Davie: 42:07

Yeah.

Darren: 42:08

A degenerate, let's put it simply. Whereas you've never you've never ever gone into that realm.

Davie: 42:13

Yeah. Look, I my top ten closest friends, like like that that spend all the time I'm about to take a jet to New Zealand with them, they are from school. My girlfriend is from school. Like, all my close circle are incredibly grounded people and haven't changed at all.

Darren: 42:36

You got all your date ones.

Davie: 42:37

Yeah, all my date ones, because they've been around me when I had nothing, and I don't have to have any fear that they're coming to me for something that I possess. Like, let's take even business friends, for example. I've had business friends that you know I was doing really well in the early years, fell off a cliff, they didn't talk to me, then I launched UDI, took off, and they all started messaging me again. Like that business friendship can be taken away, which is fine. Transactional friendships are completely fine. But you are, you know, I think that I enjoy spending time with these people and doing the same things that I've been doing for 10 plus years, that helps me stay grounded. But I think at the same time as well, yeah, it's it's it's definitely family influenced as well.

Darren: 43:33

Where are you from? It's Brisbane. Adelaide. Adelaide. And it's more like you, you're you are very close to your parents as well, like geographically.

Davie: 43:40

Yeah. Oh, I bought my neighbor's house for my parents, yeah.

Darren: 43:44

Wow, that's beautiful.

Davie: 43:45

Yeah, so I just bought my parents the neighbor's house. Um, they hadn't had a pair uh they haven't had a new house for I think it was like 25 years since they like had me, their first ever home.

Darren: 43:55

So yeah, man, I think it's great because you've documented a lot of this stuff too. If you if you go back fair enough, like all those videos are there from the very, very beginning. Even like I think when you got your dog initially.

Davie: 44:06

Yeah.

Darren: 44:07

That's all documented. All documented.

Davie: 44:09

First dog. Yeah, I think it's just, you know, it more people should do that. More people should document. And you don't need two videographers following around like me. Just get the iPhone out, just uh start documenting stuff because it'll you'll look back and time goes quickly. And I think that having those memories is you know kind of priceless.

Darren: 44:30

This year will be six years since I started recording. That's awesome. The first you the first videos on YouTube.

Davie: 44:34

You put on about 30 kilos, I reckon. You're like the skitty nerdy guy when you first started.

Darren: 44:41

This is like, yeah, just as things go up, just uh spend more time in the gym, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It was similar to you, man. I'm actually nervous during the summer, and I was like, I think you put on like 20 kilos. You're like, no, I've always been training, and I was like, not in this way.

Davie: 44:54

It's funny though, like training. I I've always been well, I was kind of fat and chubby in school, and that made me super insecure. So then mum would take me to the gym and I wouldn't be able to work out yet because I was too young. This is maybe when I was like 13. So I'd just sit there and just like study people in the weights room, like what were they actually doing? And then I hit my 16th birthday, finally allowed to actually go in the gym, and I just started training like crazy. Um, and then I got kind of super fit from that. But it was interesting, it was when I learned the intensity required to be good at business, and then applied that suddenly to training, that's when things exploded. Yeah. It's just the the pure volume, the pure education that you need, the pure consistency that you actually need across all facets of life to actually get growth. That's when I started to actually, you know, yeah, man.

Darren: 45:48

I yeah, like I will not accept that if you become like wealthy or you your business is growing a lot, that you should be putting your health to the side. Like, I just will never accept that because the healthier that I've become, the better I've been in my business, the better I am today. Like I literally was at the gym two hours ago. So I was like, I know that I'll be more in the moment, thinking clearly, and it's it's health-wealth in relationships, right? So I feel like you've balanced that really well, even though you've gone through some like difficult periods, but it's almost been a very strong pillar for you as well.

Davie: 46:17

Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's kind of everything you get you start to get so much money that you're like, what am I even doing this for? It just what am I putting myself through torture for this constant doubt, this constant judgment of others. And when you close your eyes and you think about your kids like having a medical procedure that they need, or them just getting pure joy from like an awesome Christmas present that you can afford when you wouldn't otherwise. I think that it all kind of comes down to family for me. And maybe that's the age that I'm getting to. Um but yeah, I guess that kind of makes it worth it.

