To kick off this summer’s Founder Origin Stories, Sherry interviews Dan Martell, founder of Clarity.  They talk about his early years as a troubled teen and the experiences and people along the way that helped give him the skills to be a better person and successful entrepreneur.

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Episode Transcript

Rob Walling:

This episode of ZenFounder kicks off our seven-part Founder Origin Series that’s going to run here for the next seven weeks. Very excited to do this again. This has been one of our most popular series of episodes that we’ve ever recorded. We’re going to kick this one off with Sherry speaking to Dan Martell. And I first ran into Dan when he and I spoke at a [inaudible 00:00:23] startup conference a few years back, I think it was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And he had already had one exit from his consulting firm and I saw Dan hustling and I knew that he was going to have success with his next one. He sold the next one, then he started Clarity and since then he’s had another exit. So he’s had three exits. He’s done very well for himself and he’s a really impressive founder. He’s one of the founders that thinks at a different level than a lot of people around you. He would never call himself a growth hacker but he knows how to hack growth and some of the ideas he’s come up with are ingenious.

But what’s perhaps even more interesting, especially related to this podcast, is Dan’s origin story. It’s fascinating. Grew up in a group home, was involved with the drug scene. And you’re going to hear a lot of interesting twists and turns in his origin story. And if you’ve only seen Dan online talking about his successes and you haven’t heard kind of a comprehensive look at his background and what he came and what he fought against and what he overcame to become a founder, you’re really going to enjoy this episode.

Before we dive in, I want to encourage you to head over to ZenFounder.com, even on your mobile phone, we’re mobile responsive, and sign up for our mailing list because we are planning an in person event in the Fall. It’s going to be small, it’s going to be hand picked, hand crafted. It’s going to sell out quickly because of the idea of how small we want to keep it. That’ll be sometime in the Fall but if you’re at all interested in hearing about things that are coming up on our radar. Sherry actually already sold out her ZenTribes course that she’s doing. It’s kind of a mastermind group of about 10 people over the course of eight weeks with Cory Miller. And that sold out within a couple days of opening it up. So things are getting exciting over here at ZenFounder and I’d encourage you to keep us with us via the mailing list. So let’s dive in.

Sherry Walling:

For people who don’t know you or aren’t familiar with your work, what are you most proud of that you’ve acco