From Myspace to AdTech Empire ft. Ted Dhanik | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Summary

Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Episode Summary: From Myspace to AdTech Empire ft. Ted Danik

Release Date: August 1, 2025
Guest: Ted Danik

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1. Introduction

In this episode of "Coffeez for Closers," host Joseph Shalaby engages in a comprehensive conversation with Ted Danik, a seasoned entrepreneur with a rich history in the digital advertising and mortgage industries. Ted shares his journey from the early days of the dot-com boom to building an AdTech empire, navigating the challenges of the LA real estate market, and his current ventures in credit repair and short-term rentals.

2. Career Journey

Ted Danik begins by outlining his career trajectory, which started in the mid-1990s in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom.

• Dot-Com Experience:
  [00:50] "I started my career in the mid-90s in Silicon Valley. Grew up in the Bay Area and worked for a lot of dot com companies back in the dot com boom."

• Lower My Bills:
  Ted discusses his role at Lower My Bills, a company focused on mortgage and credit repair, which he helped grow and eventually sold to Experian.

• MySpace Tenure:
  [00:50] "Shortly after that joined MySpace... tasked with solving a problem for MySpace, which was MySpace had 7 billion ads per day... I needed to build the technology to help them monetize better."
  He stayed with MySpace until 2008, contributing significantly to its ad monetization strategies.

3. Entrepreneurship Ventures

Post-MySpace, Ted embarked on entrepreneurial ventures that solidified his standing in the AdTech space.

• Engage BDR:
  [00:50] "In 2009 I started a digital ad company called Engage BDR... built a management system, supply side platform to help digitize all the yield."
  Ted highlights the company's rapid growth without external funding, leading to a successful IPO in 2017 and eventual merger and sale.

• Lotto Gopher:
  Ted introduces Lotto Gopher, an innovative solution to digitize lottery ticket purchases in California by partnering with liquor stores.
  [04:50] "It's kind of like postmates for lottery tickets... they took that company public and then sold it within a couple years."

4. Challenges in the LA Real Estate Market

Ted delves into the current state of the Los Angeles real estate market, emphasizing the severe downturn caused by regulatory challenges and skyrocketing fire insurance costs.

• Property Valuation Declines:
  [06:07] "All this equity we thought we had is gone, you know, completely gone."
  Ted shares personal anecdotes about his properties facing massive value declines, with exemplary cases like a West Hollywood Hills home appraising from $7.95 million to an expected sell price of $3.5 million.

• Insurance and Market Impact:
  [06:23] "A lot of people lost their homes due to inadequate fire insurance coverage... some clients are paying $4,000 to $5,000 a month on hazard insurance."

• Market Comparisons:
  The conversation touches on how neighboring properties are being sold for drastically lower prices, impacting overall market stability.

5. Credit Repair Business Insights

Ted's current focus lies in running a thriving credit repair agency, a response to the growing economic instability affecting individuals' financial health.

• Service Philosophy:
  [33:24] "We help people turn their lives around... most of our clients wanted to file bankruptcy, but we provide alternatives."
  Ted emphasizes a strategy that avoids the pitfalls of traditional debt settlement companies, offering tailored solutions like removing negative items from credit reports and negotiating directly with creditors.

• Market Demand:
  [13:19] "We're seeing more volume right now than we did in 2008 and 2009."
  The increasing demand for credit repair services is attributed to ongoing economic chaos and rising personal debts.

• Client Success Stories:
  Ted shares how his company assists clients in avoiding bankruptcy by providing actionable strategies to manage and reduce debt effectively.

6. Personal Philosophy and Values

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around Ted's personal values, emphasizing the importance of being around the right people and focusing on adding value over immediate monetization.

• Right Place, Right Time:
  [30:30] "The recipe is basically, you just have to be around the right people all the time."
  Ted attributes his success to surrounding himself with individuals who excel in their respective fields, enabling him to seize opportunities and add substantial value.

• Adding Value First:
  [32:33] "I don't care about monetization. I only care about adding value, figuring out how to add value, tremendous value, eventually figuring out how to monetize it."
  This approach has been a cornerstone of Ted's business strategy, fostering sustainable growth and long-term success.

7. Health, Wellness, and Biohacking

Ted shares his personal journey of overcoming burnout and prioritizing health and wellness, which has been pivotal in maintaining his entrepreneurial vigor.

• Overcoming Burnout:
  [38:51] "I started to transform... had to get my hormones balanced... Practicing transcendental meditation changed a lot for me."
  Ted discusses the critical steps he took to manage stress, including hormone therapy, meditation, and adopting a disciplined fitness regimen.

• Daily Routines and Biohacking:
  [52:33] Ted elaborates on his morning routine, which includes supplements like creatine and HMB, and practices like intermittent fasting and the carnivore diet.
  [56:02] "I have a sauna, I have cold plunge, hot pool... I used to do cryo every day for nine years."

• Health Prioritization:
  Ted underscores the importance of maintaining physical and mental health as foundational to personal and professional success.
  [43:30] "The five pillars are health, wellness, fitness, spirituality, and sleep."

8. Future Goals and Closing Remarks

In the concluding segments, Ted outlines his aspirations both personally and professionally.

• Personal Goals:
  [59:53] "Personal goal is to get married soon... Family goal is to have kids on a trial basis."
  Ted expresses his desire to build a family and find personal fulfillment beyond his business endeavors.

• Business Goals:
  [60:31] "Professional goal is to find the next tech itch... potentially integrating AI into event platforms like Party Full."
  Ted remains open to new opportunities, emphasizing sustainable growth and value addition in his ventures.

• Legacy and Service:
  [49:20] "It's about serving, doing God's work, being of service to people, and you're always taken care of."
  Ted concludes with a reflection on his mission to help others and create lasting impacts through his businesses.

Notable Quotes

• "The recipe is basically, you just have to be around the right people all the time." — Ted Danik [30:30]

• "I don't care about monetization. I only care about adding value, figuring out how to add value, tremendous value, eventually figuring out how to monetize it." — Ted Danik [32:33]

• "Most of these people that wanted to file bankruptcy, they don't have to." — Ted Danik [34:04]

• "Time is the only currency you can't replenish." — Ted Danik [43:30]

• "We're here for other people. We're not here for ourselves." — Ted Danik [49:24]

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Conclusion

This episode provides a deep dive into Ted Danik's multifaceted career and personal philosophies. From building an AdTech empire and navigating the tumultuous LA real estate market to dedicating himself to credit repair and maintaining personal health, Ted offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs and professionals alike. His emphasis on adding value, surrounding oneself with the right people, and prioritizing health and wellness serves as a guiding framework for sustained success.

For more insights and to connect with Ted Danik, follow him on Instagram @TedDanik.

Transcript

[Ted Danik]

I've been doing for seven years. We go at Craig's. I rotate 12 different guys every week on Thursdays and Albert will come and you know, like. And I would have to sit next to him and sound like, bro, what the did you say in this podcast? You know, you got to stop sometimes. You know, I've been driving a Rolls Royce since, you know, like something like that. I'm like, bro, come on, dude. So crazy funny. I know.

[Sam]

Welcome to another episode of Coffee.

[Ted Danik]

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Haven't had coffee in 10 years. But since I'm a close, I guess I have to, right?

[Sam]

Today's a big day, you know, 10 years deep and you broke the fast.

[Ted Danik]

Let's see what happens to me.

[Sam]

Hopefully it doesn't mess you up, man. You're a health nut, so hopefully it doesn't throw you off. You want to give the audience like just a, just a quick overview of who is Ted Danik?