Darren: 47:03

How did it feel when you got engaged?

Davie: 47:06

It was good. It was actually really, really fun. It was a good surprise for her. It was a it was overdue. But you know, I think that for the people that maybe are similar to me, you know, I've I've obviously she's like my first girlfriend, like my first serious girlfriend. We've been together for so long. We've been through I've been through so much growth. And you look at like billionaires and very, very successful men, they often lose their first wife and whatnot. And I think that that's because they go through growth changes within themselves. And that stress tests their willingness to be malleable in the relationship as well as their business life. A lot of these people, they will be willing to, you know, change city and change exactly what they're working on purely to make money, but they're not willing to reciprocate with their wife with something that they need. And when I look at my what I went through in a short period of time, like I went on TV, like my social media exploded, like I started making so much money, I suddenly became something, quote unquote. That was a such a big period of change for me. And I that definitely created this kind of I guess uh adaptation period within our relationship, which maybe lasted like maybe six to eight months because I was so hidden down. And then I came back, and we keep we've had times where we've separated and come back in terms of our direction and our commitment to the relationship. But when I came out of that really big one after all of that kind of happened, I realized that I will never change more than that, to be completely honest. Like if we can get through that, we're gonna be able to get through anything, and that's something that I want to do. And you know, people might criticize a lot about like how long it takes you to get engaged and whatnot. But we as business owners, I'm not speaking about me right now. I'm speaking, this is I get so many questions from daily mentor people about everything in life. And the guy comes to me, and he um he goes, I'm so scared, like we're moving really fast in in our relationship and whatnot. And I'm like, you as a business owner are constantly uh looking at risk in your life. Look, you're looking at every employee relationship, you're looking at every business risk, you you've been hurt in so many different ways that you now have and you as as only the paranoid survive in business. And it would only be natural for some of that fear and pain prevention to spill over in how you handle your romantic relationship as well. And I think that's that has come into my my life as well, where I go, I'm like I'm trying to control everything and whatnot. And I think once I released that and I accepted, and it just made me so happy. Like it made me so present in the relationship, and we're like in the best spot we've we've ever been.

Darren: 50:22

It's like there's some elements of life you just can never control, right? Yeah, so you can only control how you show up when you go home, for instance. But I feel like those developments that you're doing personally, as in through the business, because again, your business is a reflection of you. When you go off and like complete the journey and come back, your partner's also doing their own personal development, and they're also adjusting. Yeah. So it's like both of you are on your own mission together, to be fair, but they're separate and you're coming back around. It's a story of me and my wife, right? Is that we've both just adjusted and evolved over the past six years so much that I would almost say you'd be a fool if you weren't changing.

Davie: 51:01

Exactly.

Darren: 51:01

Because how much people are in that scenario where by the trying to relive what it's like in high school or relive like the early days of the relationship, which is why the relationship doesn't last. So that's why I was very curious to find out because like you've made so many changes in the business, you've changed so much. The the last piece is your relationship, of course, has changed, but for the better.

Davie: 51:20

Yeah, yeah. I think my only advice is be very careful taking advice from two guys doing a podcast that are specialists in like with relationships, because you know, pro in a similar way when it lined up with probably when I was least kind of in the best place in our relationship, I was taking advice from podcasts like this. And I was like, my my my relationship would look like this person, it should look like this person, uh these attributes, blah, blah, blah. And it stopped me from realizing how I actually felt and how happy I was on a daily basis. Because again, it's this comparison thing. So I was like, identify what you want. You can't have everything. There's two, three non-negotiables that you might have. It might be spiritual, it might be family, it might be how you're treated on a day-to-day basis. Those maybe those three pillars, maybe you can ask for a fourth or a fifth. But like, you can't have everything and just be present and happy and and and and be of servitude as well. Like, it's not all about you. Give as well. But don't compare yourself to other people.

Darren: 52:30

Yeah, man, it's really good a voice. I'd love to chat about Shark Tank. Um, so when that news came up, what was that experience like initially for you?

