The Uncomfortable Truth That Entrepreneurs Ignore - Dan Kiely

I had 45 million in my bank account, and I've never been so miserable in my life. Success probably cost me a number of relationships in my life. Just look at your business, look at your competitors in the business and, and think, "What am I doing differently to everybody else?" Your network is everything. It's trending now to demonize social media, right?

Yeah, it is.

It really is.

Yeah.

But there are such pros with it. Reach out to someone who knows, who's, who's walked this road. AI serves you or you serve AI.

Yeah.

One or the other. Linda is the original VC and still is ultimately in the way she kind of lives her life, you know?

Dan, welcome to the pod.

Thank you very much for having me, Gary. I've been, uh, looking forward to this for quite some time.

You and me both. [laughs] One of my most requested guests. "What about getting Dan Cully on? What about getting Dan Cully on?" And finally, we got you.

And I just spoke to my, my wife before I came on, and I said, "How in God's name am I going to come up with content that people will want to listen to for over an hour?" So, but here I am, so hopefully we get five minutes anyway. That's interesting.

We're, we're gonna make magic. Don't worry. Um, thank you for coming on. I know you're exceptionally busy. Funny you bring up your wife. Actually gonna start with a quote from you about her. Uh, "There would be no business without Linda. She was the original venture capitalist."

Yeah.

What do you mean by that?

Um, Linda w- was, and is, like, uh, fearless when she decides to go after something. She makes a decision, and she just goes for it. And when we started the business originally, um, a number of accountants, lawyers, um, banks told her she was absolutely crazy to get involved in a business that was losing, uh, losing money. And, um, but she took the risk, remortgaged her home, and put the money into the business because she believed that-- she believed in me, she believed in us, and she believed in the, in the opportunity, 'cause, well, really what we bought was an opportunity ultimately at the end of the day. So Linda is the original VC and still is ultimately in the way she kind of lives her life, you know?

Mm. What do you think she saw in you that maybe you didn't even see in yourself back then?

Oh, that's a good question. [laughs] I'd have to ask, uh, ask her that one ultimately.

[laughs]

I don't know the answer, but I think she, uh, the chemistry and energy that we had together was, and still is, you know, you can feel it in a room. Now, in Linda's case, she walks into a room and the energy surrounds her, no matter who she's with. And so I'm just lucky to be in her orbit realistically, and she has that, you know, rare thing. I've seen it, uh, maybe three times in my lifetime, where people have that extraordinary charisma-

Mm. Mm

... energy, and she just happens to be a wonderfully nice person, smart, intelligent businesswoman, but she's a, like, one of the nicest people I've ever came a- I've ever met in my life, actually the nice- the nicest person. And, um, so, um, she knew that we were going to, or felt that we were gonna do something magic together because, you know, what w- the passion that was