[Ted Danik]

Sure. So I started my career in the mid-90s in Silicon Valley. Grew up in the Bay Area and I worked for a lot of dot com companies back in the dot com boom. And some of them did well, some of them did not. That brought me to la. Company called Lower My Bills was one of the original guys there ended up selling. We sold that company to Experian. So I know the mortgage business pretty well and credit repair as well. And shortly after that joined MySpace, said it's at its beginning and we sold that in 2005 and I stayed on till 2008 and the earnouts ended. I was tasked with solving a problem for MySpace, which was MySpace had 7 billion ads per day. They were going under monetized and I needed to build the technology to help them monetize better. So I left. And in 2009 I started a digital ad company called Engage BDR, which was is essentially tasked with solving a yield problem. So lots of ad companies or websites back then had lots of traffic, but they weren't monetizing it well. They had these Rev Share deals they couldn't ad. They couldn't understand the value of those Rev Share deals in real time. So they were basically cannibalizing their own revenue. So I built a management system, supply side platform to help digitize all the yield and I did pretty well. MySpace was our first client and we were profitable since the first month. We raised no money, no debt, no equity, did hundreds of millions in revenue and in 2017 took it public on an IPO. Raised about 80 million bucks while we were public, and then merged it into another company, sold it and then left about three years ago. During that process, we came up with an idea to. It's pretty interesting to figure out how to digit, digitize lottery tickets in California. Like, you know, you couldn't buy a lottery ticket online. It was really weird, right? So came up with this concept called Lotto Gopher where we had relationships with liquor stores everywhere because gaming laws in California gaming was sold to the Native Americans. Online gaming, you couldn't do online gaming in any capacity in California because Native Americans own that. So it was illegal. So you literally had to do a gopher model. It's kind of like postmates for lottery tickets. You put you know, your information, you know, as far as like what kind of lottery ticket you want or you could be a part of a pool or something and, and then the bet slips would be printed at the liquor store and popped into the machine. That was the workaround for digitizing lottery tickets online. Anyways, we took that company public and, and then sold it within a couple years. So. And then now it's like, I don't know what happened. Somebody bought it and some. Somebody's still around. But yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting space. So we did that. And then now currently over the past three years I've been focused on. I have a short term rental business. We have about 50 properties in LA and additionally we have. I have a credit repair agency for 20 years. So that credit repair agency is thriving currently under, you know, unfortunately under the current economy and all the stuff going on with everyone, there's a lot of pain out there. We're helping people turn their lives around. So it's still an exciting space 20 to 20 years later.

[Sam]

Wow. So how many companies active right now?

[Ted Danik]

2.

[Sam]

Two companies active. What's your favorite one?

[Ted Danik]

You know, after doing all this stuff, you know, it's like work is kind of like, you know, there's passion, you know. And I think that do we have the burning desire at this moment right now? I think there are some problems that need to be solved out there. But you know, I think the credit repair business is pretty exciting because we get to really have a pulse on, you know, personal finance and the finance. Everything that's happening in the world conversation you and I had about hey, how, how's mortgage business impacted with all the stuff happening right now, the high rates and fire insurance issues and all that stuff, you know, so we can't understand that pretty well. We have the pulse on it. So I think that that's an interesting space. California is very tough for short term rental business, specifically Los Angeles, because of regulation and. Yeah, the politics. And there's a lot of lobby money from the hotel. You know, hotel lobby is very strong. So they've been successful at, you know, at kind of breaking the Airbnb business out there. So.

[Sam]

So where your properties are all out of state?

[Ted Danik]

No, they're all in la. It's been tough, but yeah, we figured out how to, how to, you know, maneuver for now. But there's always something coming up. You know, there's, there's always going to be, you know, some change that's happening that's not in our favor and it's been, it's been really rough. So.

[Sam]

So possibly gonna sell all those properties then?

[Ted Danik]

You know, we try not to sell any real estate, you know, you know, try to buy it, but it's been a, it's been, you know, an experience. Even if we wanted to sell right now, we couldn't sell because all the equity that we thought we had is kind of gone. Because all the fire sales and all the neighborhoods and all the comps. Right, so that's another discussion as well, because you, you know, you, we have so many properties and we thought we have really great. LTV is like 50 in most of them, you know, and, and then you start seeing the comps. Next door neighbors are selling for 50 of the value. You know, stuff like that that's happening.

[Sam]

Comps are like that now.

[Ted Danik]

Really bad. Really bad. So, yeah, so all this equity we thought we had is gone, you know, completely gone.

[Sam]

So I mean, you're not in the Palisades, like for crying out, we're in the Palisades.

[Ted Danik]

We'd be better there. We're in Hollywood Hill, West Hollywood Hills, you know, mostly.

[Sam]

So you've seen massive declines.

[Ted Danik]

Massive declines, yeah, because people can't afford to hang on and they can't. The fire insurance is gone, so you're on state fair plan, you know, for only a portion of it. And then, you know, your banks are gonna, you know, push insurance, you know, which is pretty expensive. Some of our clients are paying like four or five thousand dollars a month on, on hazard insurance. That's, you know, the forced coverage from the mortgage banks. It's pretty insane, you know.

[Sam]

That's insane.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty wild. And a lot of these people had to, they were forced to refi because the economy is so bad. They had to pull out cash or like sitting at like 7.5, 8.5%. You know, these non QM loans and these DSCRs are so bad, you know, so it's like very hard, you know, it's tough. And you can't refi anytime soon because we don't see rates coming down that.

[Sam]

Much, you know, and the fire insurance, you can't get insurance for.

[Ted Danik]

Can't get insurance. Especially all those like four or $5 million, $6 million homes, they're not selling because you can't get coverage for them, you know, and it's like, what do you do? So homes aren't selling. They're not selling because of fire insurance and because of the rates. Both of them not. It's not just one. So if we had like one of them change, then stuff will start selling again. The only sales are fire sales, you know, and people can't afford them. And you can't remove them from the appraisals as outliers because they're actually good homes, you know, so we have no equity anymore. It's gone. You know, that's crazy. It's crazy. Equity gone overnight.

[Sam]

I didn't even realize that LA is toast with their value.

[Ted Danik]

Pretty bad. Yeah.

[Sam]

And it was just like all these celebrities who own homes there are just.

[Ted Danik]

We're all. So I had a home. I have a home up in West Hollywood Hills two and a half years ago. Last appraisal was 7.95 million. Next door neighbor right now is selling. And that's a 5,500 square foot home. Crazy views, great home, all glass. Next door neighbor, same home, same kind of home. 6,700 square feet bigger. Much bigger than my property. Selling his home for 4 million bucks right now. 4 million bucks. He's been on market for six months. He's getting an offer, he's gonna sell. He's gonna break at three and a half.

[Sam]

Dude, you can't even build half that house for three and a half million.

[Ted Danik]

He's gonna break at three and a half. And by the way, it costs more.

[Sam]

Than a thousand bucks a square foot to build that.

[Ted Danik]

It does. But three, if he sells a three and a half, 6,700 square feet, what are we, like 500 bucks a foot? Basically. 500 bucks a foot. My last appraisal was 8 million bucks. What do you think if I. First of all, I can't tap any equity because technically equity's gone, right? Can't tap any equity. Equity is gone. You know, it's like your whole net worth cut is cut in half because all the properties are looking like that basically too. Right? So it's A, it's a, it's, it's a, it's been a year, so. Damn, it's troubling, you know.

[Sam]

Time to move to Newport beach, bro.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, I don't know about the valuations here though.

[Sam]

We're overvalued here because everybody from LA came here.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, that's great. You know, everyone's leaving, going to Miami over there. So.

[Sam]

Yeah. Here in Newport Beach I could, I mean, I can't tell you how many Palisades families are just on my kids baseball team.

[Ted Danik]

Sure.

[Sam]

You know. Yeah, like just like, like 20% of the team is from Palisades, so.

[Ted Danik]

So the Palisade is an interesting challenge. So I have quite a few friends that were in the Palisades and some of them did really well, you know, with recovering their losses.

[Sam]

The insurance covered 100% for most people.

[Ted Danik]

Not for most people. Let me tell you what happened. And there's a lot, there's a vast majority of my friends who were affected by the fires that. Here's what happened to all of them. It's pretty crazy. So they bought their homes 20 years ago. Let's say they paid, you know, 3 million bucks for their home. They never updated the policies to increase coverage. Now this is the vast majority of the people. Okay, so what happened was out of a three million dollar purchase price, how much of it was dwelling like two million bucks or something? Right. Never updated the policies. You can't build that house for 2 million bucks. It's going to cost you like 4 or 5 now to build it, maybe even more because you know, all the crazy demand over there. So what happens is they, they get a check for 2 million bucks. Doesn't go to them, goes to the mortgage, mortgage company gets, you know, the, the 2 million bucks as they have a balance on the home still. And then they end up with, hopefully their mortgage is paid off and they end up with a lot and then that's it. They end up with a lot. And they, they don't have the means to go and build another home. So they're selling. You hear the, you hear about them selling the lots right now even Gavin Newsom's out there buying lots for, you know, for pennies. For pennies. He's buying lots to build, you know, housing for, you know, the, you know what, how do we call that, you know, PC but you know, you know what I mean? Right. So he's building.