Davie: 52:39

I thought it was a scam email. They emailed me once and they're like, hey, we want you to be in Shark Tank. I was like, delete. And then two weeks later, they're like, We're really confused. We thought you'd want to do it. And I was like, Oh, this is real. So I jumped on a call. It was cool though, because I was watching Shark Tank when I was in school. I was watching Robert Hersheback on when I was in school, like trying to stream illegally. Oh, I shouldn't say that. Um, trying to figure out a way to watch the US Shark Tank here in Australia. And then we got on a call, a Zoom call, and Robert was the first one that popped up. And I was like, oh wow, maybe he's a consultant for the show. And he's like, No, I'm doing it, I'm moving to Australia. And I was like, This is so exciting. What? So yeah. Did you meet Sabri beforehand? Or I actually didn't know Sabri. I had messaged him before and talked, you know, uh, Australia is a small place, but no, I didn't. Uh he's a he's an absolute legend.

Darren: 53:33

Yeah, he's he's I had a podcast for him before. He's hilarious.

Davie: 53:36

He's he's great, he he knows his knows his stuff as well. We've got an investment together that's doing very well. Um, and it's always a joy working with him.

Darren: 53:43

Tell me about one of the craziest experiences, or even just one of the products that you didn't think was going to be a big winner, or it became an absolute big massive hit.

Davie: 53:53

One of the interesting ones was this girl came on and she had created a glue for women's dresses when they slip down. So rather than using tape, you can use glue. And she ended up uh we we me and Robert made the deal, which was really exciting. Then she ended up not going with us because she got a huge offer from uh venture capital and like I think it was a 10 million plus valuation or something like that. And now she's in you know, ton of supermarkets, pharmacies, whatnot. So that that company would be growing, growing very quickly. How much would you were you looking to typically invest in those companies? Like well, what's the I think season one I invested a million dollars, I think. Maybe one or two fell through. And then season two, I think I actually can't remember what I invested. But yeah, they're they're generally range from around 50,000 to 200,000. The biggest I did was 450,000 um check sizes, ranging from five to 30 percent. And what's your what's your involvement or something like that? Like how much do you how much are you involved? I'm involved a lot more than other sharks because I already have e-commerce mentoring. So like it's kind of my specialty, these businesses. A lot of them are already e-commerce businesses. They're trying to go from zero to ten million or one million to ten million, and that's kind of what daily mentor is set up to do. So monthly meetings with them, um, full access to all of our mentors, the daily mentor, and yeah, just I let them kind of call me whenever they want. Crazy, dude. So you think some of them are even pre-revenue, they're just great ideas. I think one of them was pre-revenue, which didn't end up working out. I think he stole from me as well. So yeah, that one that one didn't work out. And it's on Shark Time. Yeah.

Darren: 55:56

Well, there has to be some bit of due diligence there.

Davie: 55:59

Yeah, there should be some due diligence, but you know, these are the lessons we learn. Um, yeah.

Darren: 56:06

I saw um I saw a clip recently, and it was about like how protecting your profit ends up being like the most most difficult part of a business. Any profit you have, you end up like spending it basically, and things like this. Yeah. So all those like venture mini ventures that you have, yeah, but they kind of obviously rack up, but you're looking for your big winner, right?

Davie: 56:26

Yeah, well, what else am I gonna do with the money? You know what I mean? Like, there's no, you know, the returns you can make from some of these winners. Like, I wouldn't be surprised there is one investment that I have at the moment from Shark Tank that I'd be shocked if they didn't exit for 50 million dollars in two to three years. Um, so I I think that there will be these winners. Uh you know, I've got multiple e-commerce bets like that, um, where people are going, well, and this is probably what I'll do next. Yeah, I just bought the uh the house, I've been heavily involved in Daily Mentor, I'm trying to make that incredible. Um, got the wedding, but I I I think for me to go to the next level, I think e-commerce investments and providing value there would probably be my next player.

Darren: 57:12

It's interesting because for someone who's getting into investing, just in general, if they don't have the depth and experience that you have, e-com isn't something that you think about, just like a front of mind. But what's ironic is e-com is entirely built off like a central hub working on its own, like not having a personal brand as the main kind of founder, um, not being too dependent maybe on one channel. So it's like they actually have the best opportunity to sell versus even like software, my background was in engineering, and I worked with some of the biggest, fastest growing startups in the entire world, they're actually quite difficult to sell, yeah, just because of inherently like the tech is dependent on this person and so on. Whereas e-commerce is actually the opposite of that. Yeah, of course.

