Dan Demsky On Why You Should Start Anything

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Dan Demsky is currently the co-founder of Unbound Merino, the ultimate travel hacking clothing brand and one of my favorite companies on the planet.

But before we find out more about Unbound Merino and how they raised $360,000 in their crowd funding campaign, we get an entertaining inside scoop into Dan’s entrepreneurial business journey.

From burning CD’s, to making skate videos, to selling socks – Dan has been on one hell of a business ride. We discover more about the past businesses that Dan has owned and started. He shares what actually made him get into business in the first place and how he bounced back from his lowest business moment.

Dan is one of the most even-keeled guys I’ve ever met. Never too excited, never too stressed, and never too busy to start something. Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

• From burning CD’s, to skate videos, to socks: How Dan got into entrepreneurship.
• Why so many businesses start in the basement.
• Dan’s first $10,000 check.
• How Unbound Merino started.
• The trip to Greece that inspired Dan’s new business venture; #thankswifey
• The pitfalls of current Merino wool fashion.
• The products available at Unbound Merino.
• Behind the scenes of Dan’s crowdfunding campaign.
• Dan’s lowest business moment.
• Keeping chill and focusing on your sphere of influence.
• Fear, ball cancer, and trying to be better every day.
• How Dan has been spending his Friday nights.
• Why you should just start anything, even if it’s making soap.
• More about the Unbound Merino women’s line coming soon.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“I had to learn everything just by figuring it out. No formal education. Just do it.” — @dandemsky

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“I remember Jeffrey Gitomer saying: “There’s no such thing as failure, it’s only feedback.” — @dandemsky

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[0:18:50].0]

“I’m not really afraid of anything that relates to business.” — @dandemsky

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[0:43:16].0]

“If you have your health, you have a lot more than a lot of people.” — @dandemsky

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[0:45:11].0]

“Just do anything. It really doesn't matter what it is.” — @dandemsky

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[0:54:15].2]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Unbound Merino Website – https://unboundmerino.com/ (Promo Code – FAIL ON)

Unbound Merino on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/unboundmerino/

Dan on Twitter — https://twitter.com/dandemsky?lang=en

Dan on LinkedIn — https://ca.linkedin.com/in/dandemsky

Hitsu Socks – https://hitsusocks.com/

Mastermind Talks – http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Hydra Greece – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(island)

BizMedia – http://www.thebizmedia.com

Merino Wool – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merino

Indiegogo Crowdfunding – https://www.indiegogo.com/

The Art Of – https://www.theartof.com

The Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer – https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Bible-Ultimate-Resource-Revised/dp/0471456292

Testicular Cancer – https://www.cancer.org/cancer/testicular-cancer/do-i-have-testicular-cancer.html

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 024

“DD: I remember thinking, “I have no idea how I’m going to ever get at this. I can’t conceive what getting out of this looks like at this point, because it’s just so bad.” But I thought, “Okay. Well, I’m in my early 20s,” I was probably mid 20s at that point. I’d say 25, 26, “Am I even going to be thinking about this when I’m 35? I’m sure I’m going to get out of this by then.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:33.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail On Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:59.6] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the show that believes embracing failure and sharing their honest struggle is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs. This is a platform for their stories, and today’s story is of Dan Demsky. Dan is currently the cofounder of Unbound Merino, one of my favorite companies on the planet. They sell travel apparel. I also sponsor them on the podcast in exchange for t-shirts. Literally, no money needed. Dan just sends me shirts.

We’ll talk more about Unbound Merino and how they raised $360,000 in their crowd funding campaign, which is about 12-X their goal. We’ll also go into some of his past businesses that he’s owned and started and what actually made him get into business in the first place. Daniel is one of the most even keel dudes I’ve ever met, never too excited, never too stressed. You’re going to love it. Great conversation, fascinating guy.

First, if you’d like to stay up-to-date on all of Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:07.6] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the Fail On Podcast. I am fortunate enough to be sitting here in Toronto with Dan Demsky. Dan, welcome to the show.

[0:02:17.2] DD: Thank you for letting me be here.

[0:02:19.1] RN: It’s awesome man. We actually got connected really recently. Part of the similar community in terms of Mastermind talks, I know we have a lot of mutual friends and you are recommended as somebody to sit down and chat with. So I appreciate you taking the time on a Friday afternoon.

[0:02:34.0] DD: As I was saying before, it’s funny that I got recommended for the podcast about failing. I don’t know who did it or what the context was. It doesn’t hurt my ego that much, but it’s funny to know that I came to mind when we were talking about failure to someone.

[0:02:50.2] RN: “Oh, you have a podcast about failure. You got to talk to Dan. You got to talk to Dan.”

[0:02:53.0] DD: He is the king. He embodies it.

[0:02:56.5] RN: No. I love it though. Just so we have a little context about you and your background, just give us an idea of how you got into entrepreneurship and kind of the journey you traveled to get to what you’re doing today. I do want to get to what you’re doing today because, like I talked to you about before we got online, I think it’s like my dream business. It’s like my dream business and my dream product. Before we get there, I want to hear about your background a little bit.

[0:03:19.9] DD: You often hear this in a lot of entrepreneur stories that it kind of always is in their blood. I remember when CD burners first came out, my business partner and I were the first guys to get it because we can make CDs and try to sell them. That was failure number one. I think we sold one or two.

[0:03:38.7] RN: The whole idea was to have it as a business?