[Sam]

They're gonna put like. Yeah, they're putting like canned homes on them.

[Ted Danik]

Exactly. You know, homes for like, you know.

[Sam]

Manufactured homes, tiny homes, low income homes.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah. So they're buying the lots for pennies because nobody can do anything with a lot. So I have several friends. The same thing happened to them. The insurance didn't cover some. Most of the property in the home either. They had a limit on that as well from, like back, you know, like whenever they bought the home, nobody updated their policy, so they paid out whatever they're supposed to pay out. Yeah, obviously it's the fault of the homeowner to not update the policy, but this happened to the majority of the people. And that's why you're finding all these lots that are available right now, because they can't afford to build on them. So it's a big problem. The people are out there buying lots right now. And, you know, there's going to be. There's a pretty big opportunity from that perspective, but it's pretty up, you know.

[Sam]

So there's a really big opportunity for those to come in. But, man, I would not buy in Palisades. I mean, the probability of another fire, if they build it again, who knows?

[Ted Danik]

I mean, I love Palisades, though. It's great. But. Yeah, it is. You know, that was, I feel there was a manufactured fire. It was not a real fire. Yeah, for sure. So that could happen again too. But it, you know, all of this starting to make sense where the people are, you know, there's just a lot of, like, things happening right now that are, you know, that there's a lot of opportunity from demise. Right. So fires happen. A lot of people lost their homes. Guess what? Now people can. Now you can go in and buy, you know, these lots at the. On the floor. They're sitting on the floor, basically, you know, like, you could never buy lots in that neighborhood, you know, now you can, you know, so I also feel like, you know, Covid came and, you know, there was a lot of destruction from COVID economy, economic destruction. We have not recovered since then. You know, there's so much pain from that. And that created, you know, the bottom. Right. Again. So there's a lot of moments where we see the bottom happening a lot, you know, again. And so I, you know, we have a different perspective because when we talk to clients, we're talking clients every day, and the credit repair side, and all we hear is. Can imagine is demise. Right.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

And we're seeing more right now. We're seeing more volume right now than we did in 2008 and 2009, which.

[Sam]

Is crazy because, you know, I do economic updates every day. And it's like, oh, you know, job reports came in or we're seeing a bounce back in, in, in, in rates. Or we're, you know, inflation's cooling and all this high level economic upbeat stuff. Really, like if you get granular, like a lot of that is just like there's so much chaos in the economy right now.

[Ted Danik]

It's a lot of, a lot of fluff. Like, I, I don't know, you guys, I don't know what you're seeing here, but over there, you know, you drive around West Hollywood and all these iconic places are all gone. They're all gone. Like chin chin gone. Petite 4 gone. Pink taco, Tessa Catch steak Mxo brand new restaurant just opened six months ago.

[Sam]

What do you mean? Like catch steak is gone in Hollywood?

[Ted Danik]

Gone? Yeah, they're gone.

[Sam]

What do you mean? Like they just shut down because they're.

[Ted Danik]

All out of business. Yeah.

[Sam]

Pink tacos out of business.

[Ted Danik]

Gone. And I'm telling you, there's countless more. All these iconic places gone. And this all happened this year. So it's pretty, it's pretty concerning, you know, so there's a lot, a lot happening that's, you know, that's a bit, I don't know, it's consistent with what I see, you know, on these credit reports. Consistent with what I see. Now your, your perspective is different because you're here in Newport and I feel like you guys are like a little bit shielded from, you know, from some of that stuff too. But in it, you know, you see the, the loan origination volume, you know, that is a pretty good indicator, you know.

[Sam]

Yeah. I mean, right now for my business model, I told you, kind of like we thrive on bad economies or my specific model, but there's only a handful of us, we're considered a mega, mega broker, and there's only five of us, you know. So, sure, we thrive on other mortgage companies going out of business because, you know, then it's an opportunity for them to come clean to a mega company who has all the resources and the money and can withstand economic turmoil.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

So as we grow, that's also kind of an indicator that other companies are going out of business. So we're continuing. We acquire companies for $0.

[Ted Danik]

Sure.

[Sam]

You know, and we're. The larger. The company that comes to us is an indicator, like the more demise that's happening.

[Ted Danik]

Sure.

[Sam]

And so if a company with 100 guys comes over, it's like, dude, this is tough times.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Because this company was making sure. Tens of millions.

[Ted Danik]

You know, Albert Preado of course. Yeah. I was talking to him the other day. I think there are kind of feelings.

[Sam]

Would love Albert to join us. I mentioned it many times, you know, but big ego.

[Ted Danik]

I'll get him here.

[Sam]

Yeah, big ego. I'm like, Albert, you'd make 10 times more money. And he makes a lot of money.

[Ted Danik]

Right?

[Sam]

You know, if he's listening, Albert, Yo. I'm still going to tell you, he's.

[Ted Danik]

Got, like, you know, he's got this whole Hispanic community.

[Sam]

I'll help him dominate.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, yeah, that. They're. They're, you know, from that perspective. He's got that world and he's got their trust and I don't know, I've keynoted his driven events, too. Were fun.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, He's a good guy.

[Ted Danik]

On his podcast and stuff.

[Sam]

I like Albert. I saw a funny Tik Tok made that made fun of him, one of his podcasts before. It was hilarious yesterday. I'm gonna send it to him.

[Ted Danik]

There's a lot of that out there.

[Sam]

Because he's controversial guy.

[Ted Danik]

Super controversial. And I'd have to tell him. He comes to my dinners on. I have a boys dinner on Thursday. I have 80 guys in a dinner club in LA I've been doing for seven years. We go at Craig's. I rotate 12 different guys every week on Thursdays. And Albert will come and, you know, like. And I would have to sit next to him and sound like, bro, what the did you say in this podcast? You know, you gotta stop sometimes, you know, he's like, I've been driving a Rolls Royce since, you know, like, something like that. I'm like, bro, come on, dude. So crazy funny. I know, bro. I don't publish anything. Like, nobody knows anything about me, you know, like, other than the. They see our beads. Yeah.

[Sam]

So we're Third World immigrants, bro.

[Ted Danik]

Right, right, right. But at the same time, it's like, I'm very spiritual, you know, so.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. That's staying rooted in your spirituality and your faith is like, what keeps you, like, grounded.

[Ted Danik]

Sure, absolutely.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

That's all endogenous, you know?

[Sam]

Yeah. It's a big part of my show here, even. It's like, you know, my. Everything I am is because I come from a persecuted Christian community in Egypt. Like, we came because of that. So that's why I keep that mentality. Keep my. I say Sixth World roots because I'm from a third world of a third World.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah. No, that's great. Yeah. You know, I believe it. You're not white. I got it. No, no, no, but it's.

[Sam]

It's. You know, I say it. I see it on podcasting in my book. I say, like, these Egyptian guys, Everyone. Yeah, just part of my identity. Like, I. I come from, like, a really poor part of Cairo, the poorest part. You know, like, there's, like, a handful of really, really poor parts, and you just. And then here I am in the richest part of America, you know, like, so the. The dichotomy is, like, insane. Like, you know, like, here I am from the absolute poorest. Now I'm in the absolute richest. And just, like, trying to instill a mindset like that in my kids is, like, the biggest struggle. My kids, like, their classmates are. Their. Their. Their parents are. Won Super Bowls, you know, like.

[Ted Danik]

Right, right. Yeah. It's crazy.

[Sam]

I would. You know, they come to. They. They know people that own sports teams.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Like, I would have never even imagined going to a sports game, let alone, like, sitting in the owner's box ever in my life. You know, my kids just do that, like, if they're not going to a sports in a box, like. Like, what are we doing?

[Ted Danik]

That's wild. Yeah. So, you know, I don't have kids, but, you know, eventually when I do, I'll just show them my film. The film I starred in, like, Slumdog Millionaire, you know. That was me, you said. Yeah, it's basically the same story. Totally. Yeah. I came from India, you know, that's what it looked like.