Davie: 57:55

Well, with SaaS, the product is key, the product features is key. Whereas in e-commerce, the marketing is the key, largely. So if you can differentiate through marketing, um, you could definitely scale it.

Darren: 58:10

That's interesting because if the marketing is a differentiator and that's what someone not necessarily are necessarily buying, but I guess it's one edge, isn't the marketing uh an easy duplicate?

Davie: 58:21

Well, yeah, uh it will it should be. But again, this is a power law that what we talked about before that the top 10%. So let's say we've got two wearable blankets here, and one of them goes, This is a great wearable blanket for keeping you warm. And then the other one goes, This is the best way to wearable blanket ever that helps you save money on heating bills because of his extra thermal capacity. Which one's gonna sell? They're both similar products. Whereas SAS, it's like you either have this feature that is fundamentally going to increase the bottom line by 20%, or you don't have that feature, and so therefore it's not worth the money.

Darren: 59:01

So I always joke that when it comes to like coaching or mentoring, it's all about like who's the aspirational identity? Where's all the client testimonials? I need to see someone just like me get these types of results, and software is just does it work? Yeah, it does it work. Dude, there needs to be zero customers, and actually, a lot of B2B software has no customers. They build it, they build software for a specific company. You might go work for like um, let's just give like a huge bank, and you'd build something for them, and all they give a shit about does it work? Yeah, it's actually hilarious because when you've come through the inflection of coaching and e-com, you think like, oh, it must be so much harder. It's like it's actually in some regards, it's a lot easier, obviously in other aspects.

Davie: 59:42

It's does it work and does it work simply? Yeah, like I built software as well, and I just was like, oh, this product's got this feature, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. Then the usability of the tool is just not there. Where in for two different avatars, one is uh one just they're they're both confused. Whereas I I I think that that's that that is definitely the key that I've learned with Sass.

Darren: 1:00:07

Let's talk about Daily Mentor. So I thought it was a really interesting play for you to get into because you know as you described you have opportunities coming out your ear and it's like you're never not going to have opportunities. Why why did you move into that area?

Davie: 1:00:23

When I was running my e-commerce businesses it was hell. Like I almost lost it two or three times. I you know lost all my sanity I had CFOs that got me sued millions of dollars I had you know like late tax lodgements in Germany that I didn't even know we were practically selling there that they were sending me that I was like doing criminal activity. I was like what what is going on? Like this is just chaos is it it sucked all the fun out of it. And I think that that made me realize because I was often always against doing paid coaching I always gave all my information my courses everything for free but then I realized when I started paying all these mentors to coach me on these things suddenly it became fun again and I became in control again. So Daily Mentor is literally what I would have wanted when I started this is why we could make way more money in Daily Mentor if we just did acquisition, how to run Facebook ads and how to do creative and we you know double people's businesses there. But I don't want that I want to help people build the pillars of finance operations like hire team hiring and leadership um branding so we can build these pillars and not make they don't need to make the same mistakes as me. And I love Woody it it's given me so much but selling a wearable blanket compared to changing someone's life like and giving them the freedom to make as much money and create their dreams it literally doesn't compare. And that's why I'm willing to deal with the hate of being in the info space even though I would say that it's mentorship like you have one on one mentors but I'm willing to deal with that because it is just so rewarding.

Darren: 1:02:16

Yeah man I think at the end of the day like what's what's this all about like it's about helping people you know like your well if you don't help people you don't get paid.

Davie: 1:02:24

Yeah but your legacy though you can't you can't people have this common misconception and I'm I'm terrible at info by the way like I'm trust me like I'm not launching anything to try to teach people how to do info because right now in this moment in what are we 2025 I'm not good at it because I'm just still kind of obsessed with e-commerce but what I am good at I'm not good at the building the landers and all of the the sales funnel and the direct response tactics to get sales for info but I am very good at e-commerce that's you know what I mean like if I can just get them results then we'll make a little bit of money from it I guess well dude it goes back to product again if the product is great just like e comm just like SAS it's going to attract the right people your free courses on YouTube are fucking sick man. You've won it's 18 hours one 18 hours won 11 hours yeah I just kind of went what's everyone doing how can I dial this up a hundredx so I just spent so much more time put so many more complex principles and yeah just gave it away for free. Dude it's crazy like I've gone through like a lot of it like obviously scrubbed it because you can't watch all one go right I know I I watched I had to watch it once to approve it or make sure I didn't say something was stupid or wrong.

