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About Dan

Dan is an American serial entrepreneur.

He co-founded his first company in high school, became the first in his family to graduate from college, and has been on the forefront of four profound technology waves.

Dan has founded companies on the forefront of profound technology waves: open source software, the smartphone, and cloud computing. He describes himself first as a serial entrepreneur; a repeat startup founder and CEO. His startups have built or powered world renowned products used by millions of people around the world. Dan's career has also been shaped by wisdom attained from tenures at two technology giants: Apple and Oracle. After two decades of entrepreneurship, Dan took a year-long sabbatical to innovate himself. This startup-like effort to elevate all aspects of his performance is the foundation for his next entrepreneurial endeavors. He's now ready for the next wave.

Youth, Open Source, and Starting-Up

Dan fell in love with technology early in life. During his elementary and middle school years in the 1990s, personal computers were going mainstream. Americans were just beginning to go online and a new community was emerging to develop software in the open. On this backdrop, Dan got his start. 

At age 17, Dan co-founded with Kai Staats his first company: Terra Soft Solutions. Terra Soft developed Yellow Dog Linux, the premier version of Linux built for Apple's Macintosh and later Sony's PLAYSTATION3. The company's innovations resulted in a prestigious customer list of universities, global companies, and US government agencies. Notably, Dan had the privilege of designing the software foundation for a multi-million dollar sonar platform deployed aboard the US Navy nuclear submarine fleet. Steve Jobs even recognized Yellow Dog Linux during his MacWorld SF 2004 keynote. In November 2008, Terra Soft was acquired by Fixstars.

Off to Apple! (Retail)

Despite his workload supporting mission critical clientele, Dan enrolled in and completed a four-year program at University of Colorado Boulder at the Leeds School of Business. With degree in hand, Dan decided it was time to move on from the company he co-founded four years earlier so he could cultivate his skills in business.

After submitting his resume to hundreds of companies, Dan found little interest in a his unconventional skillset. He turned his attention toApple. However, most the job openings for seasoned technical positions he felt unqualified for. Living back at home with his parents and down to his last $300 dollars, he needed a job. Finally, in September 2004 he was hired as a part-time specialist at his local Apple Retail store.

Over the next four years, Dan was promoted four times and served as Senior Manager at two retail locations. Next, Dan's leadership was recognized and he was promoted into a corporate role working directly for two senior leaders who reported to the SVP Retail. By October 2007, Apple had announced intentions to launch an App Store and software development kit for iPhone to launch by summer 2008. Dan decided it was time to change course to a new, yet familiar heading: entrepreneurship. 

Smartphone Revolution, Meet Double Encore

In July 2008, Dan officially founded Double Encore. His thesis was that enterprises would see iPhone apps as essential, but wouldn't have the skills in-house to build them. Double Encore was to be the team of experts companies hired to design and develop apps on their behalf. It didn't take long to see early validation with the first customer signed shortly after incorporation. 10 months later the company had shipped 19 iPhone apps. It wasn't at all glamorous, though. Budgets for those apps varied widely and cash flow was extremely tight.

Double Encore's first big break came when a major media company commissioned the development of a mission critical app for a live sports event. It went well and led to other projects for that company's sport properties. That work led to sports-related work for other companies as well. Double Encore built official apps for the National Hockey League, PGA TOUR, Major League Soccer, and others. The company's work on the Official Tour de France app was even demonstrated live on stage at Apple's WWDC 2010.

By 2012, Double Encore was extending beyond media and sports. The company's client list expanded to include brands such as Better Homes & Garden and JetBlue Airways. Then, in March 2013 Double Encore merged with Xcellent Creations to accelerate growth. With a strong leadership team in place running the company day-to-day, Dan elevated into a strategic role as Chairman of the Board. In that role, Dan led strategic discussions that resulted in Double Encore being acquired by WPP.

Hello Push IO! Powering Apps with the Cloud

During this time, Dan was also involved in another venture. Just a year after the App Store launched, Apple introduced iPhone OS 3.0. One of the new features was push notifications, a powerful new capability what was going to be used by almost every app. However, implementing push required setting up a server to communicate with Apple gateway service. This seemed like an opportunity.

Dan seized the opportunity by teaming up with veteran entrepreneur Joe Pezzillo. In April 2009, Dan and Joe founded Push IO, a hosted cloud service to help brands send push notifications. The company had its first paying customer 91 days later and by March 2011 had delivered more than 1 Billion push notifications. Not long after, Dan and Joe presented Push IO at VentureBeat's MobileBeat Innovation Competition. 

The company's momentum was accelerating fueled by a growing blue chip customer list of the most prominent brands in breaking news, sports, and entertainment. In January 2012, Push IO crossed 3 Billion push notifications sent and just six months later, announced staggering growth with 5 Billion sent. Just over a year later, volume doubled again with 10 Billion push notifications sent.

As volume was growing, so was the market maturity. Brands were starting to expect push to operate along side their other marketing efforts. Joe and Dan decided Push IO needed to be built right into a world-class marketing tool. They accomplished that goal by selling Push IO to Oracle's Responsys. Remarkably, the Push IO team officially became Oracle employees exactly five years after the company was founded.

Going Enterprise Grade with Oracle

Serving as as Senior Director at Oracle, Dan was the named the product leader responsible for integrating all aspects of Push IO operations and technology into Oracle. Under his leadership, Push IO became the mobile app channel for the Oracle Marketing Cloud. He managed seven product releases delivering a range of mobile marketing capabilities including push notifications, in-app messaging, and rich push.

At Oracle, Dan frequently presented to key customers, prospects, and industry analysts. He also had the privilege of presenting onstage at Oracle OpenWorld, one of the largest technology conferences in the world. During his tenure, he was listed as a co-investor on a patent application Oracle filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

By March 2016, Dan had successfully integrated Push IO into Oracle. After two decades of entrepreneurship, he knew it was time to make a change. 

A Sabbatical Focused on Health & Fitness

So began a year long sabbatical to reinvent himself through health and fitness. He treated this journey like a startup--learning, failing quickly, iterating, and building momentum. It all started with Week 1. Over the year, Dan completed 52-weeks of bodyweight interval training, then layered in a 22-weeks running regiment.

Finding himself in the best shape of his life, he wanted to keep challenging himself mentally and physically. He discovered Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It has been incredibly humbling, deeply challenging, but intensely gratifying. More so, it's turned into a sort of guiding principle for approaching business and life. 

With this journey of personal transformation, Dan better understands how to unlock his true potential for the first time ever. Now, he's ready to plunge back into entrepreneurship...

The Next Wave: Nami ML

Sights set on the next wave, Dan co-founded Nami ML, company #4, with his Push IO co-founder Joe Pezzillo.

According to AppAnnie, fewer than 3000 are making more than US$1,000,000 a year from paid downloads, in-app purchases, and subscriptions. This reality has given rise to a whole ecosystem of mobile marketing tools to help app publishers focus on growing audience, not creating a sustainable business.

Dan and Joe founded Nami because the marketing tools built for the mobile industry’s growth era don’t help app developers trying to succeed in the subscription era.

Nami strives to be the easiest, best way to build and grow sustainable, mobile-first businesses.The company is focused on the convergence of three major industry trends:

  • Subscriptions: App publishers are increasingly shifting to subscription-based business models

  • Machine Learning: The next frontier for gaining a competitive edge with products and services

  • Privacy: End users and brands are increasingly looking for solutions that focus on protecting end user privacy

Nami has another mission, to be BCE. It’s our journey to build a company all of our stakeholders can be proud of. We wrote an entire post if you’re curious to learn more.

Career Milestones