[Sam]

That's real.

[Ted Danik]

That's real. That was me for all, you know, intents and purposes.

[Sam]

So, yeah, it's. It's cool to, you know, to have that root and then just kind of maintain that mentality, especially in this journey of success that you've had. Let's dive into it, man. You know, like, all these exits, you know, this. All these brands. Like, what was MySpace like in the mean for me, I was intrigued by MySpace, you know, like, I loved MySpace when I was around. It started. It was the catalyst of Facebook. It was the catalyst to this world we're in right now. The social media dominant world we're in.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, I mean, we pretty much, you know, for. I would say, like, you know, like the wide version. We invented social media. You know, I think that we were like, the. We weren't the first social media platform. There was a bunch of them before us. You know, it was like Friendster and a couple others. But, you know, for that, we're the one that, you know, took off pretty fast. We actually went after Friendster to copy, you know, Friendster and ended up doing it way better. But that was the idea.

[Sam]

Friends are still around?

[Ted Danik]

No, no, no. Friendster's not around. But you know, the idea really was we wanted to build a non taboo dating site. That was what MySpace was supposed to be, you know. So Tom, he was on Match, you know, dot com, like way back in the days. And you know, being on a dating site back then was super taboo, you know, it was weird, you know, so, you know, you wanted to do something that's a little bit more, you know, less taboo, you know, and so that's, that was the idea. We took off like, you know, you know, like super, super viral, really fast. Within the first week, we're starting to get offers, you know, like it was that crazy. And we had no idea that it was gonna be that, you know, that big or that great. And you know, we just kept growing and growing. And then I felt like, you know, we, we touched so much pop culture, which was really exciting. We were always around all these like Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee and you know, 50 Cent and even Diddy. Yes. You know, we were around. I didn't go to those parties. I went to a bunch of other parties. You know, we, we discovered. Sorry. We toured. Danity Kane, one of his making the band artists, I think two, like one or two of them testified against him in the trial. It's so funny. But I know those girls. I've known them for. We did like 50 city tour with them. So I knew him really well. It was a really great time. It was so much fun. Like it was really, really was truly so much fun. My title was VP of Fun and so I was head of all strategic marketing. And it was great. It was just, it was a different time, you know. And I came off of the thing for me, which was like so much contrast was I came off of a corporate job, lower my bills, you know, right before that I was at lower my bills. And lower my bills was, you know, 15 hour days selling to like Countrywide, you know what I mean? And, and these big huge banks, you know, and it was just all big business development deals and just sound leads. And you know, at a certain point you start wondering, you know, where, where's the value? You know, like really, like what change, what behavioral change are we making in people? You know, like what are we doing that is really, that's really helping people, you know, I mean, besides helping them get a cheaper mortgage, you know, obviously that's a commodity, right? So you get to a point where it's Like, I'm selling something for money. And it's really just didn't sit right with me for a while. And then. So then I said, I'm not doing sales or business development ever again, you know. So after that exit, I just said, I'm done. And then MySpace was purely marketing. That's what my degree's in. And it was completely different, you know, I didn't use anything I learned in college, by the way. So besides the discipline and, you know, it was. It was. It was great. It was just Tom and I running around the country, you know, Just you.

[Sam]

And Tom just running the show.

[Ted Danik]

No, I mean, there's a bunch of. A bunch of people. But I mean, as far as, like, the people, MySpace people would see us. We're the only real people that MySpace people that they would see, you know, we were the tangible MySpace face, you know, it was me and it was Tom, you know, and Tom would be. You know, everyone saw Tom as their first friend, you know, and then he would make appearances, you know, we'd have parties all around the country, everywhere. That's kind of how we promoted MySpace in the beginning. It was MySpace parties. And we evolved pretty quickly to other stuff, like content acquisition deals and stuff. But that was. That was kind of it, you know, it was so much fun. And MySpace music blew up. It was really huge. And we had a record label with Jimmy Iovine, Interscope Records called MySpace Records, which is which.

[Sam]

MySpace is now just music anyways, right?

[Ted Danik]

I don't know what it is now. The guys in Orange county own it. So basically what happened was MySpace was sold after us to Front News Corp. Sold it to Specific Media. There's two brothers. It was like Vanderhook brothers. Specific Media was a media company that was based in Orange county here. They bought it and then part of their launch, they gave Justin Timber, like, 7 million bucks to do an endorsement deal, right? So it was just part of it, you know, like. But it was an endorsement deal. Didn't really work out. They tried to relaunch. It didn't work. And then. And then they. That company got rebranded and went public and all this stuff to Vyant and Viant is still based in Orange County. They're a public company and they still own it. And I've been trying to buy it. There's a lot of controversy around this publicly because I've called them out publicly several times. You know, I've been reaching out to the brothers Chris, and I'm like, hey, look, we're the only ones that can reactivate MySpace. So why don't you give it to us?

[Sam]

What would you do differently?

[Ted Danik]

Buy it or. I just want the domain. I don't want the brand. I don't want anything. I just want the domain. So what would we do? Build a. Like, Instagram or, you know, TikTok killer. We know exactly what we need to do. It's super easy. But know to reactivate Tom, you know, in that world, because Tom's happy. He doesn't want to work, you know, he doesn't need to do anything. He just likes doing what he does, which is golf. He plays golf.

[Sam]

Where is he at?

[Ted Danik]

He plays golf here in Irvine. He. He has a. He has a house here in Irvine. He plays golf here. There's some sort of golf course. I don't know anything about golf, but he's been trying to get me to play with him for years, you know, so.

[Sam]

Probably plays a big canyon here.

[Ted Danik]

White people, you know. Just kidding. Sorry, tiger. But, you know, I feel that. So he lives here. He lives in Vegas most of the time. And then he comes, you know, he comes here, comes to West Hollywood, comes to Hawaii. So that's his thing. But, yeah. So, you know, I think that, you know, I don't know. I mean, it. It was. It was great. It was so much fun. There was a lot of value that we delivered to people. We're able to. I mean, every. I still get DMS from people. I met my wife on MySpace. I'm like, I'm sorry. No, no, it worked out. Okay.

[Sam]

Good.

[Ted Danik]

You know, that's great. Stuff like that, you know? You know, so many artists we discovered. Dane Cook was discovered there. Even Sean Kingston, who's in jail now. So many. So many huge artists were discovered on Kingston.

[Sam]

Kingston, yeah, yeah, the reggae music dude.

[Ted Danik]

He's in jail.

[Sam]

I don't even know him.

[Ted Danik]

And his mom. Yeah.

[Sam]

Chubby guy, right?

[Ted Danik]

Chubby guy, yeah. We did a lot of work with him. I've known him forever.

[Sam]

That he went to jail.

[Ted Danik]

He just went to jail recently. He. Him and his mom did some sort of fraud. I don't know. Some kind of fraud. I don't know, man. Some crazy. In Florida, you know? Florida. There's a lot of weird happening in Florida all the time. Florida used to be the armpit of the universe. Now everyone moved there, so I don't know, you know, why? Right? Homestead.

[Sam]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

So you know Dan Bazerian's dad story?

[Sam]

No.

[Ted Danik]

Dan Bazerian's dad embezzled $100 million from the company he was working for long time ago. Right. He embezzled that money, had to go to prison. Went to prison. The government's been trying to recover that money for a long time. Government ended up spending more than $100 million to recover the money. And then they finally quit. What he did, that was really smart. He kept the money here, but they couldn't get it because he bought really crazy homes for all his kids in Florida. And each one of the homes were their primary residence for each one of the kids. And they had like columns made out of gold and weird like that. So it's part of the home, you know. So in Florida, they can't take your home, so they couldn't take any of the homes. One of the kids, expatriated, gave up his citizenship, moved to the Cook Islands, and they started selling homes and transferring the money over there. Couldn't touch him. That's how he got his money. Yeah, Dan got his money.

[Sam]

Initially, I didn't know that. That. Yeah, Dan's inherited wealth. See, Armenians are always just ahead.

[Ted Danik]

Homestead act.

[Sam]

Yeah, that was genius.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

For him to embezzle money, go to Florida.