Darren: 1:03:46

But my video editors would have had to watch it three times I was like are you sick of listening to it like yes but the level of detail you go into when you when you're actually physically building out like all the prompts let's say all the the product uh descriptions everything it's it's so so granular I guess um do you know how much that's attributed towards like one followers but leads and sales because that strategy do you think we've created over 50 millionaires what yeah from though with that piece of content from yeah from that piece of content plus a little bit of daily mentor because they flow into daily mentor from that yeah but like I have like 50 stories of like that so I that's the metric that I look at is like how many millionaires are we actually creating that's why I got millionaires.com like that's why I called it millionaires.com I want to create as many millionaires as possible.

Davie: 1:04:36

I was on that website this morning and I was like who owns this yeah yeah so um yeah I I don't know how many leads again I'm not that great at info at this stage like I'm I'm working at getting better on that because then we can grow the business and help more people but yeah my my theory is just put out as much good content as possible that's actually helpful and actually novel and you know create the best product. We had the lowest margins out of any I would I don't know this for a fact but I know that the top three e-com courses out there or mentorships have far far better margins than us. Like we have terrible margins but because that's because I hired like the best coaches possible. Like they're hundreds some of these people have run hundred million dollar brands. They're not cheap. They're not someone that had a drop shipping store once. And maybe that's a fault to me fault maybe that's overcapitalizing on the coaches um and maybe we do need to you know focus more on margin and getting volume in but like that's not really what I've wanted to build.

Darren: 1:05:39

I would wanted to build like a community and help people but can we get into some of the deliverables there or some of the because I I I love I love the space and I think it's a yeah you've got to take a look at it for me. Yeah 100% so like dude if you got these guys who are absolute fucking killers how do you how do you do the mentorship of scale?

Davie: 1:05:57

Yeah so we obviously have the content modules that's um that's probably not our differentiation like we are more so you can go in this is daily mentor private network for brands doing over a million you can go in you can book a call with a a Facebook coach um an SEO coach a licensing coach an operations coach like you can go in like we've got ex-head of uh Gymshark operations as the operations coach like I was using him as a mentor slash coach for UDI like now you've got access to these people through a subscription you can go and get any of them whenever you want and then there's the group calls but I think the thing that shocked me the most is when you put all of these like minded people in a Slack like just the other day everyone was like how's your Black Friday going? They posted all of their top creatives everyone went and implemented all of those creatives and suddenly everyone's top five creatives for Black Friday were the exact creatives in Daily Mentor that everyone just shared. And that's that's not going to affect you their results it's just going to increase everyone else's results and then you can get the learnings as well like even they they beat the one of our members had a better creative than all of our UD team we put that in there and it you know made 50 grand in 24 hours less um so I think that Slack clue that I think that Slack group and that community is probably the thing that I undervalued the most. I guess it's because when you were on your com op you didn't really have that money to put in a group nobody taught on YouTube either. There was not one video I remember looking it up conversion rate optimization there wasn't one video that explained what I needed like it was like like it was completely technical not nothing to do with e-commerce. I didn't even know people people couldn't even tell you how to set up Google optimize which was still around back then. So I had to text people and I luckily found friends that were doing something similar and they taught me but now we've got things like data mentor.

Darren: 1:07:57

Yeah I think the power of the community is often like the members right it's if you if you let in anybody then they would dilute the quality but also this is what's interesting is I know that you guys are very involved in the delivery but you sometimes don't actually need to be because if you think about it right if you build a really strong network of people they solve each other's problems which is the best part of the fucking network.