[0:03:40.7] DD: Yeah, and then we just started pirating Playstation games instead.

[0:03:43.7] RN: And playing with them yourselves?

[0:03:44.8] DD: Yeah, just sitting there, but the intent was there. It’s kind of always been a stream through my life . I didn’t have any clear vision that I’m going to have my own business one day, but I was freelancing doing video production because I just enjoyed making little skate videos with my business partner who I started my first business with and through the freelance projects, word of mouth got around that we’re great to work with, just doing shooting and editing and started getting project after project.

[0:04:16.4] RN: What kind of stuff were you shooting?

[0:04:17.1] DD: At the time? Anything. We were shooting many — Some students were doing a documentary about some historical figure and they needed a camera guy for a day and then they want help with the edit. We’re talking $200, $300 projects.

[0:04:31.4] RN: You’re shooting and editing. You’re not actually coming up with ideas?

[0:04:36.1] DD: At that moment in time we were just shooting and editing. We are freelance videographers, freelance editors. But we really enjoyed it because we wanted to make our own documentary films. Effectively we’re getting paid to learn, and we liked helping people do their projects for their film or for their business and just hanging out with the people and getting paid. I’m talking not a lot of money. We get paid 250 bucks, 300 bucks.

[0:05:02.8] RN: Was this the first time that somebody had actually given you money in exchange for a product or service that you gave them?

[0:05:08.8] DD: Yeah.

[0:05:10.9] RN: That’s a pretty cool feeling, right?

[0:05:11.8] DD: Yeah. It was mind blowing to get $250.

[0:05:16.8] RN: For just shooting video and editing? Stuff you probably would be doing if you weren’t getting paid anyways, right?

[0:05:21.4] DD: We were literally doing it. All of a sudden these people were hiring us and we would just completely over-deliver, because we like — We had to add a motion graphics thing in the edit here, so we got books on how to learn motion graphics and we would stay up all night. The amount of time we’d put in to a typical $200, $300 project, it’s like we might as well have just — It’s below minimum wage if you break it down, but it wasn’t about the money obviously.

[0:05:48.5] RN: But you loved it, right?

[0:05:49.2] DD: Yeah. That $300 would go to get a filter for the lens. Every single dollar, because we were doing it in my mom’s basement. This is where we’re doing it all. There’s no expenses. It’s negative expenses because not only do you not have any overhead, you also get three hot meals a day delivered to you. You’re good. It’s the best possible place to ever start a business. That’s why so many businesses start in the basement.

That’s where we were, and we got busy. We couldn’t handle the amount of work, and this is just from word of mouth overtime.

[0:06:19.7] RN: You guys weren’t trying to promote yourselves. It was just referrals, like “You have to use these guys. These guys are doing really work.”

[0:06:26.7] DD: We really cared. We were just so into it, right? To the point where we hired a friend into the basement and we hired another guy. So we had four guys in my mom’s basement and then we got our first corporate gig. We didn’t really incorporate it as a business. It was GE, and one of our clients —

[0:06:42.9] RN: That’s a big first corporate gig.

[0:06:45.7] DD: Here’s the story behind that. One of our clients that would hire us for 300 bucks or whatever, he said, “I’m going to get you a little gig with GE.” He was doing a project with them, “And you guys can give me 10%, but what you’ll get is way more than the type of stuff you’re billing anyways.” “Sure.” We went to this meeting with GE and we had no idea. We didn’t even know how to send an invoice. We’re used to getting cash in envelopes. My business partner, I remember, we had these torn jeans. We didn’t have any concept of how to look or be professional. They were laughing at us, literally. They were cool with it, but they were literally laughing at us.

[0:07:23.9] RN: Like, “Who are these dudes?”

[0:07:24.2] DD: Yeah, “Who are these guys?” But we got the job and it was about $4,000 for this job.

[0:07:32.2] RN: Way more than you’ve gotten for anything else?

[0:07:33.9] DD: More than 10 times. Here’s the thing, we finished this thing in like 2½ hours. It was the stupidest, easiest thing ever. At that point we’re like, “Wow! People spend a lot of money for this stuff.” That was when we said, “Okay, maybe we can make this a business.” We started — We had to incorporate the business and all of these. The business just formed and it became this wild ride of growth that — We’re talking about failure here, so I can get into that perhaps but it grew really rapidly. We ended up moving downtown. We’re hiring. It just happened.

[0:08:07.3] RN: Office space, everything?

[0:08:08.9] DD: Yeah. We got a wicked office right downtown. We’re hiring. The team was just growing. The projects were growing. It was just so fast. It was so crazy.

[0:08:17.9] RN: Just for some context, what years were this where this has happened?

[0:08:22.8] DD: We started probably about almost 10 years ago. I was 22 when we started. We incorporated a year out. I was 23 when we incorporated. That was, I guess when we started to take it a little more seriously. Man! Just a ton of things to learn in the process and I had no career before this. I was still in school. I left school. I was working at a — I was a server at a pizza restaurant. I had to learn everything just by figuring it out. No formal education in any of these. All of a sudden I was a business owner.

[0:09:02.2] RN: Once you started growing, were you still doing the shooting and editing? Or did you kind of morph out of that role into like more of a manager-operator type?

[0:09:10.5] DD: Yeah, very quickly. I remember the moment I stopped editing. When we were working on a project, at that time my business partner and I, we would both do everything including editing and...