[Ted Danik]

Dad took one for the team, and.

[Sam]

All the kids are made.

[Ted Danik]

They're all made.

[Sam]

Great. And he's still in jail of the dad?

[Ted Danik]

No, no, I don't think so. I mean, I don't know how much time he did, but I'm sure he's out. You know, this is like something happened in like the 80s or 90s.

[Sam]

Wow.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

What kind of company was that?

[Ted Danik]

I have no idea.

[Sam]

And you, you know, all the celebrity.

[Ted Danik]

Oh, if you look it up, you'll find it. It's all over the Internet.

[Sam]

It's crazy. So. So why did you start in the mortgage industry? Like, how'd you get involved with. Lower my bills.

[Ted Danik]

Okay, so interesting story. I worked for a lot of dot com companies in the 90s, and I ended up at a comparison shopping engine. Do you remember Price Grabber? Yeah, Price Grabber. And then there was like a bunch of them. Then next tag was another one. So I ended up at next tag. Next tag was basically comparison shopping engine. So it is for, like, software and like shoes and like electronic products and stuff like that. So you basically this was the buyer's behavior before. Before you bought like a TV or, you know, like something like that online. You'd go to comparison shopping engine, like Price Grabber. You put in the model number and you'll see all the. All these vendors or, sorry, all these retailers selling them. Right. And they'd see their prices and basically you'd buy it from, you'd. You'd find the, you know, the lowest price from that comparison shopping engine and you click on it and it would take you to that site and you would buy it there and we would get paid for the click, right? So we were next tag and we were comparison shopping engine, one of the biggest ones. We get paid for the click. So we had all these guys, imagine all these electronic retailers on the site paying us for those clicks. It's basically like another search engine, right? But very specifically for these types of products. So when I got there, I said, okay, this is great, but how about we're selling leads, right? Cause that's a lead, right? So how about lending tree? Lending trees on fire right now. Lending. She's killing it. But they're only doing tv, you know, they're only doing TV at the time. Why don't we have a mortgage product, you know, or compare like a personal finance product, like credit cards or something, you know? Okay, great, let's try it. So we started, we got it. We get partnered with a mortgage broker broker and we're live in a few states. And we started running ads on our own site to market refi and home purchase. And so we did that and the stick rate was really strong. It was converting pretty well. So we started selling the leads, we started doing biz dev deals with banks to buy the leads. And there you go. And we got to a half a million bucks a day pretty quick. So that's how we got to that. And then so I was one of the five people in the country who knew the personal finance lead space really well digitally online, you know. So when I went to lower my bills, lower my bills was doing credit card and debt at the time. They weren't doing refi or purchase any mortgage products at all. So they hired me basically to kind of grow that business.

[Sam]

So were you, were you one of the executives there as well? And then you had, you were part of the exit, so you got to earn out there too.

[Ted Danik]

Absolutely. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, it was good. So I was talking about this. I just came from another podcast, by the way, but this other podcast, I was talking about this, this recipe, right? So I've always been at the right place at the right time. And I've done it like at least four times, right? Like a bunch of times. But how, you know, like, how are you at the right place, the right time? Is it a fluke? Is it random? Is it like I'm lucky? No, I'm not Lucky. I'm fortunate. But I have figured out the recipe for right place at the right time. And the recipe is basically, you just have to be around the right people all the time, right? And so what does the right people actually mean? It's quite different from. From eliminating the wrong people. It's not that. It's not only eliminating the wrong people, but it's strategically placing the exact people that do things really well or perfectly that you want to achieve and you want to do right. So if you want to be really great in the printing business, you should be around people that are in the printing business. Right. That understand that business. You want to be. You want to take your company public, you got to be around people like Robbie Lee, who taught me how to take my companies public and buy companies with no cash, or we're just selling a dream, right? Using private paper, you know, stuff like that. So it's always about. It's always. For me, it's always been about being around those people. And I've never had a plan for the future. I don't know what I'm gonna do next. I never did. Just being around the right people, I could pick up opportunities pretty quickly and figure out how to add value in that sector and run. And one other thing that I do that I'm focused on is I don't care about monetization. I only care about adding value, figuring out how to add value, tremendous value, eventually figuring out how to monetize it, you know, once you've built some critical mass. So that's my. My mantra is a little bit different than a lot of other people wanting to build businesses and how to. Trying to figure out how to monetize before delivering the value. So it's a little bit different.

[Sam]

Yeah, I can see that cadence in your career path because you're like, lower my bills, came add value, Added mortgage. MySpace, came added value, you know, But. But these companies like the credit repair and the Airbnb, I mean, not right time.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, it's a credit repair business is like Airbnb. Credit repair business is huge, huge, huge value. Right. For people, because it changes their lives. Right? I mean, we feel really good about what we do because we give people another start. Like, we get countless people coming to us saying, I'm about, you know, about to file bankruptcy. But my cousin is your client, and he told us that, you know, you could be the alternative. And we're, like, looking at their debt, and you've got, like, you know, like $50,000 in debt. You want to fight Bankruptcy? Are you out of your mind? You're crazy. No, here's what we're going to do, you know, and so we save them from that, you know, so we feel.

[Sam]

I mean, how can you. Like, if they don't have 50 grand to pay the debt, they can't afford the 1500 payments. Like, what can they do?

[Ted Danik]

Oh, there's so much we can do. First of all, they get sucked into debt settlement companies which destroy. It is like, destroy them. So let me, let me tell you what that company, those companies do. Debt settlement companies will collect all their feet. But by the way, their fees are like 75% of the amount that you agree to pay them in total, right?

[Sam]

Which I told. I had someone come here in my office today. Like, he had 40 grand in debt. I'm like. And he wants to like, buy again. I'm like, dude, I'm just gonna tell you exactly the dead set of company does. Yeah, don't make your payments for four months. Call them in four or five months and settle them 20 cents on the dollar yourself.

[Ted Danik]

I don't even do that. I'll tell you what I do. So basically, so that's how my company is gonna say, you got $40,000 in debt. You're gonna pay us, you know, $20,000. And, and out of that $20,000, we're going to save $5,000 to settle with them, and then 15,000 of it is going to be our fee. But by the way, we're not going to start paying, we're not going to negotiate a deal or start paying your creditors until we collect 100% of our fees. So it could be like two years down the road. We've collected all of our fees, and then now we're going to go, we're going to negotiate a deal, right?

[Sam]

They've already wrote off the debt.

[Ted Danik]

They've already wrote off the debt. But in this case, in the 24 months, if you stop paying them, guess what happens? Let's say you paid them $14,000 out of 15 that you, that you committed to pay them. They keep the $14,000. You don't get a penny of it back. So that settlement business is a scam. What we do is, I will tell you because we have so much experience with these creditors, I will look at your credit report. You've defaulted on all these lines, all these credit cards, all these loans, all this. I'll tell you exactly who's going to sue you and, and who's not going to sue you. And I'll tell you how to deal with service if they try to sue you as well. We have lawyers for that, we have attorneys for that who settle for like pennies on the dollar. But 95% of these creditors will not sue you. So what do we do? We remove the stuff from the credit report. You can go get new credit. If they, if they come at you, you don't have to worry about it unless you get, unless you get served or you get sued. If that point happens, we give you our attorney, you, and they will negotiate a settlement with them. It'll take two, three years to, you know, to pay it off and you'll get a crazy, you know, rate and it'll be pennies on the, pennies on the dollar. So it's, it's a lot cheaper because 100% of them will not sue you. Maybe 5% of them will, you know, and we already know, I know American Express will, Bank of America will, Cal bank and Trust will. There's a handful of them that will. Majority of them do not sue. So it's like most people are scared, you know, I'm going to get sued, I'm going to get sued. We removed from the credit report. What incentive do you have to pay them? There's no incentive. It's gone. You start all over again. So most of these people that wanted to file bankruptcy, they don't have to.