Davie: 1:08:22

Now you guys will still like spearhead and be like hey we're going this way but when something pops up that's a fringe case that maybe you haven't encountered because it's in like some random category you're like oh speak with Johnny because Johnny's been selling that for the last 10 years we actually have done that for a long time if someone comes in and let's just say they're they're in like health optimization or some shit it's like oh yeah go speak to this guy he's been in this for the last five years he'll tell you like how to do XYZ will also help you but that's where like a buddy system works really well as well yeah I I love that I love that and there's learning by osmosis as well just by being around people it's just you just kind of learn off the energy and what they do even if they're in adjacent niches.

Darren: 1:09:03

It works both ways. So let's give an example so let's just say you're living in your hometown I'm from like the back ass of nowhere in Ireland if I don't get out of there I'll always have this like floorboard like goals uh because like I've never seen someone do something crazy. Whereas if I'm constantly surrounding people that are killers you're like well he's the exact same as me. Yeah exactly why is he crushing it and I'm not exactly and at that point you have two options you can either cry about it or you can do something about it. Yeah which again that's the reason why if you're if you're paying for it. So it's funny because I've gone through that inflection too being like why would someone need coaching? And then it was like well anything that I've ever achieved came from somebody and it was in a non I guess a non like professional setting in the beginning but then like oh wait I can actually just go away faster in this way.

Davie: 1:09:48

Yeah I spent $5000 in coaching in the past two months I was sure you're saying at the beginning of the year a lot of the a lot of the stuff that I talked about around the process and time um time fencing all of my exercises in pre and post journaling like I used a self-improvement coach which like if anyone wants them they can message me I'll introduce him because he is really awesome. But yeah and then uh I you know I said that I'm trying to learn info at the moment pay info coaches to come in and teach me how to do that I'm still paying e-commerce coaches all the time to try to learn best things and uh luckily I have a lot of friends in the space now so I don't need to formalize that but yeah it's I don't know I was wrong about paid education I think there's a lot of value to be added how do you guys plan to like build a brand of dating mentor so like you have you've had the one million plus category for quite some time and now you have sorry you've had the one million plus category but now you have the academy yeah um what's your what's your kind of goal like your personal goal that you want to achieve I don't really have a personal guy I just think that we just should be the biggest e-commerce mentorship in the world but that being said I don't really care if I don't really care if I'm second and there's two incredible products and we're second because the product above us is better and helping e-commerce. It's like it's kind of like Tesla not patenting their stuff in the early years to accelerate the the growth of electric cars and the penetration of that market. It's like I feel the same way. I think it's just such a fun craft and I think it's a great way for people to make their first million dollars so the more people that we can get into e-commerce the better. So I don't really have this crazy revolutionary goal like I want it to be massive because if it's massive we've helped a lot of people and it's gonna be it yeah man I think something as well that was quite unique for you in the past year or two was your content.

Darren: 1:11:54

Like you've you really dialed things up you had already had a glow up face. Yeah got the jet got the jet put a few new lot filters on I know that doesn't come intuitive to you though you know to kind of put yourself under as much exactly yeah how how was that experience because like the volume of content that you're getting out even your vlogs man yeah they're great but I guess like sometimes even like my own experience I don't do as much vlogs because I feel like I get no downtime yeah as a result I think that's that's what I went through as well so I used I for my I think it was 30th birthday you know I spent a quarter of a million dollars taking my friends to Mexico Vegas and I didn't film any of it and I think it was kind of on that trip I was just like look I'm doing this stuff anyway I should probably be filming and documenting it because I love looking back and watching it and it will probably help.