[Sam]

It's crazy.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah. What I say is deal with it now. But I mean, you know, just like basically just remove it from the credit report. Ask for forgiveness later on when they come at you, when they come looking for an apology, then you give them an apology and then say, here's my attorney, My attorney is specialized in installing contingency. You will pay, you know, you will pay them a fraction, you know, and they'll get, you know, 25% or 10% of the balance negotiated over a three year term. Why would you, why would you file bankruptcy? There's no reason to. I have clients that we've had to remove hundreds of accounts like from their credit report. Like one client with a hundred accounts, you know, when shit goes bad and these bigger people, you know that they fall hard, right? They're brand new, they didn't even have to file bankruptcy. Remove them, they get sued by American Express, you know, sued by bank of America, by the way, American Express sues you, guess what happens? They dangle a carrot in front of you. You can have another American Express as soon as we, we, we deal with this. So you can pay, you can negotiate a term with them. Typically 40 to 50% of the balance. Pay them over like 2, 3 years. Soon as you're done, guess what, they give you a new card. So why would you pay them the hundred percent right now? I tell them, conserve your cash.

[Sam]

You know, people just don't know.

[Ted Danik]

They don't know. They don't know. They don't have resources like us.

[Sam]

Yeah, that's.

[Ted Danik]

That's the difference. They don't know people. Some people get suicidal. It's really sad and tragic. Some people get really, really depressed. My credit's ruined.

[Sam]

I mean, it destroys families. It destroys, you know, one of the leading causes of divorce, always financial hardship.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, it's pretty bad. So I have these other clients, so some of them that they're trying to, like, you know, rob Peter to pay Paul, that kind of thing. Basically balance transfer hopping around and stuff, you know, and they're running out of cash, you know, because their income's gone. You know, it's a very common conversation right now. A lot of people are faced with. They just lost their income, you know, completely. And for some reason, a lot of my clients lost in March for some weird reason, you know, and, you know, and I tell them that your cash. You need to conserve your cash if you have no income. But, yeah, I gotta pay these. I gotta pay. No, it's fine to default on this stuff right now. I would. I would always recommend the default versus, you know, the continue. Use your cash. You have no income, use that. You use the default, and we could remove it. It's not a big deal, you know, And I'll tell you who's gonna sue you. So. So, yeah, it's. It's kind of. It's really sad and scary what's going on out there.

[Sam]

Unbelievable.

[Ted Danik]

And people have been screwed so many times by credit repair companies, you know, so it's kind of scary.

[Sam]

There's a. There's a. This is a great question. There's a version of success where you burn out quietly behind the scenes. What did that look like for you? How'd you reset?

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, that happened to me a lot during the credit repair. I'm sorry. During the last public. The public company that I ran for about seven years, we went public and, you know, within. You know, within a year or so, I started having to deal with, you know, the whole being public CEO, chairman thing, which is, like, really painful. It was like I was, you know, paparazzi get me coming out of my Bugatti, and then they'd, you know, they'd write a fucking article about me saying that I'm overpaid, you know, like really crazy stuff, and then just short my stock the next day, like, really wild shit. And I'm just thinking, like, yo, this is not, you know, this is not what I signed up for is really scary. And that's why I stopped drinking coffee, by the way, because the coffee was amplifying my anxiety, you know, my stress. Like, something would appear to be, like, really bigger than it was, and the. The coffee for me made it just worse, you know, or it was espresso specifically, not coffee. But anyways, so I had to, you know, I had to get my principal, my fundamental, fundamental values in line. And for me, the five pillars are health, wellness, fitness, spirituality, and sleep. Those are the things that are most important to me, you know, And I have to have to maintain that, because once that is in line, everything else is just, you know, another episode or another era of my life, you know. And so when. When I went into the. I went into fight or flight for a year and a half or two years because of all the stuff that was going on, the stock market stuff, and you hear about people jumping off of buildings and stock market stuff, it was like 2017. 2017, 2018, you know, it was like, really, really crazy. And. And so I. I started to transform, you know, like, I started to look different. My body changed. You know, I wasn't working out regularly because I was just engulfed by, you know, all the stress. It was really wild. So I had to snap out of it. I did. I did a lot of. I had to get my hormones balanced. My hormones were. Endocrine was fully disrupted by all the stress, you know, so I hired a hormone doctor, you know, to look at my hormones. Endocrinologist, yeah. And basically look at my labs. And it was pretty bad, you know, so I had to get my hormones back in line. My hormones have been balanced for, you know, since by 2017 by. By doctors. And everything's perfect at all times. We make adjustments because I'm 49, you know, so we don't produce, you know, everything anymore. But back then, my. My testosterone was, like, down to, like, under a hundred, you know, from all the stress. It's really crazy because your cortisol. Cortisol is a testosterone killer, you know, and then estrogen, right, Estradol was up super high, up to like 200. It was really bad. Your estrogen should not. Maximum. Should not be more than 20, you know, it was insane. So all of that was messed up. So I had to do a lot with hormones first and Then get really focused on fitness again. Get my health back in line. So fitness, wellness, together, equal health, right? So those are the three most important things to me. And I say that because you can't. Time is really critical. Time is the only, you know, currency you can't replenish, right? That's the one thing that you give someone your time. It's worth more than any money you can give anyone. And then the health, right? You can't buy your health back, you know, later on. You can't say, I'm just gonna do this, whatever this project is, however long it's gonna take, and I'll just, you know, spend a bunch of money to buy my health back later on. And it's a lot of times that can't happen. You know, it's just like, you need to maintain that. So the health is part of your gratitude. Your practice includes your health and wellness, right? That's a really important thing. And then I really got. And I had to really become more spiritual because I was too externally focused with all the going on. That's uncontrollable. So I started, you know, like, really focusing on my TM practice. I've been practicing transcendental meditation for a long time. And that really. That really changed a lot of things for me. And that got me really back to where got my peace back. So the hormones, the fitness, and the change of the stuff I was eating. And then the spirituality of meditation. And then in addition to that, my sleep was not great because of all the stuff happening. I'd wake up super anxious and just have so much cortisol and adrenaline. Doing all this stuff changed everything. And my sleep patterns changed. I started measuring my sleep with the Oura ring.

[Sam]

And you still measure it?

[Ted Danik]

I still do. I haven't had it. I haven't worn it outside of, you know, I just kind of use it at home. You know, I don't wear it out anymore. But it's really great because you can see what changes your intake, like food and, you know, whatever you consume will have on your.

[Sam]

If you eat a certain time, it messes up your sleep.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, it does. You shouldn't eat past a certain time. You shouldn't go sleep past a certain time. You know, caffeine should be, you know, limited to, you know, I don't think you should have caffeine past noon, I think, you know. Yeah, you could see all the changes. You know, for me, my deep sleep was always fine, but my REM was terrible, you know, And I think the REM was Compromised because of maybe things I was, you know, consuming or, you know, maybe eating too late or, you know, maybe whatever it was, you know. And I think that measuring that gave me. It was kind of like gamifying it a little bit, you know, so I could, like, make changes and see it, you know, materialize. And it was really good. So then that's how I arrived at the five pillars, you know, health, wellness, fitness, spirituality, and sleep. Because I went through that stage and I was like, fuck, man. I was like 40 years old, and I was just really. I was feeling like I was 60, you know, and I had no energy and I had no, you know, all. I was just imagine your test being under 100, you know, as a man, you know, and you're. You're. You're like 40, not, like 60, you know, like 50. I had no ambition, you know, like, everything was just gone. I was just consumed. Everything for me was based on the numbers of that day, right? And that's not how to live, you know, that. That's what was happening. And so how I got out of it was getting my. Getting my core values back, you know, which were. Which were those five and really just sticking to that. And he. No matter what happens to me in life, a building burns down or, you know, I lose my. I lose everything, you know, whatever. Those five things will keep me grounded, keep me and identify me. You know, Those are my. Those are part of my identity, and they're a little bit different than a few other people. So they. That's kind of how. How it was. That's what's important. That's why I've never been materialistic or never really cared about, you know, any of that stuff, you know, because I felt like those are the things that really differentiate.

[Sam]

Those are the things that matter.

[Ted Danik]

Those are things that. Those are the literally the only things that matter to me.

[Sam]

So, you know, like, the big house in Hollywood. Boom, gone. Couple fires.

[Ted Danik]

I moved to Bali. I don't give a fuck. You know, it's fine. I love Bali.

[Sam]

The Bugatti, you know, and, like, you're probably not driving that well. I don't know. You. You know, it's just all.

[Ted Danik]

It breaks all the time, right? So, you know, something happens. Brakes, you know, who cares? Yeah, but I was a car guy, so I was never like, oh, my God, these are, like, cool things. Like, I'm not like, Albert out there posting pictures of my cars and shit, you know, but it was always like, you know, I'm a car guy since I was a kid. So that's basically what it was. But, yeah, I don't. Nobody really knows about that stuff, you know, I keep it pretty private.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

I'm not trying to alienate people. That's the other thing, too. I walk in a room, I'm wearing beads just like you. I'm not wearing a million dollar watch or, you know, whatever. I'm not doing that. I don't have any jewelry on. I am. Nobody knows who I am. I'm dressed, maybe a little bit interesting. Whatever. I walk into a room, there are no preconceived notions about me. This is an interesting guy. He might be black, you know what I'm saying? Which is cool, you know, and then, you know, people are just like, yo, there's no, like, oh, I see a watch. He demands some sort of respect. Like what? You know, like, none of that. They will respect me if I say the right things. So that's my. That's my thing, you know, that's the thing is like, I need a chance. I want a chance to prove myself. Let me talk, you know, and that's kind of it. That's how it's been. And, you know, I think that I don't need symbolism. I don't want symbolism to, you know, to represent me, you know, so.

[Sam]

So when you keynote, like, what do you talk about?

[Ted Danik]

Like, anything and everything.

[Sam]

Do you hit because you're so well versed, like, thank you exactly for, you know, exactly what she says. Like, you come in, might be a black dude, don't even know. Like. And then you just start speaking.

[Ted Danik]

You're like, yeah, no, damn. Yeah. Thanks, man.

[Sam]

Who is this guy?

[Ted Danik]

Thank you. So, you know, the thing is, like, I don't prepare for any podcast. I don't prepare for any. Any keynote. I'll speak for an hour and a half or more, whatever about, you know, I'll just wing it. So I'll give you an example. Albert had driven seven. It was like the set, like, it was like a year and a half ago. Whatever. I keynoted that and that basically I was up there for an hour and a half. I was talking about private versus public equities and talking, showing people how to raise money and like, how you get to the point where you could do public. You know, you can. You could tap public equity. And it's not as hard as you think it is. You could do it in three months. You know, you could take a company public in three months. You go to nasdaq, qm, list it, and then you could uplist to the to the big board, you know, within a couple months. And people are like, what? Yeah, yeah, it's not that hard. I'll show you. It's easier to do it in the first or second year of your business because you don't need three years of audits. You just need one or two years, you know, and they're like, what? You know, it's just like, oh, I've done it. I've done it several times. You don't know how to do it. So I talk about that. I talk about. I have done keynotes about spirituality, about health and wellness, you know, about talking about programmatic advertising. It's just like, so much stuff, you know. Like, I've been. You know, I've been blessed with having all kinds of experiences, you know, and, like, one thing that has been. I've been really fortunate for. Is that I'm not shy, you know, I'll talk about, you know, whatever I'm confident about, you know, And I think that my, you know, my basis is to deliver value to people and really to, you know, to help them or inspire them and. And to get them to the next level. If they're thinking about this already, reach out to me, you know, I'll help you get to the next stage, and I don't want anything in return, you know, so it's about, man.

[Sam]

It's just serving, doing God's work, being of service to people, and you're always taken care of.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, I think we're here for other people. We're not here for ourselves, you know, so I've never found any fulfillment in doing anything for myself, which is, you know, I learned that a pretty early age. So I've always been inclined to, like, you know, let me. Let me add some value here so I could, like, you know, justify my existence, you know, saying so. Yeah, yeah.

[Sam]

I mean, you've identified at a young age a life of purpose, you know, and.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, I don't have a why, and I never did, you know, Like, I've been trying to figure it out, but I felt like during the interim, while I figure out I'm 49, I haven't found my why yet. But during the interim, while I'm on this mission to find my why, let me do some things that could, you know, potentially help other people, you know, and that's like, whatever it is, you know? You know, it's just. It's just like, I think stuff that's along the way. I mean, you don't even need to go out of your way for People, as long as you're, you know, it's stuff that you're already good at and people need help figuring it out. Just, you know, I think it's good to, you know, to. To really just, you know, pay one forward, you know.

[Sam]

I mean, the. The why, Like. Like, I think that comes once. You. Like, for me, it's like fatherhood.

[Ted Danik]

Sure.

[Sam]

You know, like, I leave work every day, three o', clock, just to drive my kids to Jiu Jitsu and just sit there, like, watch them train, you know, it's like, I don't care about work. I don't care. Like, I'm here. Like, I'll go play basketball with them, I'll go play baseball with them. It's like my wife for that. But that. That kind of just happens, like, until then, being of service, being, like, helping people, like, and then, boom, your kids and becomes your wife. Look at Dan Fleischman, like.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

His whole world, like, around one girl. One little baby girl.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

You know, it's just. Or it happens naturally. You got plenty of time. Don't worry.

[Ted Danik]

No, I think you're reversing an age. No, I mean, yeah, I feel like I am reversing in age. It's crazy.

[Sam]

It's.

[Ted Danik]

It's good, you know, no drinking. No. No alcohol. No caffeine, really, other than this coffee here. Matcha once in a while. And I was carnivore for several years and, you know, one meal a day, that kind of thing. Working out a lot. Yeah. I have reversed my age effectively, for sure, because I feel a lot better than I did when I was in my early 40s.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

I look younger. People don't believe that I'm 49 and, you know, and the energy. I'm around, like, really good people, and I feel, you know, ambitious. You know, I feel ambitious, which is really a good thing. And last part, I was talking about ambition and the fire, you know, the burning desire. It's something that's really hard to train in people or to help people discover. I think that it's a thing that people have or they don't have, you know, And I'm fortunate to have it. You know, I think it was exposed to some really good information at an early age. I was reading, you know, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins and, you know, Brian Tracy and all this stuff as a kid, you know, And I think that really helped me understand what the possibilities were. So I became super, super ambitious. And, you know, I think that that helped me quite a bit unlock potential.

[Sam]

You didn't even know was possible.

[Ted Danik]

I feel like, yeah, anything's, anything is possible. We've seen some weird, really crazy happen, you know, in a good way and a bad way too. Anything's possible.

[Sam]

You know, right when we met, we were like immediately talking about like biohacking therapies. Like what's your, what's your biohacking protocol? Like morning routine?

[Ted Danik]

Sure.

[Sam]

Supplement stack.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah. So I think, okay, so first thing I do, I don't eat anything until, you know, later in the day. I used to eat one meal a day. Now I'm down to like two. I'll eat something like around, you know, maybe three o' clock or something and then again at like, you know, seven or eight, you know, I don't eat much. And then in the morning, first thing I have is, I have about 6 ounces of water in a mason jar and 10 grams of creatine, 3 grams of HMB. I check the nitrous oxide mix. It's really great for vascular dilation. And also Symbiotica's adaptogenic mushroom pack, you know, and they have, that could replace coffee, right? Yeah, for sure. And then the L theanine pack that they have as well, that's magnesium for your brain. And it really is awesome because it, it, it's mood enhancing and it breaks the blood brain barrier. So it's really, it's really, it's fantastic. And then 8 ounces of water and I just.6 ounces of water and I just mix it and it's super small and I just down it. It doesn't taste bad either. And I think that, you know, the HMB is really incredible because the studies around it is so good. You grow muscle mass without even working out. So it's really great if you're not working out for a moment in time to help you sustain your, your gains. And then the creatine, I use the 10 grams of creatine in the morning as a brain supplement. You know, it's the best cognitive supplement you can have. It's so good. It creates ATP, which is fuel for your brain, you know, is fantastic. And then I take 5 grams of creatine post workout as well. Because the post workout is, you know, it'll be great for your muscles as well.

[Sam]

But aren't you starving post workout like you?