Davie: 1:12:45

But the reason why I didn't do it sooner and the reason why I dressed so poorly was because I was scared of what other people would think and I was scared of that tool Pilpy syndrome. So I would always wear ripped hoodies ripped jeans the first Range Rover I bought I walked in there with ripped jeans and he kind of laughed at me and it was because I was scared of like making people think that I thought I was better than I was and therefore they wouldn't they would maybe treat me it would make me feel unsafe around them it's kind of a bit lame and wussy to kind of talk about but it's just like I didn't really want to stand out. But then I realized that I was letting other people dictate how I was going to act and I was acting and therefore I need to and there's a and there's definitely a group of people especially me when I was a kid that would see someone with a nice watch or see someone get a jet or see someone go on a crazy holiday and be like that piece of content has now inspired me and I want to do that. And it changes what you believe is possible. You know we just you talked about a mom before like he was like what like he's like 26 still isn't he like he's younger dude he's he's so young and look at the life that he's living and sure some of the content I'll put my hand up first some of the content is extremely cringy like it is extremely cringy and that's that's kind of cringe is kind of the price that you need to pay to inspire lots of people because cringe is a made up word that people did to belittle or put people other people down that were doing unique things. So it cringe doesn't need to be flexing cringe can be like creating a really cute like donut or something like that as a male like they're saying oh that's cringe content but this this person loves baking that's because they it just because they're different and doing something different that you didn't want to do doesn't make it that that they get that label of cringe and I think that that can be applied to that flexing content as well and yes there is an element of insensitivity around people that don't have that but at the same time they're gonna find that insecurity in so many places in life throughout life if my piece of content pushes nine people to the edge where they finally do something and then there's another 50 people that just get kind of get angry at it that's worth it in my books.

Darren: 1:15:19

And it's also like who are you creating content for like let's just use Iman's example he's not looking at your content thinking I don't like this. He's thinking you're creating that content for a younger version of you and like so be it. Like the internet is not always for everyone it's for the specific use case. It's also for you too that you want to share for yourself. But that's where it's interesting is like people that are like I I asked Iman about this about the changes in his brand and public perception right and his famous saying is like you're a hero long enough until you're a villain and you're a villain long enough until you're a hero again. And he just said I don't give a fuck as long as two things happen. One uh his businesses continue to grow in the right direction and then two his exposure to the top echelon of people still become available. Yeah so he didn't like burn his bridges basically to get more revenue.

Davie: 1:16:08

Yeah and that's kind of been true obviously for him but it's because he's creating content for someone who's like 16 17 who fucking hates going to school and wants a new part yeah and anyone like you would look at it and be like alright like so be it like whatever go ahead I produce just as much content that is wholesome and grounding and talking about you know family values and being a good person as I do jet photos and jet videos. It's just one gets amplified one goes viral the other one doesn't get watched by those people so it's like it's not that I'm not creating it this this past podcast we spent 15 minutes talking about it. It's just they're not seeing it as much and that's it should should we just not create that form of content when people clearly want it and clearly are engaging with it and it's having I would say a net positive effect. No it's just like you should create both so that hopefully they can create a foundation of what my life looks like and then see what the opposite person to me life look like and then make their decision for themselves.

Darren: 1:17:22

Exploring and it's funny because the other side of it then is for my type of content it's very tactical like very very tactical which can be boring as fuck. So it doesn't get as much engagement as other stuff but it's for the right people yeah it's generating the right engagement it's generating the right people and then lo and behold I could be at a dinner somewhere and someone's like yeah man I watched that for the past couple years I'm like bro that gets 11 likes. He's like yeah I was helpful I was one of them yeah I was like that's helpful so the logic is the the metric the metric isn't yeah engagement all the time what the metric is is like what you're optimizing for. So it's a great revelation that at 30 you thought okay I want to start doctoring the more my life like putting myself out there and then I guess after a while when you become competent and we become competent you become confident and when you become confident you become more competent. Yeah exactly exactly anything else that you're working on right now going 2026 like what are you looking to achieve next year.

Davie: 1:18:27

I think I'm just gonna go super deep in AI and try to understand exactly what the main use cases to change the the lines on my PL actually are. So drastically either solving new problems, solving attention or solving time like I think they're they're the key things. So I'm yeah I'm just gonna keep studying these these models I'm gonna keep you studying how to use AI to help beginners and we'll go from there.

Darren: 1:19:01

Well dude I want to say a massive thank you you're a legend awesome man I feel like another another two years we're sitting down again with you and you'll be hitting seven billion imagine um I I want to I want to watch our first podcast where was it was it bad I don't think I said it to you in a dark room I remember no no the opposite I was moving out of my apartment in Singapore I had sold everything that's funny I wrote that in the note that I gave you as well so I I sold everything and it was the day I was leaving that's so and there's there's nothing in the apartment it's fucking echoey as fuck and uh you were at home I remember at the time I was so bad at podcast I still am but that's all right but dude big thank you dude you're amazing love it