[Ted Danik]

No, I'm nothing. I, I have fasted workout and I'm not starving after my workout either. It's really, I'm just used to this, you know. But post workout be probably around like two or three anyways. And so I'll have, you know, like a 40 to 50 gram protein shake and then maybe I'll have some food with that as well. But generally I'm pretty carnivore. I mean, not fully anymore because I'm, you know, I just, I don't, I don't. I just want to live a little bit, you know, and I think that when I was full carnivore, it was a little tough, you know, But I eat mostly meat, you know, and I think some vegetables are fine. There are quite a few vegetables that cause, you know, lots of inflammation in your body which are packed with oxalates and lectins, you know, and so those are a lot of people that are vegetarian. I don't know, it's. It's tricky. So kale and spinach and you know, are very high in oxalates. You know, they cause all the kidney stones in your. And that's a pretty big problem. So. And then all the legume family is super high in lectins and that causes all the autoimmune diseases known to man. Lectins, you know, but they've been.

[Sam]

Do you have any legumes?

[Ted Danik]

I try not to, yeah. Because of the lectins, you know. So, yeah, I mean there's, there's a lot of data around that. I think that what's his name wrote a book. Do you remember? It was called Gundry. Stephen Gundry.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

So the book he wrote was. Was about plant. It was called a plant paradox. It's a pretty good book.

[Sam]

I mean it's a good products online now.

[Ted Danik]

He does. My friend Craig is his partner. You know Craig, which Craig. Craig, can't remember his last name, but he's at Craig on Instagram. We've been friends for 20 years. Yeah, they've created a billion dollar empire, you know, over the Gundry stuff. They're doing pretty well. But. Yeah. So you know, from that perspective and you know, as far as like the, the gear, you know, the gears, BPC 157, some other peptides like CJC and you know, there's a few others as well.

[Sam]

But do any hyperbaric or red light bed or.

[Ted Danik]

I have, you know, I, I used to do some more red light stuff and I have a panel at home. I haven't done it in a while, but I have a, I have a sauna, I have cold plunge, hot pool, all that stuff in my home. So, you know, I'm doing all that stuff. And then, you know, I used to do cryo every day. For. I did that for like nine years, man.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

I haven't done in a while. Cryo is really great. And I was super lean while I was doing cryo, you know.

[Sam]

Dude, I got a guy coming on next week, the podcast and all he does. He's retired. Multiple exits. And he's like, you know, I'm retired, but, you know, biohacking takes a long time. I'll go from this therapy to that therapy. It's like six, seven hours is gone from my day.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, it's a lot. It is. It's truly a lot, you know.

[Sam]

You know, like, if I'm gonna do the hyperbaric for an hour, and then I'm gonna go in the red light bed for now, then I go to the gym for now. You can spend your whole day, if you're retired, biohacking.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. And Brian Johnson, too, you know, he's.

[Sam]

Yeah. I mean, the king of it all.

[Ted Danik]

I think he was doing something that was actually accelerating his aging. I can't remember.

[Sam]

Well, he's taking the kitchen sink approach.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

You know, it's like. Which I kind of was doing for a while. I'm like, well, that's great. You know, like, didn't, like. It didn't work as much. Yeah, the kitchen sink approach works for, like, a few months.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Then it's like, okay, I really gotta, like, dial this in here.

[Ted Danik]

I don't know about the blood transfusions with his son, you know, freaky stuff, man. Yeah. I don't know, man.

[Sam]

But, like, as a. Like an athlete, hyperbaric chamber, I felt like, really leveled my basketball game.

[Ted Danik]

I'm telling you, the hyperbaric chamber is really, really, really great. It's really incredible. So if you have access to that, you should try it. And there's so much benefit to it, you know?

[Sam]

Yeah. It's just an hour of your day.

[Ted Danik]

It's so great. And the chambers are not too expensive either, right?

[Sam]

They're like 40 grand.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, I guess that it's relative, but.

[Sam]

We have, like, you know, places in the. I got, like, membership. You just go there. The red light. You go to hyperbaric. You go to Theta bed.

[Ted Danik]

Or you guys have, like, next Health here or something.

[Sam]

Yeah, it's called Delmar. The wellness centers are.

[Ted Danik]

Sure, yeah.

[Sam]

They have the whole thing, you know.

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, it's a thing. Like med spas.

[Sam]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ted Danik]

There's one on every corner. So.

[Sam]

So what's next for you? Like, what's it. What products you got next, like.

[Ted Danik]

So I think that, you know, we're trying to scale credit repair to a point where, you know, I think, you know, it's a.

[Sam]

It's like an exit.

[Ted Danik]

No, I don't know. We'll keep running. I mean, it's a big bit. It's a good business. The cash flows really well, there's no reason to exit it. You know, I think it's fine. I build businesses that cash flow. I'm not, you know, looking for. I'm not trying to raise money or any of that stuff. You know, most of the stuff that we've done is just it just cash flows, you know, not looking for that, but just to grow it. And then I think that. I think I'm looking at, from a tech perspective, we're looking at some. Some opportunities to enter in certain spaces. I haven't gotten the itch yet, but there's a event app called Party Full. Have you heard of it?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ted Danik]

So there's a lot that can be done better and they're kind of the, you know, marquee in that space right now. So I think that could be something to kind of come after potentially, you know, there could be an opportunity there. So.

[Sam]

Nice couple last questions for you.

[Ted Danik]

Sure.

[Sam]

And this is a three pronged question. What's a personal goal you have for yourself? A family goal, a business goal?

[Ted Danik]

Personal goal, I think is, you know, I think If I'm like 49, so I gotta get married soon, so I think that's gonna happen potentially.

[Sam]

Anybody on the radar right now?

[Ted Danik]

Yeah, depending on, you know, how we're getting along, you know, part of the week. So. Yeah. And then the family goal. Yeah, I think, I think to try, like, have kids on a trial basis. To have like one. One is a trial. But you have four, you know.

[Sam]

Yeah, I want like four more.

[Ted Danik]

Try it out, you know, have one, you can't return them, but like, just try it out. One is cool. You know, like, maybe that's the family goal. And then what was the other goal? The professional goal?

[Sam]

Yeah, business goal.

[Ted Danik]

Business goal, I think, you know, to have essentially, as I was saying, like the next, you know, the next tech itch. You know, potentially for me, I think the, you know, have AI really integrated into a. An event platform potentially, you know, like partyful. But that's not. Not sure if we're going after that yet. I haven't had the itch yet, though. So I think a broader professional goal is figure out the itch, you know, figure out what area I want.

[Sam]

I mean, Can AI be implemented in the credit repair space? And scale. Scale it that way so you could just, like, add more clients.

[Ted Danik]

Actually, you know, from the. From that perspective, we. Our backend operation is super scalable. We don't need AI for that. What we need, we need to. We need the front end to scale. So customer acquisition side is the side where there's a huge opportunity. You know, on the back end, we handle with scale. You know, that's easy and super fast. The way we do it or the way we do it is very different than what everyone else does. So.

[Sam]

Last question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

[Ted Danik]

Well, I think. I think it would be nice to try, you know, I don't know. So, like, my c. You know, like, you know, I. I would say my culture says we, you know, we reincarnate, right?

[Sam]

So.

[Ted Danik]

But we believe in reincarnation. Like, every life is a life. And so, like, we take another life, potentially another form of life. Now, it could be coming back as an animal or an insect. I don't know. You know, like, whatever that is. That's what our culture says. So I don't think that. I don't think there's any difference in value in life. I think one life is as valuable as the next. You know, there's no, like, oh, this life is better than this other life. So there's just different experiences. Right? So I really. I really don't know. But we got to do what we got to do, you know, to be, you know, to maximize this time, you know, this time here. So I don't know. I have seven animals. I've been really great to animals, so hopefully it'll work out well for me.

[Sam]

So come back as a solid, like, you know, a doodle or something, like a Yorkie.

[Ted Danik]

I mean, that'd be cool, you know.

[Sam]

In some baller's house in West Hollywood.

[Ted Danik]

You know, I've always. Sometimes I look at them and I'm like, man, I wish my life was like this. You know, maybe I. You know, be careful what you wish for, right? Come back as a multipoo, you know? Yeah.

[Sam]

People want to connect with you. How do they find you?

[Ted Danik]

You can hit me on Instagram. It's at Ted Skilla.

[Sam]

Perfect. Thanks, guys, for tuning in. The man, the myth, the legend, Ted Danic. Make sure you connect with him. God bless you guys.

[Ted Danik]

Thank you.

[Sam]

It's cool, man. Sam.